Even TikTok is a Twitter Competitor Now as It Adds Text Post Support

TikTok’s just announced that it will roll out support for text posts, further expanding its service and rising up as a new Twitter competitor.

The platform explained that the goal is to allow its realtors to share their stories, poems, lyrics, and other written content, thus giving them an additional way to express themselves.

You can now share text posts on TikTok ✍️ Text posts open exciting possibilities for creators to share their stories, poems, lyrics, and more – giving you another way to express yourself and making it even easier to create! Learn more ⬇️ https://t.co/XX18GERQRE

— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) July 24, 2023

TikTok Adds a New Feature — Text-Based Posts

Twitter is already struggling to keep up after the launch of Instagram’s new platform, Threads.

In an attempt to complete Elon Musk’s plan to turn Twitter into a super app, the platform rebranded, removing its classic blue bird logo and replacing it with an X.

However, the move has been mocked as a great way to destroy its brand. To make the situation even worse, TikTok has now emerged as yet another Twitter competitor by adding support for text posts.

Text-based updates come in addition to videos and photos that users were already able to post.

Visually, they look similar to Instagram Stories, allowing users to pick a color for the background and edit the way text appears. They can also add music and stickers, with a 1,000-character limit.

Furthermore, those who view the text posts can interact with them through commenting, dueling, or stitching, like they would to a regular video post.

TikTok’s move was greeted with much more excitement than Twitter’s rebranding.

Its blog post announcing the new feature stated:

At TikTok, we’re always looking to empower our creators and community with innovative tools that inspire self-expression. Today we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of text posts on TikTok, a new format for creating text-based content that broadens options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity. With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine.

Twitter Endangered by a Wave of Rising Competitors

The addition of text posts on a video platform would be exciting for the users even on its own. However, given the timing, the move will put TikTok among those trying to position themselves as Twitter alternatives.

Apart from TikTok and Threads, other platforms attempted to become Twitter alternatives, including Bluesky and Mastodon, among others.

So far, the platforms have managed to put themselves under the spotlight at the same time when Twitter made a number of damaging moves.

The platform has lost significant traffic over the last few weeks, and with the start of this week, it also lost its iconic bird logo, becoming something else that its old users no longer recognize as Twitter.

Musk may have expected that a portion of users would leave the platform, not only due to rising competition but also because of a wave of radical changes. However, he likely didn’t expect such a massive wave of criticism following the rebrand.

Big social media changes are often brought into question, as users tend to be distrustful of changes. Even TikTok’s decision to add images last year saw a lot of skepticism among creators and viewers alike.

However, the decision was ultimately accepted, and today, it fits well with the platform.

It is likely that the support for text posts will encounter similar acceptance, as TikTok’s new feature isn’t meant to be a new, dominant one but simply an addition to what the platform already is.

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