TikTok Users Can Post Longer Videos Of Up To Three Minutes Now

TikTok on Thursday started allowing users to post videos up to three minutes in length, tripling the previous time to stay ahead of competitors.

The social media app is believed to have one billion users across the world including over 100 million in the United States and is popular specifically among young smartphone users.

"With longer videos option, users will be able to create new or expanded types of content TikTok’s canvas, with the flexibility of additional space," product manager Drew Kirchhoff stated in a post.

According to Kirchhoff, this option of posting videos longer than the prior time limit of one minute will be available to all TikTok users in few weeks.

"Few of you might have experienced a longer video on TikTok already as we´ve been permitting creators worldwide to experiment with the expanded format," Kirchhoff said.

The app, owned by China-based ByteDance, is still one of the world´s most popular social media apps but in competition with few such as YouTube. Triller, and others.

Facebook-owned Instagram will be experimenting with video features to manage the popular trend, as stated by chief Adam Mosseri in a Twitter post.

According to Mosseri, video viewing and sharing is getting a lot of growth on online platforms, and Instagram needs more focus on it.

"We are not a photo-sharing app anymore," Mosseri stated.

"Now some serious competition has started. TikTok is giant; YouTube is even a bigger giant, and there are lots of other newcomers also."

In June, US President Joe Biden cancelled the administrative orders from his predecessor Donald Trump trying to ban Chinese-owned apps WeChat and TikTok US markets owing to national security concerns.

Read more: WhatsApp to add View Once feature for videos and photos

According to a statement, instead of banning WeChat and TikTok, the Biden administration would perform a "criteria-based decision framework and severe, evidence-based investigation to handle the risks" through internet applications controlled by foreign entities.