TikTok adds text-only posts as social media landscape shifts with Facebook, Twitter

TikTok has added a new feature that allows users to create text-only posts with the change coming just a day after Twitter rebranded itself and less than three weeks after Facebook released Threads as competition between the social media giants continues to escalate.

“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,” the Chinese-owned video streaming app said in a statement released late Monday. “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.”

The new feature comes as TikTok announced just last week the launch of a new streaming music service that could rival titans like Apple Music and Spotify and that the partnership with Warner Music Group would create “new revenue, marketing and insights opportunities for artists and songwriters,” according to a statement made by TikTok at the time of the announcement.

TikTok users will now see three different options for content creation: photo, video, and text, the company said.

“By selecting text, you'll be directed to the text creation page, where you can type out the content of your post,” TikTok said. “You'll find familiar options to customize your content. These include adding Sound, tagging a location, enabling comments, and allowing Duets, among others. These features make it so your text posts are just as dynamic and interactive as any video or photo post.”

TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing platforms. It surpassed 2 billion downloads worldwide in October 2020 and was ranked the world’s most popular website -- surpassing Google -- in 2021.

Competition between some of the biggest social media networks has been escalating in recent weeks.

Meta Platforms launched Threads -- a new social media platform and networking service -- less than three weeks ago in an effort to take on Twitter just months after Elon Musk acquired the company in Oct. 2022.

On Monday, Twitter rebranded its logo by removing the famous Twitter bird and replacing it with a black and white letter X.

Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a thread on the platform saying that X will be the platform that can deliver “everything.”

“It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square,” Yaccarino said on Sunday. “For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”