When Marketers & User Generated Content Collide

Stitch is an exciting new editing feature that allows users to engage with existing content in a way that we haven’t seen before.

The clue to figuring out what Stitch is about is all in the name. The feature allows users to reimagine other people’s content by taking a clip of up to five seconds and using that in their posts. It allows users to stitch two videos together, you might say. According to the TikTok blog:

“Stitch allows users the ability to clip and integrate scenes from another user's video into their own. Like Duet, Stitch is a way to reinterpret and add to another user's content, building on their stories, tutorials, recipes, math lessons, and more.”

With suggestions that Oracle has won the race to acquire TikTok’s western operations, TikTok is certainly grabbing attention right now, following its recent meteoric rise.

TikTok had 55 million  monthly active users (MAU)  in January 2018.  By December of the same year, it was 271 million. By December 2019, it was 507 million.

TikTok looks set to continue that frightening trajectory with over 2 billion recorded downloads and 700 million monthly users. From January to July 2020, it was the most downloaded Apple and Android app in Australia.

Can Stitch Unlock Greater Reach?

With such a huge, potentially untapped audience, TikTok is perfect for many consumer marketers and Stitch could be another useful tool. The release of Stitch was preceded by TikTok for business, which is tailor made for helping brands get the most out of the platform.

Katie Puris, Managing Director, Global Business Marketing at TikTok

“TikTok For Business solutions are designed to give brands and marketers the solutions to be creative storytellers and meaningfully engage with the TikTok community.”

Their new tag-line of ‘don’t make ads, make tiktoks’ suggests what marketers should be on the platform: creative, entertaining and inclusive.

Stitch could be a massive part of that and it gives marketing content the ability to go viral without trying too hard.

Brands can now be seen as part of a community without the curled-upper lip that customers usually associate with businesses trying to muscle their way into their space and we’re already seeing people use the feature in some cool ways. Whether it’s for reaction pieces or copycat trend videos, Stitch will definitely add something to the existing landscape.

We could see brands plugging in to some already successful content in order to boost their interaction, or they could be the ones who are piggybacked and that will help spread organic reach like wildlife. 

TikTok is all about viral content and making content based on popular TikTok memes, and its democracy of discovery means that brands and marketers have an equal opportunity to go viral.

TikTok algorithm & Stitch: Workings

The power of TikTok lies in its ‘For You’ feed. This is where users are recommended videos based on the interests they expressed when signing up and takes into account a host of other factors, such as:

• User interactions
• Video information
• Device and account settings

But crucially, the amount of followers an account has does not impact whether their content ends up in the ‘For You’ feed, nor does the origin location. In fact, TikTok actually encourages diversity on the feedm, according to the TikTok blog.

“Additional opportunities to stumble upon new content categories, discover new creators, and experience new perspectives and ideas as you scroll through your feed.”

How do you use it

Like most things on TikTok, Stitch is really easy to use.

1. Open the TikTok app, find a video you'd like to Stitch, and hit the “Send to” button.

2. Press the “Stitch” button.

3. Select up to five seconds from the video. You can trim the clip to your preferred duration.

4. Record your addition to the Stitched clip.
5. Start Stitching together your videos for expanded storytelling!  

How do you ensure your videos cannot be stitched

If you don’t want someone to be able to Stitch your videos, that’s all good too. Just head into your settings and do the following:

1. Go to privacy
2. Go to who can Stitch with your videos
3. Select from everyone, friends or no-one.

You can also do this on an individual basis, for each video you create. Before you share any video, you can toggle ‘allow Stitch’ on or off.