Fueled by stories, reels and above all TikTok, the video portrait format has become indispensable today.

Especially in the social media environment, it is developing into the “New Normal”.

The relevance of vertically oriented content becomes clear when you look at studies by Facebook: These have shown that we hold our smartphones, with which we now watch around two thirds of our online videos, upright 96 percent of the time.

Aylin Guler

Editor for Social Media.

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In particular, the video app TikTok, which was designed exclusively for portrait format, has been stirring up the social media world since summer 2018 - and is one of the fastest spreading mobile apps in the world.

In the future, the FAZ will also be present here with the usual quality journalism and will start with its own TikTok channel for news, background information and analyses.

Aylin Güler, Johanna Dürrholz and Sebastian Reuter will prepare news content suitable for TikTok as speakers.

Videos on news events and classifications are to be published several times a week.

Topics that are relevant for the younger generation are explained briefly and yet understandably.

The usual TikTok look is used, such as fast cuts and text and graphics.

TikTok has grown up

TikTok is especially popular with Generation Z.

But the app is aging: In the early days, the 13-17 age group represented the largest group;

now it is mainly the 18 to 24 year olds who consume the content of the app.

In the meantime, however, more and more people over 30 are interested in the social network.

The success of the platform led to numerous imitators: Instagram and YouTube were not long in coming and followed a similar principle with short video formats.

Media companies that want to create brand awareness among the younger target group are therefore close to the target group with their company appearance on TikTok.

The history of TikTok goes back to 2014.

Originally developed in Shanghai under the name

Musical.ly

, the application was able to enjoy significant user growth within a short period of time.

The platform now has more than a billion users worldwide.

According to Statista, TikTok was also the most downloaded mobile app worldwide last year.

The short video sharing app generated 656 million downloads in the year under review.

With over 50 minutes a day

On average, users spend more time on TikTok than on any other social media channel.

So TikTok is rapidly gaining momentum - and is constantly expanding its lead over already established social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

The TikTok app allows users to watch music clips, as well as record and edit short clips, including adding effects and filters.

The videos will be suggested to users on the so-called “For You” page by the app.

The algorithm should respond to the interests of the users.

This depends, among other things, on how long a video is viewed before scrolling to the next.