Social network TikTok on Monday launched a new tool that allows users to post text-only messages, a first for the previously image-based platform, allowing it to compete directly with Twitter, AFP reported.

The new feature allows users to “share their stories, poems, lyrics (songs) and other types of written content, giving creators another way to express themselves,” the subsidiary of Chinese group ByteDance said in a statement.

TikTok allows users who create written content to add sound, provide location, authorize comments, or allow other users to use the Duets mode, which allows users to post their own messages alongside those of other creators.

Built on the short videos that made it so popular, TikTok is looking to expand its offering.

In particular, it gradually increased the maximum length of its videos from 15 seconds at the time of its launch in 2017 to 10 minutes in order to compete with one of its main competitors, YouTube, which in turn created short YouTube Shorts formats inspired by TikTok.

This new text format is another alternative to the king of text social media, Twitter, renamed Monday X, whose hegemony is increasingly challenged.

In addition to newcomers Mastodon, Bluesky, T2 and Substack Notes, the Meta giant launched Threads in early July, which currently has 117 million users, according to data from specialist consultancy Quiver Quantitative.

Like Meta, TikTok benefits from its size, with about 1.4 billion monthly active users, according to the dedicated website Business of Apps.

But unlike parent company Facebook, it chose to integrate the new feature into its app rather than launch a separate product, as Meta did with Threads. (Photo: Justlight, Dreamstime.com)