“With longer videos, creators will have the canvas to create new or expanded types of content on TikTok, with the flexibility of a bit more space,” product manager Drew Kirchhoff said.

The option to post videos longer than the previous time limit of one minute will roll out to all TikTok users in coming weeks, he said.

TikTok is believed to have one billion users worldwide, including more than 100 million in the United States, and is especially popular with young smartphone users.

Owned by China-based ByteDance, it remains one of the world’s most popular social media apps but faces competitors such as YouTube, Triller and others.

Facebook-owned Instagram will be experimenting with video features to ride the hot trend, chief Adam Mosseri said in a video on Twitter.

Video sharing and viewing is driving a lot of growth at online platforms, and Instagram needs to “lean into” it more, he said.

“We are no longer a photo-sharing app. TikTok is huge, YouTube is even bigger, and there are lots of other upstarts as well.

“There is some serious competition now.”