TikTok has had a rough beginning to the year. They were banned in the US for a day with various threats still looming and due to their ban their “freemium” video editing software called CapCut also dived into user base and revenues.
But, as we know, TikTok is still alive and well, and they have no plans of stopping their growth. Now they are aiming to spread their video generation tools with the use of AI even further. The plan is to have CapCut as a more premium option and use TikTok’s website as a secondary option that aims mostly at advertisers.
So let's take a look at what's new with their video editing and generation tools and how you can use them to your advantage!
What Makes TikTok’s Editor Different From CapCut
CapCut is the companion video editor of TikTok. It's a separate app made by ByteDance, and it offers various tools that can help users create videos and share them directly to the platform. CapCut started as a completely free tool that had all of the necessary features for video editing on both phones and computers, and most users fell in love with it.
As the user base grew, so did the potential revenue from the app, so ByteDance decided to charge for CapCut premium, and they have been slowly increasing their price over time, overtaking some professional tools in monthly prices. One thing that CapCut still lacks is the AI department.
TikTok and their parent company have been developing AI tools for a while now, and for some reason, they are trying to spread the features to their users through TikTok's online editor rather than CapCut. This is all a bit confusing since most people don’t even know that TikTok has a video editor.
As things are, for now, the TikTok editor is mostly made for advertisers that use TikTok ads, and for now most of the features are completely free. Capcut on the other hand is catered to consumers and it's basically unusable without paying for premium.
Meta has also noticed the price hike on Capcut, so they are now launching their competitor called Edits which would integrate with Instagram.
How To Access It
To access TikTok Video editor and AI video generation tools, you need to go to your ads manager account, go to tools and select “Video Editor”.
Here you will be presented with a tab that shows all of your assets, options, scripts, avatars, and more. If you have already made some projects, they will show up in your library, but if not, you will have the option to check out the creative library for inspiration, which is TikTok’s ad library that's available to all users.
What Options Are There on TikTok Video Editor?
The most interesting options right now are Captions, Avatars and Scrip.
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Captions
If you have a video that has a lot of talking, you should also include captions in it. On average 20-40% of people look at videos without sound at some point in the day, and having captions that show what's being said can help promote engagement, especially if you make the text interesting.
With this feature you just select your video, select the language (there are around 20 options right now), and let TikTok do the rest. They will create everything and your job is to just check if the AI made some mistakes and correct them!
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Script
If you don’t have a video already in place, you can start by creating a script. Here you and an AI assistant can work together to create and enhance a script so that it resonates with your audience. You can even use AI to translate the script into various languages.
Once you have written a script, you can select one of the hundreds of quality voices, and create custom AI voiceovers for your videos. You can combine this with the AI Captions feature to have a script, voiceover, and caption. But we are not done yet, you can use this script to even create custom animated avatars!
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Avatars
Avatars are the main feature that advertisers have loved lately. This feature takes custom-made AI avatars from TikTok and animates them so that they narrate your video and act as if they are actors in a script.
There are over 50 unique avatars you can use, and all of them have their unique features. Some are sitting, some are standing, sometimes they can be static, and sometimes they are in an area where things happen. It all makes things very realistic and convincing.
As an example, some characters are talking to the camera from inside a parked car. Now since cars have windows, you can see people walking outside of the car, which adds to the immersion!
If you import your script, the tool will also make custom voiceovers and captions for you. Keep in mind that the initial video looks weird when you are editing, but it will clear up and become realistic once you render it.
What Options Are On CapCut?
As we said, ByteDance made everything confusing by offering both tools that have some similar, and some different options. CapCut is still a way better product, and recently they also added things that could help marketers with their products!
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Text To Design
If you want to create product images, you can do it with just a few clicks. Once you click on the tool, describe what product you want to advertise, and if you have a landing page, link it to the tool. The tool will then extract products and match them to the script you made and create custom designs that you can use to advertise!
The tool will make custom templates that you can then use to make unique images for your ads! The UI is similar to Canva so if you know how to use that tool, you will feel right at home!
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AI Model
This is an incredible tool that is made to help promote virtual models of products. You can add images of clothes, so that AI models try them out, or even products.
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Script To Video
While there are other tools available, the most impressive one by far is the Script to Video one! Here is how it works:
You first generate a script with CapCuts AI. The AI can help you customize your script so it fits into a certain category or niche, and you can approach advertising in any way you see fit. You can go for a personal note, or be more informative.
After you select a script, you need to pick out what the video aspect ratio should be. Then you can upload specific creatives like video clips or images to help the AI better understand what you want to sell. And that's it!
After it does its magic, you will be transported to a live video editor where the App has combined AI voiceovers, custom designs, AI avatars, advanced editing methods, effects, and transitions to create an effective and engaging video!
You can change every aspect of the video to better fit your vision, but even as is, the tool creates incredible results! You used to have to spend hundreds on editors to create videos, and now most of the job can be done by a simple AI tool!
What is it Bad At?
As with anything AI, you can never get the exact result you want. Depending on how the AI has been trained, you can get something similar, but if you want to make it perfect, you will need to edit things.
Sometimes you can be faced with weird cuts, bad audio generation, or weird transitions, but all of this can be easily solved by some editing afterward!
Conclusion
TikTok and its parent company are slowly but surely embracing AI to its full potential. With their new AI video generation tools, you can create various ads quickly and without having to source all of the creatives, scripts, and narrations. The tools can create even custom human avatars that look lifelike and narrate your script.
All of this can help advertisers push more content and stay on top of trends easier by being the first to cover topics. While the tools still aren’t perfect, the technology is already in a usable state, and it can be a great asset to anyone trying to advertise their product or service!
Have you used AI videos for your ads? How have they performed compared to normal creatives you make? Share your experience with us in the comments below!
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