How vertical video became the default for social platforms

A leaked Facebook memo in June 2022 showed the company changing its algorithm to take on TikTok. The phone-first format optimized for mobile viewing became the default on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight, and even LinkedIn. The device reshaped the business around it, and the race is no longer just for attention but for control over how attention is packaged and sold.

How the feed changed

The leaked memo was less a product tweak than an admission: the feed model TikTok popularized had become the standard every major platform had to chase. Facebook was no longer trying to build a separate social universe; it was trying to catch up to the full-screen, endless-scroll logic that made short vertical clips so sticky.

That logic is built around phone screens, not desktops. Vertical video fills the frame, removes the side-by-side clutter of older formats, and turns each swipe into a decision point. For platforms, that design keeps users inside the app longer, which increases the inventory that can be sold to advertisers and strengthens the algorithm’s role in deciding what rises and what disappears.

Why publishers followed the money

By December 12, 2022, publishers were already priming YouTube Shorts strategies ahead of a revenue-sharing program. It had become a monetization play, with publishers trying to turn platform distribution into something more predictable than a one-off viral hit.

The same pressure showed up in Betches Media’s growth strategy. On January 17, 2023, Betches was using short-form vertical video to keep growing as media companies adapted when the audience started living inside feeds instead of websites. The format rewards speed, repetition, and familiarity, which can help a media brand stay visible, but it also nudges editorial judgment toward whatever can be compressed into a few seconds.

For advertisers, that is attractive. Full-screen vertical video creates a clean, immersive placement where the viewer is already committed to the frame. For creators, the format offers a direct path to scale, because the same clip can travel across platforms and be packaged for algorithmic discovery rather than relying on a homepage or newsletter alone.

How the format escaped entertainment

By January 31, 2025, LinkedIn’s video push was working, showing that vertical video had moved well beyond comedy, dance, and lifestyle content. A professional network embracing the format put business audiences, publishers, and job-focused communities into the same phone-first distribution system.

Newsrooms are borrowing the format, not surrendering to it

On September 18, 2025, news publishers were embracing vertical video through in-app watch tabs. That move shows publishers are not just posting clips into the social stream; they are building dedicated viewing spaces inside their own products, trying to keep audiences close while still speaking the language of the feed.

Newsrooms want the audience capture and mobile reach that vertical video offers, but they do not want to fully become creator platforms whose identity is defined by the algorithm. One publisher summed up the tension: “We’re not trying to be TikTok.”

Who wins, and what readers lose

The winners are easy to name. Platforms win because vertical video deepens dependence on their feeds and algorithms. Advertisers win because the format delivers immersive, full-screen attention. Creators win because the rules reward constant output, personal branding, and platform-native storytelling, often with revenue-sharing or other monetization pathways attached.

Readers lose something quieter but more consequential: the habit of encountering information in forms that leave room for context. When news, entertainment, and politics are optimized for fast, full-screen consumption, the incentives favor the sharpest hook, the quickest emotional cue, and the shortest possible route to engagement.