Impact of Toutiao's 'High-Quality and In-Depth' Content Strategy on ByteDance's Investment Value and Content Platform Landscape

On December 20, 2025, Toutiao officially released its ‘High-Quality and In-Depth’ content strategy, launching three support plans: a special creation fund, the Shenyidu Studio, and the Xinhuo Plan. Li Li, the head of authors and content ecosystem, confirmed that this will be the core platform content strategy for 2025 [1].

From ByteDance’s current status, its old share transaction valuation reached $480 billion in November 2025 [2]; in 2024, its full-year revenue was approximately RMB 1.13 trillion, net profit was RMB 241.5 billion, with a net profit margin of about 21%, and its domestic business formed a dual-driver model of ‘advertising + e-commerce’ [2]. As ByteDance’s core content product, Toutiao’s strategic adjustment this time is an important signal that content platform competition is shifting from traffic acquisition to competition in content quality and differentiation. By supporting in-depth content, the platform is expected to enhance user stickiness and content value, attract high-value advertisers, and optimize ByteDance’s revenue structure and profit quality in the long term [0].

1. Industry Transformation Trend
   : Toutiao’s in-depth content strategy reflects the industry transformation of content platforms from ‘traffic is king’ to ‘quality is king’. In the future, platforms will focus more on content depth and value rather than mere traffic scale.
2. Investment Value Logic
   : This strategy enhances ByteDance’s long-term competitive barriers by strengthening user stickiness and content differentiation, promoting the shift of investment value from short-term traffic indicators to long-term user value and content ecosystem quality.
3. Competitive Landscape Restructuring
   : The in-depth content strategy will intensify differentiated competition among content platforms, prompting platforms such as WeChat Official Accounts and Xiaohongshu to accelerate their layout of high-quality in-depth content and restructure the competitive landscape of the content ecosystem [0].

• Enhance brand image and content influence, attract high-value users and advertisers [0].
• Strengthen the differentiated advantages of the content ecosystem, consolidating ByteDance’s market position in the content field.

• Short-term financial investment and effects are uncertain, lacking specific investment data support [0].
• Other content platforms may launch similar strategies, leading to intensified competition and diluted strategic effects.
• The actual impact of the strategy needs to be verified with subsequent indicators such as user data and advertising revenue [0].

Toutiao’s ‘High-Quality and In-Depth’ content strategy is an important signal of content platform transformation. In the long run, it is expected to positively impact ByteDance’s investment value by enhancing user stickiness and content differentiation [0]. This strategy will push the competitive landscape of content platforms to shift towards quality competition, with valuation logic moving from traffic scale to content quality and user loyalty. However, the actual effect of the strategy still needs to be verified with subsequent user behavior data, changes in advertising revenue, and other indicators, and there is certain uncertainty in the short term.