Social Media Updates

TikTok virality can be a mystery, but apparently, it’s not all up to chance: A Forbes investigation has revealed that staff at TikTok and ByteDance can select individual videos for broader distribution in a practice known as “heating.”

According to an internal document, “The heating feature refers to boosting videos into the For You feed through operation intervention to achieve a certain number of video views. The total video views of heated videos accounts for a large portion of the daily total video views, around 1-2%, which can have a significant impact on overall core metrics.”

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TikTok is rolling out the TikTok Shop feature in the United States. So far, only a limited number of merchants have been invited to test the social commerce solution.

TikTok Shop is already available in the UK and a handful of Asian countries, including Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Phillippines.

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The reigning champ of short-form video is about to diversify: TikTok’s new in-app gaming experience may be officially announced as soon as November.

Games will reportedly be featured as one of the tabs on TikTok’s home screen. As has now become standard with other mobile games, games will be accompanied by ads. Users will also be able to pay for additional content.

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After announcing its creation back in May, it looks like TikTok has finally launched its Pulse program to share ad revenue with top creators.

The program’s rollout hasn’t been officially announced, but reports are now circulating on Twitter that select creators are receiving eligibility notices.

Woah.. TikTok launched their Pulse program!?

Creators with 100,000+ followers will receive a 50% split of ad revenue from TikTok

Brands will put ads on TikToks that are in the top 4% of performers on any given day

Creators get 50% of revenue TikTok brings in from the brands pic.twitter.com/kkdKJnaVGQ

— Muaaz (@mws) October 19, 2022

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TikTok creators can now display up to six videos on an external site, thanks to a new feature called Profile Kit.

TikTok announced the Profile Kit feature in partnership with Linktree, one of the most popular link-in-bio tools.

Image via Linktree

Creators can choose to display their latest, most popular, or favorite TikToks on their Linktree landing pages. In addition, visitors will be able to play videos within Linktree without having to navigate away from the app.

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TikTok may be the reigning champ of short-form video, but it looks like the platform has its sights set on more. They’ve now introduced photo mode, a carousel-style format made for sharing multiple still images in a single post.

TikTok’s new photo posts look similar to Instagram’s carousels, but they’re a bit more robust. Users can add music to soundtrack their images, and viewers can either swipe through each photo or let them scroll automatically.

Image via TikTok

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TikTok’s usually the platform to beat when it comes to new features. Still, in September, the indisputable rise of BeReal proved that sometimes, even ByteDance can take a few tips from the competition.

Here’s what happened on TikTok in September:

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After months of testing, TikTok has introduced a new downvote option that makes it simple for users to flag “irrelevant or inappropriate” comments.

🔔 New feature incoming. Earlier this year, we started to test a new way people could identify comments they believe to be irrelevant or inappropriate. After some testing, we're releasing it globally. 📲 Read on for 3 fast facts

— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) September 23, 2022

While TikTok users have long been able to report comments that violate the platform’s community guidelines, the new downvote is meant to help TikTok’s moderators identify negative behavior that’s more annoying than harmful.

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It’s time to polish up your social SEO skills: TikTok’s video descriptions just got a whole lot longer.

TikTok has now increased the maximum length of video descriptions from 300 characters to 2,200, according to an update first shared by social media consultant Matt Navarra.

Woah…! TikTok has increased video description character limit to 2,200 characters!

This is huge for creators and massive in terms of TikTok’s plans for becoming a search engine pic.twitter.com/kGhnL97uUM

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 23, 2022

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TikTok has launched a new time-based dual camera feature called TikTok Now, according to an update published on their blog today.

TikTok Now will send users daily prompts to capture and share real-time updates using their front and back cameras.

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Source: TikTok

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TikTok has confirmed that they’re testing a new “Nearby” feed. Users who are part of the test will see the feed appear next to their “Following” and “For You” tabs.

HUHHHH what is this nearby page on tiktok?😭 pic.twitter.com/9Rf3amC8lx

— sofea (@sofeashra) August 9, 2022

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TikTok will soon allow users to share their TikTok Stories directly to other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

Unlike TikTok videos, which give users several choices for downloading, sharing, and reposting content, TikTok Stories have much more limited sharing options.

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