Last month, Ed Sheeran broke the record for the biggest ever LIVE music performance on TikTok, gaining over 5.5 million unique viewers of his UEFA EURO 2020 show. With the feature clearly continuing to increase in popularity, TikTok has invested in new tools that will enable users and creators to take their live streams to the next level.
First look at the new features
- LIVE Events – currently being piloted in the UK is a new tool that lets creators schedule, manage and promote LIVE videos
- Picture-in-Picture – allows people to watch TikTok live streams while jumping into another app at the same time, so you don’t miss a thing
- Top LIVEs – rolling out soon, a feature that will make it easier for people to find and tune into LIVEs from their For You and Following pages
- Help for Hosts – making it possible for creators to assign a person they trust to help them manage their live streams.
New features will also include LIVE Q&As where hosts are able to easily engage with and respond to viewer’s questions in real-time, keyword filters that will allow hosts to turn off comments or add up to 200 terms into the keyword filter to limit those comments in the chat to minimise the chances of online hate. Alongside the keyword filters, hosts will be able to mute or remove hateful viewers.
TikTok is committed to maintaining the joyful, supportive, and inspiring community that exists on the app while also working on building new relationships with creators, artists, brands, and their audiences through new features like TikTok LIVE. It’s exciting to see the possibilities of expanding TikTok from a platform to an ecosystem at the centre of entertainment, the creator economy, and technology.