10 TikTok Updates in 2021 That Makes the App Even More Addictive

TikTok is currently one of the hottest apps on the planet, with 689 million users internationally, and over 100 million monthly active users in the US alone.

Staggering figures.

Day by day, its user base is still growing. And it’s growing at an insanely rapid pace.

If you’re currently out of the loop *ahem boomer alert*, well here’s a brief background to the app Gen Zs are addicted to.

TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing service acquired by ByteDance. Its dominant influence is due to the prevalence of trends, from genres like dance challenges for pop songs, comedy, and education.
This year, TikTok has rolled out a series of updates to its app. Read on to find out all you need to know about the new changes.

Or if you prefer to watch, here’s a video we’ve done on this topic:

New E-Commerce Integrations

As TikTok’s colossal audience continues to grow, so do partnerships and monetisation opportunities.

Brands are now finding ways to target the younger audience through TikTok as an advertising hub.

With three new e-commerce integrations, online shopping and collaborations between creators and brands are now seamless.

• Shareable product links – When a user shares a link, creators may receive a commission on any sales
• Online catalogs – Pretty much a similar feature Instagram currently has
• Livestream shopping – Users can watch and purchase recommended products that are featured by creators

I can foresee an influx of more “TikTok made me buy it” videos. Called it.

Warning Banners for Unverified Information in Videos

If you’re one of those people who like to post fake news, sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s really gotta go.

TikTok has now introduced a new warning banner that prevents users from posting reported videos with misleading information. To cope with that, “Caution: Video flagged for unverified content” will be shown as a banner before a creator posts the video.

A 24% decrease in the rate at which people shared these videos and a 7% decrease in likes have been reported since then.

So PSA to creators, you may want to take a second look at your content before publishing.

Creator Portal

TikTok has launched an entire educational platform for its content creators. Any user can follow the portal and an array of content marketing strategies will be taught.

Video creation tips and how to establish your community will also be shared. For brands, this portal will show you how to make the TikTok algorithm work in your favour.

This will be a great way for creators to up skill and work on their TikTok game.

Remember, no more fake news, more wholesome content please.

In-App Recipe Integration

Cooking hacks and trendy food trends have been a hit on TikTok. The hashtag #cooking has over 33.3 billion tags currently.

Even famous chefs like Gordon Ramsay can be seen cooking from home.

In a new update, TikTok has created a new in-app recipe integration called Whisk! Creators can now attach recipes to their cooking TikToks.

A button called “See full recipe” will be added above the caption. Users will then be brought to a separate page with the creator’s recipe that is linked with their food blog.

That way, it’ll be easier for food content creators to share their recipes.

Q&A Option for Fans to Post Questions

Creators can now enable a Q&A section on their TikTok profile to allow followers to ask questions directly.

These questions are public and other followers can like questions that they too want to ask. This segment can create opportunities for rapport to be built.

Creators can respond to individual comments by publishing a new video that explains their answer in greater detail than a short, text comment could.

If you like to kaypoh into other people’s lives, this is an opportunity to do so.

Find a Job with TikTok Resumes

Over the past few months, we’ve seen the rise of career and job-related creative content on TikTok.

Take a look at Boris K., one such creator with over 604K followers. In his videos, he shows how to spot red flags in interviews and how to make proper career choices.

A pilot program, “TikTok Resumes“, will now be an alternative channel for recruitment and job discovery. Simple built-in creation tools have been created to discover talented candidates and career opportunities.

TikTok will be partnering with selected companies with brands like Shopify, WWE, and Target. Job seekers will be invited to apply for entry-level to experienced positions.

Interested candidates can now creatively and authentically present their skillsets and experiences through a video resume. They just have to use #TikTokResumes in their caption to be spotted.

Ha. What’s LinkedIn again? Never heard of it.

At the moment, there are only openings in the US. After all, it’s still in midst of testing. If all goes well, perhaps it will be rolled out into more countries.

Playlists Feature

TikTok has been starting to roll out a Playlists feature that allows creators to form themed playlists for their videos.

Ever got frustrated trying to scroll through a feed just to watch “part 2” of another video?

Yup. This feature makes our user experience so much easier.

Playlists are available for Creator and Business accounts. Only public videos can be added to a playlist. If you set a video as private, it will be automatically removed.

One video can only be in one playlist at a time.  If you set a video as private, it will be automatically removed. The playlist name can be up to 15 characters long.

This is defo an innovative way to enable users to view videos playlist-wise assembled according to different themes.

Auto Captions Feature

Auto captions automatically generate subtitles, allowing viewers to read or listen to content.

Every app these days is working on this feature due to its huge demand and hype for it. Here are a few reasons why.

For those who can’t listen properly due to bad audio in the video, this will be a score. If someone can’t make out what the person in a video is saying due to language barriers, this will be a double score.

Moreover, the physically impaired will also benefit from increased user interaction and better comprehension of the videos.

As creators make content on TikTok, they can select auto captions on the editing page after they’ve uploaded a video. The text will automatically be transcribed and displayed on their videos.

This feature will initially be available in American English and Japanese, with additional language support in the coming months.

Immersive Music Creative Effects

Music and sounds are often incorporated into the TikTok community’s endless creativity. In Music Visualiser, new effects are powered by real-time and interactive music processing technologies.

It’s the first music creative effect made available to the community, and it’s accessible now on TikTok globally.

Transitions and visual movements will be synchronised to the beat of any song from TikTok’s sounds library.

Music Machine offers an interactive set of tools that appear on screen as you record. As such, creators can create music from different drumbeats and other sounds.

Now we get all sorts of mixing possibilities.

This honestly sounds very futuristic and cool, no cap.

Green Screen Duet Feature

In May this year, TikTok announced the launch of a new Green Screen Duet feature. This combines two of their most popular editing tools.

Green Screen is truly the shit ok, it’s life-changing for creators. Been there, done that.

If you’ve been endlessly scrolling through TikTok, you should know by now that editing tools like Duet and Sitch are essential.

It makes TikTok not just a one-dimensional video viewing app, but rather a video-focused social network.

Now, creators can use another video from TikTok as the background in their new video. They can then sing, dance, joke or react alongside another user’s video.

Creators may even just watch a video from someone else, in a bid to promote awareness to its content.

What’s Next for TikTok

Who would’ve honestly thought four years ago that TikTok would blow up?

In the past, the platform was most believed to have largely resonated with younger generations, like Gen Z.

Now, we see more and more millenials and older generations joining the community. More critically, there are greater small business owners and MNCs creating meaningful content as they engage with their audience.

As TikTok continues to grow in size, we look forward to more innovative updates by the team from here on.

Featured Image: XanderSt / Shutterstock.com