TikTok Reveals Snapchat-style Stories

Ethan James 23 Mar 2022

Experiments with Snapchat-style stories on TikTok are getting closer to the global release of the feature as it’s already available to an expanded group of tester users. If you are lucky to be one of them, you will see a greetings banner when you launch the app next time. It will offer you to record a story to test the feature. 

Expanding a Pilot Test

As TikTok said to TechCrunch, the company decided to expand the user base of the pilot test. The goal is to provide creators with a wider selection of formats to help them implement their creative concepts and connect better with their audiences. The platform doesn’t specify the current number of testers and keeps the how the final version of the feature will look like. At the moment, we know that it is very similar to the standard photo and video features. However, your stories won’t be displayed in the same feed as standard videos. Instead,  they will show up in a separate tab and enable a highlight around your avatar in the same way Instagram stories do. Besides, all stories will disappear 24 hours after publication. 

What the new stories feature doesn’t have is a scrolling bar with direct access to stories published by all the users from your subscriptions. The screenshots from early tests included a very look-alike vertical story feed, but it’s not clear if it makes it to the full-release version. Current testers can access stories only by tapping the blue-circled user avatar while watching a standard video in the main feed. You can also do the same when you open a user profile. 

When?

Given the remarkable success of Stories on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, the pressing question now is "when will it happen?" Are you eager for the new feature? Any thoughts on the timing of the release? Join the discussion below and feel free to pass this along to your friends on TikTok.