A new year has arrived and TikTok is wasting no time to give users the best possible experience with a stack of brand-new updates and features.
TikTok is one of the most popular apps out there and it’s become a marketing and social media powerhouse. To make the user and content creation experience even better, they’ve been testing out and rolling out new tools for users, brands and creators like helping you understand why videos are recommended on your For You page.
Ready to learn more about TikTok’s new features? Let’s dive in!
TikTok is testing a sleep reminder feature
If you’re like us you probably scroll on TikTok for hours before bed and have no clue what time it is. Well, if you’re one of those people who end up going to sleep way later than you intended to, TikTok is testing out a feature that could change all of that.
The sleep reminder feature will be an option that users can set up as an alert when it’s time to go to bed and you’ll also have the option to mute notifications from TikTok during your recommended 7 hours of sleep.
Considering TikTok has received criticism for being a distracting platform and some studies have even suggested that TikTok addiction is a real thing, they are stepping up their game when it comes to helping users better control their screen time.
TikTok already has screen tools in place to help you control your time on the app which allows you to schedule screen time breaks of 10, 20 or 30 minutes or you can set up a custom time. You can also see how much time you’ve spent on TikTok through the screen time dashboard which gives you an overview of how much time you spend on TikTok during the day and at night.
TikTok is taking a step further with their screen time management, confirming to TechCrunch that they are being tested with a select group of users so stay tuned for more information about this feature.
TikTok has added thumbnails to make finding parts of a video easier
If you’re an avid TikTok user then this is some pretty big and exciting news. TikTok has added scrubbing thumbnails to its videos to make it that much easier to find a specific part of a video.
We’ve had the ability to fast forward or go back on long videos on TikTok for quite some time (which was a game changer) and now TikTok is making the user experience even better. Now, you don’t have to guess where a specific part of the video you want to see it, you can see exactly which part of the video you want to skip to with visual cues.
This new feature has only been released this week, so if you don’t have access to it yet, you should be gaining access pretty soon.
You can now access movies and TV show pages on TikTok through IMDb
We all know how popular TV shows and movies are on TikTok and how quickly they trend. Now, TikTok is making it even easier to find movies and TV shows through its partnership with IMDb which allows users to tag movies and TV shows in videos.
When you see a tagged TV show or movie you’ll be directed to an in-app page where you can see information from IMDb about the specific movie or TV show, a bunch of TikTok’s related to them and you can also save them in your favourites tab.
So far, the feature is only available to users in the US and the UK so stay tuned for updates about when this feature will be rolled out globally.
TikTok reveals how videos appear in your For You Page
TikTok’s algorithm is pretty impressive, suggesting videos on your FYP that are specifically tailored to your individual likes and preferences. And now, TikTok is giving users the ability to learn why a particular video has popped up on their feeds.
Here’s how to access this exciting new TikTok feature:
• Head to the For You feed.
• Tap on the share icon.
• At the bottom, click “Why this video.”
• Here you can see why TikTok recommended this video for you.
TikTok says their recommendations are based on a technical model but here’s a quick breakdown of what they are:
• Accounts you follow or suggested accounts.
• Content popular in your region.
• Content that was recently posted in your region.
• User interactions like what content you watch, comment on, like, share and searches.
For businesses, brands and content creators alike this new feature can help you understand why videos are showing up on people’s FYPs. For example, if you’re seeing a video on your FYP because it’s popular in your region then you could recreate something similar to increase the chance of it showing up on your target audience’s feeds.
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