Video streaming app TikTok has announced the addition of text-only posts, allowing users to communicate through written content.
TikTok users will now be offered three options on the app – whether to post photos, videos or text.
This is made known in a statement released by TikTok.
The Chinese-owned app says the new text feature gives users “another way to express themselves”.
Users will also be able to customise posts by adding sound, tag, hashtag, location or Duets, which are video reactions to posts by other TikTok users.
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“These features make it so your text posts are just as dynamic and interactive as any video or photo post,” TikTok said in a statement on Monday.
The full features
- Creating a Text Post
When you access the Camera page, you’ll be able to choose from three options: photo, video, and text. By selecting text, you’ll be directed to the text creation page, where you can type out the content of your post.
- Enhancing Your Text Posts
Upon reaching the Post page, you’ll find familiar options to customize your content. These include adding Sound, tagging a location, enabling comments, and allowing Duets, among others. These features make it so your text posts are just as dynamic and interactive as any video or photo post.
Features to Try
Text posts offer a range of features that empower you to make your text-based content stand out. Here are some highlights:
- Stickers: Enhance your text by selecting stickers that relate to your content and add some pizazz to your post.
- Tags and Hashtags: Just like in video or photo posts, you can tag other accounts, as well as add hashtags that relate to relevant topics or trends.
- Background colors: Choose from a variety of background colors to make your text pop.
- Adding Sound: Sounds are core to the TikTok experience, which is why we’ve incorporated them into text posts. You’ll be able to add tunes that readers can groove to as they peruse your writing.
- Draft and Discard: Similar to video or photo posts, you can save your drafts and store them with other unpublished posts for later editing or discard them entirely.
How TikTok Challenges all Social Media.
With the addition of text feature on its platform, Tiktok has now becomes the latest technology giant to challenge X, Elon Musk’s rebranded Twitter platform.
The announcement comes as Twitter ditches its famous blue bird logo and switches to a black and white X.
Earlier this month, TikTok launched a new music streaming service to rival platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
Good Evening Nigeria learns that TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, launched a new music streaming service, TikTok Music, in Brazil and Indonesia.
Last week, the company also rolled out a beta version of the service in Singapore, Mexico and Australia.
A spokesman said it would allow users to “listen, share and download the music they have discovered on TikTok, as well as share their favourite tracks and artists with their TikTok community”.
The app is testing other features including a new landscape mode with select users around the world.
Popular social media platforms such as Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as well as Mr Musk’s X, already support text posts.
Earlier this month, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said his company’s Threads platform had signed up more than 100 million users in less than five days.
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On 5 July, Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries, including the UK.
Also this week, the blue bird on social network Twitter was replaced by a logo featuring a white X on a black background.
The term tweets will also be changed to “x’s”, according to Mr Musk.
Good Evening Nigeria and BBC