With 150 million monthly users in the United States, TikTok remains one of the world’s most highly appreciated social platforms.Its feature of a live stream is a great attraction to its audience, and this also gets new audience members by popularizing them. As a beginner in TikTok marketing, or if you just haven’t built a following yet, “going live” may seem intimidating. Well, don’t worry- you’re in the right place.
Learn here how to go live on TikTok, kindle interest with your live streams, and actively engage with your audience.
What Is TikTok LIVE?
It’s the reality through which you can interact with your audiences in real-time while using TikTok LIVE. In this way, your viewers can interact with your live stream, where you can reply to their questions, hold open discussions, or throw out ideas.
TikTok LIVE has many similar features to those you are familiar with if you upload a video to the platform, like effects and filters. It has the most interesting feature, allowing you to stay on air as long as you want, advertising your brand to really as many people as possible.
TikTok LIVE also gives gifts and opens donations. For instance, you can engage the community in a charity while hosting a charity event.
Requirements To Go Live on TikTok
Although not mentioned in TikTok’s community guidelines, you must be at least 18 years old and have at least 1,000 followers to go LIVE on TikTok. Otherwise, if your account has no such followers yet, you probably will not gain access to the LIVE option on your profile. Also remember that while you are LIVE, you must comply with the community guidelines.
Can You Go Live on TikTok With Fewer Than 1,000 Followers?
You need more than 1,000 followers to go live on TikTok right now. However, if you get an invitation to go live with someone who meets that follower requirement, you can bypass this. Tap into your industry and see who is available to help build your following.
Steps To Go Live on TikTok
From promoting a special event to hosting a live question-answer session, maybe you just feel like going live on TikTok for whatever reason- just follow these steps to get started.
1. Plan Your Video
Of course, nothing prevents you from opening the app and going live without a plan. However, winging it usually isn’t as entertaining as a well-thought-out video. So before you go live, make a plan for your session.
Knowing what you’re trying to achieve during your live session will help you to guide the conversation. Plus, it’ll show the TikTok algorithm with whom to promote your video, driving more views and engagement. You can keep your viewers on track, and you can simply be ready to ask specific questions. Now that you have your purpose set, you can start whirling titles and promoting your next session.
2. Double-Check the Details
Consider the details involved with personalizing your stream; select a fairly well-lit area, and take some time to record a couple of rehearsal videos. Whether it is a product launch or showing the fans around, ensure that this area looks really good on camera.
Setting up your testing is essential to make you feel comfortable in front of the camera with both what you present and what you sound like. Any technical issue will halt the talk, and with each minute, more viewers will be tempted to leave.
3. Take Your Video Live
Everything is all set: you’re ready to broadcast with your plan in action and every detail nailed down. Follow these steps to go live:
Open TikTok.
Tap the ‘+’ button at the bottom of your screen. This opens your in-app camera. Swipe to LIVE at the bottom of your screen. Hit “Go Live” to select an image and enter a title.
4. Engage Your Audience
With all that preparation well in advance for live streaming, you should now be able to host a meaningful and stimulating conversation with the audience members. If the people outside the actual stream can chat in real time, then they can communicate with you and each other while you share something interesting via your live stream.
Viewers might inquire about something mentioned in your video, so read the comments, answer them, and even learn more about those commenting. You may wish to name a few of those participating before answering their questions. TikTok polls can be utilized to gather useful audience data while making your session more interactive.
Understanding TikTok’s LIVE Features
The TikTok LIVE feature is much more than just pointing your camera towards the people talking through your phone. The platform showcases different extra features that can add sparkle to your streams.
Using Gifts and Coins
People usually enjoy gifts at the end of the year as new surprises are filled in for one year and taken away from another. With increased excitement, the organism prepares to welcome a new year. Friends tend to gift each other. The most enjoyable surprise truly is a gift of reunion. During holidays- such as Christmas- friends and family can be found in one place. Everybody can enjoy the presence of each other again. I am very excited about the possibility of new gifts this new year!
You should apply effects and filters before starting to record since they personalize your videos. You can add your logo or an image of your new product in a branded video so that people get to see it and ask about it.
You can also make use of audio effects to enjoy comedic live streams or commit to a bit. There will be instances when sounds will be annoying during your live stream depending on the objective you want to achieve. Do set up a few test runs with your effects before going live to an audience.
Q and A are chat features that make it easier for your audience to ask questions. Because of the nature in which these chats are shown on your feed, you can establish the questions and answer them more readily than if you were monitoring a normal chat. They could even have a Q and A section on their profile while promoting the live event, where audiences can drop questions ahead of time.
Filters, Effects, and Q&As
Effects and filters work well by adding an appeal to your videos. You can choose and apply these effects before you start recording. For branded videos, consider putting in your logo or an image taking center stage of your new product so that viewers notice it and ask questions.
These effects can help enhance comedy live streams, thereby making them stand out in whichever manner one prefers. However, depending on the flow of your presentation, some sounds can distract from your live streaming. So, run your effects through some rehearsal so that you can distinguish between funny and serious effects before doing it for the greater public.
The Q&A functions in a chat to encourage audience questioning. Due to how these chats appear on your feed, identifying the question and responding to it is much easier than trying to keep an eye on an ordinary chat. While you promote your live stream, consider creating a Q&A page on your profile, garnering questions from your audience ahead of time.
Inviting Guests or Co-Hosts
You could attract even more followers and create better content by engaging in a chat with an industry influencer or inviting a famous person for a livestream. While planning your videos, ensure that you send invitations to your guests giving them a date and time to be available.
Whenever you are inviting a guest, just click on the multi-guest button on your screen. Scroll to the user profile and click on the invite. Your followers may also request to be part of your live session. You can click on accept to approve their request.
8 Tips for a Great TikTok LIVE Session
Now that you know how to get LIVE access on TikTok, it’s time to start gathering a following with some great live sessions. Use the techniques below to showcase content that is worth mentioning and bring, to draw more of the audience toward your feed.
1. Have a Plan
It should be noted that no improvisation would probably save anyone except you when it is not your field. Write down the objectives for your TikTok video before setting the camera for action, keep a general outline of the format. There’s no need to train or blindly follow the outline. Just consider this as your reference to guide the discussion.
Prepare your place and the technology beforehand to make sure everything works. This will allow you to concentrate on your engaged audience.
2. Give People a Reason To Attend
Simply putting up similar content on live sessions as in the regular feed, will not gain much attention. Give a reason to your audience to be there. For example, hold a giveaway or put on TikTok LIVE an exclusive content.
If you are the face of your brand, people would love to know that you are doing the live streaming. Let them ask you anything or know more about your life. (Within reasonable limits, of course. We wouldn’t encourage going overboard in sharing such personal things as your location or contact number with the world.) Featuring interviews with special guests and industry insiders. They will have something extraordinary to offer in terms of LIVE videos.
3. Find the Right Time
There will always be an audience, contingent upon when you decide to post, especially with a global audience. Going live will create more buzz since more people will be around to watch. Usually one of the applied characteristics is audience insights, the ability to view what audience insight a social media management tool possesses. The insight thus obtained will enable the easy detection of the period when followers remain most active, therefore creating room to schedule live sessions.
4. Promote in Advance
Another reason why planning your livestreams is important is that this gives you leeway in doing some promotion. You can do short teasers with your highlighted guests or focus on a giveaway to build anticipation. The longer you promote live sessions, the more people get a chance to discover you.
5. Collaborate With Friends
Calling all your buddies into live videos can yield results from their network and potentially expose your brand to more customers. If you have friends who are fun and social media savvy, consider asking them to collaborate on your project.
While doing that, you could also learn new ideas on how to engage your audience from those content creators because they do this better than you. Having your friends involved may also make you cozy in front of the camera.
6. Maintain Good Video and Audio Quality
Be sure to check your connection and test all of your equipment before going live. Nobody will want to be part of this mess if the video does not quite get the focus or the audio keeps fading out. Have a good microphone instead of relying all on your phone to record.
You may have indeed gotten very familiar with the quality of your phone by this time, since you record and upload all the great TikTok video ideas with it. Proper illumination and setting can make the video stand out even more. A trip might facilitate taking pictures during sessions without much shaking or movement.
7. Engage With Your Audience
Remember your audience even if you are hanging out with an industry friend in a live talk show session. Use the chat or Q&A so it is not to be missed out on if there is a nice question. You can move on and not stop the presentation so that you can answer every single question, but make sure to involve the audience in the presentation and give them a chance to change direction if they so want.
8. Keep It Brief
Quoting some wise fictional intellectual, ‘should’ be the word that should be weighing the most in your mind while you get so engrossed with the fact that you can now have a long live session. TikTok is quite literally built for small video consumption — back in the day, videos couldn’t be longer than 15 seconds on the app. TikTok recommends keeping live sessions for around half an hour but avoid overstaying your welcome. If you’ve spent 15 minutes talking to your audience and feel you’ve exhausted the topic, consider calling it a wrap and schedule your next one.
How To Join Someone Else’s Live Session on TikTok
Collaboration is the act of working together. In your live sessions, claim an invitation to participation from others by requesting that the same person return the honor by inviting you to their event. Open “LIVE” from the upper left corner of the app so that you can see people who are live at that moment.
You see a list of everyone on your timeline going live. Pick a live session that interests you and click “Multi-Guest Request.” A button to request is where you will find it. Click on the button and wait for your approval by the host.
Need Help Making TikTok Videos at Scale?
Indeed, we know that it’s more than plenty. There is tons of content to create, and frankly, little time to do so. But partner with an official TikTok marketing partner like Quick Frame, and you may just maximize your TikTok video marketing bucks. We know how to produce engaging videos that get you seen. We’ll look at your ad specs and make some high-quality videos that drive people to your brand.
For more information regarding TikTok video production, do get in touch with us.
Final Thoughts
Going live on TikTok creates an avenue through which exclusive contents are given to your audience and thus creates a stronger bond with them. Before going live, set up some practical goals, choose your location, and test your equipment for high-quality video and sound. Engaging your audience live will prepare you for more credibility and grow your brand.
Seeking expert guidance on social media growth? Digi Dervish crafts individualized strategies through which you can maximize your TikTok success. Get in touch with us today and upgrade your brand.
