TikTok Stories: What Are They? And How Do You Use Them?
Do you post content to TikTok Stories?
TikTok Stories aren’t as widely used as Instagram Stories are, but they have a lot of potential, especially with TikTok being one of the web’s most-used social media platforms.
In this post, you will learn what TikTok Stories are and what benefits they provide as well as tips on creating them.
What are TikTok Stories?
Almost every social media platform has dipped their toes into the wild world of short-lived, casual content influencers can post today and have removed by tomorrow.
Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories have seen the most success on the web.
IG stories are readily available when you open the app. They only appear from accounts you follow, have a maximum video length of 60 seconds and disappear 24 hours after they’re posted.
TikTok stories work in a similar way.
They have a possibility of showing up on the For You Page (fyp), but they also appear on your follower’s Following page as well as in their inbox.
Like Instagram, accounts that post a TikTok story will have a blue ring around their profile picture. Also like Instagram, these rings appear in a vertical-scrolling menu on the Following page as well as the Inbox page.
Accounts that are live will appear in this menu first, but TikTok Stories appear next.
TikTok stories can have a maximum runtime of 15 seconds, and like Instagram, they disappear from your account 24 hours after they’re posted.
Do influencers use TikTok Stories?
I found a list of the 50 most-subscribed TikTok accounts on Wikipedia and found that only four of them had an active story posted to their account.
Here’s how these four accounts were using TikTok Stories that day:
- @justmaiku – Promoting a live event for the next day. The story had an interactive call to action to register for the live. All I had to do was click the button once to register. There wasn’t a form to fill out, which was pretty convenient
- @riaricis – Advertising skincare products she was using and a vest she was wearing
- @psg – Promoting their latest TikTok videos*
- @barstoolsports – Promoting their latest TikTok videos*
*Warning: Although promoting recent posts is a common use for IG stories, some users who shared their latest posts to TikTok Stories have reported receiving account bans and disqualifications from the Creator Rewards Program due to “originality violations.” This is a sign that TikTok’s algorithm has trouble seeing posts that are shared to stories as shared posts and instead sees them as new content, then issues account violations and bans after incorrectly labeling the content as unoriginal.
Should your brand post TikTok Stories?
TikTok Stories were originally released in 2022 and have seen very little adoption over the years.
Users who never leave their FYPs will rarely see them, and users who do visit their following and inbox pages don’t seem to be tuning into them.
Plus, creators who do use stories reportedly don’t see much engagement from them.
Even so, TikTok Stories feature many benefits for your brand. You’ll never know unless you post a few yourself and see your results.
That’s what @coloradostateuniversity did.
Every year, CSU hosts an event called Ram Welcome, a program that brings the entire campus together to welcome new students and introduce them to the resources and services available to them as students of the university.
In 2023, CSU decided to experiment with Tiktok Stories by posting Ram Welcome moments to the platform.
After a week, their engagement increased by 0.55%, and their profile views increased by 267.99%. Those are pretty decent numbers for a profile that only had around 15,000 followers at the time.
Benefits of posting to TikTok Stories
You might not see as much engagement from TikTok Stories as you do from your regular content on TikTok, but there are still a few benefits of posting them.
For starters, social media platforms tend to reward accounts who use all account features available to them.
This means as long as you keep posting content to TikTok Stories, TikTok might take notice and promote your content a little more often than others in your niche. It’s not a guarantee, though.
You do also have the potential to receive higher engagements and more reach from stories. They do appear on the fyp sometimes, and some users may be highly engaged with them.
TikTok doesn’t seem to be giving up on stories, so they also provide a perfect opportunity for you to become a pioneer of a feature that may become widely used in the future if TikTok can figure out a way to increase engagement with them overall.
Finally, even if you only receive a few engagements from stories, they still provide a place for you to test new ideas and share behind-the-scenes moments with your audience.
How to post a story to TikTok
Posting stories to TikTok is very easy and works in the same way posting regular content does:
- Open the TikTok app, and click the + button to add a new post to your account, like usual.
- Select Photo or the 15-second video option.
- Record and edit your post.
- Click Your Story to post it to TikTok Stories.
You can also add a new story in the Following and Inbox pages where the TikTok Stories menu is.
This menu starts with your own profile picture, and it’ll have a blue Create button you can click to add a new story.
How to delete a TikTok story
- Tap your profile photo.
- Swipe up on your Story.
- Tap the Delete button to delete your story.
- Tap Delete again to confirm.
16 tips for creating stories on TikTok
1. Copy your strategy for Instagram Stories
If you already post content to Instagram Stories regularly, you can save a lot of time and money on content creation by using your TikTok strategy for your Instagram strategy or uploading the same content to your TikTok Stories.
If you don’t get much engagement from TikTok Stories, this will allow you to still post content to it but not spend much time creating that content.
2. Share short behind the scenes moments
You probably recorded extra footage or shot extra images when you created your latest post.
You can use TikTok Stories to share bonus clips, images and bloopers from this post.
Share them on the same day you upload your post. You can even tell your followers to “click the blue ring around your profile picture” to view your latest story for behind the scenes clips.
3. Promote an upcoming event
TikTok Lives are a fantastic way to expand your reach.
You can even schedule livestreams on TikTok, which is a great way to generate buzz for an event you might be hosting in your niche.
When you do, you can create a story that has a Register button, which your audience can use to register for the event and be reminded to attend live.
4. Promote products
If you have a product you can showcase in an image or advertise in 15 seconds or less, consider using a TikTok story to promote it.
This can act as a secondary advertising platform for your brand, one you don’t need to pay for.
5. Tease an upcoming video
Again, if your audience actually engages with your stories, you should be using them to generate buzz for whatever you have going on.
This includes upcoming videos.
Create 15-second teasers, and upload them to your stories. These can be taken straight from the video, or you can create them as separate content.
You can also shoot special images while you create the video, and use them as teasers.
6. Share something funny
You know your audience best. You should know if there’s something they’d find funny or exciting.
For example, if you make fishing videos and happen to reel in something funny, take a photo or upload a short, 15-second clip of it to your stories.
Not only will this entertain your audience, it’ll give them more insight into your daily life, at least as it relates to your niche.
7. Share something meaningful
Again, you know your audience best.
If something special or emotional happens, capture it, and share it with your audience.
It could be a goal you achieved, a reward you received or something painful that happened.
Whatever you share should be related to your niche, but if your audience is used to seeing personal content from you, don’t be afraid to share something emotional from your daily life as well.
8. Post very short daily vlogs
A lot of influencers use Instagram Stories to post what are known as daily vlogs.
These are short videos you post throughout the day that show your daily life. This could showcase your daily life in general or your daily life in your niche.
Of course, the vlogs will need to be much shorter on TikTok as TikTok Stories cannot be longer than 15 seconds.
Even so, it’s a simple way to take your audience along with you on your adventures.
9. Create a flip story
In September of 2024, TikTok released a new feature for TikTok Stories called flip stories.
These are stories you can add two images to, which your audience can switch between by “flipping” the story over like a card.
TikTok recommends using this feature to create “how it started, how it’s going” content and other fun content.
10. Remind followers about a limited time offer
If you have a product or discount that’s only available for a short period of time, you need to create a sense of urgency to encourage your followers to act.
Promoting the product heavily while emphasizing the fact that it’s only available for a limited amount of time can really light a fire under your audience and get them to take action.
TikTok Stories are simply another platform you can post reminders to.
11. Answer questions
TikTok Stories don’t have a Q&A feature like Instagram Stories do, but you can still use TikTok Stories to answer your audience’s questions.
You can even provide solutions to common problems in your niche.
You can respond to questions with a video or image.
12. Share a collaboration
This technically goes under the teaser category.
If you collaborated with a well-known figure in your niche, consider taking extra footage with them, such as a photo or short video clip.
You can use each to tease the collaboration before and after it drops.
13. Start a trend with the Add Yours sticker
TikTok has stickers you can add to your content to make it more interactive.
In TikTok, you can add a sticker to your post that has an “Add Yours” functionality built into it.
It works like this: you give your audience a prompt, and they respond by fulfilling that prompt.
In other words, they add theirs.
Consider if there’s anything you have, say or do that other people in your niche might have, say or do.
Share it, then use the Add Yours sticker to encourage them to share their own.
14. Poll your audience
TikTok has a poll sticker that allows you to ask your audience a yes or no question.
Use this to receive your audience’s response to something, such as “do you get eight hours of sleep a night?”
15. Let your audience rate something
Like Instagram Stories, TikTok has a sticker you can include in your story that lets your audience provide you a rating.
They do this by picking a spot on a sliding scale.
It’s another great way to get your audience’s opinion on something.
16. Share a fundraiser
Finally, TikTok has a donation sticker that allows you to promote a fundraiser for a specific organization.
There are dozens of organizations in the list, so if you can’t find the charity you want to support, you should be able to find a suitable replacement at the very least.
Fundraising for a good cause is a great way to get your audience to engage, especially if you share how much you raise along the way.
Final thoughts
While not everyone is using TikTok Stories, they could be worth using if you have the time.
Just remember what I mentioned earlier about some users getting account bans or being disqualified from the Creator Rewards Program due to “originality violations” when promoting existing content in your stories.
So, be sure to make your TikTok Stories unique from your existing content.
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