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Livestreaming has been a great way for me to connect differently with audiences, so I’m always interested in seeing how to maximize going live on social media even more – and I was excited to see how to go live on TikTok.
My daughter and I do trending TikTok song videos from time to time. And livestreaming opportunities are always worth exploring, in my opinion.
Requirements to go live on TikTok
It appears that you have to be invited to livestream on TikTok. Your account needs to have at least 1,000 followers, and I was notified of my invitation in my notifications.
Clicking along got me here:
To start to livestream on TikTok, build your account and your community. I assume – as is often the case – at some point TikTok will open this to more and maybe everyone.
Once you are in, you can livestream on TikTok in one of two ways:
- From the mobile app
- Through the TikTok Live Studio for Windows
- There’s no app for the MacBook pro that I can see.
Livestream on TikTok through the app
This is probably the easiest way when you are already creating content from your phone. Click the plus sign in TikTok to create new content.
Then scroll over to LIVE, set your framing, etc., and click LIVE to start your broadcast.
Livestream on TikTok Live Studio for Windows
TikTok rolled this out in December 2021. It’s a pretty basic studio app for Windows, which I downloaded. It appears that I might be able to add it to my multi-channel livestreaming strategy at some point. If I can add through RTMP to my Restream.io Live Studio and I can stream to TikTok in addition to other social media channels.
You can download the TikTok Live Studio for PC here.
Which way to livestream on TikTok is better?
I can see use cases for livestreaming from the app and from a computer. When I’m sitting in my studio, it’s much easier to use the computer. When I’m not, it might be easier to use the app.
The app might also just be fine if you are only streaming to TikTok.
To multi-stream with platforms like Restream.io, it appears you’ll have to use the desktop app. Even though I haven’t gotten it to work, yet, the app has an “import from another tool” setting.
Either way, I plan to keep an eye out on the app and this strategy and will try to integrate TikTok into my multi-channel strategy when the technology allows.
What to do on a TikTok live
Looking at some of the successful lives on TikTok out there, this formula when going live seems to be a good start:
- Think of the live stream like you are hanging out with friends.
- Welcome people to the room.
- Just have a conversation – if somebody else is on the stream with you in-person, talk with them. You can also have a remote co-host.
- Look at the camera.
- Be engaging.
- Respond to people’s questions.
- Ask questions.
- If there’s no engagement, yet, consider just talking about a topic.
In the future, there might be an opportunity to live stream formal live video podcasts to TikTok and Instagram, but currently I don’t see that happening and most TikTok lives are people looking into the camera and having a conversation with their audience,