TikTok‘s new features really put the “social” in “social media.” The app is encouraging more camaraderie through Shared Feeds, which combine the tastes of multiple individuals within a single hub.
In a Newsroom post, TikTok explained that Shared Feeds can entertain two people at once by showing “new content tailored to both of their tastes.” When a pair of users agree to share a feed, they will be able to find it in their direct message thread (where TikTok recently rolled out several updates). Each day, that feed will be filled with 15 videos that appeal to both users.
Translation: TikTok is giving its community a video-based version of the Spotify Blend. Given the popularity of that feature — and the fact that YouTube also copied it for its own music service — TikTok has plenty of reasons to install Shared Feeds in your DMs.
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If the idea of a collaborative playlists appeals to you, but you don’t want the algorithm to curate it, that’s where TikTok’s other new feature comes in. Shared Collections are private video archives that allow two or more users to save videos that are meaningful to them. Instagram previously launched a similar Collections feature, so TikTok appears to be continuing its trend of copying the platform that loves to copy it.
Curating a collection of meaningful videos sounds like a good (and inexpensive) idea for a creative holiday gift. If you plan to go that route, you can add on one of TikTok’s new Greeting Cards, because nothing says “how do you do” like an animated salutation dropped into a loved one’s messages.
Of course, there’s plenty of real holiday shopping to be had on TikTok, too. Even as the app expands its ecommerce presence, it is not abandoning the social media experience that first launched it to prominence. Shared Feeds can bring TikTok users closer together — even if you’ll also discover which of your friends has the weirdest For You Page.
