TikTok has introduced “animated video stickers” for direct messages, similar to GIFs. Users can browse through popular video stickers uploaded by others or create their own by selecting a video from their liked, posted, and favorite videos, and then selecting how much of the video they want to be part of their video sticker. The feature is an expansion of TikTok stickers, which were launched in December 2020. The video stickers are expected to help TikTok expand its social features and attract more users to spend time on the app.
TikTok has recently launched a new feature called “animated video stickers” for direct messages, which works similar to GIFs. The new feature was first discovered by product intelligence firm Watchful.ai and was confirmed by TikTok to TechCrunch. The animated video stickers are an expansion of TikTok stickers, which were rolled out in December 2020, and allow users to create and upload their own custom images to be used in direct messages.
The purpose of video stickers is to make direct messages more fun and engaging for users. Users can browse through popular video stickers uploaded by other users or create their own. To create a video sticker, users can select the “create sticker” option in a direct message window. From there, users can select a video from their liked, posted, and favorite videos. This means users can create video stickers from their own content or from content posted by others. Once a video is selected, users can use video-scrubbing thumbnails to select how much of the video they want to be part of their video sticker. There’s also the option to add text to the video sticker or crop the content.
When a user is done creating their video sticker, they can choose to save it to their personal sticker library or add it to the sticker store on TikTok. If a user chooses to add it to the sticker store, other users will be able to discover and use the video sticker. TikTok notes that it only displays videos with sticker permissions, which means users don’t have to worry about misusing a creator’s video without their consent. Creators can opt out of allowing others to create video stickers based on their videos by changing their privacy settings.
Users who don’t want to create their own video sticker can browse through top, trending, and new video stickers that people have created and are using on the app. The new feature gives users a way to share content from the app in new ways. For instance, instead of simply sharing an entire video with someone via DM, users can share a specific part of it by turning it into a video sticker. Or, if there’s a part of a video that a user and a friend find particularly funny and find themselves referencing often, they can create a video sticker of it.
The video stickers feature is expected to help TikTok expand its social features to get users to spend even more time on its app. This comes after the company quietly expanded its direct messaging settings earlier this year. TikTok now gives users a choice of who they want to receive messages from, including everyone, suggested friends, mutual followers, people they’ve sent messages to, or no one. Prior to this change, only people users had identified as friends or were recommended could send a DM to each other on the platform.
TikTok has already proven itself as a successful entertainment platform, and with the addition of the video stickers feature, it’s likely that users will spend even more time on the app. Other social media platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram all have stickers that users can send to one another in direct messages. TikTok’s focus on what it’s known for, which is video, will set it apart from other platforms and make it more appealing to users who are looking for new and innovative ways to express themselves through video.
