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TikTok has jumped on the text-based bandwagon that’s sweeping the social media sector, with Instagram’s Threads rising rapidly recently.
TikTok is now letting users share content that only contains text, in a move that brings the app into the territory of Twitter and Threads.
The video-focused app said this new feature is a “simple publishing experience” to let users easily share content like stories, poems and recipes. The feature is easily accessible for users and is next to the existing video and text options.
The text posts features comes with some customisation options, similar to some functions available on Instagram. Users can add music, stickers and tag their location or other accounts. They can also change the background colour and add relevant hashtags.
“With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions and videos a dedicated space to shine,” the company said in a blog post. “We’re excited to see what our community will create with text posts, a new way to express and share your creativity on TikTok.”
The new feature comes as Twitter continues to change under the leadership of Elon Musk. The site recently bid adieu to the iconic blue bird logo, as Musk moves to fully rebrand the website as ‘X’. This new X logo is now displayed across the website.
Several reports have claimed Musk wants to turn Twitter into a ‘superapp’ similar to China’s WeChat, where users can avail of social media, instant messaging and instant payment services.
Many users took to what’s left of Twitter to complain about the logo change. But this is not the first time Musk has angered legacy users. The site recently imposed limits to the number of tweets that accounts can see in a day, in a bid to tackle data scraping from other companies.
Shortly after the rate limit was imposed, Meta launched Threads as a challenger app. This became one of the fastest growing social media apps in recent years, surpassing more than 100m users less than five days after its launch.
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