TikTok is full of awesome pre-recorded musical parodies. You can scroll through the “For You” page for hours, watching your favorite recorded videos from some of the best creators on TikTok. In fact, you might even create some of those videos yourself. But what about going live so that your followers can see you in real-time? After all, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are all social media platforms that allow you to “Go Live”, so what about TikTok?
TikTok, just like the others, allows you to take your content live for everyone to see in real-time. If you’re wondering how you can start your own live stream on TikTok, follow along below and we’ll show you how step-by-step. Let’s get started.
How to go live stream
At first, it might be confusing on how to start a live stream on TikTok. The platform doesn’t necessarily make it very obvious as to how to go live.
The first step is to open the TikTok app and log into the account that you want to live stream on. Once you’re logged in you can press the “+” button, the tool used to create pre-recorded TikToks.
Right next to the record button, at the bottom of the screen, you should see an option that says “Live.” Tap it, and you can start to create your live stream.
You’ll want to add an engaging title to your live stream, maybe trying to take advantage of some trending hashtags within the title to really make your stream “pop.”
Finally, hit the “Go Live” button, and your live stream is started instantaneously.
Live isn’t available for everyone
If you don’t see the option to go “Live” next to the record button, there’s a chance that you just don’t have that capability yet. This is because live streaming is currently a feature in the testing phase. That said, it’s on a rolling release, slowly releasing it out to everybody on TikTok. If you don’t have it, make sure your TikTok app is up to date. If that doesn’t fix it, you’ll just have to wait until TikTok brings it to you specifically!
On top of that, there are some rumors that TikTok only allows 1,000 users to be live at a time because of how much stress live streaming can put on the platform. That count varies from country to country, but TikTok still might put limits on how many people can live stream at a time.
How to get the “live” button
There are some ways that you can try and force the Live button to appear, though it isn’t necessarily known if you can actually force it, but it’s still worth a shot.
Some TikTok users say that if you get over 1,000 followers, the Live button will appear. These don’t have to be actual followers — it’s fine to have a mix of actual followers, as well as a bunch of “fake” followers. After you get over 1,000 fans, wait a couple of days, and the Live button should hopefully appear.
The other possible reason why you might not see it is because you’re in the middle of recording a TikTok. If you’re already recording a TikTok, the Live button disappears. Once you’re done recording your TikTok or some audio, the Live button will reappear again.
If you’ve gone live before, there’s also a possibility that you used some banned words, and so TikTok could’ve taken away your ability to go Live. If you use a banned word like “duet” or “follow” or “fan” — and plenty others — TikTok could stop you from going Live ever again. TikTok doesn’t seem to have an exhaustive list of banned words; however, you can find some general guidelines to follow on their own Community Guidelines page.
Verdict
As you can see, if you already have the Live button, it’s actually really easy to start a live stream on TikTok. However, it might be more difficult if you don’t have the TikTok Live button, whether because you haven’t met some fan requirement or if you haven’t been apart of the rolling release.
Have you gone live before on TikTok? Did you have to get the Live button to appear by gaining fans or followers? Let us know in the comments section below!
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