TikTok Stories: How Brands Can Leverage Them in 2024

While TikTok Stories aren’t new, they also haven’t been widely adopted in many brands’ TikTok marketing strategy — that being said, TikTok Stories are a great way to maximize your content creating efforts and employ another touchpoint to share short-form video. 

Entertaining audiences is important, but building community is equally important — and posting Stories are a great way to speak directly to your audience with video content you know they’ll love. 

In this blog, we explore: 

• What are TikTok Stories?
• How do TikTok Stories work?
• How to see TikTok Stories.
• How to post a TikTok Story.
• How to delete a TikTok Story.
• How brands use TikTok Stories.
• Creative ways to use TikTok Stories. 

What Are TikTok Stories?

TikTok Stories are short-form, time-sensitive images or videos shared to your TikTok account that last up to 60 seconds long — but how do they differ from typical TikTok videos? TikTok Stories appear on your For You Page and your profile, but aren’t visible on your profile feed like video or carousel posts. Like other platforms, TikTok Stories are only available for others to view for 24 hours after sharing. However, your own Stories will be available in an archive where you can review their performance.  

How Do TikTok Stories Work?

While Story highlights aren’t available for your TikTok profile in the same way they are on Instagram or Facebook, Stories can be viewed by clicking a user's profile photo (a blue ring indicates the user has shared a Story). TikTok Stories can also appear on TikTok’s For You Page. 

It’s important to note that while it’s possible your TikTok Stories will appear on relevant For You Pages, they’re most likely to appear to users who already follow you. 

What’s more, the TikTok Algorithm indicates what content is more likely to appear — and following the TikTok Community Guidelines is essential for being prioritized to appear on the For You Page. Beyond this, engagement is a significant ranking factor for content on TikTok, so Stories with more likes and comments are more likely to appear on users’ profiles who like similar brands or content. 

How To See Stories on TikTok

You can see TikTok Stories in a few different ways — Stories can be found on your For You Page, in the Following tab, or by navigating to a user’s profile. A blue ring will appear around their profile avatar if the user has an active TikTok Story. Clicking their profile photo will bring you to their Stories. 

How To Post a TikTok Story

It’s fairly simple to get started on TikTok and post a Story. This is how to share time-sensitive Stories: 

• In the TikTok app, select the ‘+’ icon in the center-middle of the bottom toolbar. 
• Film a video or image like you normally would. Add any filters, effects or sounds here. Click the red checkmark in the bottom right corner when complete. 
• Enter your caption, tags and any other necessary edits. 
• Select ‘Add to Story.’ 
• Now, your video or image will be shared for 24 to your TikTok Stories. 

How To Delete a TikTok Story

Luckily, deleting a TikTok Story is as simple as deleting a classic TikTok posted to your feed. To delete a TikTok Story:

• Go to your profile and select the Story you want to delete. 
• Click the three dots found in the bottom right corner. 
• From there, click ‘Delete.’
• Your TikTok Story is now deleted. 

How Brands Are Using TikTok Stories

TikTok Stories let brands connect with their community, share content and increase engagement. Stories can tease longer posts on your feed, provide in-the-moment updates and more — here's how Birdie uses TikTok Stories in their social media marketing strategy.   

Birdies 

Birdies uses TikTok Stories to promote new social media campaigns — this example is announcing their new campaign, which encourages teachers to use the hashtag ‘#BirdiesBestInClass’ to show-off how they wear Birdies shoes as the school year begins. 

More Ways To Use TikTok Stories

It’s always beneficial to see how competitors and other brands use TikTok Stories — but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to forge your own path. 

Experiment With Different Types of Content

What’s better than testing and finding new, effective tactics with very little risk? To a social marketer, this is ideal. 

TikTik Stories give you the opportunity to play around with different styles of video content or images — this is especially useful if you want to try a different content style in your TikTok feed, but are hesitant to disrupt your feed with a whole new style. It also gives you the chance to experiment with sharing content at different times. User behavior can change over time — especially if you want to target a new audience. Continuing to discover your unique, best time to post on TikTok helps maximize your content efforts by getting your content out to the right audience at the right time. 

Tap Into Influencers

More brands than ever are tapping into TikTok influencer marketing — even financial brands are partnering with influencers on TikTok to promote various financial services. Stories present one more avenue to share content created with brand ambassadors, creators and influencers to help reach a global audience on TikTok. 
35% of consumers have made a purchase after seeing an influencer promote a particular product — Stories are a great way to spread their influence even further. 

Let Users Peek Behind The Curtain

Due to the immediate nature of TikTok Stories, this is a great medium to share what’s happening behind the scenes. This could be a fun Q&A with staff like SheerLuxe often shares on their TikTok, a glimpse at what goes on at a product shoot and any other ‘behind the curtain’ TikTok video ideas relevant to your industry.

Build Your Community

Since TikTok Stories are most likely to be seen by users that already follow you, this makes them the perfect tool to engage with your community on a deeper level. This could be through sharing relevant memes you don’t necessarily want to share in your feed, funny comments, question and answers, your favorite UGC or any other content you think your audience will like. 

Using a Community Manager feature also helps you promptly reply to comments from your followers, and gauge exactly what they say and how they feel about your brand. This is where sentiment analysis comes in, which attributes positive, neutral or negative sentiments to community comments. 

Tell the Full Story With TikTok Insights by Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson’s TikTok Insights are a great way to schedule TikTok posts, discover TikTok trending sounds, engage with your community (TikTok comments go straight to your community inbox) and monitor your performance in one convenient location. This helps streamline your workflow and gives your team more time to plan and create TikTok content. Beyond this, Dash Hudson offers social commerce solutions to make your workflow as seamless as possible. 56% of consumers have purchased products promoted on TikTok, while 36% report they haven’t but are open to doing so — brands risk losing these valuable conversions without a user-friendly, streamlined checkout process. LikeShop for TikTok lets users go straight from their For You Page to your website but also lets your team customize your LikeShop page to align with campaigns and new launches, monitor the path customers take from your content to the checkout and more.

FAQs

How long do TikTok Stories last?

Originally, TikTok Stories only lasted up to 15 seconds — now, users can share a Story for up to 10 minutes, which is the longest filming time available in the native TikTok app. 

Who can see TikTok Stories?

Unless your account is set to private, everyone who follows you can see your TikTok Stories when they visit your profile — and there’s also the chance they’ll appear on your followers’ For You Pages or on users’ foods who like similar content.  

Are TikTok Stories private?

Similar to other content on TikTok, privacy settings on TikTok Stories can be adjusted. You can set your Stories to ‘Private’, or adjust the privacy settings on a per-video basis. Here’s how to set all your TikTok Stories to private before you post:

• Tap the three lines in the top right corner of your TikTok profile.
• Click ‘Settings and privacy.’ 
• Select ‘Privacy’ under the ‘Accounts’ banner.
• Under ‘Interactions,’ select ‘Story.’ 
• From there, you can adjust who can see your TikTok content — everyone, followers you follow back, or only your own account. 

Here’s how to adjust privacy settings on an individual Story: 

• Select the three bottoms in the bottom right corner. 
• Click ‘Privacy settings.’
• From there, you can select who can view your Stories — everyone, friends (followers who follow you back), or only your own account. 
• You can also decide whether or not you want to allow comments here — simply toggle the button right to allow comments and one-liners, or left to turn them off.