Photo Credit: TikTok
TikTok looks to boost livestreaming engagement with the launch of an updated Fan Club option to gamify the viewing experience.
TikTok wants more creators to use its livestreaming services, and it’s incentivizing viewership to help do just that. With the launch of Fan Clubs, an updated version of TikTok’s Creator Team, livestreamers in the app can drive community engagement by gamifying the process for their viewers.
Viewers are able to join a creator’s Fan Club by sending a virtual gift during a stream. This automatically enrolls them as a Fan Club member, which means they follow the creator and will be given a list of tasks they can complete to “level up” within that creator’s community.
“Fan Club levels allow your followers to unlock different perks,” explains TikTok. “As they complete missions to earn fan points and level up, they’ll earn rewards and access to exclusive Gifts to send to a creator’s Live videos.”
Missions can range from watching streams to commenting and sending the creator virtual gifts—things fans already do to engage with a streamer’s content. But now, each viewer receives points within the Fan Club, which ranks them on a leaderboard and (theoretically) drives more engagement.
To maintain fan status, viewers must earn points within 7 days of the creator going live, or membership will be paused. TikTok will send a reminder if a user’s fan membership is about to be paused.
Fan Club members can collect rewards for earning points and leveling up. Higher levels reward more incentives, such as access to an exclusive creator chat room, special gifts to be sent during streams, member badges that appear next to your username during the creator’s streams, and more.
TikTok says around 130 million creators worldwide go live on the platform each day, reaching billions of viewers. Giving these viewers fun ways to incentivize engagement with their favorite creators seems obvious, and not unlike some of what its rival streaming platform Twitch offers to encourage viewer engagement.
Meanwhile, YouTube is testing similar incentives, with an engagement leaderboard that, at present, primarily focuses on gaming content creators. Since the audience for such content is already presumably into games and competition, it’s a smart move to give them a means to engage in ways that show their support.
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This post was originally authored and published by Ashley King Digital Music News via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
