TikTok’s looking to prompt more engagement between creators and their fans with the official launch of its new Q and A option, which enables users to pose questions to creators that can then be answered within live broadcasts, or in future video clips.
As explained by TikTok:
“We’re making it easier than ever for people to engage with the release of TikTok Q&A, a new question and answer feature that gives viewers and creators new ways to connect. In videos, users will be able to designate their comments as Q&A questions, which are then labeled as questions in the comments section. This makes it easy for a creator to quickly identify and answer questions in their videos’ comments.”
As you can see here, the new option enables users to post questions via a dedicated button in the comments, which the creator can then use as a prompt to answer in the replies, or for future videos. Creators can also add those Q&A comments as stickers in responses, with the new video then linking back to the original, where the question was first asked.
In addition to this, when creators do answer these queries, they’ll be added to a new ‘Q&A’ section on their profile, which will list all the questions they’ve previously responded to, with links back to the original clips.
The option will also be available in live streams, with creators able to quickly see Q&A questions in their stream chats and reply as they’re able.
The feature was first spotted in testing back in January, with some users able to access the option over the past few months. Up till now, however, the Q&A tool has only been available to Creator Accounts with more than 10K followers, but from today, TikTok is making it available to all users who’ve switched to a Creator profile, providing more ways to build community in the app.
Maximizing fan connection is a key focus for TikTok. By keeping users and creators engaged, and coming back to the app more often, that could also help creators solidify their followings in the app, which could then have implications for future influencer marketing partnerships and developing community.
And if those creators are establishing stronger communities in the app, they’ll have less reason to migrate elsewhere – like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts – which could, eventually, offer greater monetization potential, and lure them away from the app.
In order to keep them around, TikTok needs to provide equivalent monetization tools, but facilitating community connection also plays a key role, in various ways, which could make this a highly valuable addition.
If you’re interested (and you have a Creator TikTok account), you can switch on the Q&A in your settings and privacy page.
“Select ‘Creator’, tap ‘Q&A’ and hit the ‘Turn on Q&A’ button to activate the feature. To switch to a Creator Account, select ‘Manage account’ in your settings and choose the ‘Switch to Creator Account’ option. Make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of TikTok to enjoy all that’s new with Q&A.”
You can find out more in TikTok’s official announcement.
