TikTok is expanding the pilot of its Stories feature

TikTok is expanding the pilot of its Stories feature, which the platform previously confirmed was in testing last summer.

Like an Instagram story, TikTok Stories last for 24 hours before they are automatically deleted, and they can be viewed by navigating to a user’s profile and clicking their profile picture. Stories also seem to be appearing on the For You page. As the poster, you can see how many people viewed your story, but unlike Instagram, you can’t see who viewed it. But, you can like a story and leave a public comment, whereas on Instagram, commenters can only reply to the poster directly in a private message.

To post a story, click the “post” button on the bottom center navigation bar of the app. Then, you can scroll to a “quick” camera mode, which lets you post a photo or a video to your story. These videos have the same creation options as normal TikTok videos, allowing you to reply to comments, use filters and more. Photos don’t have quite the same functionality — you don’t need a recording timer for a photo, since, you know, it’s a photo — but you can still add music and effects to photos.

Image Credits: TikTok; screenshot by TechCrunch

Not all users will have access to this feature yet. From our testing, it appears that if you don’t have the feature, you can’t see stories that users with the feature have uploaded. We gained access to the feature from our U.S.-based account, but users in the U.K. have also reported access to stories.

“Currently, we’re expanding a pilot test, which provides creators with additional formats to bring their creative ideas to life for the TikTok community,” a TikTok spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.

This story is developing…