Katie Collins
If your TikTok for You page is anything like mine at the moment, you can’t scroll through more than one or two videos without hitting Taylor Swift content. TikTok has been encouraging engagement with the world’s biggest singer-songwriter through its interactive in-app fan experience, which it launched in March 2023.
As Swift prepares to play the first of her eight sellout Eras Tour shows at London’s Wembley Stadium this week, TikTok launched the next phase of its fan experience. The social media platform is encouraging Swifties to complete weekly challenges across the next 11 weeks (one for each of Swift’s albums), all of which will earn them themed profile frames and beads to make their own digital friendship bracelets.
As a video-based platform, TikTok has proved to be an important space for people to engage with music both new and old. For young artists breaking through, it’s an opportunity for them to connect with new audiences, whereas for more established musicians like Swift, TikTok is a forum for meeting her fans where they are. Fan experiences, such as the one TikTok has created with Swift, are designed to help fans go even deeper than simply watching the 5 million Eras Tour-related videos on the platform.
Things haven’t been totally smooth sailing for TikTok on the music front this year, after it failed to reach an agreement with Swift’s label, Universal Music Group. That failure saw UMG artists’ tracks stripped from the platform for three months, only returning in May. Swift was the first UMG artist to return to TikTok, with the launch of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April.
Other new features TikTok is adding to its Taylor Swift fan experience include video highlights from each tour stop and a playlist tied to each weekly album theme. To access the experience, fans can click on the anchor that appears next to Taylor Swift content on TikTok, or interact with the search banners that pop up on related Eras Tour search terms.