TikTok has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 1 billion monthly active users. On TikTok, users can create and share short videos set to music, effects, and more. One way TikTok users can engage with videos is by “favoriting” them. Favoriting a TikTok video allows you to save it to a private list to easily find it again later. However, there has been some confusion around whether creators get notified when someone favorites their video.
In this article, we’ll explain exactly how the TikTok favorite feature works. We’ll cover whether creators get notified when you favorite their videos, how they can see their favorites, and the impact it has. The goal is to provide clarity around what favoriting a TikTok does and the notifications around it.
What Does Favoriting a TikTok Do?
Favoriting a video on TikTok allows you to save that video to your Favorites tab for later viewing. When you tap the bookmark icon on a video, it gets added to your Favorites collection (Later.com1). This lets you easily find and rewatch videos you enjoyed or wanted to see again without having to scroll through your For You feed searching for them.
Favoriting is a way to bookmark TikTok videos you like so you can access them quickly in one organized place in your Favorites tab. It’s similar to liking a video, but keeps it stored for you to revisit anytime. Overall, favoriting a TikTok video simply saves that video to your Favorites collection for future viewing.
Do Creators Get Notified When You Favorite a Video?
No, creators do not get notified when someone favorites their video on TikTok. Favoriting a video is an anonymous way for viewers to bookmark content they like. Unlike liking or commenting on a video, the creator has no way of knowing who specifically favorited their content.
This used to not be the case. In October 2022, TikTok briefly tested notifying creators when someone favorited their video (source). However, this feature was met with backlash from users and removed shortly after. Many felt it took away the privacy of favoriting anonymously.
Currently, there is no notification sent to creators when you favorite their TikTok video. It simply allows you to save it privately to access later. You can favorite as many videos as you want without creators knowing.
Other Ways to Interact with TikTok Videos
In addition to favoriting videos, there are other ways TikTok users can engage with content on the platform. Two of the most popular are commenting and sharing.
When you comment on a video, the creator will receive a notification that you left a comment. They can then reply back to your comment if they choose. Leaving thoughtful and relevant comments is a great way to start a conversation with a creator and engage with their content. Creators often appreciate comments as feedback on their videos.
Sharing or reposting a TikTok video also notifies the creator. When you tap the share button on a video and share it to your own feed or as a message to friends, the original creator will see that their content has been shared. Sharing helps spread a creator’s content to new audiences, which is beneficial for them. The more a video gets shared, the more reach it typically gets.
So while favorites do not notify creators, commenting and sharing are two very effective ways to interact with and notify creators that you enjoyed their content on TikTok.
Source: https://www.tiktok.com/@falter.media/video/7143770705413475627
Why Creators Don’t Get Favorites Notifications
There are a few key reasons why TikTok does not send notifications to creators when someone favorites their video:
- Volume of favorites – With billions of users, favorites happen constantly on TikTok. Sending a notification for every single favorite would be overwhelming for creators.
- Prefer engagement – TikTok wants to encourage more participatory interaction, like comments, shares, and duets. Favoriting is more passive, so they prioritize notifying creators about more active forms of engagement.
- Avoid notification fatigue – Getting inundated with favorites notifications could lead creators to ignore or turn off notifications entirely. TikTok wants to avoid this notification fatigue.
- Focus on virality – TikTok’s algorithm rewards videos that get shared and gain organic reach. Favorites don’t necessarily indicate a video will go viral, so they’re lower priority.
In summary, by not sending favorites notifications, TikTok aims to provide creators with the most useful notifications focused on active engagement. This helps creators understand which content is truly resonating with the TikTok community.
How Creators Can See Their Favorites
While creators don’t get notifications when someone favorites their video, they can still see this engagement data in TikTok Analytics. To access TikTok Analytics, creators simply need to go to their profile page, tap the three dots icon, select “Creator Tools”, and then choose “Analytics”.
In the Analytics section, creators can view metrics like total favorites, as well as see a graph showing how many favorites they received each day. There is also a feature that shows the top videos ranked by number of favorites. By clicking on a specific video, creators can view more detailed analytics, including the total number of favorites for that video.
Additionally, under the “Followers” tab in Analytics, creators have the ability to see which individual users have favorited their videos. This allows them to identify their top fans based on favorites.
So while favorites don’t trigger real-time notifications, creators have tools to retrospectively view favorites data and see who has interacted with their content in this way. Checking Analytics helps creators understand what types of videos resonate best with their audience.[1][2]
Impact on Creators
The lack of favorite notifications has both pros and cons for TikTok creators.
On the positive side, not getting a notification for every single favorite could help prevent creators from getting overwhelmed by too many notifications. As this Reddit discussion notes, some creators feel they were banned from favoriting videos because the original creator was getting too many notifications from them.
Additionally, without a favorite notification, creators may be motivated to focus more on engagement through comments and shares rather than just favorites. As discussed on this TikTok video, many creators want meaningful engagement, not just passive likes.
On the downside, not getting notifications for favorites means creators don’t know in real-time which of their videos are resonating most with viewers. As explained on TikTok’s support site, creators only receive notifications about comments, new followers, shares, etc. – not favorites.
Without this immediate feedback loop, creators may struggle to optimize their content strategy. They don’t know which types of videos get the most favorites, so it’s harder to produce more of that desired content.
Overall, while no favorite notifications reduces noise for creators, it also limits their insights. Creators have to weigh these pros and cons when analyzing their TikTok data and engagement.
Impact on Viewers
There are some pros and cons for viewers when it comes to TikTok not sending notifications for favorites. On the positive side, this provides more privacy for viewers. When you favorite a video on TikTok, the creator does not receive a notification. This means you can interact with content and curate your Favorites list privately without the creator being notified each time. Some viewers may prefer this approach if they want to keep their activity more anonymous.
On the other hand, the lack of notifications also means there are fewer opportunities for viewers to directly connect with creators. If favorites did trigger notifications, it could open the door for more conversations and engagement between viewers and creators. Some viewers may want creators to know when their content is appreciated. Without notifications, it can be harder for these connections to organically occur.
Overall, while the lack of notifications does prioritize viewer privacy, it also somewhat limits the social interactions on the platform. Viewers have to weigh these pros and cons themselves and decide what matters most to them.
Other Social Media Favorite Notifications
On other popular social media platforms, creators are also not notified when someone favorites or likes their content. This includes sites like Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and more.
On Instagram, users can like photos or videos by double-tapping them, but the creator does not receive a notification each time. They can only see the total number of likes on a post. The same applies to YouTube, where users can like videos but creators are not alerted on each individual like. There are also options to save posts or bookmark videos as favorites privately.
Reddit has a similar upvote system, where users can upvote content but the original poster is not notified. The number of upvotes is public but there are no individual notifications. Twitter favorites also do not trigger notifications, only allowing content creators to view the total favorites on a tweet.
Overall, TikTok’s lack of favorite notifications aligns with how other top social platforms handle likes, favorites, or upvotes. The focus is more on aggregate metrics rather than individual notifications, which could become overwhelming for creators producing viral content.
Summary
In summary, creators do not get notified when someone favorites their TikTok video. The act of favoriting a video simply saves it to your own private favorites collection. It does not alert the creator or boost the video’s visibility in any direct way.
However, creators can still see the total number of favorites their videos receive in Creator Analytics. So favoriting is still a way to show appreciation and indirectly support your favorite creators, even if they don’t get real-time notifications about it. Favoriting can also help train the TikTok algorithm to show you more content from those creators.
In the end, the main takeaway is that favoriting a TikTok does not notify the creator directly or instantly. But it still allows you to save videos you enjoy and offers creators aggregate data on how their content resonates with viewers.
