How to Go Live on TikTok.

The short answer

To go live on TikTok, the person hosting must be 18 or over and the account must meet the other conditions TikTok sets for LIVE. If it does, tap the plus button, choose LIVE, add an image and a title, then tap Go LIVE. If LIVE is not offered, check eligibility before anything else.

Eligibility decides whether the button exists

A LIVE asks for different planning from the short-form video most brands already post on TikTok, but before any of the craft matters, the account has to be allowed to stream. In our view the requirements stop more brand accounts than the content ever does, so check them before you plan anything.

Age comes first. TikTok raised the minimum age to host a LIVE from 16 to 18 on 23 November 2022, and said so in its newsroom at the time.

Gifting has its own age rule. TikTok’s Virtual Items Policy says buying Coins, sending Gifts, receiving Gifts with monetary value and earning Diamonds are open only to people aged 18, or the age of majority in their jurisdiction. So the age for gifting and earning depends on the user’s jurisdiction.

Why the LIVE option might be missing

Third-party guides commonly cite a follower minimum of 1,000 for LIVE. We would not plan around a figure you read second-hand, because the conditions are TikTok’s to change. The app is the only reliable check.

If LIVE is not among the options on the camera screen, work through the obvious causes before assuming a bug:

• The age on the account is under 18.
• The account does not yet meet TikTok’s other LIVE conditions, such as a follower count.
• The app is out of date. TikTok’s own LIVE guide for businesses tells you to update the app before you stream.

None of these are fixed by a better content plan. Sort eligibility, then plan.

How to go live on TikTok from the app

Once the account qualifies, starting a stream is quick:

1. Open the app and tap the plus button to open the camera.
2. Select LIVE from the options along the bottom of the screen.
3. Choose a cover image, write a title (you can change it later), add a topic if you want one, and set a goal for the stream.
4. Tap Go LIVE.

To end the stream, tap the X in the top-left corner. That is the whole mechanical job. Everything that decides whether the stream was worth running happens before step one.

Set the controls before you go live

Once a stream is running, the host can flip the camera, add effects, filter comments and add moderators. Do the moderation part before you start, not halfway through a pile-on.

Two tools matter most for a brand:

• Moderators. Assign them in advance so someone other than the host can act on the chat.
• Comment filters. Since July 2025, a host or moderator can enter a keyword, phrase or emoji, and comments carrying it will not appear in the chat. Anyone who posted it, or posts it later, is muted for as long as the creator chooses. TikTok said the tool was available to all creators globally.

Build the filter list from what your comments already attract. The same discipline applies to moderating TikTok comments on ordinary posts, and the list you keep there is the starting point for a stream.

A LIVE is a show, not a broadcast

The most common brand LIVE is a camera pointed at someone who hopes the chat will carry it. It rarely does.

People drop into a stream mid-way, often from the For You feed, with no idea what is happening. A stream needs a reason to stay that a newcomer understands within seconds, and a structure that rewards them for staying. That is a show. Plan it like one.

Step 1: Give people a reason to stay

Every stream needs one promise a viewer can grasp on arrival. Some shapes that work for brands:

• A question and answer session with someone who genuinely knows the product.
• A behind the scenes look at something the audience never normally sees.
• A demonstration or tutorial that would be harder to follow in a short clip.
• A guest, using Multi-Guest. When TikTok upgraded the feature in 2022, hosts could bring in up to five guests in a grid or panel layout.

Write the promise into the title. If you cannot say why someone should stay in one line, the stream is not ready.

Step 2: Write a running order

TikTok’s LIVE guide for businesses tells you to plan with an outline or script and to build around a clear narrative and theme. We would go further: write a running order with timed segments.

Imagine a skincare brand running a 30 minute stream. It might open with the one question its comments ask most, move to a live demonstration, take chat questions, then close on a teaser for next week. Each segment has an owner and a rough length.

A running order also gives the host somewhere to return when the chat goes quiet. Silence on a stream reads as a dead stream, and viewers leave.

Step 3: Staff it like a production

A single person cannot host, read the chat, moderate and watch the technical side at once. For anything more than a casual stream, split the jobs:

• A host who talks to camera and keeps the energy up.
• A moderator who handles the chat and the filters.
• A producer who watches the running order, the time and the connection.

This is where most brand LIVEs fall over. Not the idea, the operation behind it. If your team cannot spare three people for half an hour, that is a resourcing question to settle before the first stream, and it is the kind of rhythm our social media management work is built around.

Step 4: Run a trial stream

TikTok’s business guide recommends a trial livestream to get familiar with the LIVE features and confirm a stable internet connection. Do it with the real setup: the same room, the same lighting, the same microphone, the same people in their roles.

The point is to find the problems without an audience. A dropped connection, a host who cannot see the chat, a moderator who has never used the filter tool. Other platforms are building rehearsal into the product itself, as YouTube did when it let creators rehearse a vertical livestream. On TikTok, the rehearsal is yours to schedule.

Step 5: Tell people before you go live

A stream with no warning depends on whoever happens to be scrolling. TikTok’s guide suggests sharing a video before the stream to draw viewers in, and notes that a badge on the For You Page lets people join a stream straight away.

Pick a time when your audience is most active, which your TikTok analytics will show you. Then make it a fixture. A stream at the same time each week gives people something to come back to, which a one-off never can.

What good looks like

A good brand LIVE on TikTok is unremarkable to set up and clear to watch:

• Eligibility is confirmed weeks before the first stream, not discovered on the day.
• The title states one promise, and the first minute delivers on it.
• A running order exists, with timed segments and an owner for each.
• Moderators and comment filters are set before Go LIVE.
• A trial stream has caught the technical problems.
• The stream is announced, and it repeats on a fixed slot.

None of that is about the camera. It is about the system around it.

Next step

If your team keeps trying LIVE and getting little back, the stream is rarely the problem. NBK can help find the constraint in the system behind it, from who owns the running order to how the slot fits the rest of your publishing.