Photo Credit: TikTok
TikTok has just launched an opt-in local feed in the US, leveraging users’ precise location information to display content related to travel, events, and more. That raises a hopeful question for the music industry: could this shift TikTok’s promo in favor of local artists and scenes?
On Wednesday, TikTok’s U.S. joint venture announced a new Local Feed to leverage users’ precise location information and display content related to events, dining, shopping, travel, news, and more. The move confirms the reason—or one of the reasons, at least—the U.S.-based version of the app changed its terms of service to include that it would begin to collect location information from its users.
The company notes that users will be able to control whether precise location sharing is on, with the default set to “off,” confirming this will be an opt-in feature and users won’t be blindsided. A similar Local Feed feature rolled out to select European markets in December, including France, Italy, Germany, and the UK.
According to TikTok, the Local Feed is intended to help users stay connected to their local community, showing posts based on location, content topic, and when they were posted. That aims to make it a more up-to-date feed of local information, such as new restaurant openings, local concerts, and other events.
It’s also part of the company’s broader push to attract more small businesses to the platform, both to produce content and for advertising revenue. This, TechCrunch points out, could help protect TikTok from further regulation in the United States by enabling it to claim—much like Meta—that many small businesses rely on the platform for customer reach.
At this early stage, it’s difficult to predict the impact on the music industry ecosystem. But one hopeful outcome is that TikTok’s enormous promotional blasts will soon benefit local artists, scenes, and shows — though time will tell.
TikTok says 7.5 million businesses already use the platform to reach customers worldwide, noting that these businesses support over 28 million employees, citing a 2025 Oxford Economics report. Further, the company said that 84% of TikTok small business users said the platform helped grow their business, and 74% said it helped them connect with their local community, per data from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.
TikTok notes that the feature will be available only to users 18 and older and will collect data only while the app is in use.
