TikTok Must Eat Guide: What Food Creators Should Know

TikTok launched Must Eat this week, an in-app restaurant guide built on 40 million posts, reviews and comments. If you post food content, this is a new discovery channel that connects your videos to people searching for places to eat.

What Must Eat is

Must Eat is a section inside TikTok that turns food videos and comments into restaurant recommendation guides. Users can search for restaurants on a map, read reviews, call and make reservations, and see videos about each business. The feature is available in New York City, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

TikTok US CEO Adam Presser called Must Eat "the compilation of all of the conversation that's happening on the TikTok platform across creators, restaurateurs, [and] individuals" who make videos or leave comments about local restaurants.

The feature has two category tabs: "everyday eats" and "elevated dining". Users can sort and filter by rating, distance, cuisine type and what is currently open. Each restaurant page links to TikTok videos about the business. Diners can bookmark restaurants to save them for later.

How it compares to Yelp

Must Eat falls somewhere between Yelp and more curated recommendations from publications like The Infatuation. Restaurants cannot pay to be featured in Must Eat recommendation lists.

The feature is an expansion of TikTok Go, which launched earlier this year and allowed creators to tag and link to locations for hotel and attraction bookings.

What this means for food creators

This is a new way for people to find your content when they are actively looking for a place to eat, not just scrolling their feed.

TikTok says 27 million US diners went to a restaurant, cafe or shop for the first time thanks to the platform last year.

How to use Must Eat as a creator

• Tag the restaurant in your video. Must Eat links videos to restaurant pages, so tagging the location helps your content appear there.
• Post reviews and recommendations. Must Eat is built on reviews and comments, not just videos. A short review in the comments or caption can add to the guide.
• Focus on local businesses. Must Eat is currently only in New York City, Los Angeles and the Bay Area. If you post about restaurants in those regions, your content is more likely to appear in the guide.
• Show the food and the experience. Videos that show what the food looks like, how it is presented and what the restaurant is like give viewers the information they are looking for.

What to avoid

• Do not expect Must Eat to replace your main feed. Must Eat is a separate section for people searching for restaurants. Your videos still need to perform in the main feed to reach a wide audience.
• Do not post about restaurants outside the launch regions. Must Eat is only in New York City, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Turn food videos into clips

If you have long food videos or streams, upload them to ViceForge and choose AI Creator. The AI picks moments based on what you say, reactions and strong statements, and adds captions automatically. MP4, MOV, AVI and WebM are supported.

Tag the location when you post your finished clip with captions as a Short, Reel or TikTok video.

Sources

• The Verge: TikTok is launching an in-app restaurant guide