TikTok Slideshows: How Apps Use Them to Get Installs

What is a TikTok slideshow?

TikTok launched Photo Mode in October 2022. It's a carousel of still images that play one after another with music, and viewers can also swipe through at their own pace. People call the result a slideshow, a TikTok carousel or a photo post. They all mean the same thing.

One post can hold up to 35 photos (as of October 2026). Instagram's version, the carousel, holds up to 20. For app marketing you rarely need more than five to eight slides to tell one story.

Design slides at 9:16, typically 1080 × 1920 pixels, so they fill the screen. Keep text in the middle of the frame, because TikTok's buttons sit on the right and the caption sits at the bottom.

Why slideshows work for app marketing

• They're cheap to make. No filming means you can post more often and test more hooks.
• The first slide is the test. If the hook slide fails, nothing after it matters. Change the first slide, keep the rest, and you can see which hooks work.
• Text carries the story. Slideshows work with the sound off, and viewers read at their own pace.
• You can show the real app. A screenshot on slide three or four shows what the app does without the feel of a polished ad.
• Lists get saved. Tips and how-tos are the kind of post people keep to come back to.

One public write-up shows how far a founder can take it. Shortimize, a short-form analytics company, looked at the TikTok account of Stronger Mobile, a workout planner app whose founder posted about 725 times in 295 days. The article says 98% of the account's high-performing posts were slideshows and credits the approach with more than 700,000 users. It doesn't say where that figure comes from, so treat it as reported, not audited.

The structure is the useful part. A hook slide creates tension, the next slide builds it, and the app arrives as the release on slide two or three.

6 TikTok slideshow formats that drive downloads

Each template below has a fixed shape. Swap in your users' problem and it fits almost any app. Most examples are slides Feedrick made for sample apps we set up.

1. Before and after

Show the pain, then the fix. For TinyLoop, a sample habit app: "Before: 40-day streak. One sick week. Zero." Then "What the old tracker did to a sick week," "After: same week, one tap," "Your week, in dots" and "Miss a day? Tomorrow just gets smaller."

2. Myth vs. fact

Name a belief your users hold, then correct it. For DeepNook, a sample focus app: "Myth: you wasted the afternoon on one big thing," then "Fact: it was a lot of tiny things," "Willpower isn't the missing piece," "Hide the rest, keep one task" and "Log off with something real finished."

3. This vs. that

Put two ways of living side by side. BudgetBird, a sample budgeting app for freelancers, opened with "Rich for ten days vs. steady all quarter." LingoDrop, a sample language app, used "Tapping answers vs. answering a real landlord."

4. The ranking

Rank options from worst to best, with your app's approach at the top. StrideBack, a sample running app, ranked rest days: the couch and scrolling at the bottom, a guilty stretch at 10pm in the middle, rest days that count at the top. Rankings invite comments from people who'd order them differently.

5. Things I wish I knew

Five lessons, one per slide, written as if by someone a few months ahead of the viewer. For a running app, that might be "Things I wish I knew before running again after ten years." Put the app in the lesson where it solves a problem, not on every slide.

6. The timeline

Walk through what happens week by week or month by month. LingoDrop's carousel paired "Week one is conversations, not vocab lists" with one slide per month: replaying a scenario before you fly, the cafe order out loud and picking the scenes you'll face.

How to make a TikTok slideshow: in the app, in Canva or with AI

In the TikTok app

1. Make your slides first, at 9:16, and save them to your phone in order.
2. Start a new post, choose Photo instead of video, and select the slides.
3. Add text if the slides don't have it, then pick a sound.
4. Write a caption that adds to the hook rather than repeating it, and post.

If you post as a business, pick music from TikTok's Commercial Music Library. TikTok says businesses can't use the general music library for commercial content (as of October 2026).

In Canva

Canva's free plan is enough to design slides. Set up a 1080 × 1920 page, duplicate it, write one line per page and download the pages as images. As of October 2026, Canva Pro costs $144 a year and adds social scheduling. Either way, you still write every hook yourself.

With AI, from your website

Many AI carousel generators start from a prompt, so you still supply the angle. Feedrick starts from your website or app store link instead. It reads what you sell, who it's for and what they're tired of, then makes carousels: five slides that tell one story or teach one thing. Each carousel costs 1 credit. You keep or skip it in the review queue, and each choice teaches the next batch. Kept carousels are scheduled and posted for you. On TikTok they go out as a photo slideshow with music added for you, and on YouTube as a slideshow video.

TikTok slideshow makers compared: ReelFarm, Canva, Feedrick

Prices below were checked in October 2026. Check each site before you buy, because plans change.

ReelFarm vs. Feedrick

ReelFarm is built around slideshows at volume. Its plans include unlimited TikTok accounts and automations that publish every day, and its own pricing puts the entry plan at $49 a month for 100 slideshows. It suits someone running a network of faceless pages.

Feedrick is built around one brand's own accounts. It starts from your website, makes carousels alongside memes and short videos starring AI influencers, and nothing posts until you keep it. A carousel costs 1 credit, so Starter's 100 monthly credits cover about three a day. If you only want slideshows on many accounts, ReelFarm fits. If you want a mix of formats for your own app across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, Feedrick fits better. See pricing.

Whatever you use, watch where the images come from. Photos found on Pinterest or in search results belong to someone. Your own screenshots, images you have the rights to and generated images are safer.

Posting cadence and testing TikTok slideshow hooks

• Post often. One to three slideshows a day, alongside your videos, is a reasonable target if you can sustain it. Cheap formats are where your volume comes from.
• Test hooks, not slides. Keep slides two to five the same and change only the first. Five hooks on the same body is a clean test.
• Reuse what works. The Shortimize write-up describes the same habit: once a hook or image set did well, the account used it again.
• Measure past views. Watch saves, shares, profile visits and comments asking for the app's name. For installs, use a separate tracked link per platform, as covered in our guide on how to market an app on TikTok and Instagram.
• Stay original and labeled. TikTok's For You feed standards make reposted content without new creative edits ineligible for recommendation. If your slides show realistic AI-made people, TikTok's guidelines require an AI label. Feedrick marks every TikTok post it publishes as AI-generated.

Slideshows pair well with memes, which are even quicker to make. Our meme marketing guide covers how to write them.

Questions