Ultra.
“Have you seen TikTok?” This is a question you may find yourself asking or answering daily. The truth is that TikTok is no longer just a coping mechanism to help folks stuck at home get through a global pandemic. Newsflash—TikTok is a monetizable platform that has endless opportunities for content creators (you can read more about making money on TikTok in this article). If you’re interested in learning how to grow on TikTok, you’re in the right place. Ahead, we have ten helpful tips to increase your followers and grow your brand on the platform.
Jump on Trends and Challenges (within reason)
User’s recreating the same content over and over is an interesting part of TikTok that you wouldn’t really understand unless you’ve spent time on the app. Essentially, someone starts a trend, then another person puts their spin on it—so on and so forth. If there’s a trend or challenge that you genuinely enjoy and can find a way to adapt to your niche, go for it. Getting in early can drastically increase your chances of ending up on the For You Page, which means more visibility and, of course, more followers. If you want to learn more about TikTok trends and the importance of adapting them to your niche, you should read this article and report back with your findings.
Use Trending Sounds, Music, and Filters
Speaking of trends, sounds, music, and filters are also a way to increase your visibility on TikTok and inevitably gain more followers. The great thing about TikTok is that it allows you to save these elements in folders so you can return to them when you’re ready to create. One quick word of advice: save and actually use them—don’t think too hard about it.
Use Hashtags
Think of hashtags as a universal language used across social media platforms that help organize content on these respective apps. Hashtags aren’t only great for grouping together like content; it’s also a great way to put content in front of people who may enjoy it the most. Unlike Instagram, hashtags on TikTok are only searchable if they appear in your caption, which you can’t edit after posting. So choose relevant and trending hashtags and remember to put them in your caption before you hit upload. For a full rundown on using hashtags on TikTok, check out this article and have your notepad ready.
Use Voiceover and Captions to Make Your TikToks More Engaging
Considering TikTok is a video platform, creating stellar videos should always be your priority. However, captions and voiceovers can help anyone watching your video (including potential new followers) better understand what is going on and push them to engage with your content or press the follow button.
With captions, you want to keep them short and sweet without distracting from the video itself. Your captions should essentially provide valuable extra information that a user may not know otherwise—see an example here where a TikToker shares some of their favorite makeup and uses the captions to give viewers shades for reference.
Your voiceovers should clarify what’s happening in the video. Still, you shouldn’t be rambling as you may lose the viewer in the process, which will ultimately deter them from clicking your profile, watching some of your other content, and following you. Check out this video that shows good use of voiceovers in a lifestyle “day in the life” TikTok.
Engage with Creators in Your Niche
Even if your primary goal is to grow as a content creator on TikTok, you need to take the time to connect with people and engage when you’re not creating or uploading content. Digitally rubbing elbows with the right creators in your niche will prompt TikTok to push your content to their followers, who TikTok believes would also be interested in your content. When your engagement starts to increase, it’s a sign to TikTok that you’re posting relevant content, and they need to work overtime to get the word out.
Also, Engage with Your Followers/Friends
Have you ever watched and liked a few videos from someone and followed them on TikTok? Once you’ve followed them, do you notice that you began to get many of their videos on your For You Page as recommendations? The reason why this happens is that TikTok has picked up on the fact that you enjoy content from the creator, therefore they want to show you more. You want to ensure you’re engaging with those who already follow you so your new content can be pushed to them and later to other similar users who may not be following you (yet).
Drive Traffic from Other Platforms
We get it—when you’re focusing on nailing ways to grow on TikTok, you may neglect other platforms you once loved. Or, on the flip side, you may be excelling on other platforms and are looking to grow in the same way on TikTok. Whether you’re putting effort into making original content for these platforms or not, they are great places to repurpose your TikToks and have followers from those platforms join you on the app. You’d be surprised how many followers you can gain over time from simply cross-promoting.
Post Consistently
Unlike social media platforms such as Instagram, followers aren’t looking for full-on productions. TikTok is an easy-going platform that embraces good content so long as it’s relatable, entertaining, or informative. While you don’t have to prepare a script or set up difficult studio lights, you do have to post consistently for the app to push out your content to people who may be interested in following you. Just think about it. Would you follow someone who posts once every quarter of the year?
Determine Your Best Times to Post
We’ll be upfront and say this will take some trial and error. TikTok does provide insights to let you know when your audience is most active. However, it may not be accurate until you start posting more consistently (do you see what we’re getting at here?). When starting out, use your better judgment to determine when you should post. For example, you probably shouldn’t post much on the weekends because, much like yourself, people may be out and about and not scrolling their TikTok feeds.
Don’t Delete Videos
As tempting as it may be to delete a post that didn’t perform well, avoid the urge. Some of the top creators on TikTok have noted that content “lives” much longer on the app than on other platforms meaning even though it may not perform well when you first post, it may be days, weeks, or even months later. To get more followers on TikTok, you have to give your content a chance to thrive before calling it quits.
Growing on TikTok will absolutely take some time and a lot of effort, but it’s worth it. Compared to other social media platforms, you don’t need to have a ton of followers to have your content seen, but of course, growing your following on TikTok will tremendously improve your chances. Happy creating!