Going viral on TikTok is something that brands and consumers alike strive for – the potential to have millions of people see your content is too tantalizing to pass up. However, going viral on the video sharing app is more difficult than many would expect with all the competition and fickle consumer trends. This article will cover some of tips that can help you go viral on TikTok.
It’s important to note that TikTok is a very fickle place. It should go without saying that going viral on TikTok is some part skill combined with a lot of luck. Anyway, here are some of our tips.
Tip #1: Jump on Trends
TikTok more than anything else revolves around trends. This could be memes, parody videos, or videos based on popular TV shows. Remember the Netflix hit Squid Game?
It spawned thousands of parody videos on the video sharing app for about a month after its release. However, releasing a Squid Game parody video at the moment would receive little to no engagement.
Finding a trend can be easy if it’s based off of a popular TV show or other cultural event, but that’s not always the case. There are a lot of trends that are more or less exclusive to TikTok. The way to find these trends is by actively engaging on TikTok and looking at trending videos.
If you see a trend with videos, then you can jump on it by adding your own video to the mix. A common way to do this is by making a parody of the trending video. Of course, this only works for certain videos, so use discretion if deciding to make a parody.
One last thing when it comes to trends, act fast. You want to be one of the first people to release a video in a trending category as TikTok will often push that video to the top since there simply are not many other videos available. After a day or two so many videos have been released that your video will get drowned out in a sea of other videos.
Tip #2: Proper Hashtags
Hashtags are very important on TikTok. TikTok’s algorithm, as well as users, looks at the algorithm when suggesting videos to people. There’s a fine balance between choosing a trending hashtag compared to creating your own – we recommend a combination of the two.
One important thing is to make sure the hashtag is relevant to the video. If the hashtag is not relevant, then a lot of people will click off the video once they watch the first few seconds.
That’s horrible for the video’s engagement, which the TikTok algorithm absolutely hates.
Tip #3: Have a Reputable TikTok Account
TikTok greatly prefers promoting videos in the algorithm when they come from a reputable account. What do we mean by a reputable account?
- An account that is not brand new.
- An account that already has some video views on its videos.
By this we mean not an account that has 0 views on 100 videos – TikTok just assumes those accounts are spammers and do not promote their videos. - An account that actively engages in the community by posting comments.
This is not as important, but it likely plays a minor role in the video sharing app choosing to promote your video.
TikTok greatly prefers reputable accounts because the last thing TikTok wants is to promote a spammer’s video. For one, this is not good for TikTok because it will push people off the platform, and TikTok only makes money when people stay on the platform.
The other reason is that they know a reputable account creates videos that people want to watch, so they are far more likely to promote videos from it because they are more likely to be the type of videos that people want to watch.
Tip #4: Analyze What Successful TikTokers in Your Niche Do
One of the best tips we can give is to analyze what successful TikTokers in your niche do and then use those techniques for inspiration. Each niche is a little different with what works and what does not work, so it’s difficult to say what will work for your niche.
This is why we recommend analyzing the competition.
You can do this by browsing the videos from your niche on TikTok. We prefer downloading the TikTok video, editing them together, and watching the edited video. This makes any trends in the videos very easy to notice and it can be viewed offline.
Of course, it’s not necessary to download the videos, but it certainly makes things a lot easier in our experience.
Tip #5: Hook Viewers in The First 5 Seconds
The average TikTok user has a short attention span. If they are not interested in the video within the first few seconds, then they will go to the next video.
So, how do you hook TikTok users into your video?
This really depends on the niche. In some niches stating a problem and then offering a solution can work while in other niches stating something outrageous in the first few seconds will get people to stay watching.
For instance, if you are doing a food eating challenge on TikTok, then yelling into the camera at the start:
“I gathered 20 people here today to see who can eat the most sticks of butter. The winner gets $10,000; the losers get nothing.”
That’s a great hook – it’s an interesting idea for a video and that one sentence tells the viewer exactly what they are getting in the video.
If your niche is the financial help side of TikTok, then you will probably find better luck using the problem-solution type of hook. That could look something like this:
“Struggling to pay bills? My new trading strategy has the potential for you to return thousands of percent return on your investment. I will explain how in this video.”
That’s possibly a little too stereotypical for the financial help industry, but you get the idea. You want to hook the viewer into your viewer.
Final Thoughts
That covers it for how you can go viral on TikTok. The most important thing to remember is that you want to keep your content engaging from the moment the video starts. Don’t waste time in the intro and every second of the video should be fun to watch for the viewer.
How to be engaging on TikTok depends a lot on the category you are in, which is why we recommend watching the popular TikTokers in your category to see what they are doing.
2022-11-18 15:07:19