How Do You Get Popular on TikTok

The landscape of social media and digital marketing is constantly changing. Even as you get the hang of the existing platforms, new apps emerge and take over the internet. One such development is the rise of TikTok. What was launched as a video-sharing app by ByteDance has grown to become one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store and Google Play.

The first quarter of 2020 has been particularly rewarding for TikTok as it crossed 2 billion downloads. It accumulated more than 315 million between January and June 2020, making it the app’s most successful quarter. It’s available in 39 languages across 141 countries.

Image via SensorTower

Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or content creator, this is the right time to take the plunge and make your TikTok debut. Moreover, you need a concrete strategy to grow your audience and become popular on TikTok. In this blog, we’ll outline effective ways of becoming TikTok famous.

But let’s first understand why there’s such a hype about TikTok among brands and content creators.

Why TikTok Deserves Your Attention

As of June 2020, TikTok has more than 800 million monthly active users. Although it was initially perceived as an app dominated by the Gen Z, TikTok has been attracting millennials and older users as well. The percentage of U.S.-based Gen Z TikTok users fell from 41.1% in January 2020 to 35.3% in April 2020.

On the other hand, the percentage of 25- to 34-year-old TikTok users grew from 22.4% to 27.4% during the same period. Likewise, the share of 35- to 44-year-old users rose from 13.9% to 17.1%. It indicates that TikTok is gaining popularity across all age groups. Its vast and diverse userbase makes TikTok a great platform to connect with your target audience.

Moreover, TikTok users are often more engaged and spend plenty of time on the app every day. According to Cloutmeter, TikTok boasts an impressive engagement rate of 52.1%. Moreover, an Influencer Marketing Hub study found that the app has the highest social media engagement rates per post.

Image via Influencer Marketing Hub

Whether you’re an Instagram influencer, a blogger, or a brand, TikTok can help you build a rapport with your target audience. If you regularly publish unique and engaging content, your followers will likely share it on their profiles. This, in turn, will help you increase brand awareness and connect with a larger audience.

What makes TikTok a great platform for content creators is its low barrier to entry. Unlike YouTube video production, you don’t need top-notch equipment or a high budget to create content for TikTok. Instead, you need to use your creativity to make your videos unique and shareable.

It’s crucial to mention here that brands can mostly leverage TikTok to boost awareness and engagement. It isn’t the right platform to drive sales because there aren’t many options to add your website URL or product links in the videos. Moreover, overly promotional content often acts as a potential turn-off for TikTok users. Therefore, if you’re expecting to drive sales and grow your revenue, TikTok isn’t the ideal platform.

Content creators, on the other hand, can make money from brand collaborations on TikTok. As more entrepreneurs and marketers realize the app’s significance, they’re approaching TikTok influencers to promote their brand and products. However, both brands and content creators should focus on posting entertaining, amusing, and shareable videos.

Now that you’re eager to dive right into TikTok, it’s time for us to address the most critical question. How do you get popular on TikTok? Let’s find out.

Step 1 – Identify Your Niche

The key to growth on any social media platform is to showcase your unique talents and traits. TikTok isn’t an exception. It’s crucial to define your niche and ensure that most of your content conforms to it. From makeup hacks and pranks to comedic skits and dance videos, there’s a wide range of content you can upload on TikTok. However, selecting a niche on TikTok isn’t as straightforward as other platforms.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Analyze Your Strengths & Weaknesses

Jumping on the bandwagon is the last thing you should do on TikTok. Just because other users are uploading lip-syncing videos, you don’t have to do it. Instead, you should carefully evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and find out your unique talents. If you’re already good at something, leveraging it will help you create engaging TikTok videos.

Take Zach King (@zachking) for instance. A video editor by profession, King has been posting Final Cut Pro (FCP) tutorials on YouTube for more than a decade. He uses his editing skills to create and upload illusion videos on TikTok.

King’s first TikTok video, which showed him escaping a jail cell, was posted in 2016. It garnered massive traction and set the tone for his future content. As of 2020, he has more than 44 million followers on TikTok. He has also received numerous awards for his work.

Image via TikTok

Likewise, if you’re good at playing a particular musical instrument, you can turn it into your niche. The key is to select a niche that you can use in the long run. If you post about social issues one day and upload cooking hacks the next day, it’ll confuse your audience and drive them away.

Moreover, it’s essential to ensure that you’re passionate about the niche. Otherwise, you can’t consistently create eye-catching TikTok videos.

2. Find Your Style

Creating TikTok videos is all about showcasing your distinct voice. While dancing videos, skits, and lip-sync videos are prevalent on TikTok, these aren’t the only formats you can use. The key is to create your own style using the right blend of different formats to reflect your unique personality and highlight your talent. 

For instance, Lauren Godwin (@laurengodwin) has put a spin on traditional makeup and hairstyle videos. She is known for her offbeat hairdos and wacky makeup that showcase her wild and colorful personality. It isn’t surprising that she has more than 17 million followers on TikTok.

Image via TikTok

3. Align with Other Social Media Profiles

If you’re a content creator or an influencer, you likely already have an active presence on other social media platforms. Make sure your image on these platforms resonates with your TikTok style. It lets you maintain a consistent personality across the internet. This, in turn, will help drive your followers from different platforms to your TikTok account.

4. Make it Unique

Needless to say, uniqueness is the key to becoming TikTok famous. No one opens TikTok to watch run-of-the-mill content they’d find anywhere else on the internet. You must develop a style that surprises, shocks, or delights your audience. Don’t be afraid to break the established norms.

Take @friendlyquest for instance. The account, belonging to Mats Plum Berry, showcases dancing videos of his pet ferret, Matilda. Mats also shares health and food tips for ferrets. His distinct content has helped him carve his own niche – “ferret expert”.

Image via TikTok

Now that you’ve found your voice and personality, it’s time to start creating and uploading TikTok videos.

Step 2 – Create Disruptive Content

If you want to get famous on TikTok, you must post engaging and entertaining videos. Moreover, you must create shareable content that has the potential to become viral. It’s also crucial to keep your followers hooked by regularly posting fresh content.

Here are a few tips to help you create great content on TikTok:

1. Identify & Leverage Trends

The golden rule of success on social media is to publish trending content. That’s why it’s crucial to stay abreast of current affairs, social media trends, and world news. You should also regularly use the “Discover” tab in your TikTok account to spot the latest trends. However, you should only utilize trends that are relevant to your niche and content.

If you’re uploading videos on sustainability living, the latest fashion trends won’t appease your followers. On the other, you could leverage news about emerging environmental crises. The Australian bush fires, for instance, triggered a flurry of TikTok videos by wildlife enthusiasts and environmentalists.

@witchywitchytv, a makeup artist, created a makeup tutorial inspired by the incident. She aimed to raise awareness about the bush fires and encourage her audience to donate.

Image via TikTok

2. Utilize Hashtags

Using popular and relevant hashtags in a TikTok video maximizes its reach and visibility. It also helps deliver your content to the right audience. You can identify trending hashtags from the “Discover” tab in your account. Make sure you use a balanced mix of generic and niche-specific hashtags.

3. Post Regularly

Since there’s plenty of ambiguity about TikTok’s algorithm, there isn’t a ground rule for how many videos you should post in a day. Consistency is the key to building audience engagement on TikTok. If you want to get popular, you must upload TikTok videos every day.

It’s even better if you can upload multiple videos in a day. This increases your likelihood of making it to the “For You” page of your target audience. Once you start posting videos, you’ll also get an idea of when your audience is most likely to be active and respond. This, in turn, will help you create an optimal schedule for posting TikTok videos to maximize traction.

4. Use New Songs & Filters

Songs and music are an integral part of TikTok videos. You should keep an eye on trending songs while scrolling down your “For Your” page. If you notice that the same song is being used in multiple videos, it’s likely becoming a trend. The sooner you spot a trending song and use it, the greater your chances of gaining traction.

Likewise, you should watch out for new filters and effects added by TikTok. Typically, the platform rewards content creators who use the tools it’s providing. In addition to making your content more entertaining and shareable, using filters and effects helps increase your reach.

5. Don’t Hesitate to Experiment

If you like to play it safe, TikTok isn’t the right social media app for you. The better you can stand out from the crowd of generic content creators, the higher your chances of achieving TikTok stardom. That’s why you should take risks and experiment with new content formats and topics. In most cases, you’ll get rewarded for thinking out of the box.

For instance, Jiff Pom (@jiffpom) is the TikTok account of a pomeranian dog. It chronicles the life of Jiff, a Guinness world record-holder actor and TikTok star. The account boasts more than 20 million followers.

Image via TikTok

6. Ask Your Audience

If you already have many followers on other social media platforms, you can easily find out what kind of content they’d like to see on TikTok. You can conduct polls and AMAs to get their opinions.

Apart from uploading mind-blowing content, you should outline a strategy to get more TikTok followers. Take a look at the following tips.

Step 3 – Grow Your Audience

Content creation is just one facet of becoming TikTok famous. Considering the large number of TikTok videos being uploaded every day, you can’t wait for your content to find its footing. Instead, you must take proactive steps to expand your reach and get popular.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Follow Other People

What do you do when you receive a notification that says someone has followed your profile. You likely head to the follower’s TikTok profile and take a look at their videos. If you like their content, you might even end up following them. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.

2. Comment on Popular Videos

This is another powerful way of maximizing your visibility on TikTok. Find trending videos in your niche and add suitable comments. If you’ve posted any videos related to the content, you can even include the link in your comments. Make sure you add your comment as early as possible because TikTok showcases the oldest comments first.

3. Collaborate with Other TikTokers

Whether you’re a content creator or a brand, collaborating with popular TikTokers helps you capitalize on their fame. The first step is to identify TikTokers who are relevant to your niche. You should also ensure that their style and personality resonate with yours. Next, you need to engage with their content and grab their attention.

Once you build a rapport with them, you can propose a collaboration. The last step is to create awesome content together; make sure you prioritize quality over promotional gimmicks.

4. Use Suitable Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Even if your video reaches a million users, not all of them will become your followers. That is unless you explicitly tell them to do so. It is, therefore, crucial to include a CTA at the end of every video that compels your audience to take the desired action.

Conclusion

TikTok’s remarkable rise as one of the most-liked social media apps has startled marketers and content creators alike. The growing and diversifying userbase further emphasize its significance. If you want to become popular on TikTok, make sure you create offbeat and experimental yet trending and relatable content. Additionally, you should follow other TikTokers and collaborate with them to get more followers.

Do you have any more useful tips for becoming TikTok famous? Share your views in the comments section below.