How to Grow on TikTok in 2024

Even though it seems like TikTok has been around for a long time now, there’s no reason that you can’t still grow on TikTok in 2024. The platform is still young, and anyone can still grow on it. By employing some simple and consistent tactics, you can develop a dedicated following, get millions of views, and maybe even make some money from sponsor deals. Cover photo by Collabstr.

Is it Too Late to Get Started on TikTok?

While Gen Z may have universally rejected Facebook as a social media platform, there is a huge younger audience on TikTok. And it seems like it’s still growing! Whether you’re an individual looking to get views, or you’re a business looking for a new marketing platform, you can still find success here. There is no prerequisite of having been on TikTok for a long time in order to find success. You just need to make great content, which we’ll go into detail about now!

1. Be Organic

Whether you’re brand new to TikTok or are on the platform trying your hardest to grow, the best thing you can do is create content organically and be genuine. The best TikToks come across as representative of your personality, and as genuine. Of course there are plenty of edited TikToks, but these are meant to show off your sense of humor or creativity. Be yourself! With over a billion registered users on the platform, you’re practically guaranteed to find someone that loves what you create.

2. Post Often

It should be well known by now that posting frequently on social media tends to help you get seen more. When it comes to TikTok, this is even more true. You should be posting at least once per day in order to grow on TikTok. This ensures that your followers will see a new post from you every time they sit down to scroll through TikTok. If you can create good content, you should post even more often. The more people see your videos in their feed, the better! In many ways, quantity is more important than quality on this platform.

3. Use Hashtags

It’s true for Twitter and for Instagram, and you can bet that it’s true for TikTok as well: you should be using hashtags on TikTok. While you can fill up your videos with hashtags, no more than 5 per video seems to be ideal. You should use a mix of general hashtags, trending hashtags, and hashtags that are more niche and specific. This mixture of tags will help your video appear to people who are searching on specific topics. If you don’t tag your video, it will be a lot more difficult to recommend to other users.

4. Find a Niche

While it may seem like generic videos that anyone could enjoy always blow up on TikTok, you’re not likely to stumble into success from the kind of video that everyone else is making. Whether you have a recurring cast of characters for skits, you review a specific kind of product, or you create nostalgia content about a specific time period, creating some sort of niche will get you more followers. You’ll start to become recognized for your type of videos. And people who like the topic that you talk about will happily follow your account for more of the same.

5. Understand How TikTok Works

TikTok has its own unique rules, language, and expectations. If you’re trying to fake it, it’ll be obvious to the people who are deep in the culture. It’s like trying to create content for people in a different country that you know nothing about – it’s going to flop! Do your research and browse through TikTok until you have a full grasp of how people are creating TikToks and how they are talking about them. One thing you’ll find is that many TikToks are lower effort than something you’d post to YouTube, but this doesn’t make their content any less valuable to the people who enjoy it. And of course, see how people in your chosen niche are creating their content, and what the expectations are.

6. Plan to Be Consistent

Since consistency is so key on TikTok, you should make it easy for yourself. It can be hard to get the motivation to record a TikTok every day, so don’t! Make a huge list of video ideas (maybe for several weeks or an entire month) and try to record them all in a day or two. It will be a lot of work, but dedicating time to creating this backlog of content instead of forcing yourself to find time every day will make your life a lot easier. You can swap outfits every few videos, then randomize them all so it doesn’t seem obvious that you did it all at once. There is also value in being timely and spontaneous, so don’t forget to mix it up with some off-the-cuff content when you want to hop on a trend or talk about something that just happened in the news.

7. Use TikTok’s Newest Features

TikTok regularly introduces new features, and utilizing them will help you stay ahead and competitive. We recommend to study these features and integrate them into your content:

TikTok Series: A new paid content feature where creators can charge for exclusive content.

TikTok Shop: Promote products directly in your videos.

Live Shopping: If available, engage your audience in real-time while showcasing products.

Interactive Polls and Q&A: Boost engagement by asking followers to interact.

Live Shopping is MASSIVE and is expected to take over social platforms in 2025 and beyond. It would be wise to get started on this right away.

8. Optimize for Search Engines

TikTok has evolved into a search engine, so including searchable keywords in your captions and videos is critical. Add subtitles and/or on-screen text to help the algorithm understand your content better. For example on a recent post for another platform, we included the word GIVEAWAY in the entire reel and thumbnail on Instagram/TikTok, and this helped more people to quickly understand what is was. This increases the click through rate and then increases the amount of people the videos are shown to.

This applies to all social media videos nowadays. The more details and relevant data points, the more places your content can show up. Think about these things:

  • Locational data
  • Regionality and language
  • Niche and types of phrases/words people will use to search for that content
  • People and figures
  • Date and time relevancy
  • News and current events

8. Keep Trying

Social media is a difficult game. You might not find immediate success, even after posting tons of TikToks. But it’s important to keep trying and stay persistent! You could give up just before you were about to get your big break. Anyone can find success on this platform. Take a look at your content and try to identify why people either aren’t discovering it or don’t care to follow you after seeing the videos. Always strive to improve your content and utilize the tips on this list to help your TikToks get discovered and convert viewers into followers!

BONUS – Leverage “TikTok Now”

TikTok Now is the platform’s response to apps like BeReal. It sends daily prompts to post authentic, in-the-moment content, which can humanize your brand and increase follower interaction.

Read next: The Power of Personal Projects for Creative Growth

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