With close to two billion monthly active users worldwide, TikTok offers a vast ocean of viewers for your content. Whatever your niche, and no matter its size, there’s an audience for it on the platform. How do you reach real people who are right for you on TikTok? Find out what it takes to gain and sustain growth with organic TikTok followers.
How To Gain Organic Followers on TikTok: Top Five Tips
It’s never too late to build a strong following on TikTok. The platform’s massive popularity may be a double-edged sword for a creator or brand that’s still exploring its growth opportunities.
On the one hand, TikTok’s expansive user base represents an immense potential for audience reach. On the other hand, it also means the competition for space and visibility on feeds is fierce.
The good news is that TikTok’s algorithm is an equal-opportunity matchmaker. Whether you’re a TikTok newbie or a pro, you have a good chance of reaching your target audience with the right strategies.
The algorithm does not give accounts with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers higher visibility. Nor does it recommend viral videos more frequently than less popular ones. It recommends content based on what a user is interested in.
The fact that TikTok also has a low barrier to views makes it even easier to grow a loyal fanbase on the platform. This means you can put most of your efforts into creating quality content that converts viewers into lifelong followers. Do you want to take your shot at TikTok fame? Follow these top five tips for how to gain organic followers on TikTok.
1. Identify Relevant Niche Topics and Trends
Dig deep into your niche and industry. To carve out a nice and cozy space for yourself, you need to make a valuable contribution to your chosen niche on TikTok. Keep these best practices in mind:
- Play to your strengths when selecting niche topics to focus on. This ensures that when you create content, you’ll always do it well. This practice also ups your authenticity and credibility.
- Identify trending search topics and content gaps. Take advantage of TikTok’s latest search and discovery feature, Creator Search Insights. Find out what topics audiences in your niche are currently most interested in. Create content around relevant topics that show minimal video results.
- Build a cohesive content portfolio. Like laying down the foundation for a house, your foundational pieces must fit perfectly together to ensure stability as you keep building upon it. This further solidifies your credibility and helps cement your place in your niche and industry.
2. Know Your Audience
Once you identify topics that cater to your target audience’s interests, the next step is delivering your posts to their feeds.
Gaining organic followers mostly involves proper audience targeting. You don’t cast your net blindly. You need to know when and where to toss it for maximum yield. When you upload your post, you want it to get maximum viewership from interested users. This is where content optimization comes in. Below are the basics you should know:
- What combination of hashtags and keywords match your content and your target audience’s interests? You can check the pages of successful creators in your industry to identify hashtags and keywords that generate the highest views and engagement rates. TikTok’s Creative Center is also a great resource for trending tags.
- When is your intended audience active on TikTok? Learn their TikTok browsing habits to identify the best times to post your content. When they open the TikTok app, you want your post to be among the first ones that appear on their For You and Following feeds. Your TikTok Analytics can give you all the audience insights you need.
- Be quick to adapt to your niche audience’s changing needs and interests. Again, the Creator Search Insights tool is your best ally when you want to stay on top of trends. You can also go straight to the source — your fans. Ask them in a video or via your comments section what their current interests are.
3. Understand TikTok’s Algorithm
TikTok’s recommendation algorithm both powers and steers content delivery. It matches content with suitable audiences based on user interests. You can make the algorithm work for you by adapting your optimization strategy to TikTok’s matchmaking formula.
Optimized targeting is like providing the right delivery address to your courier. Your strategy should inform TikTok who your target viewers are.
TikTok looks for the following signals to deliver content to the right feeds:
- Hashtags and keywords relevant to a user’s interests and searches.
- Content details and the post description inform TikTok what the post is about.
- Filter, effect, and sound tags that match similar content a user frequently interacts with.
- Accounts you follow and posts you engage with help TikTok find active users who may share your interests.
Optimize your profile and posts to give TikTok a clear picture of your ideal audience match. Aligning your targeting strategy with TikTok’s recommendation formula ensures that you’ll get views that convert.
4. Monitor Your Analytics
Dive into your performance and audience insights to help you fine-tune your content style and optimization. The more you post, the more data your Analytics can collect.
Keep track of the following metrics to help you enhance your strategies, reach a wider audience, and drive organic growth:
- Total views per video and overall for various date ranges.
- Total likes, comments, and shares per video and overall for different periods.
- Total follower count and net follower growth.
- Audience insights, such as gender, location, and hours of activity on TikTok.
Look at each metric individually to track your reach and audience response. And then look at them together to see how effective your strategies are in terms of conversion.
For example, look at your views versus likes for a certain video. A high number of views but only a few likes may indicate either of the following:
- You’re posting at the right time and reaching a large number of users. However, they’re not the right audience for your content.
- You’re posting at the right time and reaching many users, but your content is not interesting enough to generate likes.
Through careful analysis and trial and error, you can identify the best combination of factors that will give you your desired results.
5. Expand Your Reach Across Multiple Platforms
Do you also have a Facebook, Instagram, or e-commerce page? You can easily link your TikTok and Facebook or Instagram accounts. If you set up a TikTok Shop, the platform allows integration of certain e-commerce platforms, like Shopify.
You should always cross-post your TikTok content, especially if you have already established a following on other channels. This will let your followers on other pages know they can also find you on TikTok. It also doesn’t hurt to tap into your potential to reach new audiences and potential followers on other platforms.
It’s easy to share TikToks on Instagram as a Reel or Story. You can also repost your TikToks to your Facebook Story or feed. Embed your TikTok page to your website if you have one. You can also do the same thing if you have an official email account for your page. Use your TikTok QR code to promote your page on various media, including print.
Achieve Lasting Growth With Organic TikTok Followers
Organic followers on TikTok are the most reliable when it comes to delivering consistent and quality views and engagement. Users who follow you based on genuine interest will always be on the lookout for your latest uploads. And they also won’t be shy to show you their appreciation through likes, comments, and shares.
Needless to say, organic growth remains the most rewarding on any social media platform. Figure out how to make the TikTok algorithm work in your favor and integrate its function into your growth strategy. Know your audience and give them content that satisfies their consumption needs. Identify what works and what doesn’t with the help of your analytics.
Consistently growing your organic TikTok followers guarantees sustained account and content relevance and engagement. Why not get expert help to grow your following the right way from the get-go? Sign up for a High Social plan!
Fine-tune your audience-targeting strategy as early as possible with High Social’s advanced, proprietary AI technology. Connect with more audiences whose interests are a perfect match to your content. Start growing your TikTok today!
