It’s slightly embarrassing to admit, as a 36-year-old Millennial, that I’ve not only created a TikTok channel but actively attempted to grow an audience there. We all know that TikTok is the “youth” social media platform, dominated by dancing, lip-syncs and – in a win for their marketing team – Currys, but for many kinds of brands, this is far from the whole story.
After spending many years posting my art to Instagram, Twitter (as was), Facebook and, more recently, Bluesky, TikTok by far and away has been the most fruitful platform for my particular niche. That’s not to say there aren’t opportunities for other platforms in the marketing mix – there absolutely are, and they might be far better suited as a primary channel depending on your goals.
But TikTok is often overlooked due to popular beliefs about the kinds of audiences and content you’ll find there, which I think can, at times, be misleading.
So here’s what I’ve learnt
- TikTok is Likely Still the Best Platform to Achieve Organic Growth
Whether you have 40 followers or 400,000, if you make a video that sparks engagement and watch time with the first 250 people TikTok shows it to, it has the potential to reach huge organic audiences. When the early signals are positive, TikTok will continue to push well-performing content into people’s For You Page with little arbitrary gatekeeping.
This means even the biggest channels can have specific videos that barely scrape a few hundred views if they aren’t engaging enough, while the smallest can have a million-view viral hit. My own views range from 400 to 930,000, and my first 200K view video happened when I still had fewer than 500 followers.
- Nicheing is Vital
TikTok is, in some ways, an enormous ecosystem of community groups centred around passion projects. Key to having a successful channel is understanding your niche and making sure the bulk of your content relates to it. It’s also important to follow people within the same community – not only will their content alert you to trends and inspiration within your niche, but commenting on and liking their posts will help build your online network.
- Lots of “Growth Hackers” Are Only Trying to Grow Their Own Channel
TikTok is absolutely frothing with people who tell you they can make you go viral and build a following. Some of these creators’ advice is extremely valuable, but sometimes, it’s less so. If a growth hacker has created a video where they tell you you can “reset the algorithm” with the ever-so-simple 5-step process of:
- Liking their post
- Leaving a comment
- Sharing the link to their post
- Reposting
- Pressing “save”
Then what they’ve just done is trick people into boosting their own content through engagement signals, to little or no benefit of the person who’s interacting.
I’ve always been a proponent of the idea that in order to get the most out of social media, you have to use the platforms as they were intended to be used. People don’t scroll through their feeds to passively receive a sales pitch – they want to interact and connect with something. So you should absolutely engage with other people’s content, and over time, it will be beneficial to your channel – but take the advice of Growth Hackers with a pinch of salt.
- No, You Don’t Have to Post Four Times a Day
This is advice I often see for those looking to grow a TikTok audience, and in one sense, it isn’t wrong – the more you post, the more chance you have of a piece of content hitting that elusive algorithm magic. However, it can also be rather off-putting, and puts a huge burden on creators to churn out content at a pace that neither benefits them nor their audience.
I’ve happily gone a week without posting when I’ve not had anything new to say, and it hasn’t damaged the channel. Post regularly, but don’t feel under pressure to get several pieces of content out daily.
- TikTok Will Often Pick the Best Sound for Your Video
It’s valuable to keep a tab on early-trending sounds (videos don’t have to have a trending sound to achieve virality, but it certainly helps), but sometimes, you can let TikTok do the heavy lifting for you. When you upload a video without picking the audio first, TikTok will choose a sound for you, and its advanced content reviewing technology means it’s often uncannily on point.
- You Have to Embrace the Cringe (Unless You’re a Youth-Targeted Brand)
Youth culture deliberately evades the attempts of elders and advertisers to understand it. For most young people, as soon as a trend has been picked up by big brand, it’s a nail in the coffin of cool more assured than seeing their mum attempt a TikTok dance.
Unless you are in the business of reaching and influencing youth audiences, just accept that your content might be vaguely embarrassing or out of touch to those fresh-faced arbiters of taste. As long as you’re being authentic, and connecting with your particular people, it really doesn’t matter (the lesson of every Disney Channel movie!).
- Have Fun, Experiment, and Don’t Delete “Poor Performance” Videos
Not every video is going to be a hit, and that’s OK. Balance replicating success by learning what works with being brave enough to try new things. Even a 200-view video might be what inspires an engaged follower to find out more about you, and “underperforming” videos can sometimes, through the mysteries of the algorithm, suddenly be catapulted to large audiences days or even weeks after first posting. Embrace the cadence of smaller and larger view counts.