Hashtags on TikTok are used very differently than they are used on other social platforms like Instagram or Facebook, for example. In this lesson we’ll talk about hashtags and video descriptions and how to use them to your advantage and make sure your video gets as much views as possible.
Description
There is a 150 character limit for your TikTok description, which includes hashtags you might add. Unlike the caption you are used with on Instagram, here, the description is very brief. Most tiktokers don’t even add a description.
You can use the description box as an opportunity to add more value to your video and make it even more engaging. You can describe what’s happening in the video in one or two short sentences or, ideally, you can add another perspective or another view and make it more interesting.
Hashtags
As you already know on Instagram, hashtags are used in order to gain views and popularity. So when you post a video or a picture on Instagram, you’ll also add hashtags either in the caption or in the comments.
And you get a lot of the views from the hashtags directly, because people on Instagram will search popular hashtags.
On TikTok however, people discover videos on their feed, on the For You page, and not through different hashtags. You can of course search for direct hashtags on TikTok too, and some people are doing it. But is not as popular as on Instagram.
So let’s say you want to search for the marketing hashtag.
- Click on Discover and add “marketing” to the search bar
- Click on “Hashtags” tab
- Click on the “#marketing”
You’ll notice there are a lot of videos using this hashtag. And there are a lot of other similar hashtags suggestions for you, like #digitalmarketing, #marketingtips and so on.
But then, when you go to your feed and start scrolling, you’ll see more videos that are tagged with #marketing.
So the hashtags still serve the same purpose as discovery tool, just like for Instagram. But with a twist.
For example, on Instagram, the most popular hashtags are the most difficult to get exposure from because they have the most traffic and most competition.
And then as the popularity goes down, the competition goes down. So, when you are just starting out you should choose less popular hashtags because it’ll be easier for you to compete and be higher ranked.
On TikTok however, if you interact with videos on a certain topic – liking a video, commenting or even searching for a hashtag, the algorithm will learn about your preferences and it will show you more videos on the same topic on the For You page.
When you search for a specific hashtag on TikTok you will notice that all the videos are organized based on their popularity. So, the really popular ones, with a lot of views, likes, and engagement in general will be displayed on top, and as you scroll down, you’ll see the less popular ones. This means if you choose a very popular hashtag your video might show up at the bottom and it will be very hard for people to discover it.
When choosing hashtags for your videos, the strategy is to choose a low popularity hashtag at first, with low competition – but not as low that there is no interest in it. When your account grows you can add more popular hashtags and you’ll be ranked higher.
Hashtag Research
The best way to find new hashtags for your videos is to search for other videos in your niche and see what other hashtags they are using.
Start from the Discovery tab and search for a hashtag in your niche – let’s say “digitalmarketing”.
If you search for “digitalmarketing” you’ll first notice a collection of top videos in this category. You’ll also see top related hashtags.
So if you are trying to figure out what other good hashtags you can use for your specific industry or your niche, you should look up one keyword and then you’ll get a list of all the hashtags that are relevant to that one word.
And again, the results are organized based on popularity.
So the very top hashtag, #digitalmarketing has over 330M views. The next one #digitalmarketingtips has over 21M views and so on.
If you click on one of the suggested hashtags, let’s say #digitalmarketingtips, you’ll see all the videos using this hashtag. You can click through the videos and notice all the different hashtags they use. The first thing you should notice is that on TikTok there are fewer hashtags used than on Instagram. While on Instagram you can use up to 30 hashtags, on TikTok it’s unusual to use more than 6 or 7 different hashtags.
To add a description and hashtags to your post you need to follow these steps:
- After recording and editing your video you will click Next
- In the final screen you’ll have the description box where you can describe your video, add hashtags and you can also tag friends if you want to get their attention
- Start typing your description and hashtags – you will notice that TikTok suggests you more hashtags as you type, and you can choose from the suggestions
- When you are ready click Done
In conclusion, when researching hashtags and video ideas, look at the top performers in your specific niche and see what works best, what hashtags, how many hashtags, and even song or video ideas. Obviously, very popular TikTok accounts would be able to use very big hashtags with a lot of competition, and you might not be able to rank for those just yet.
But you could click on that hashtags, see what other videos are using them and check out other relevant hashtags, and so on.
