In this lesson, we’re going to talk about the TikTok algorithm and by the end, you will understand how is it that some videos can go viral, have millions of views without having any followers on the account.
So when you post on Instagram, your content is going to be displayed only to people who are already your followers. And it can be very difficult to grow because it’s hard to get out of that follower circle.
But on TikTok is different. When you first post a video, the video will be shown to a small group of people. If the small group of people engages with the video, then the algorithm decides the video is good and it will be shown to more people.
There are of course different signs or variables that the algorithm takes into consideration to determine if your video is good or not.
But basically, if your videos are getting a lot of engagement and attention it means they are good and will be displayed on the For You pages of a larger group of people. The group of people will just get bigger and bigger with no top limit of how much attention you can get.
You’ve probably seen accounts that have maybe one or two videos posted, really not much attention at all. They have no followers and they’ll post one video that will blow up to a million views. This could never happen on Instagram or Facebook.
On TikTok however, the algorithm works very differently. You can get a viral hit without having to work very hard to grow your follower base first. Once you do get a viral video, you’ll get new followers and it’ll be easier to go viral the next time.
So the more good content you can produce, the easier is going to be to produce something that can get viral overnight. The key is to keep posting videos and keep increasing your chances of hitting that good video that’s going to take off.
The truth is that nobody really knows how exactly the algorithms determine how good your video is. But we’ve done a lot of tests and we can determine what are the variables that have a bigger impact than others.
So from what we’ve seen so far, the number one thing that will contribute to the success of your video is the watch time. Not just how long people watch your video, but if they rewatch it too.
That’s why it’s important to create videos that are watchable over and over again. The algorithm will see that your video is getting a lot of attention and will show it to more people.
So, the first variable in the TikTok algorithm is the watch and rewatch time. The next variable is: the number of shares.
When you share a video on different social platforms, or WhatsApp, Messenger, or just sharing the link with other people, the TikTok algorithm will determine that people like the video enough to share it with their friends.
The third most important thing in the TikTok algorithm is comments. Of course, having a lot of comments means that your content is engaging, the type of content that starts conversations. But another reason why comments are actually helping your video is that while people are typing a comment, the video is playing in the background.
And if they type a long comment even if it is a negative one, the video might play several times in the background helping with the watch time, that’s actually the most important factor in the TikTok’s algorithm.
The last contributing factor in the TikTok algorithm is the number of likes.
Likes on TikTok are not as important as, for example, on Instagram and Facebook, what really matters is the watch time.
So to summarize, there are four variables the algorithm takes into account when determining how popular your video is and whether they should show it to more and more people:
- the most important is the watch time
- Number two are the shares
- Number three are comments
- and finally, the likes.
This is what you need to know about the algorithm. If you need to create clever videos that help you increase the watch time, you have a high chance of hitting that success you want and having your videos go viral, and growing your account fast.
