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How to Go Viral on TikTok

Hook viewers in the first few seconds and keep them watching to the end: TikTok says time spent watching is generally the heaviest signal behind the For You feed. Add 2 to 3 relevant hashtags, put your own spin on trends, post often, and post when your own audience is most active, which TikTok Studio shows you.

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How do you go viral on TikTok?

Make videos people watch to the end, and give the recommendation system enough to understand who they are for. TikTok's own advice, from its Creator Academy and its guide to the elements of a TikTok video:

  • Hook viewers in the first 3 seconds, with a question, suspense or a striking visual. TikTok's guidance gives 3 seconds in one article and "ideally within the first 5 seconds" in another; either way, the opening decides whether people scroll.
  • Put your own twist on trends. TikTok suggests mixing trends into your posts so the system learns about your content, but with a unique take that fits your niche.
  • Pick a niche. Common topics, hashtags and sounds from your community help the system work out who would like your videos.
  • Use 2 to 3 relevant hashtags. TikTok says "less is more".
  • Add a sound. TikTok says videos with background music get an average of 98.31% more views than those without.
  • Add text or captions. Over 30% of people TikTok surveyed said they watch videos on mute.
  • Post more often. TikTok calls it the best way to get more traffic from the recommendation system: each video is another chance to find the right audience.
  • Reply to comments, quickly, and turn good ones into your next video.

How does the TikTok algorithm work?

TikTok ranks every video for every viewer separately, predicting how likely that person is to be interested. Its Help Center page on recommendations names three groups of signals for the For You feed:

  • User interactions: the videos someone likes, shares, comments on, and watches in full or skips, and the accounts they follow back.
  • Content information: sounds, hashtags, the number of views, and the country the video was posted in.
  • User information: device settings, language, location, time zone and day, and device type.
  • For most people, interactions weigh the most, and TikTok singles out time spent watching a video.
  • It also uses people with similar tastes: if one viewer liked videos 1 to 5 and another liked 1 to 3, the second may be shown 4 and 5.
  • It deliberately mixes in content from outside a viewer's usual interests, and typically does not recommend a video someone has already seen.

What is the best time to post on TikTok?

When your own audience is on TikTok, and TikTok shows you exactly when that is. Both the Viewers and Followers tabs of TikTok Studio's analytics have a Most active times chart: the hours and days your audience was most active in the last 7 days, per TikTok's article on using analytics. TikTok's advice is to use it to plan when to post, then check back to see what works for you.

To find it in the app: tap Profile, the Menu ☰ button, TikTok Studio, then Analytics, per TikTok's TikTok Studio help page, and open Viewers or Followers. On a computer, tiktok.com/tiktokstudio also lets you schedule posts for those hours. Our own best time to post study measured 7,310 videos, and its checker compares your posts by when they went up.

TikTok publishes no single best time for everyone. The hour-by-hour tables for each day of the week that other sites publish are averages across other people's accounts, in someone else's time zone; your Most active times chart is about yours.

How many hashtags should you use on TikTok?

2 to 3, and only ones that describe the video: "when it comes to hashtags, less is more", from TikTok's video guide. In its search myths article, TikTok calls the idea that a long list of hashtags helps a video rank a myth: overloading a caption with loosely related hashtags or keywords "can actually work against you".

So there are no best hashtags to go viral that work for every video. The best ones are the words people would search to find yours. TikTok's Creator Search Insights tool suggests hashtags and keywords for topics people are searching for. And do not stuff keywords into tiny on-screen text: TikTok says that can get a video flagged as spam.

How do you get more views on TikTok?

Find out where viewers leave, and fix that moment. TikTok's analytics article suggests three places to look:

  • Retention rate, on each post's Overview tab, shows the second viewers stop watching. A sharp drop at 0:02 means the opening is not working.
  • Traffic source shows whether views came from the For You feed, Following, search, sound pages, profiles or messages. If search brings people in, use the search terms it lists in your captions.
  • Compare your best posts. If one format gets more For You traffic than the rest, make more of it, change one thing at a time and compare.
  • For search, say what the video is about in the description, voiceover, captions and on-screen text, so it matches what people type.

Can you go viral on TikTok without followers?

Yes. TikTok says outright that "you don't need to have 1 million followers to make it on the For You feed"; what counts is content that resonates and serves a purpose, informative, instructional or entertaining, per its video guide. TikTok's list of the signals behind the For You feed does not include the creator's follower count (its list for the LIVE feed does), so a first video can travel as far as anyone's.

Followers do unlock things. Seeing what your followers search for in Creator Search Insights needs 1,000 followers, and so does going LIVE; TikTok follower count covers the follower thresholds, and shows any account's exact count.

How long should a TikTok be?

As long as the idea needs. TikTok encourages experimenting with length by type of video, a recipe a little longer, an outfit recap shorter, and says well-crafted, long-form content "thrives on the For You feed", per its Creator Academy. Whatever the length, the first seconds decide whether anyone stays. The Creator Rewards Program only pays for videos over a minute long.

Why is my TikTok not getting views? Is it a shadowban?

TikTok does not use the word shadowban, but it does describe the effect. Its For You help page says that content not suitable for a broad audience may be made ineligible for the For You feed, and may also be harder to find in search. Content that breaks the Community Guidelines is removed outright, and TikTok's safety teams may review a video as it rises in popularity.

If a video follows the rules and still stalls, it is usually the video: check its retention rate for the moment people leave. There is no official view count that makes a video "viral"; TikTok publishes no threshold.

How do you reset your TikTok algorithm?

Refresh your For You feed. From TikTok's refresh help page:

  • Tap Profile, then the Menu ☰ button.
  • Tap Settings and privacy, then Content Preferences.
  • Tap Refresh your For You feed and follow the steps. It cannot be undone.
  • TikTok then shows popular videos, and what you like and comment on reshapes your recommendations.
  • Only the For You feed changes: your Following feed, profile, inbox and ads do not.
  • For a lighter touch, mark videos you don't care for as Not interested, or tap Share on a video, then Why this post, to see why it was shown to you and adjust your For You feed.