TikTok had recently released an official blog post sharing how their algorithm works to show videos in its “For You” feed to users. The For You feed is where the users spend most of their time, and what prompts discovery and connection on the platform, according to the blog post.

In this article, we would not discuss how to create a TikTok video or what kind of videos to create. Instead, we’d focus on the basics to get right — from niche to engaging content — in order to have your videos shown to more and more people in their For You feed.

The blog post by the company shares what their algorithm does, but from the perspective of users — how a user’s feed is personalised with relevant recommendations. It does not discuss it from the perspective of a creator or brand, i.e. how they decide whether or not to push your video to people’s feeds.

Since there is not much other official info besides that, users over the years have also shared what they have understood to be important factors in having gone viral — based on their account analytics of videos that worked and those that didn’t.

According to Wired, when you first publish a video, it is shown on the feed of a small number of people. These people have shown their interest in the subject or topic of your video by their past activities like adding interests when signing up or following and engaging with similar content.

If this small group of people like, comment, and watch the video till the end, the TikTok algorithm would take this as a signal that it is a high-quality video that people like. So this video will be pushed to a larger set of people at this point. These might be people who have similar interests as the users from the first set. Now the same process repeats, i.e., if this 2nd larger set of people also highly engage with the video, the positive feedback loop continues. The video gets shown to larger and larger sets of people, and in turn, it goes viral.

On the other hand, if the first set — or any consecutive set of people — does not engage positively with the video, it would stop being shown to the next set of people at that point.

Based on this understanding, here are two essential things to keep in mind when starting a TikTok channel.

Essentials of TikTok Marketing

Pick a target audience

Since your video will initially be shown only to a handful of people interested in your topic, it is important to create something for your target audience instead of trying to speak to everyone. For example, this user created videos specifically for people interested in prank videos.

So, check what kind of videos are trending under your topic areas to gauge what that audience likes.

Keep the viewers engaged

One of the ways the algorithm determines if a group of people like your video is by engagement, i.e., till how many seconds they are watching before dropping off, likes, comments, and shares.

This user that got 1.8 million views on one of her videos and 10,000 on another one noticed that the one that got a million views was watched up to 13 seconds of a 15-second video. In contrast, the other one was watched up to 4 seconds.

You want that whoever is shown your video watches it for as long, ideally till the end. This would signal to the algorithm that people like your video and that more users might also respond the same way. Engagement, especially watch time, is a strong metric because it means people spend more time on their platform because of your content. It allows TikTok to sell ad space to brands for a higher price.

Now how to create engaging content for the platform is about understanding what works for the platform. Unlike Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where you could repurpose content from your blogs or ebooks, for TikTok, you might have to create original content. It is because the kind of content that works best on the platform is fun, humorous or sarcastic. So unless it is your natural brand of voice, repurposing content would not work, says Neil Patel.

Jade Darmawangsa recommends the classic story structure for your videos — a middle, a beginning, and an end. That is, introduce a problem that you solve in the end, to have your viewers not drop off in between.
Conclusion

The way to think about your content on TikTok is the same thing you follow on any content creation. Create engaging content for your specific audience. It is easier said than done, but it is worth the effort.

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