From pop stars and police officers to teachers and healthcare workers, TikTok‘s platform offers users of all stripes everything from useful life hacks to the latest trending memes.
The charm and popularity of the app aren’t lost on brands, and many are wondering how to use it to connect with its ever-growing audience.
Today, I’m going to tell you how I got 110,000 views, 2,000 shares, and over 6,000 likes on 1 simple TikTok video.
Keep reading to find out how to make a viral TikTok video!
What We’ll Cover:
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 1: Pick a Topic That Has a Lot of Value
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 2: Keep the Video Short
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 3: Use Visuals to Keep Interest
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 4: Use Suggestive Actions
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 5: Choose Hot Topics
- How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 6: Ask for Comments
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 1: Pick a Topic That Has a Lot of Value
TikTok is the fastest-growing social media app in the world.
With over 800 million users worldwide (70 million in the US alone), that means you have to grab people’s attention fast before they swipe past your video to view other content.
The trick starts with finding the right topic. If you don’t make the subject of your video clear until the very end, most people won’t watch.
So be sure to set the tone and theme of the video within the first 3 seconds so your audience will understand what they’re watching.
For my viral TikTok video, I had just learned about a meta tag that could help websites get over a 300% increase in traffic and increase click-through rates by 79%.
The release of this video came just in time as Google had just recently come out with a study showing how the Max Image Preview meta tag boosted clicks.
In the event that you’re encountering some creative roadblocks, evergreen content like tutorials, educational posts, or solutions to FAQs, can also attract views. This type of content never goes out of date and can be very valuable for SEO since it continuously attracts interest and engagement.
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 2: Keep the Video Short
During TikTok’s early days, videos were capped at 15 seconds long, but since then, the app has extended the limit to 60 seconds when piecing four 15-seconds segments together.
However, unless you’re telling a long story that requires the full minute, I’d aim to keep your videos to less than 30 seconds.
Unlike other social platforms, Tiktok looks at the average length of watch time compared to the length of the entire video as a way of determining its level of quality. For instance, people are more likely to watch 8 seconds of a 10-second video than 48 seconds of a 60-second video.
The higher your watch time, the more likes you’ll receive, and the higher chance you’ll have of your video going viral.
I kept my video under 30 seconds in hopes of leading TikTok users to have an emotional reaction to the content. Since it was short and packed with critical information, it compelled them to save the video instead of just watching it and then scrolling past it.
Short-form videos give you the creative freedom to publish factual, relatable videos that get right to the point, without the overhead of needing to produce more in-depth content.
Interested in learning about what I revealed in my viral video?
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 3: Use Visuals to Keep Interest
As our attention span gets shorter and shorter, TikTok continues to dominate the game with visual experiences.
In fact, visual media tends to better resonate with most people, as 65% are visual learners and more than 90% prefer visual over written content.
When it comes to how to make a video go viral on TikTok, you simply cannot afford to overlook the visual elements of your posts.
Thankfully, the platform offers a wide range of in-app effects and customization options designed to make your content more visually stimulating.
Let’s do a quick rundown of some of the effects you can use to modify your videos post-recording:
- Visual: With this effect, you can alter the look and feel of your video by adding stars, rain, or bubbles.
- Sticker: Although only 1 can be applied at a time, TikTok allows you to pin stickers to objects in your videos. The sticker can also move around and change size depending on what it’s pinned to.
- Transition: You can tap this effect multiple times to repeat any transitions on your video. You can use it to zoom in or rotate the screen.
- Split: Similar to a collage, this effect is able to split your videos and show you 9 separate views of your camera.
- Time: If you want to create time-warp effects, this feature gives you the option to reverse, repeat, or slow-mo your videos.
Obviously, you don’t want to use all of these together as it can be confusing for the viewer. But try to incorporate at least one – and choose wisely, depending on the intent of your content.
Although my Max Image Preview meta tag video was really short, there was always some text or graphic bridging the gap between one thing I said and another.
So at any point in time, there was something new that was always popping up on the screen to encourage the user to continue watching.
Modify Your Videos
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 4: Use Suggestive Actions
Higher engagement is your fast-track to the “For You” page and is one of the metrics you really need to look at on Tiktok.
With such a high volume of users, how can you build a strong engagement rate and drive your viewers to take action?
Well, just like any other social platform, you want to market your business without being pushy, salesy, or needy.
One way to go about this is by using the app’s Q&A feature, where you can reply to user questions directly with a video.
Many TikTokers are also using hashtag challenges to promote their brand. This can drive enormous engagement since it puts the power in the users’ hands.
All you have to do is create a branded hashtag, encourage viewers to create content, and then add your branded hashtag to it.
In my case, I included a small “like” icon that was displaying how many likes my video was receiving in real-time. This caused people to look at it and think, “Oh, maybe I should like that too!”
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 5: Choose Hot Topics
Commenting will often drive virality, so if you have any trending or controversial topics to discuss, TikTok is the platform to do so.
People are always looking for interesting news and events, which means if they follow your brand, they’ll likely be interested in hearing about your take on things. That’s definitely a contributing factor to why my video went viral.
Keep in mind—if you think you’ve found a suitable idea, make sure it’s actually worth creating a video on the topic.
Here are the criteria you should be looking at:
- Advances your goal—Don’t just publish content for the sake of publishing content. Choose a trending topic that is relevant to your account.
- Meets the needs of subscribers—Building on the last point, you can always find creative ways to modify a story and make it more relevant to your audience.
- Versatility—While it’s good to capitalize on fleeting news stories, be forward-thinking. Choose a topic that can offer you some evergreen content to work with and keep viewers engaged for a long time.
How to Go Viral on TikTok—Step 6: Ask for Comments
While views are one of the most important elements of going viral on TikTok, it’s not all that matters.
Engagement via likes, comments, and shares lets the app know that viewers are interested in your content, and this will generate more views.
The key to getting more comments is to ask for them. Well, there’s more to it than that.
Only ask for comments if you’ve intentionally left some questions unanswered in your video.
TikTok even has a unique feature that allows you to reply to a comment with a video instead of a standard reply.
Your audience will appreciate the fact that you personally interacted with them, and will help you secure a long-term following.
In my case, I asked users to add the Max Image Preview meta tag and let me know how it goes, which a ton of people responded to.
Wrapping Up
Great content can truly come from the most unexpected of places.
After all, it only took me 10 minutes to make the “1 Google SEO Tip Boosting Traffic by 300%” video. Little did I know it would take off in popularity as quickly as it did.
This goes to show that you don’t really need to do much in order to get thousands of video views.
When looking at how to make a video go viral on TikTok, it all comes down to understanding how both the app and your audience work.
Just stay consistent and committed, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself on everyone’s “For You” page in no time!
