TikTok: This is How The Algorithm Works
How does the TikTok algorithm work ? What are the factors that determine the videos in the “For you” section ? If you are asking yourself these questions, you have already understood that Chinese social media could be a good ally for your company or your brand and that knowing the dynamics of the platform is essential.
In a press release TikTok revealed how it recommends videos to users, but let’s go in order.
What is the “For you” section
The For Te feed is a stream of videos curated according to the interests and preferences of the user that facilitates the search for content. The section is made up of a series of tips, different from person to person: each feed is unique and tailored to the specific individual .
The factors that influence the For you
- User interactions such as videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create.
- Information about the video such as captions, sounds and hashtags.
- Device and account settings such as language preference, country setting and device type.
Strong and weak indicators
For the TikTok algorithm some indicators are stronger than others , for example the action of watching a video from start to finish carries more weight than if the viewer and creator of the video are both in the same country.
And the followers? Am I a strong indicator? The answer is no, a video is likely to get more views if posted by an account that has more followers (by virtue of a larger follower base), but “neither the follower count nor the fact that the account has had previous high-performance videos are direct factors in the recommendation system ”.
How to go viral in For You + extra tips
The key to getting more engagement is to work on TikTok’s algorithm to get your video to spread across the most pages of For You. Here are the main factors to focus on:
- Hashtag . In the “Discover” tab you can find the trending hashtags, try to use them.
- Caption . Engage conversations and prompt users to comment on your video using the few characters available.
- Trending songs and sounds . Using trending music at the right time can mean a rapid increase in likes and views.
- Video editing . A strategy that captures viewers and triggers new views and shares is the absolute trump card. Some users build videos with a continuous loop, an algorithm trigger.
Plus, here are some extra tips : Check out TikTok’s Insights to see when your audience is most active, try posting different content on a regular basis (even more videos per day!), Test duets and short videos (videos from about 10/15 seconds are more likely to be seen until the end).
Slow burn: there is always hope to go viral
It’s possible that a video you just posted won’t get results and then, after 48 hours or even weeks , it goes viral. The motivation is not clear: it could be that TikTok’s algorithm randomly pushes some “unlucky” videos into For you or that the sound used becomes viral and all the videos in which it is present suffer a positive shock.
