When you’re just getting started on TikTok, it can be tempting to buy new followers to quickly see your TikTok account grow. We get it. But how to get TikTok followers without paying a dime? That is the question! Lucky for you, we spill all the deets here.
Read on to learn how to gain genuine TikTok followers (AKA free followers) in 19 easy ways.
19 Tips to get more followers on TikTok
Looking for effective ways to grow your TikTok account? Let’s dive into our top 19 tips for gaining more TikTok followers:
- Identify your niche
- Define your target audience
- Create engaging content
- Leverage popular trends
- Start your own TikTok challenge
- Use hashtags effectively
- Create Duets and Stitch videos
- Collaborate with other TikTok creators
- Engage with your followers
- Use trending sounds or music
- Post at the right time to get more engagement from your target audience
- Build a content calendar
- Post consistently
- Start a multi-part series
- Experiment with different video lengths
- Cross-promote your TikTok videos on other social media platforms
- Review analytics and optimize your content
- Stay authentic to keep your TikTok followers
- Add closed captions to your videos
Tip 1: Identify your niche
To grow your TikTok following, first things first, you need to identify your content niche.
Creators often fall into two categories: the creator educator, and the creator entertainer. Is your goal to teach your audience something or to entertain them? Once you’ve figured that out, you can identify the category of your content niche. For example, are you a home cook? Into fashion? A dog trainer? Or a Simpsons superfan? The sky’s the limit with TikTok, so have fun with it!
Tip 2: Define your target audience
So you have a good grip on your content niche, now it’s time to define your target audience. Having a set target audience in mind right out of the gate will help you build a more successful TikTok strategy — you’ll be on your way to capitalizing on brand sponsorships and more in no time.
Ask yourself questions like: What is my target audience looking for on TikTok? How are they engaging with TikTok?
Keep in mind that you should always be targeting TikTok users that feel authentic to you and your brand. You want your content to simultaneously educate and entertain your audience, and that will only work if what you’re sharing is relevant to your viewers.
TikTok is a big wide world full of thousands of content niches. For context, there are over 1 billion monthly active users on TikTok across various demographics, locations, and niches.
But don’t get overwhelmed. Just remember there’s an audience out there for every creator. By choosing a specific audience and creating content specifically for them, you’ll get more TikTok followers.
Tip 3: Create engaging content
Great news! Unlike Instagram or YouTube, you don’t need a ton of TikTok followers to go viral on TikTok. This is all thanks to TikTok’s vigorous recommendation system, aka the algorithm.
The beauty of the TikTok algorithm is that if you produce high-quality and trendy content that’s curated to your target audience, you have just as high a chance to show up on your audience’s feed as all the other TikToker users (yes, even if you have little to no followers).
So, how do you create engaging content? Well, it starts with always keeping your audience in mind. If you’ve decided to create content for women between 20-35 who are interested in fitness, don’t start randomly talking about Bitcoin. Beyond that, here are a few more tips for keeping your content engaging:
- Always work on improvement: When you post a TikTok, don’t just consider it done and never look at it again. Review your content over time to see what works, what doesn’t, and learn how you can make better TikToks.
- Start with a hook: The first few seconds of your TikTok should pull people in so they feel compelled to watch.
- Tell a story: Even if a TikTok is only a few minutes long, it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. For example, a workout TikTok video can start with you getting ready, then go into your workout, and wrap up with post-workout stretching.
- Re-hook your viewer: Your TikTok should have quick moments every few seconds that keep people engaged. That can be a sound cue, a visual effect, or even just a quick cut.
Tip 4: Leverage popular trends
While sometimes it might feel clichéd to follow the trends, we all know that TikTok is all about them, and there’s a reason for it: responding to trends on TikTok can pay off.
Case in point: Remember that brief moment when everyone was making vignettes à la Wes Anderson? That trend became so popular that even the cast of Anderson’s film Asteroid City made a TikTok video participating in the trend.
While it’s always a smart idea to leverage trends, remember that you’ll want to stick to trends that resonate with you as a person and with your brand, otherwise, you run the risk of appearing inauthentic, AKA the ultimate death trap on TikTok.
Tip 5: Start your own TikTok challenge
TikTok challenges are a kind of trend that encourages others to get involved. While hopping onto a trending challenge is great for getting TikTok followers, you can also take it to the next level by creating your own challenges.
If you can claim a strong hashtag as part of your challenge and create content geared towards that challenge, you might get some serious traction as the TikToker who came up with a popular challenge.
Start by coming up with a challenge most people would be able to do — unless you want to keep the challenge specific to your niche. Make and publish a TikTok about it, then reach out to people in your network to see if they’re willing to take part in it. That can be friends, family, and coworkers — not just other creators.
Make sure your challenge has an associated hashtag, and keep an eye on that hashtag for a couple of weeks after you’ve published it. Use a Duet or Stitch to react to anyone contributing to the challenge to get more attention to it.
Here’s a great example from creator Kelley Heyer, who started the #appledance challenge to Charli XCX’s hit track:
Tip 6: Use hashtags effectively
You might have noticed that creators with fewer TikTok followers tend to include more hashtags in their posts. This is because hashtags are truly effective in getting more TikTok users to see your content, especially when you’re just getting started.
That being said, you want to be strategic with your hashtags and use them moderately. We’ve all seen those posts with a thousand hashtags — it’s not the cutest look. So avoid spamming your audience and stick to the expert-recommended amount of three to five hashtags per post.
You want your hashtags to be specific and relevant to your content, with a healthy mix of popular and niche hashtags. Popular hashtags will help expose your content to a larger audience, while niche hashtags help you connect with a more targeted audience.
You can find trending hashtags through TikTok’s Discover page — just search up the topics you’re interested in. TikTok’s Creative Center is a great tool for searching hashtags and seeing how they performed over time, too.
Want to grow your TikTok account quickly? Get our free TikTok SEO cheat sheet for more tips on how to use hashtags to boost your following.
Tip 7: Create Duets and Stitch videos
Using TikTok’s Duet and Stitch feature is an easy (and fun) way to increase engagement. TikTok Duets allow you to create side-by-side videos, one with your content and the other with the original video creator.
TikTok creators generally use the Duet feature to show viewers their reaction or response in real-time alongside the original video. And for those who like to show off their vocals and harmonizing skills, Duets are perfect for creating singing videos with other creators.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s Stitch feature lets you incorporate a specific portion of the original video into your content. Like Duet, the Stitch feature is another way to reinterpret or add to another user’s content. Think of using Stitch for building upon, or responding to, existing tutorials, recipes, or commentary.
Tip 8: Collaborate with other TikTok creators
While Duets and Stitches are great for getting engagement through your reactions to other people’s content, they’re not the only way you should be working with other creators.
A collaboration can be a huge win-win, as both creators can benefit from the other each other’s TikTok following. Basically, you’re featured in a TikTok on someone else’s account, meaning you get visibility with their audience and can potentially gain new followers.
To make this work, ensure that your collaboration is mutually beneficial. As soon as one creator tries to get a bit more than the other out of the deal, things can turn sour. Focus on what you bring to the table and what you can give. Then, try to be the one who gives more in the exchange. It might sound a bit counter-intuitive, but it’ll build you some goodwill with that creator, and they’re more likely to want to work with you again in the future.
Try to aim for creators in your niche with a similar-sized following, and reach out to like-minded creators at least once a day offering potential collaborations.
Tip 9: Engage with your followers
More engagement equals more TikTok followers. And since TikTok is a social platform after all, connecting with your viewers in a positive and engaging manner can help you build a loyal following.
Here are some of our top tips on the most positive and engaging ways to interact with your viewers:
- Reply promptly: Responding to viewers’ comments and messages quickly shows them that you value their engagement, and encourages them to interact with your content even more.
- Be genuine: Your viewers are smart, they can detect a phony message, and no one likes to feel like they’re talked to by a robot. Make an effort to respond sincerely, and make sure to personalize your replies.
- Be appreciative: Ultimately, a TikTok creator’s success is dependent on their viewers, so make sure to show gratitude towards your followers on TikTok. You can start by simply thanking them for their comments, likes, and shares.
- Encourage interaction: Start by asking your viewers to respond to a question in the comments. This is a great way to not only learn more about your target audience, but also encourage conversation and interactions.
- Address concerns: There’s always going to be a handful of haters on social media, but if one of your viewers raises a valid concern or criticism, it’s best to craft a respectful response.
Tip 10: Use trending sounds or music
Using trending sounds and music is a sneaky way of increasing the reach and engagement of your videos. But how do you know what songs are trending?
As always, keep checking that Discovery page and TikTok’s Creative Center to stay up to date on the latest song trends! We also recommend following influencers and creators who are within your same content niche to observe what sounds and trending songs they’re using.
Tip 11: Post at the right time to get more engagement from your target audience
We’re not going to lie, deciding on the right time to post on TikTok can be tricky — who can predict what time everyone will be on the app?
The best answer here really harks back to knowing your target audience. Think about your audience demographics, like their age group, location, and general interests.
What time do you expect your audience to be on TikTok the most? For example, are they 9-to-5ers where you see a spike in views late afternoon and evening? Or, maybe your target audience demographic is students whose schedules might be less predictable.
If you’re not sure where to start, there are some more general peak user hours you can use, based on research from SocialPilot. These are the best times to post in the U.S., in EST:
- Monday: 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 p.m.
- Tuesday: 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 9 a.m.
- Wednesday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 11 a.m.
- Thursday: 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 7 p.m.
- Friday: 5 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m.
- Saturday: 11 a.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m.
- Sunday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 4 p.m.
Once your channel grows, you should analyze the view time of your followers directly from the TikTok Creator Tool tab. Creator @rixirising outlines how to do it in this TikTok:
Tip 12: Build a content calendar
You want content creation to feel fun, not stressful! While it might seem overwhelming at first, planning and building out a content calendar will significantly alleviate any stressful situations later on.
A content calendar also allows you to build a backlog of content. Lean into that backlog, because it will ultimately allow you to take IRL breaks (if things ever feel like too much).
There are several tools available for creating content calendars, like Airtable and Notion. But you can also go full old-school and use a physical agenda, or a free tool like Google Calendar or Google Sheets.
So, how do you do this? Once you have your niche figured out (remember Tip #1?), think of a few common topics you can cover within that niche. If you’re into personal finance, for example, you’ll want to create content about budgeting, investing, and saving money. From these topics, create sub-topics. Budgeting, for example, can be broken down into how to make a budget, how to stick to a budget, and how to update a budget as your income changes. Even these sub-topics can be broken down into 10-15 individual TikToks, creating a huge backlog of content you can then film.
Once that backlog’s made, plan out how you’ll produce your content over the coming weeks (or even months). Plan out deadlines, the days when you’ll record your content, and stick to it as best as you can. This will have you creating steady content without trying to come up with ideas on the spot.
Tip 13: Post consistently
Like any content creation, consistency is key. The more content you have published, the closer you’ll be to getting more TikTok followers.
You also want to be realistic about how much content you can create. For example, you don’t need to post one video a day, but you do want your TikTok followers to rely on when they can expect new content from your account.
So before you get started on TikTok, you’ll want to seriously consider how much high-quality content you can realistically produce in a day, week, month, or year. Then build a content calendar (see Tip #12) and stick to it!
Tip 14: Start a multi-part series
While most of your TikToks will probably work fine as one-offs, a series can really help bring in more followers — and make them stick around. The promise of recurring content means you’re worth following, and it creates curiosity as people wonder what you’re going to be creating next. Think about it, if you watched a killer TikTok with “Part 1” in the title, you’d likely want to come back for more.
Creating a series doesn’t just help you get new followers, but it also naturally incentivizes you to post more consistently!
When planning your content calendar, set some creation time aside for starting a series and contributing to it regularly. As you release each part of your series, keep an eye on the numbers. If you notice the series as a whole isn’t performing as well as you’d expected, you can find ways to shorten it to put your creative energy elsewhere.
Tip 15: Experiment with different video lengths
Just because your TikToks can be up to ten minutes long doesn’t mean they all should be that long. They shouldn’t all be a minute, either. So how long should they be? There are two answers to this question:
- A TikTok should be just long enough to get your message across.
- A TikTok should be the length that your audience enjoys the most.
In some niches, you’ll want longer TikToks that allow you to get into the details of whatever you’re talking about (or showing off). In others, you’ll rarely go over a few minutes. How do you know what length you should go for?
First, research other creators in your niche and see what they’re doing. If their content skews longer, try making yours longer. Ditto if their stuff is shorter.
As you grow though, look less at other creators and more at your own analytics. Your audience’s likes and dislikes should guide what you create more than what other creators are doing at the moment. If your longer videos get more engagement, make more of those. If they like it short, keep it short.
Just keep experimenting until you find a format that makes sense for you and your audience.
Tip 16: Cross-promote your TikTok videos on other social media platforms
Cross-promoting your TikTok videos across multiple social media platforms is a powerful way to get more TikTok followers. Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok all share a similar short-form video format, so it’s fairly easy to produce content that could work across all three social media platforms:
- Promote your TikTok on Instagram: You can easily repurpose your TikTok videos as Reels or Posts to build a following on Instagram. By including the TikTok watermark in your content, you’ll get some visibility for your TikTok channel, too. You can even use Stories as teasers or a highlight reel for your TikTok channel.
- Use YouTube Shorts to promote your TikTok: A YouTube Short is essentially indistinguishable from a TikTok, and posting your TikToks to YouTube is a great way to access an even wider audience. Just make sure to include a link back to your TikTok profile in the description of each Short.
- Promote your TikTok on other social media platforms: Platforms like Twitter (X), Facebook, or Reddit are great places to promote your TikTok video. They can support text posts, can be used to reply to other creators, and more. Even Snapchat and Pinterest can be useful for this, depending on your target audience.
Tip 17: Review analytics and optimize your content
To max out your TikTok revenue potential and increase your TikTok presence, you’re going to want to focus on the most important metrics. Think more followers, high engagement, and multiple revenue streams. Keeping all this in mind, TikTok’s analytics tool will be your new best friend.
First things first, to access your analytics tool, you’ll need a TikTok Pro account. Once you have TikTok Pro, go to your TikTok profile page and tap on the three horizontal lines in the top right corner. Then select “Analytics” from the menu. Here you’ll find various sections with information about your account and content performance.
Start exploring analytics by checking the “Overview” section on your TikTok profile, which provides a summary of your account’s performance over the last 7 or 28 days. Look for metrics like total video views, profile views, TikTok followers gained, and trending videos.
By continuously monitoring your TikTok analytics, you can adapt and optimize your content strategy based on the insights you gather.
Tip 18: Stay authentic to keep your TikTok followers
Last but definitely not least, the golden rule of any content creation is to stay authentic.
As long as you stay true to who you are and produce content that’s authentic to you, you’ll be gaining more and more followers on TikTok in no time! Not only that, but your existing followers will stick around for longer because you’ll be committing to the content and brand they’re used to.
How do you stay authentic? Before you do anything, ask yourself why you’re doing it. If the answer is something along the lines of “making more money,” then it’s probably not an authentic thing to do. Too many TikTok creators fall into the trap of emulating other creators with tactics that don’t fit who they are. Your audience can pick up on that a lot better than you think.
Tip 19: Add closed captions to your videos
About 11 million people across the U.S. are deaf or have serious difficulty hearing. Adding captions to your videos doesn’t just get you more followers, it also makes your content more inclusive. It takes a little bit of extra work, but it’s more than worth it.
Not sure how to add closed captions to your TikToks? Here’s creator @meagankoch with a quick guide:
- With one of your TikToks open, hit the down arrow to the right.
- Hit Edit.
- Hit Text at the bottom of the screen, then hit Captions.
- TikTok will automatically generate captions, but you’ll want to swipe through the TikTok’s timeline to make sure it’s accurate.
- If you need to edit any of the captions, just tap the text box, then make the changes you need to.
Time to skyrocket your TikTok growth!
In the last few years, the creator economy has exploded. And TikTok, one of the newest social media platforms, is at the forefront of it all.
While it’s primarily known as a social media platform, it could be argued that TikTok operates more like a search engine tool, quickly becoming a rival to Google as a go-to source for information. This is great news for TikTok creators, since the more people that turn to TikTok for education and entertainment, the more it becomes a viable source of income for creators on the platform.
Ready to grow your TikTok following? Get our free TikTok SEO cheat sheet for creator-approved tips to get more reach on the app.
How to get TikTok followers FAQ
How can I get more followers on TikTok fast?
Here’s the scoop: You don’t need to buy TikTok followers. Instead, hone in on your unique style and create captivating, high-quality content that stands out from the crowd. Embrace the trends, challenges, and hashtags that resonate with your audience, and don’t shy away from joining the fun.
Engage with the TikTok community by liking, commenting, and collaborating with other creators. Be authentic, stay consistent, and post regularly to keep your audience hooked. Don’t forget to optimize your profile, use eye-catching thumbnails, and experiment with creative effects to make your content pop.
Lastly, promote your TikTok on other social media platforms and leverage the power of word-of-mouth. Follow these tips, and you’ll be well on your way to attracting more followers (no fake followers required) in no time.
What hashtags should I use to grow my TikTok account?
While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to which hashtags you should use to grow your TikTok following, there are some general rules to keep in mind while building your hashtag strategy.
The first rule of thumb: research! Look up trending hashtags on TikTok’s Discover page and Creative Center, or check out popular videos in your niche to see what hashtags are included.
Secondly, always use specific and relevant hashtags and make sure to dish out a healthy dose of trending and evergreen hashtags (FYI, an evergreen hashtag is a hashtag that will remain popular and relevant over an extended period).
Finally, don’t forget to leverage niche-specific hashtags or your own branded hashtags, which help build a sense of community around your content niche.
How do you make money on TikTok?
Because TikTok doesn’t yet compensate the majority of its creators for running TikTok ads on videos, creators and third-party brands don’t have standardized rates to follow if they decide to work together. This means that revenue generated from brand deals and sponsored posts can vary widely depending on several factors. To simplify the calculation process for you, we’ve created a handy TikTok Money Calculator to help you estimate how much money you can make. (Try it!)
While it’s true that anyone can go viral on TikTok regardless of how many followers they have, the general rule of thumb is that creators get paid more if they have both a high engagement rate and a high number of followers on TikTok. So, focus on growing your account with the tips shared in this article, and the money will follow.
Follow The Leap on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more audience growth tips. We also make a newsletter.
Further reading
- TikTok SEO: 8 Tips To Help Your TikTok Videos Rank High in Search
- How To Make Short-Form Video Content Work for You
- How To Use TikTok Hashtags To Get More Views
- What Are the Best Times to Post on TikTok?
- TikTok Money Calculator: Estimate How Much You Can Earn as a Creator
This article was originally published in June 2023, and updated in July 2024 with additional information.
