TikTok today attracts around one billion daily users. That’s a crazy number. With all those people out there surfing the app, you’d think it would be pretty easy to get your own TikTok posts to go viral, and be seen by at least a few million of them.
But ‘viral’ doesn’t need to mean views in the millions. It can just as equally mean a few thousand or even a few hundred views, provided those views come from an audience for whom the TikTok algorithm has deemed your content relevant.
Still, the question remains: How long does it take for a TikTok to go viral? In this article, we’ll answer this question, and then give you our Top Tips on How To Go Viral on TikTok. For any other information, or if you have further questions, please see our FAQ section instead.
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The short answer to this question is: there’s no way of knowing how long it can take for a TikTok to go viral. A longer answer would be…
TikTok’s user-driven algorithm is one of (if not the) most sophisticated algorithms in the world. It has grown exceptionally adept at pairing its users with exactly the kind of content it thinks they will want to see. And with so many users posting so many videos every single day, that’s a lot of content to filter through.
As such, you could post for years and never break above a small amount of dedicated viewers and/or followers. Or, you could go viral with your very first post. The opportunity is always there for your TikTok to go viral, provided it catches the algorithm at the right moment, or rides the success of a passing trend.
Typically, if your TikTok is going to go viral, you will see it do so in the first 24 hours after posting it. And remember: going viral can mean just a few thousand views more than your average; it doesn’t have to mean views in the millions.
If you want to maximize the chances that your next TikTok posts go viral, thus potentially ensuring that you go viral quicker, check out our Top Tips for Going Viral on TikTok, below.
There’s no set time frame for going viral on TikTok, but there are things you can do to maximize the chance that you will see a rise in TikTok exposure.
Tip #1: Post often
TikTok makes its money the higher the number of users, and the more frequently they use the app. As such, its algorithm tends to favor those users who post at least once a day. If you want to go viral, a good way to start is by posting more content and thus increasing the odds in your favor.
Tip #2: Scope out the competition in your niche
It’s worth doing some research to find out what kind of videos historically do really well on TikTok, as these are the sorts of videos which are most likely to earn you your viral status. Find a niche you want to target your posts toward, and scope out the competition posting in that same niche.
Historically, these kinds of videos accrue the highest engagement on TikTok:
- Cooking
- Relationship
- Reaction
- Pets
- Dance
Hashtags help other users to find your content, but more than that: they help TikTok to know where to categorize your posts, and who to share them with. In the same vein as Tip #2, scope out the hashtags that popular posts in your niche use, and begin using them yourself. For example, the #BookTok hashtag is how the BookTok (literary TikTok) community is identified.
Tip #4: Follow the trends
TikTok is the place for trends, such as dance crazes, funny sound effects, or particular styles or themes of video. If you’d like to increase your chances of your TikTok going viral, then it’s a good idea to keep on top of the most current trends, and emulate them to suit your own purposes.
Tip #5: Put a lot of thought into your first post
TikTok pays extra attention to the very first video new user accounts post, in the hope that it might be good enough to boost through the TikTok algorithm. Thus, if you’re a new account holder, paying extra special attention to the first video you post might just help you go viral in your first few days on the app!
FAQs
TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing social networking app, has grown so popular in recent years that today around a billion people use it every single day. To put that into perspective, the world’s entire population is 8 billion, meaning that around ⅛ of all the people in the world use TikTok every day.
Many of these billion users are using the app purely for entertainment purposes, but a great deal of them are looking for something more… fame. Or at least, a kind of quick, easy fame found from the comfort of their own home. They want their videos to go viral. But what does that mean?
If you’re on TikTok, you’ve certainly seen that even the simplest of videos can amass millions and millions of views in mere hours, whilst really beautifully constructed videos might only ever attract a few hundred views. Nevertheless, a video doesn’t have to get millions of views to be ‘viral’. Virality is all about the community you’re aiming to catch the attention of.
If your video is super niche, and it catches a thousand views from that niche community, then you have in many senses ‘gone viral’. Virality isn’t just about the sheer number of views, in other words, it’s also about the relevance of those views, and the strength of your promotion in the TikTok algorithm.
Going viral is not all it’s cracked up to be. A post of yours going viral just means that lots of people have seen it, or that it’s been promoted highly in the TikTok algorithm. Other than that, there’s no set outcomes for a post going viral.
Sure, going viral might boost the popularity of your business or brand, if you’ve posted from a professional TikTok account. It might even boost the follower count of your personal profile, and in time allow you to sign up to the TikTok Creator Fund and start earning a small amount of money for your posts.
But ultimately, it’s not really that important to go viral. TikTok is just a social media app, and as we all know, social media apps are designed to be addictive, so as to make the developers as much money as possible. The likes, comments, and views of TikTok videos are all geared toward keeping you on the app 24/7, with the dream of going viral being the biggest hook for most.
At the end of the day, if you’re having fun making and watching TikToks, then that’s all that matters. Not whether your TikToks go viral.
As we explain in greater detail above, there really is no ‘quick’ way to go viral on TikTok. The TikTok algorithm is one of the more comprehensive social media algorithms in the world right now, meaning that it’s pretty intuitive about picking up new content from new users, and promoting niche content to the right communities.
As such, you could quite possibly go viral with your first ever post on TikTok. Equally, however, you may post hundreds or thousands of TikToks over several years before ever getting the kind of recognition you’ve been waiting for.
Nevertheless, if you follow our top tips for going viral on TikTok above, you’ll most certainly increase your chances of going viral more quickly.
Technically speaking, anyone can go viral on TikTok, since the app’s algorithm aims to promote the best content, not necessarily the best or longest standing creators. As such, you could go viral with a quick and easily sellable dance trend you come up with on the spot, maybe even posted through a friend’s account. Alternatively, you could go viral on TikTok with a very specific niche topic that you thought had no chance of attracting attention.
The most important thing to remember, however, is that not everyone can go viral in the millions of views. It’s far more likely that what ‘viral’ will look like for you is a few thousand views from a relevant and similarly-minded audience. Still, this is no less of an achievement. Millions of people like dumb videos of cats, but far fewer people are really amped about the books of your favorite author.
Still, if you reach the attention of the BookTok community with your post about that author, then a few thousand relevant views is still technically ‘going viral’.
