You shouldn’t be surprised seeing that white-haired octogenarian down your street partake in the next TikTok challenge. Who doesn’t want to be the next TikTok celebrity?
Founded back in 2016, TikTok has grown obesely, with about 800 million active users recorded by 2020. Well, you may not appreciate this growth till I tell you that Tiktok has outgrown its “granddads” like Snapchat, LinkedIn, and even Twitter!
More than producing that mindblowing content, you need to amplify such content’s visibility. This brings us to maximizing hashtags. Essentially, hashtags – just as is obtainable on the likes of Twitter – make your content more discoverable.
This exposes your content to a larger swathe of TikTok eyeballs. This is what you want, isn’t it?
Tell you what, discoverability is far more than just littering your content with hashtags. There must be a strategy to it. Precisely, a system optimized with your objectives and targeted audience.
With such sustained discoverability, your targeted users will begin to take note of your content and follow you. Ultimately, what you get is a fanatic TikTok community gluttonously savoring your videos.
Wait, before I tell you these TikTok hashtags best practices, how about we learn a thing or two about using TikTok hashtags?
What are TikTok Hashtags?
The mechanics of Tiktok hashtags don’t differ much from what is obtainable on other platforms. Of course, there are specifics regarding TikTok’s maximum hashtags count and guidelines for adding these hashtags.
As you must have seen on other platforms, you integrate hashtags into your video by inserting them in your post’s caption. Once your content is published, you can no longer edit the captions. To change your hashtags in that case, you will have to download the content, delete it and then republish it.
How about the maximum hashtags per post? On Instagram, you can have a limit of 30 hashtags for each post. On Twitter, you have a character limit for your hashtags set at 280 for each tweet.
It is different on TikTok, which allows you up to 150 characters for each caption. Oh, and your hashtags are included.
So how do you make the best of these hashtags within this 150-character boundary? I will tell you some proven best practices to get your next video viral.
5 Best TikTok Hashtag Tips to Go Viral
Rework Your TikTok Hashtag Strategy
Is it beginning to look like too much work? Well, you just can’t strew uncorrelated hashtags about your post caption and expect your content to get into my For You page. This is especially if I have not interacted with your content before.
To formulate a workable TikTok hashtag strategy, you need a clear picture of what you want.
First, who are you targeting? A bit of research on your part will do a lot to expose valuable insights about these people to you.
Some investigation about your audience should help in uncovering the hashtags they use and interact with most. Which of these hashtags are closely related to your content or brand?
Next, what are your objectives, buddy?
Are you just looking for more followers and exposure? Do you want the people you reach to take specific actions like visiting a website, sharing your content, or specifically buying from you?
Keep Yourself Up-to-Date on TikTok Stars
Just like in society, Tiktok has its upper class. You guessed right, these are the influencers.
These are the individuals that have excelled on TikTok whose content – as related to your niche – has maximum reach and success.
Good news is there nothing nepotic about becoming a TikTok influencer; it is not passed from parent to child. Being meritocratic, if you can create equally insightful and exciting content and leverage the same hashtags an influencer, you are closer to replicating the influencer’s success.
You can spy on an influencer’s hashtags. There is nothing criminal about that. However, you must ensure you are borrowing from an influencer relevant to your brand.
How are these influencers leveraging hashtags? How do they tap into the trending hashtags?
How do they bake such trending hashtags with less popular ones? This brings us to trending hashtags.
Jump on TikTok Trends
A considerable bulk of Tiktok is trends. This is why it is a “social” community in the first place. From time to time, trending hashtags arise. Depending on the content, we see trends in the beauty, crafts, motivational dance, and foot spaces.
You wouldn’t need an FBI investigation to discover these trending hashtags on TikTok. Simply go to your Explore page, and TikTok feeds you the hot trending hashtags.
Now, you have your clue. You can get to work. You can create or optimize your content around these trending hashtags. Indeed, this is your best shot at tapping into the heat of the moment and gaining maximum exposure.
Target Less Competitive Hashtags
C’mmon, don’t tell me you thought you were the only one targeting those trending hashtags. Possibly millions of other Tiktok users across the world are too.
This enormously swells the competitiveness. Such competition reduces the chances of your content being readily seen compared to when you targeted hashtags with lesser competition.
Few better scenarios better typify the adage of keeping your eggs in more than one basket than this. Mix the trending hashtags you target with less competitive ones.
Mixing both makes even more sense because if you can achieve meaningful success on smaller hashtags, TikTok algorithms begin to give you more visibility on the more competitive ones.
Participate in TikTok Challenges
It was bad enough being the Harry-Porter-goggle nerd in college, don’t be one on TikTok. Never shy away from Tiktok challenges.
If you want to get the best juice out of Tiktok hashtags, keep an eye out for emerging challenges. Jump on them soonest before they lose momentum or gain too much momentum that exponentially blows up the competitiveness.
One perfect way to catch in on TikTok challenges quickly enough is by keeping track of viral events. What event is trending on the mainstream media at the moment?
This could be notable controversies, debates, holidays, or even trending songs. The central idea is getting something that whets your audience’s appetite.
Can you tie Tiktok videos into them? Leveraging Tiktok challenges involves building your content around the happening theme.
TikTok is awash with challenges. So far, the most popular ones include the Celeb Look-Alike, Don’t Leave Me, Ed Sheeran’s Beautiful People, and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road”.
Conclusively, your content or hashtags wouldn’t fly if you don’t invest in posting frequently. Virality on TikTok – just as it is generally on social media – is about consistency.
Publishing one video on Tiktok in summer and another in the winter is not even enough to get your next-door-neighbor Tiktok user to know you, least getting globally viral.
How regularly can you keep cooking that delicious content? I wouldn’t need to remind you that recycling content doesn’t work on TikTok. Your audience needs it fresh, hot, and steamy.
When posting your content and hashtags, strive for periods where the larger slice of TikTok users is active. This is generally within 7 pm-11 pm EST. Apply these best practices and I am confident of seeing your video on my For You page on TikTok.