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When I was a little girl my dream was to be famous. I loved singing and would bring my karaoke CDs to school and belt out show tunes in the hallway. I even had an agent who would find auditions for me (I was très cool at the age of 10).
But, you guessed it, I never became a star and eventually realized that getting famous wasn’t the life for me.
Still, I know lots of people want their claim to fame. With social media, that’s now possible. (And you don’t even need to sing the soundtrack of Annie in the halls of your elementary school.)
According to recent TikTok stats, TikTok has 800 million monthly active users. It’s the perfect social media platform to try and grow a sizeable following.
So, I decided to reach out to influencers and TikTokers to get their advice on how to get TikTok famous.
Without further ado, let’s learn how people are using TikTok to become famous (and how you can, too)!
7 ways to become TikTok famous
Straight from the mouths of people who are TikTok famous already, these tips will help you grow your TikTok account, get more followers, and hopefully become TikTok famous yourself!
1. Focus on creating highly shareable content
Many people make videos of themselves dancing or lip-syncing and think it’s enough to make them famous on TikTok. Here’s the thing: it’s not.
There are exceptions to this rule—Charlie D’Amelio, Bella Poarch, Addison Rae—but in most cases, it’s easier to become famous on TikTok if you don’t focus on dancing.
TikTok is more than a “karaoke-dance-app” and there are plenty of different types of videos you can post to the platform that will get you more followers.
Highly sharable TikTok videos fall into five main categories:
- Educational: Share something educational with your audience. People love to learn on TikTok.
- Comedy skit: TikTok users love comedy videos.
- Relatable: Share something universally relatable to a large user base.
- Entertaining: Create a piece of highly-entertaining content.
- Personal story: Since the beginning of time, people have always loved listening to stories. Make sure to hook people in your story at the very start, so they stay and watch until the end.
Jeff Hunter, a TikToker with over 2.8 million likes, says, “the TikTok algorithm loves sharable content because it helps more people come to the app. Remember, if you help TikTok achieve their goal of growing and expanding reach, they will reward you–with views [and] people love to laugh, so if possible, insert some humor that makes people want to share.”
At the end of the day, TikTok wants more people on the app. Content creators who succeed in creating shareable content that their audience enjoys watching are more likely to make the For You Page, go viral and beat the algorithm.
You can check the analytics for each individual video to view how many shares it recieved. The below screenshot shows where you can view your total shares per video:
When starting, create as much different content as possible and make sure you review every video to see which videos received the most shares.
After doing this for several weeks, you should begin to notice trends in the videos that got more shares than others.
For example, you might notice that funny storytimes are highly shared. Create more content around the types of topics that generate the most shares.
2. Don’t overthink your videos
Think about some of the influencers you follow on Instagram and what do you notice? Perfect pictures? Staged shots?
That’s one of the main differences between TikTok and Instagram.
TikTok users don’t expect pixel-perfect content. What they do want, however, is valuable content.
On TikTok, a video shot with an iPhone could get just as many likes as a video posted with a DSLR camera.
Melika has over 200,000 followers on TikTok and says, “a lot of times the least time-consuming videos are the most successful. Tiktok really teaches you to not think too much, and just create.”
3. Upload content consistently
I recently challenged myself to post every day for 30 days. Guess what happened?
I…:
- Received over 240,000 video views
- Gained over 2,000 new followers
- Added over 100 new leads to my email list
My next goal is to post several videos per day for the next 30 days and see what happens. Jenny Chang is a famous TikToker with 1.1 million followers.
I asked her about posting consistently and she said this: “when I first started [on TikTok], my goal was to post three to five videos every day for 60 days straight. That goal allowed me to stay consistent and grow rapidly to where I am now. By keeping myself accountable to my goal and growing my content, people caught on to that and stayed. You want people to follow you, and stay hungry for your content.”
You’re also more likely to become TikTok famous if you post more frequently. Influencers who post multiple times a day will have a greater chance of reaching more TikTok users.
Atdhe Trepca, creator of @areyouhapppy (1.1M TikTok followers) agrees and says, “the key to success on TikTok is consistency… uploading 2 – 3x a day without stopping is the norm of the majority of successful TikTok creators.“
This might seem challenging, but you can make videos in bulk and save them to your drafts to upload throughout the week.
4. Focus on trends but don’t rely on them
TikTok influencers who focus on trends often see a burst of new followers. To come across new trends, head to your Discover page and scroll along the top.
But use trends wisely. You shouldn’t rely on them (especially if they aren’t niche-specific).
Atdhe Trepca, the creator of @areyouhapppy, has 1.1M TikTok followers and cautions “do not become a slave to trends. Trends are here today, gone tomorrow. They might help you get a bump of followers but numbers don’t matter when they come from a single video. Your focus should be on telling a story and bringing your followers on that story.”
While trends can be great initially (especially if you have a new account) make sure they align with your niche!
Robert Blackmon, a TikToker with now over 1 million followers, says “don’t be afraid to put your own spin on viral videos that you see. Creating your version of a viral video gives you maximum traction on viewing eyes. Having fun is what attracts people to your page most.”
5. Research your niche
“If you try to please everyone you’ll please no one.”
One of the biggest challenges when trying to get famous on TikTok is trying to narrow down your niche. All TikTokers have a niche they cater to.
You may think that you can grow your account fast (and by more people) if you create content that everyone loves.
But guess what?
That’s not how it works.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you stumbled across a TikTok of someone showing you how to do a DIY home renovation on a budget. You love the video so much, you go to their account to devour more of their DIY reno videos.
But instead, you don’t find any.
You find videos of their cats. Some videos of their recent travels. Some cooking videos.
Rather than follow, you decide to try and find someone else to follow. Someone who posts exclusively about DIY renos.
See what I mean? People want to find their communities. They want valuable content that serves them. Not a buffet of random videos.
Robert Blackmon has this to say about niches, “pick your lane and stay in it (mostly). By picking a category of content, like-minded people can find you easier. It also gives you a niche momentum as your following grows.“
Finding your niche is easier than you might think. Atdhe has superb advice for finding your niche: “if someone were to ask you to present a 30-minute presentation on any topic without any preparation, what would your topic be? What can you talk about endlessly?“
I love that because like I mentioned earlier, if you want to become TikTok famous you need to post a lot. So why not pick something you’re already super passionate about?
Once you narrow down your topic, you should do a bit of research to find what kind of content performs the best in your niche. For example, if you are going to post videos of your dog, what types of dog videos get the most likes?
When I asked Keysha Bass (a TikToker with over 2 million likes) how to get famous on TikTok and she brought up a fantastic way to figure out what type of content will perform best. She said, “do a search of the hashtags your ideal [viewer] would search for, and then you can get some good ideas of what content is working on TikTok and what’s not. You can then model what’s working. Create a content plan of action because you really want to release a video daily there. 3 videos a day would be even better and because these are short 15-60 second videos it’s fairly easy to do.”
Performing competitor research gives you really good insight into what types of content within your niche will propel you to fame.
6. Post at the right time
Lastly, make sure you post at the right time. I’ve tested lots of videos during different times of the day and I’ve found that posting at the wrong time severely limits my reach. I always recommend experimenting, however, but I’ve personally found that time matters. Robert Blackmon agrees: “create a schedule or time of day that you post videos. People like routine and continuity.”
The quickest way to find the best time to post on TikTok is to head into your analytics and view the times when your audience is most active.
The hours when your followers are most active.
7. Cross-promote on other social media platforms
If you have a sizeable following on another social media platform—like Facebook or Instagram—repurpose your content and upload it to those platforms!
Why?
First, you’ll get more mileage from each piece of content you create.
And secondly, your TikTok username is on each video you download from your TikTok account. Advertising your TikTok through different social media platforms can increase your reach and encourage other users to find and follow you on TikTok!
Don’t have any other social platforms to cross-promote on?
No problem. This last step is option and is not necessary if you want to become TikTok famous!
Get TikTok famous in 24 hours
Ok, it’s your turn to become TikTok famous! Are you up for the challenge?
Spend the next 24 hours creating high-quality TikTok videos, upload them, and see how much your account grows!
Make sure your goal is realistic. If you’re just starting your account, aim to grow by 10 followers in 24 hours.
If you have a bit of a following already, maybe aim to grow by an additional 100!
Here’s a quick rundown of what we covered with our famous TikTok influencers:
- Focus on highly shareable content
- Don’t overthink your videos—simple videos perform very well on TikTok
- Post consistently and post several times a day
- Capitalize on trends but don’t rely on them
- Post when your audience is most active
And lastly, don’t forget me when you’re TikTok famous 😉
This article may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Dana Nicole is an award-winning freelance writer for MarTech/SaaS who was rated one of the best SaaS writers by Software World. She specializes in writing engaging content that ranks high in search engines and has been featured in publications like Semrush, ConvertKit, and Hotjar.
Dana holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and has over 15 years of experience working alongside national brands in their marketing departments.
When Dana’s not working, you can find her dancing en pointe, cooking up new recipes, and exploring the great outdoors with her two big dogs.
this was very helpful and educational . I also like the fact that I got input and tips from already tik tok famous people which helps me believe that I too can be tik tok famous .thank u so much I totally wont forget you when im tik tok famous :))