How to Get More Likes on TikTok

TikTok has grown dramatically since it merged with Musical.ly. It is now effectively two apps: TikTok in the Western World, and Douyin in China. While it began as a lip-synching app, people upload a wide range of videos types nowadays. 

The number of likes your TikToks receive has a significant impact on the growth of your account—the number of followers, the views on each video, and even how much cash you can make if you’re monetizing your content.

Why are TikTok likes important?

Likes are just one way of measuring how well you’re doing on TikTok. There’s also your number of followers, total number of views, views on each video, comments.

Likes are a ranking system for TikTok’s algorithm

A large part of gaining traction on TikTok is showing up on users’ For You feeds.

The more likes you have on a video, the more likely that video is to show up on a For You page of a relevant potential follower, and the more you show up on the For You page, the more followers you’ll gain—which again, increases your chances of getting on more For You pages.

They serve as social proof.

When it comes down to it, likes are just a tap on a screen.

Regardless of how it came to be, every like acts as social proof of the validity of your account and content.

Should you buy TikTok likes?

No.

While opening your wallet may gain you a bit of the social clout noted above, it’s a very risky—and ultimately, artificial—way to up that like count.

Buying likes isn’t strictly against TikTok’s terms of service, but continually getting your account flagged for inauthentic likes is not good. Buying likes won’t increase your follower count, comments or shares, especially if TikTok removes the paid likes.

How to get more likes on TikTok

Know your audience

Successful TikTokers don’t try to please everybody. You need to create videos that appeal to your core audience. Therefore, you first need to determine who you want that core audience to be.

Tiktokers who make it big on the internet are the ones who are perceived to be authentic—and usually, that’s because they are. Your audience wants you to be yourself. TikTok users not only appreciate genuine content, they like it.

Stay up to date with TikTok trends

You are never going to become successful on TokTok if you remain a lurker, watching other peoples’ videos, possibly even leaving comments, but never uploading your original material.

You will never be more than an also-ran, however, if you limit yourself to uploading bog-standard lip-synch videos, either. Sure, that’s fine for generally-untalented teenagers, just wanting to be part of the crowd, along with their real-life friends. But it is incredibly limiting to your online social success.

If you have any talent in your niche and even a fraction of confidence, make an effort to produce original videos. TikTpk’s young audience probably don’t require that you have hidden depths of technical expertise, but they do expect you to at least make an effort if they are going to bother to follow you.

If you look at the list of successful TikTok accounts, you will see that the vast bulk of them made their name by uploading original, exciting videos that appealed to a sizable group of TikTok’s users.

If you’re struggling for content ideas, TikTok trends are a great place to look for inspo. From dance challenges to seasonal photoshoots to trends where people fall in love with you, your feed is always full of TikToks that were made to be recreated.

And if challenge-style trends don’t tickle your fancy, using a trending song can be just as effective.

Follow TikTok influencers

Your favourite influencer might seem like they’ve got it all figured out, but even super famous TikTokkers have videos that get less traction than others.

Paying attention to the like counts of influencers is a good technique to see how different kinds of videos perform on a large scale. Watch what influencers do, and try and translate those strategies into your own content.

Don’t consider yourself an island on TikTok. It is, after all, a social network, so you must socialize with others. Reply to every comment that people leave on your videos. Watch other peoples’ videos (preferably in your niche) and leave thoughtful, interesting comments there, that can spark an ongoing conversation. Avoid spammy type comments such as “Nice video.”

Ask Your Audience

Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the best answer. One asking-for-likes technique involves making videos in two parts, then asking your audience to “like for part two.” This feels like an exchange with your viewers. They hit that like button, and in return see how the story ends.

But you don’t need TikToks with multiple parts in order to request likes from your audience. We’re not here to tell you to beg on every TikTok, but there are clever, humorous, and effective ways to simply ask for likes.