How To Get Followers on TikTok: 17 Expert Strategies That Work in 2024

TikTok has a billion active users. The social media platform’s explosive growth has even caught the attention of numerous brands—such as Guess, The Washington Post, and Gymshark—who recognize its potential for brand awareness campaigns. 

TikTok has a significant impact on shopping decisions. Insider Intelligence reports that over 71% of TikTok users shop for products after stumbling across a product in their feed. 

Including TikTok in your social media strategy is essential for driving sales, but how can you succeed on such a competitive platform? 

Let’s dive into what you can do to improve your TikTok views and improve your follower growth.

Do bots work for TikTok follower growth?

Some unscrupulous websites recommend using bots to automate video interactions. Others recommend buying TikTok followers. 

The tactics usually achieve little more than vanity metrics. Buying TikTok followers might increase the total number of followers, but they won’t be real followers genuinely interested in your content. 

Even if these tactics work, they risk getting you banned from TikTok.

TikTok’s unique features also mean that follower count isn’t necessarily as significant as other social media platforms. On TikTok, the general recommendation is that it’s more important to regularly create engaging videos that your target TikTok audience responds to, rather than to chase followers.

Still, creating original content based on a solid marketing strategy does increase your chances of gaining followers. 

If you do want to spend money on TikTok follower growth, buy social media marketing services from Fiverr freelancers instead of wasting it on dubious offers, such as bots and paid potential followers. 

1. Create helpful content

TikTok is a new platform with unique features, but that doesn’t mean everything is different. The same social media “law” applies here as it does everywhere else: content is king. 

Kate Smoothy, an SEO specialist and founder of Webhive Digital, has 33,000 followers on her TikTok account. She recommends posting helpful content associated with your core service. 

“I run an SEO and web design agency, so I post tips, tutorials, and tools related to improving your website’s SEO or design,” explains Smoothy. “This proves your knowledge and skills within your industry and gains followers who are ready to invest now and looking for services like yours, but also followers who are still in the growth phase and not ready to invest.” 

After three months, Smoothy doubled her monthly income through TikTok. After two years, she grew her one-person business into a full-service agency and receives 90% of her leads from TikTok. 

Example of helpful content on TikTok, providing SEO advice.

Creating helpful content takes work. If you need help preparing a content strategy, consider buying content strategy services from Fiverr freelancers. 

2. Discover your target audience

There’s no point in getting tons of new followers if those followers aren’t part of your business’s target audience. 

The TikTok algorithm specializes in matching users with content they’ll enjoy and displays this content in a “For You Page,” also known as the FYP. This TikTok feature is one of the platform’s most significant advantages over others because it works so well. 

All you need to do is create high-quality content for your target audience’s demographics, and TikTok does the rest. 

To help you discover your target audience, you can leverage one or more of the following tools and tutorials:

• TikTok's official advice for finding your TikTok target audience 

• SparkToro, an audience research tool

• TikTok's insights tool

3. Create better videos

In the past, other TikTok creators recommended creating “lo-fi” videos as the best kind of content for getting TikTok followers. 

A “lo-fi” video looks homemade and hasn’t been professionally edited. 

This might’ve been true when the platform started, but its immense growth means increased competition, requiring you to create TikTok videos that stand out. 

One professional video creator got his first 100,000 followers on TikTok by posting professionally edited videos and doing nothing else. 

Fortunately, you can buy social media video services from expert Fiverr freelancers to create videos that stand out on TikTok. 

Clapboard backdropped by desert (courtesy of Unsplash).

4. Repurpose your YouTube videos

If you’re a YouTube creator, you can easily repurpose your YouTube videos and put them on TikTok. You only need editing software to expand the original video to fit into TikTok’s 9:16 vertical aspect ratio. 

When TikTok started, it only supported videos with a maximum length of 15 seconds. Today, you can upload three-minute videos, although the TikTok algorithm clearly favors shorter videos. 

You’ll likely need to shorten your YouTube video, but it’s still an easier way to rapidly get a ton of high-quality content onto TikTok than creating it all from scratch. 

You can buy video editing services from Fiverr freelancers to repurpose old content fast. 

5. Get social media management help

Content creation takes time, as does managing multiple channels. 

If you happen to create a highly popular video, you’ll also need to spend time engaging with commenters. 

For both small and large businesses, getting professional help is crucial. 

Some of the tasks that social media managers can help you with, include:

• Engaging with comments on your posts. 

• Creating a content calendar that ties in with your business's marketing strategy, and leverages major holidays and events to produce content that's fitting for the time of year. 

• Responding to customer queries on social media. 

• Monitoring social media analytics and taking action based on trends. 

• Scheduling posts on multiple social media platforms. 

• Engaging influencers to help get more awareness for your brand. 

• Creating the content itself, such as text and compelling images. 

• Analyzing competitor social media activity, and preparing counter-strategies and responses as needed. 

• Updating your social media profiles so they're optimized. 

You can buy digital marketing services from Fiverr freelancers or invest in a social media scheduling tool to take some of the load off. 

6. Prepare video scripts

Video scripts can make all the difference in creating popular content. 

TikTok’s initial popularity grew in response to the unscripted feel of its videos. However, video scripts are essential if your goal is to use TikTok to improve conversions and business sales. 

Even lo-fi videos can benefit from a script, and practicing a script before filming means less time spent editing the video afterward. If you’re paying someone to edit your videos, that’ll save you money. If you’re editing them yourself, it’ll save you immense amounts of time. 

7. Use the right hashtags

TikTok makes it easy to find popular videos through relevant hashtags. Users can look over the trending hashtag and click on one to find videos related to that hashtag. You can then create videos based on these hashtags and the relevant trends. 

You can also study the top social media trends in general to gain an insight into what people are currently looking for. 

8. Analyze results

No exact formula exists to achieve TikTok growth. That’s why analytics tools for social media platforms are essential. It helps if you frequently review your TikTok profile’s most important social media metrics to determine trends and discover what content TikTok users engage with more. 

According to Smoothy, this is even more important at the beginning of your TikTok Journey. 

“When you start using TikTok, test different video styles, editing techniques, and posting schedules,” says Smoothy. “Aim to post at least once per day for a month.” 

After accumulating data for your TikTok content, she says you can see which videos improved your follower count and what type of content TikTok users are looking for. 

High-tech computer with analytics dashboard (image courtesy of Midjourney)

9. Leverage video comments and unique TikTok features

TikTok lets you reply to comments with your own video. 

Haley Wells, Social Media Team Lead at seoplus+, a full-service digital marketing agency, experienced the power of this feature first-hand. 

“One of our videos garnered a comment that unexpectedly received about 1,000 likes,” shares Wells. “Recognizing the traction this comment gained, we leveraged the platform’s unique feature to reply directly to the comment with a video. This strategic move reignited the interest of everyone who had engaged with the initial comment, setting off a ripple effect.”

The repeated engagement skyrocketed the video to 1.9 million views. 

You can also leverage TikTok’s unique duet and stitch features.

The duet feature lets you comment using the original sound and video from the post as a backdrop. The stitch feature plays five seconds of the original video, then plays your comment video after it. 

10. Use a call-to-action (CTA)

It’s hard to find a YouTube video that ends without a comment asking you to subscribe to the channel. Why? Because it works! People have used this and other successful YouTube strategies to gain subscribers for years. 

Including a CTA at the end of a TikTok video is an excellent way to get new followers. Because TikTok videos are so short, you can create a high-impact motion graphic with sound effects that says “Follow!” and put it at the end of every video you make. 

11. Be consistent

The number of active users on TikTok has exploded in the last few years. Competition is intense. Smoothy says this has made it more challenging to create overnight viral videos. 

“If you want to see results from this platform, you need to be consistent,” says Smoothy. “However, unlike Instagram and Facebook, plenty of potential still exists to explode your business if you put the work in!”

The easiest way to be consistent is to create a social media content calendar and hire content creators to prepare engaging content for you. You can buy content strategy services from Fiverr freelancers to help you do this. 

12. Use trending songs in your videos

Trending sounds are a powerful way to get eyes on your video. To find trending sounds, click “Add Sound” at the top of a video and scroll down to see which sounds are hot. 

You can also look on the TikTok ads website to find what sounds are trending. 

Trend discovery page on TikTok.

13. Create a series

Creating an engaging series can make users follow you so they don’t miss future content. For example, you can create a series of helpful videos with tips and tricks that people find useful. You can also create a more traditional storytelling series, ending on a cliffhanger each time, making people eager to watch the following video. 

Finally, if you create a viral video, you can reply with a follow-up video and keep the conversation going, further growing your engagement. 

14. Participate in TikTok challenges

Branded hashtag challenges are an excellent way to get user-generated content with your hashtag in it. If you launch the challenge strategically on other social media and advertising channels, the branded hashtag challenge can quickly gain momentum. 

Hashtag challenge videos use hashtags that you define for the challenge. In 2018, Guess launched a six-day #InMyDenim hashtag challenge that gained 12,000 new followers and over 10 million views. 

Obtaining the help of influencers is essential for a successful hashtag challenge. These content creators can leverage their followers to boost your campaign. The easiest way to get influencers on board is to buy influencer marketing services from Fiverr freelancers. 

Screencap of Guess TikTok challenge case study. 

15. Switch to the free TikTok pro account

TikTok’s free pro account lets you dive deeper into TikTok analytics. With a pro account, you can download analytics and analyze them. Personal accounts only allow you to access analytics from the previous 60 days, and within the app itself. 

In addition to the usual metrics, such as post reach and engagement, TikTok analytics lets you discover when your followers are most often online so you can decide when to post your content. 

A pro account also lets you connect to social media monitoring tools to help you gain further insight into your TikTok account’s performance. 

16. Cross-promote your TikTok videos

You can let users know you’re on TikTok by repurposing your TikTok videos and cross-posting them on other platforms. 

You can save and upload the original TikTok video, including the TikTok watermark for Twitter, Instagram feed videos, and YouTube Shorts. However, you’re not allowed to monetize that video on YouTube if the watermark is present. Instagram Reels doesn’t allow watermarked videos. 

The two easiest ways around the watermark restrictions are:

1. Buy video editing services from Fiverr freelancers to easily edit the watermark out. 

2. Create the video outside of TikTok and upload the original to all platforms. 

17. Use TikTok ads

If you have the budget, TikTok ads offer a way to get your video in front of more eyes regardless of the TikTok algorithm's choices. 

Because TikTok ads are so new, competition is typically less than on other platforms. 

However, you still need to create high-quality content, so all the rules about determining your target audience, checking TikTok trends, writing video scripts, and producing excellent videos apply. 

TikTok ads significantly improve your chances of getting eyes on your video, but it's the quality of the video that'll determine how users interact with it. 

Get help from Fiverr freelancers for your TikTok campaigns

Being successful in social media often requires time and budget. However, it’s imperative to have a successful social media strategy in place to succeed online. 

You can get around this catch-22 by getting help from expert Fiverr freelancers. Fiverr is a marketplace of professional creators skilled in every aspect of social media content creation and management. On Fiverr, you can get help with content creation, video creation, a content calendar, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and dozens of other fields related to social media management.

Using the right team, you can create inspiring social media campaigns that track directly back to your return on investment. 

Hiring freelancers is often far less costly than hiring a full-scale agency, without any loss in quality. Freelancers typically take on fewer clients and have much fewer overheads, allowing them to provide highly personalized service without excessive costs. 

To find the right social media freelancer for your business, open an account on Fiverr today.