10 Best Ways to Get Free TikTok Followers
TikTok has become more than just another social media platform – it’s a subculture. Since its debut in 2017, the platform has set some genuinely stunning social media records. Right now, the platform has more than a billion active users worldwide, and the number is set to grow even further.
So, if you’re an aspiring influencer or a business trying to promote products, you can’t afford not to be on TikTok. However, only being active on TikTok isn’t enough – at the end of the day, you need followers on the platform. Quite simply, the more followers you have, the greater your chances are of success. Increasing your number of TikTok followers can result in various benefits such as:
- Increased brand awareness
- Nurturing of leads
- Directing traffic to business website
- More sales
Now, when it comes to getting TikTok followers, you can go about it in two ways – you can buy TikTok followers or get them for free. In this article, we’ll tell you the 10 best ways to get TikTok followers without spending a penny. So, read on if you have high hopes and aspirations for your TikTok journey.
1. Start by optimizing your TikTok profile
Before you think about the content you’ll be posting on TikTok, you need to spare some thought for your profile and what you can do to optimize it. A lot of it has to do with optimizing your bio. Some of the things you must remember when crafting your TikTok bio include the following:
- Opt for clarity and catchiness when deciding on your display name and username.
- Set up a business account, which provides additional features compared to personal accounts. For starters, you can include your business website’s link in your TikTok bio if you have a business account.
- Pick a high-quality profile picture that users will be likely to remember.
- Describe yourself and your brand. Remember to be crisp and concise about it, as TikTok gives you only 80 characters to fill in your description.
- Include call-to-action (CTA) messages in your bio. It would help if you experimented with different CTAs to understand what works for you and what doesn’t. To draw attention to your CTAs, you could consider including emojis.
- TikTok allows you to connect your Instagram and YouTube accounts to your TikTok account. So, connect them and increase your chances of garnering more followers on those platforms.
You can find numerous detailed guides on the internet that will help you with step-by-step instructions for effective TikTok profile optimization.
2. Create entertaining and engaging content
This goes without saying – on TikTok, you’ve got to entertain your target audience. If you do, you’ve got a huge chance of rapidly gaining followers. But if you don’t, you can expect your TikTok account to stagnate and fade into oblivion. Of course, the content you create depends entirely on what you want to make and what your target audience expects. However, picking trending video types wouldn’t be a bad idea.
During your first few months on TikTok, you should stick to the tried-and-tested types of videos, such as:
- Animal videos
- Dialogue re-enactments
- Song imitations/lip-syncing
- Art and DIY
- Dance videos
After you’ve managed to establish a decent fan following, you can try experimenting with your content to offer something truly unique and out-of-the-box.
3. Keep yourself updated regarding the latest trends and challenges
Viral trends and challenges come and go, but when they’re at the peak of their popularity, you’ve got to make the most of them. Some of the most viral trends and challenges of recent times include the following:
- The Baked Oats challenge
- The Food Dance challenge
- Opposites Attract Duo challenge
- The Cat Dance challenge
Of course, it’s entirely up to you whether you want to participate in these challenges and trends. However, if you do, and most importantly, if you do it well, you’re bound to get noticed and rope in more TikTok users to become your followers. So, it’s time to know what’s popular in your niche and cash in on the popularity.
4. Use hashtags
Hashtags have become essential across all social media platforms, and the same can be said for TikTok. While no rule states that you compulsorily have to use hashtags, the fact is that including them across your posts will make your content more discoverable. Some of the other benefits of hashtag use on TikTok include:
- Improved engagement
- Finding relevant influencers to collaborate with
- Competitor identification
- Facilitation of community-building
- Identifying trends that you can capitalize on
However, before you start including hashtags on your TikTok posts, you have to focus on researching them. TikTok hashtag research can help you understand the most popular hashtags on the platform. You can use various methods to identify the hashtags you should use.
For starters, there’s the Discover tab, which highlights the most trending hashtags at any time. You can also refer to current listicles, where you’ll find the most popular hashtags across every niche. There are several TikTok hashtag research tools you can turn to, which will provide you with the most popular hashtags and stats like views and posts.
Some handy tips you can put into practice for effective hashtag use on TikTok include the following:
- Write crisp captions to allow space for hashtag inclusion. Every caption space will give you 300 characters to work with. If your captions are elaborate, less space will be left for hashtags.
- Using trending hashtags is a great practice, but the fact is that they’re competitive, which makes it difficult for new TikTokers to get noticed by solely relying on them. That’s why you should combine trending hashtags with niche ones. Unlike trending hashtags, niche hashtags aren’t very competitive, facilitating greater discoverability of your content.
- Create a branded hashtag and boost its use by starting a TikTok competition or challenge.
- Last but not least, use relevant hashtags only. Simply including a hashtag because of its high popularity may not work if your content has nothing to do with it.
5. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate
Collaborations are crucial for your long-term success on TikTok. They expose TikTokers within a niche to each other’s audiences, which is why they’re a great way to get free TikTok followers. Before you approach a fellow TikToker for a collaboration, remember that if your current follower count is low, your chances of working with prominent TikTokers are slim.
Ideally, it would help if you approached TikTokers operating at your level, i.e., who have followings similar to you. Also, choose to work with people who are genuinely interested in collaborating. Half-baked collaborations rarely yield entertaining content. So, steer clear of working with people who aren’t as enthusiastic about the partnership as you are. TikTok Duet is a feature designed explicitly for collaborations, so make the most of it.
6. Run contests and giveaways
Contests and giveaways have become incredibly popular on TikTok as they offer win-win situations for TikTokers and their fans. In terms of increasing your following and engagement rapidly, there’s nothing better than a TikTok giveaway. For instance, you could ask your followers to comment on a post and pick a random winner from the users who have commented.
The best thing about running contests and giveaways on TikTok is that you don’t need to be a big name to see results. If you’re making it fun for the participants, you can expect contests and giveaways to give you more followers and engagement.
7. Make the most of TikTok Analytics
TikTok Analytics is a beneficial tool that TikTok business account holders can access. The tool allows TikTokers to understand how their posts are faring and determine when their respective audiences are most active. When getting free TikTok followers, the latter can play an important role.
Quite simply, if you post content when your audience is at the peak of its activity, your content will have a greater chance of being seen. If your content is entertaining and engaging, you can expect a lot of users to become your followers on the platform. On the other hand, if you post content when your audience is inactive on the platform, it might not be viewed by all the people who might be interested in your content. As a result, even posting entertaining content, you’ll miss out on views and, most importantly, followers.
Of course, TikTok Analytics won’t give you too much information if you’ve just started your TikTok journey. In such a scenario, you can adhere to the following posting times to get the best results:
- Mondays – 6:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 10:00 PM
- Tuesdays – 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM, 9:00 AM
- Wednesdays – 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM, 11:00 PM
- Thursdays – 9:00 AM, 12:00 AM, 7:00 PM
- Fridays – 5:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 3:00 PM
- Saturdays – 11:00 AM, 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM
- Sundays – 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM, 4:00 PM
For the first few months, you can stick to this posting schedule. After that, you should have enough content and engagement for TikTok Analytics to give you relevant results. So, feel free to incorporate changes into your posting schedule based on the information TikTok Analytics provides you.
8. Employ the follow and unfollow trick
The follow and unfollow trick has been used by TikTokers for a long time, and even though it can seem silly on the surface, the fact is that it works. Here’s how to go about it:
- Identify the most successful TikTokers in your niche
- Keep following and unfollowing them
- Repeat the second step until those TikTokers follow you
You might be wondering how this trick works. Well, the fact is that when you follow and unfollow a TikToker, the TikToker will be notified of your activity. With regular follows and unfollows, the TikToker will be compelled to check out your account. If the TikTokers like your content, there’s a high chance of your account gaining a new follower.
Of course, your content must be great for this trick to work. You can’t expect this trick to yield results if your content isn’t entertaining or engaging enough. So, work on your content first, and once you’ve got that sorted, you can put this trick to practice and experience the positives it has to offer.
9. Be active not just in terms of posting but also in terms of commenting
TikTok isn’t just a social media platform; it’s also a community. And if you want to stand out in the TikTok community, you’ve got to be active not just as a content creator but also as someone who regularly consumes other people’s content and comments. Quite simply, if your comments are relevant and meaningful, other users viewing your comments will be interested in checking out your account.
Also, don’t ignore the comments you get on your videos – replying to them is just as important as commenting on other people’s content. If you leave too many comments unanswered, your followers may think you’re not willing to engage with them. In the worst-case scenario, these followers may end up unfollowing you, drastically reducing your follower count.
10. Tap into the potential that your website traffic holds
If your target audience is primarily discovering you through your business website, you should make every effort to tell them that you’re on TikTok. For instance, you can add TikTok profile icons and share buttons and also embed TikTok content across the entirety of your website.
Sure, not every website visitor will be an enthusiastic TikTok user, but you can expect some of them to be. And if you let them know that you’re active on TikTok, they will likely check you out on the platform and follow you if they approve of your content.
Conclusion
So, these were 10 of the most effective ways to get free TikTok followers. Additionally, you can also explore the services we have to offer to increase your TikTok following. We wish you all the best on your TikTok journey!
