With super impressive growth and a lot of learning in between, I’m now growing 300+ followers a day on TikTok – here’s how and why you should be doing the same.
The past 30 days have been quite something. Some of you may have noticed that I started a TikTok account and have invested my time quite heavily in creating content on the platform over the last 30 days. During this i have successfully learnt to grow my Tiktok followers organically, and keep it growing daily.
I noticed over the last few months that I have seen growth on all my online channels except Instagram and Facebook.
My YouTube is growing nicely, Medium is earning me money, and even my website is getting more hits. But I felt like the investment I was making into content on Instagram just wasn’t worth it any more. It felt like I was only being seen by the same people all the time and I experienced very little growth.
My agency (SMART Music Agency) was seeing some success with the TikTok accounts we work on and I knew from seeing statistics that the users on TikTok were rapidly rising. It’s also a fantastic place to distribute music. So, I finally got my shit together and decided to go hard on TikTok myself, and grow my TikTok followers
As some of you may have seen, I documented and filmed my first week on TikTok. Sharing strategies that worked (and didn’t) and showing you through the process. Check it out.
I have had some great responses from the video, so I decided to do a follow-up. It’s been 30 days.
What have I learned? How is it going so far?
Here are some of my observations & results of the first 30 days on my new TikTok account
1. Posting Consistently is Key to Grow TikTok Followers fast
You never know which videos will blow up on TikTok. I have been posting 2-3 TikTok per day (mostly 2). I’ve experienced quite a few videos that have gone crazy with views. But that doesn’t mean I’m stopping there. You’ll win some and lose the others.
When you post a video to TikTok, it is pushed out to lots of people on the For You page. Some of these people who aren’t following you will then head to your profile and check out your other videos.
By being consistent with creating your content you will have several videos published which are all generating views, likes, profile visits, and activity on your content and profile.
If you understand this concept on TikTok, you will not focus too much on that ONE piece of content that blew up. Because there will also be lots of other videos you create which won’t get many views.
This is just how it is in the beginning while you are finding your voice and format on the platform. I noticed this right away and there is no consistency in getting high views.
Knowing that you will have another video hit the jackpot definitely helps with staying consistent.
Yes, it is time-consuming, but it works. In my first week, I got just a few hundred views most of the time while some others went over the thousands. Just a couple of weeks later, most of my TikTok videos now get over 1,000 views consistently and others in the tens of thousands.
2. Remain Consistent to Grow TikTok Followers in Your Niche
By teaching the TikTok algorithm who you are what your account is about, you will be shown mostly relevant content from other people and your content will be pushed to the right audience
You do this by interacting with accounts that are your target audience or who are similar to you and your brand. Hit the follow button on strategic accounts, like their content and you’ll begin letting the algorithm know what your account is about.
Using hashtags that are related to your niche is also a great way to achieve this. Be consistent with 3 to 4 hashtags and use them regularly.
I emphasize this point on my YouTube video:
For example, if you have one post about gardening and another about traveling and the next about making music – you are confusing TikTok and you’ll be getting shown a bunch of random stuff while your content is not getting in front of the right people. TikTok performs better with niches (to begin with).
The Shorter, Vertical Video Format is Taking Over & TikTok is Leading the Way
First came TikTok, then Instagram hastily rolled out Reels. Youtube Shorts is currently being rolled out and even Pinterest is dipping it’s toe in the water with Stories. Not forgetting the newest platform to arise: Triller.
The shorter vertical video format is taking over. However, TikTok is leading the way you communicate and use the format. It just makes sense. Our attention spans are shrinking and we love to consume content that’s quick and entertaining or educating.
I decided to invest my time into creating TikTok content as the video can easily be saved and shared over to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. I see what works best on TikTok and then post the best ones to Instagram and YouTube. Three locations with the effort of creating just one content piece!
Take advantage of YouTube Shorts now because there are very few people actually using it. With 2 billion users and not many utilising the Shorts functionality, there’s some great engagement waiting there to help you get discovered.
Taking the time to create good TikTok content means you’re able to feed 3 platforms with good content. It just makes sense.
TikTok is an Amazing Place for Promoting Your Music
I mean, wow. The results people are getting by promoting their Spotify pre-save campaigns, singles, albums, and even YouTube videos.
I just posted an example of an artist who got 5,000 full album views on YouTube by posting one TikTok:
Also, another video got 100 pre-sales by posting a single TikTok video:
Those are some pretty good statistics considering these were small accounts with just a few hundred or thousands of views. However, the key to TikTok is to promote in a creative way. The ones who are able to create promotional posts that also give value by entertainment are the winners here. HUGE winners.
Take a look at some great value driven music promo on TikTok:
When you start getting growth on TikTok by participating in trends and creating some original content; you tend to forget you have a “business” behind you that you actually have to promote… Your music! The same thing happened with me where the followers on TikTok didn’t know anything about the actual products I am selling, but only getting tons of free help.
So I decided to make a TikTok where I promote my new YouTube video that was about my first week on TikTok:
As you will see, I was also talking about my SMART Launch Club on the YouTube video. It is one of my products.
So not only is my YouTube video giving tons of value, it also is selling one of my products.
When it comes to promoting on TikTok though, I still have to give value because the TikTok crowd will see past pure promotion and it just won’t work.
I remember that one of the comments on my previous post asked about tips for accounts with less than 100 followers. So I took the opportunity to reply to that comment with a video. It was such perfect timing as I could mention that I had less than 100 followers last week, and it had jumped up to 1000 at this point.
I strategically waited until I reached above 1K followers as you can then insert a bio link so they can exit the platform and view my products and YouTube videos.
A few important points I did on purpose were to actually show the YouTube video and also tell them to go to the bio link to check it out. You need to include stuff like this on the TikTok content so viewers are very clear on where to go and what to do. If you don’t tell them they won’t know.
The post I did generated OK views on TikTok, but more importantly, it moved traffic over to my YouTube video. This resulted in that video becoming my best performing video I have done since I started the channel a little over a year ago.
And not only that, the TikTok post also got me 2 new members in my SMART Launch Club. That’s a successful promotional post in my opinion. Thanks, TikTok.
The key here is to be creative with your promotional content. I am going to continue sharing examples of how musicians promote music on my TikTok, so head over there and follow me for more examples.
Be Prepared for Some “Hater” Comments (Just Focus on All the Love)
OMG! So this is what it feels like to be exposed online. People can be brutal. You don’t see this as much on Instagram because your content safely fluctuates amongst your own followers and supporters. But on TikTok, they throw you out to the wolves RIGHT away. And as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, TikTok won’t know what niche you are in at first, so you will see random content yourself and get random people all up in your comments section too.
That’s why it’s so important to know your niche and start hammering in on it. Because now I just tend to see musicians and great content on my feed… and my content is being pushed to the right people!
I have gotten a few comments here and there about my hair, facial expression, or my energy level. But I guess that what comes along growing online as well. The positive spin on this is that I had successfully learnt to grow my tiktok followers as even hate comments means that people are engaging!
One of the members of the SMART Launch Club experienced some serious hate. He decided to make a post about being a rapper in Norway. He only had 80 followers or so before this post and the post just exploded.
It was at 50K views and 200 comments overnight. But it was mostly hate:
In the video, he even talks about getting no support in Norway. And when you scroll through the comment section you see hateful comments talking shit about his music and the fact that he had an American accent. WTF, people!
He bounced back the hate well with his follow-up content “yeah my English is good because I moved to the US to play basketball when I was 16”, but it’s just proof that it’s there.
On TikTok, it’s much closer as your content is shown to new people all the time. Thankfully Vik had gained 300 followers in 2 days and also a lot of people showing him love as well, so it’s better to focus on the ones who connect with you. It’s ok to NOT be for everyone. Focus on the ones you are for!
Coming Up With TikTok Content Ideas to Grow Followers
When you start investing in TikTok, you start seeing content ideas EVERYWHERE. Because you start understanding this new(ish) form of communication.
The reason you’re most likely struggling to come up with content ideas right now is that you haven’t put the time in to invest in the format and how it can be used to communicate your thoughts, ideas, experiences, stories, and expertise.
There are a few ways of coming up with ideas to grow your followers on Tiktok:
1. Look for Trends and Insert Your Niche
The easiest content to do (which also gets a lot of views and profile visits) is to recreate the trending videos. But obviously insert your niche into the trend.
Here’s an example of a trends I did:
Participating in trends is basically when you follow a certain format that is set to a song or sound. But you make it personal by either the message you set in the text or what you are acting out. The key here is to pick trends that are going viral at the moment and then make them relevant to your niche.
As the trends are generating a lot of views and traffic, it’s a good idea to do some of these as they will increase your profile visits and followers. However, if you only do trends you will struggle to build a loyal fanbase. You also need to create some original content which is 100% you and similar to what you’d likely do on Instagram..
2. Create Original Content Around Your Expertise
This is probably the content you will spend the most time creating. This is where your expertise comes in. I have been trying to do 1 original post per day, but they take time. You have to get an idea, structure it to fit within 1 minute, shoot it, adjust it, add the text, etc.
I probably spend at least 1 hour doing all of that for only 1 post. That’s why I try to do 1 original piece per day and 1 trend or something easy to create that doesn’t take a lot of time to create. However, you need the original content because this is what will give you followers and a loyal fanbase on TikTok.
Although it may not perform as well as the trends, that’s ok. But you need this type of content.
Look at the content on TikTok like a music album. You have a few hits that will generate the traffic, but then you have some content for the fans and the ones who will listen through the whole album.
You need to show your expertise area, influences, your personal story, etc. This is for when people enter your profile and want to learn more. Of course, they will also generate new traffic, but maybe not as much as the trends. But they ARE important.
3. Look for Subject Areas on Reddit To Help Grow your Followers
I actually created a TikTok on this ‘hack’. Because it works.
One of the best metrics to get on TikTok is comments. Do you know where you can find people engaging A LOT in content with a killer search engine? Reddit.
You can find threads and forums on anything.
So you should search for something that is relevant to your niche. Let’s say you are an LGBTQ+ artist.
If you search for this, you will find tons of threads that people are interacting with. Then look for the threads with a lot of comments on (where the subject area fits your brand and niche on TikTok).
If it has a lot of comments, people are interacting on this subject. This means people will most likely also interact with this on TikTok.
So I decided to test this and searched for threads with music promotion. A thread came up about music promotion tips for introverts. So I decided to create a post about this on TikTok. And the comments followers and blew up. People really engaged and responded to the subject. It generated tons of shares and people even started stitching it, etc.
4. If you’re experiencing an emotion or having thoughts on something, CREATE
Let me give you an example of this. One of my top performing posts in my first 30 days was when I was setting up a pre-save campaign for an artist. I was struggling with low conversion because of the issues where you need to login to Spotify on pre-save which is annoying as people tend to drop off by that point.
So I decided to share this frustration and ask for help on TikTok:
And people were SO engaged because everyone could relate. Every musician is experiencing the same feeling with their pre-saves. So just by sharing an emotion that others can relate to, it was a success.
I also have another emotion. I am trying to fit into one of the trends that I haven’t found the perfect trend for yet. It’s my hate and annoyance for the Spotify playlist curators with fake bots and followers. I am pretty sure a lot of people can relate, but I haven’t yet found the perfect format.
What I did with the pre-save was to just create an original format to express my frustration but what I want to try with the playlist curators problem is to insert this emotion into one of the trends on the platform. Stay tuned for that one.
Structuring Your Time
The key to being consistent is to structure the time for content creation. I always try to have my next day’s TikTok videos done in advance, so I can allow myself room to be creative without having to force it.
I also noticed certain times of the day when content ideas came to me, I felt creative and I just had to take advantage of it – then film and make the content.
With the trends, I try to do several at a time and draft those so I always have something that I can share in order to stay consistent.
When it comes to the original content, I am constantly thinking and creating different content series to see what works and not. I do however work on TikTok every day. Whether it´s research, creating content, or responding to comments and messages.
But, the time is paying off. Yesterday alone I got 400 new followers. Because I am seeing results, I am gladly investing the time.
But yes, there are some late hours and nights creating TikTok’s because I had to do my other work during the day with my classes, running an agency, etc. But building a fanbase is a grind. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s certainly more fun on TikTok than Instagram as you actually get organic visibility and traffic on your content.
Analyzing Metrics
Let’s go over my metrics for the last 30 days.
I started on April 5th – which is (as I am writing it) 26 days ago. I started with 30 followers and am now at 2650. This means I have 2620 in only 26 days + 16.5K likes on my post.
I also see growth on my Instagram with followers coming from TikTok & YouTube as well. Plus, I have sold more memberships in the SMART Launch Club as well.
All in all, it has been a successful 30 days, and I am ready for 30 more.
This time I am doing a 30-day challenge together with 10 musicians. We are all posting twice per day and will be growing our accounts together – with help from me.
So if you are ready to scale up your and grow your followers on TikTok and want to invest in the short vertical video format, then join me in the 30-day TikTok challenge. Your music promotion will change forever.
