How I Gained 5,000 Followers on TikTok

How I went from zero to 5,000 TikTok followers in just six months.

At some point in my confused, quarter-life crisis, I decided I wanted to learn how to code. I’d heard that the best way to learn something new is to make it public. So being a Get Z/Millenial crossover, I decided to start posting my coding journey on TikTok.

At first it felt cringey. I posted short coding tutorials, and little rants when things got tough. I would get 10 or 20 likes on a good day. After about a month, I hit 100 followers. I was ecstatic. Little did I know that number would turn to 5,000 in just a few months.

Here’s what I did that helped my videos gain traction:

• Show your face. TikTok prioritizes videos with human faces in good lighting.
• Make your videos accessible. Always use subtitles, and speak clearly and loudly.
• Post at least once a day. The algorithm prioritizes creators that post consistently, at least once or twice a day.
• Interact with your followers. Read your comments and respond in a timely manner. You can even respond to a comment with a video.
• Filter your comments. This might seem contradictory to the last tip, but trust me. You don’t want negative comments on your videos. It will hurt your feelings and also make your videos look less legit. There’s an option to filter out key words like “ugly”, “stupid”, and “boring”.
• Follow the trends. Scroll through the FYP for a few minutes every day and identify what’s trending. Try to put your own spin on the trend. The algorithm loves trends.
• Stay positive. You might have a really slow week or month where your videos get little to no traction. Keep posting consistently, and eventually one of your videos will go viral.
• Use viral sounds. Always put a viral sound over your video. If you don’t want the sound to actually play over your video, just set the volume to zero. TikTok will see that you included a viral sound (even if it’s set to mute) and will automatically boost your video.

To make a long story short, just be yourself and stay consistent. Consistency is key. And while you’re at it, give me a follow at @atalebygale. See you on the FYP!