How To Create a TikTok Challenge and Involve Your Followers

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Carolyn Howell

Last Updated: Oct 30, 2023

TikTok Tips

Want More Real Tiktok Followers?

TikTok videos are designed to be highly engaging and enjoyable — hence, their natural tendency to go viral. Take a cue from the top TikTok influencers and create a video challenge. If you want to cut through the intense noise that permeates social media, knowing how to create a TikTok challenge is the answer.

TikTok logo displayed on a phone screen.

What Are TikTok Challenges and How Do They Work?

A TikTok challenge is any video that encourages or challenges others to recreate the video. It stimulates eager participation. That’s why the top TikTok challenges go viral so easily. A TikTok challenge must be fun and easy enough to replicate to make people want to get in on the act. Do you want to get famous on Tiktok as an avid TikTok creator, or are you a brand that’s looking to build awareness and engagement? If you know how to create a TikTok challenge that gets people excited and involved, then you’re on the right track to growing an engaged community. 

Popular TikTok challenges are more than just a fun trend. They can be organic or sponsored/branded, i.e., branded hashtag challenges. Trending TikTok challenges drive success through user-generated content — your goal is to get as many people participating in your challenge and sharing their videos, after all. With high audience engagement, your TikTok challenge can create a lot of buzz around your creator account or brand and help you get more followers on Tiktok.  

Popular organic TikTok challenges usually involve dancing, #dancechallenge, or some other form of physical activity, such as #ThePushupChallenge. The #passthebrushchallenge is a great example of an organic TikTok challenge that successfully stimulated a collective movement. Many big brands have also jumped on the bandwagon, such as Colgate with their #MakeMomSmile challenge and Chipotle with their dance challenge, #GuacDance. Here are a few great examples of fun TikTok challenges that have gone viral not only on TikTok but all over the internet.

Know how to create a TikTok challenge like the viral #thepushupchallenge.

8 Tips on How To Create a TikTok Challenge for Your Business

Knowing how to create a TikTok challenge is one of the best ways to boost audience engagement and your visibility on the platform — both of which are crucial if you’re an influencer or building a presence for your business on Tiktok. Here are some tips to help you create a TikTok challenge that will put the spotlight on your brand. 

  1. TikTok emphasizes inspiring joy and creativity, so your TikTok challenge should not be focused on your brand; it should be all about your target audience. Find out what types of videos they like to watch and share, and the types of activities they enjoy. Create a TikTok challenge that taps into their passions and skills. 
  2. Your TikTok challenge must be easy to do/replicate, entertaining, and accessible to all TikTok users.
  3. Create a TikTok challenge that encourages your audience to have fun and be as creative as they want.
  4. Know how to choose the right hashtag for your TikTok challenge. 
  5. Take advantage of TikTok’s massive music and sound database. The audio element drives the success of most TikTok challenges. 
  6. Explore the possibility of collaborating with a popular creator or influencer who shares the same audience you’re targeting to create a groundswell of enthusiastic participation in your TikTok challenge. 
  7. Make the most of the holidays and other seasonal trends by creating a timely and themed TikTok challenge. 
  8. Create an organic branded hashtag challenge or a brand-sponsored hashtag challenge to optimize your hashtag challenge for increased brand awareness. If you opt for a branded hashtag challenge ad, you can take advantage of prime real estate on a user’s TikTok feed, reach a wider audience, and drive higher participation. With a sponsored hashtag challenge, your TikTok video ad will still have an organic feel so people are less likely to press the Skip button. 

Creating TikTok hashtag challenges for your brand will help you encourage your audience to get actively involved, join conversations that matter to them, or simply join in on the fun, thereby boosting awareness, driving engagement, and building a bigger audience base for your brand.

Screenshot of Guess’ #inmydenim TikTok challenge.

How To Create a Branded Hashtag TikTok Challenge

Creating a branded hashtag challenge levels up your TikTok challenge game. By simply adding your brand to your TikTok challenge hashtag, you can heighten your brand awareness and discoverability efforts on the platform, and other social media pages.


You can opt for an organic branded hashtag challenge if you already have a big enough follower base, or if you’re collaborating with a popular TikTok creator or influencer. Check out who has the highest Tiktok follower count to find new ideas. Harness the power of TikTok ads for a sponsored one. With a branded challenge ad, you can choose your placement, set your budget and optimization goals, and identify your target audience.

Here are the basics of creating a branded hashtag TikTok challenge:

  1. Identify the specific goal of your TikTok challenge. Do you want to build brand awareness and get more followers, sell a product, or increase overall sales?
  2. Formulate a TikTok challenge content that’s easy to recreate. 
  3. Decide on a hashtag that’s unique and relevant to your brand and challenge. And then you’ll simply add your brand name to it. 
  4. Choose the right TikTok sound from popular TikTok songs or use an original sound clip. 
  5. Choreograph your TikTok challenge video content. Whether it’s a dance routine, a lipsync, or a before-and-after sequence, your video content must make sense for your brand. 
  6. Film your TikTok challenge video using TikTok’s video functionality and with your selected sound playing through your phone’s speakers. Or you can use your smartphone camera or DSLR to record your video — take note that it’s always better to have the sound already playing when you record your video as syncing the two during video editing can be challenging. 
  7. Use TikTok’s various video editing tools to add filters, stickers, text, and video transitions and enhance the overall quality of your challenge video.

Screenshot of the #cleantok TikTok challenge landing page as an example of how to create a TikTok challenge for your business.

Pro Tips To Maximize the Impact of Your TikTok Challenge

Now that you know the basics of how to create a TikTok challenge, here are some pro tips to give your video challenge more oomph and push it to viral levels.

  • Use a 2D or 3D branded effect, like an animated background or responsive mask.
  • Create a customized brand emoji to use alongside your TikTok challenge branded hashtag.
  • Kick off your TikTok challenge with a contest. Your official rules should be displayed on your hashtag challenge landing page to keep participants and UGC on track. 
  • Collaborate with TikTok creators to widen your reach and increase your TikTok challenge’s engagement. 
  • Give your TikTok challenge a powerful boost by turning it into an ad. This will allow you to choose TikTok’s TopView ad placement so that your video will appear on top and full-screen when users first open the app. 
  • Share your branded hashtag challenge’s QR code on all your other social media platforms.

How To Fast-track Your Growth by Learning How To Create a TikTok Challenge

When you know how to start a TikTok challenge for your brand, you’re one big step closer to reaching a wider audience. The best Tiktok challenges get more engagement from genuinely interested followers. They are highly effective in building communities, promoting awareness, and amassing support for a movement, subculture, or business. As an element in your marketing strategy, creating a branded TikTok challenge is a great way to get people involved, appeal to your target audience, and stay competitive in your industry.  

If you’re looking to grow your follower base and engagement on TikTok, proper audience targeting and vigorous organic content promotion should be your top priorities. A TikTok growth strategy expert, like High Social, can provide you with the advanced audience targeting advantage and strategic community building approach you need to fast-track your growth. Make sure that you reach the right audience so you can build genuine and meaningful connections with the help of High Social. Start growing your TikTok today!

TikTok Tips