TikTok Follower Growth Strategies: Trends and Best Practices

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Carolyn Howell

Last Updated: Oct 26, 2023

TikTok Growth

Want More Real Tiktok Followers?

“How many TikTok followers do you have?” If you can answer with a number you can be proud of, congratulations! If you feel that your follower count puts you in a bad light, there’s hope for you yet. If you have already established a strong presence on the platform or are still struggling, sustained growth on TikTok should always be a top priority. Let’s take a look at the latest trends and time-tested practices in TikTok follower growth strategies.

Phone screen displaying official  TikTok account.

What Is TikTok Follower Growth?

Some TikTokers simply get lucky and stumble into TikTok fame. Others need a full-scale marketing strategy to establish a successful TikTok presence for their brand. But what constitutes success on TikTok? How do you define TikTok follower growth? How many followers do you need to be considered a TikTok celebrity? Let’s answer these questions one by one.

What Does It Mean to Be Successful on TIKTOK?

TikTok success can mean different things depending on what you wish to accomplish on the platform. According to a LinkedIn article, there are seven types of objectives on TikTok: reach, traffic, app installs, video views, catalog sales, lead generation, and conversions.

If you’re an influencer, the goal is to keep climbing the influencer ladder to reach the next tier and increase your value. If you have a business on TikTok, success can mean having a high enough engagement and conversions to reach a monthly financial goal.

How Do You Define Good TikTok Follower Growth?

According to one report, the average follower growth across all account sizes is “at least 2-3% on a monthly basis.” Accounts with fewer than 50k followers are averaging more than 5% monthly growth. Accounts with more than 50k followers are growing at a rate of 2.5% or more per month. Follower growth standards also vary per industry.

Once you reach the 100k mark, your TikTok follower growth strategies will deliver more followers at a much faster rate.

How Many Followers Do You Need to Be Considered a TikTok Celebrity?

Within the influencer industry, having 5,000 to 50,000 followers on TikTok qualifies you as a nano influencer. This can make you a minor celebrity within a dedicated niche. You need to reach 50,000 to 150,000 followers to become a micro-influencer and reach a higher rung on the ladder of fame.

Macro influencers have 150,000 to 750,000 followers and are considered low-level celebrities. You’ll need more than 2,500,000 TikTok followers to become a mega influencer. Mega influencers often land exclusive deals with big brands because they can deliver massive and quick exposure with a single post.

TikTok icon in the middle of a ring light.

Organic TikTok Growth: 5 Steps to Rewarding TikTok Fame

Organic TikTok growth is the golden standard when it comes to brand performance. These TikTok follower growth strategies will reward you with loyal and highly engaged followers.

Organic TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Step #1: Know Your Target Audience

Knowing who your target audience is one of the key TikTok follower growth strategies. You need to figure this out before you start creating content for your account. Identify your target audience according to the following:

  • Their demographics. What’s your target age group? Where are they located? Do they belong to a specific cultural or social background?
  • Their interests. You may have to target different sub-groups whose interests overlap and are relevant to your niche. If you’re an illustrator, for example, your audiences may include children’s book authors, publishers, and readers.
  • The type/s of content they like to engage with on TikTok. Once you’ve narrowed down your target audience, you can start researching what types of TikTok videos they enjoy.

Organic TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Step #2: Audit Your Competition

Scrutinizing the competition should be a permanent component of your TikTok follower growth strategies. Identify three to five brands or communities on TikTok that are in your niche or most similar to yours. Study their content and marketing strategies. Take note of what works and what doesn’t. Identify each competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. What hashtags are they using to optimize their content for higher visibility? Which posts are getting the most views and engagement?

You should also check out TikTok influencers and personalities who share your target audience and learn from their various approaches.

Person working on a laptop and developing TikTok growth strategies.

Organic TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Step #3: Set Appropriate Goals

Your TikTok follower growth strategies won’t be complete without setting TikTok goals. Remember that your goals must be aligned with your overall brand objective. Use the SMART goal framework, to help you set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Your goal/s for your TikTok brand may include any of the following:

  • Reaching a new audience to increase brand awareness and/or conversions and sales.
  • Improving your brand image.
  • Promoting new products.
  • Strengthening customer relationships.
  • Driving more traffic to your website.
  • Building a community around a cause or movement.

Organic TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Step #4: Strictly Follow a Content Calendar

Consistency is crucial to top-of-mind awareness. Your TikTok follower growth strategies must include creating a content calendar and strictly adhering to it. Your TikTok content calendar must be built around the best times to post on TikTok to optimize audience reach. The frequency and timing of your posts will depend on when you are most likely to receive maximum views and engagement for your content.

Organic TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Step #5: Monitor Your Performance

You need to track your performance to find out if your TikTok follower growth strategies are working. Monitoring your analytics will also help you perfect your growth strategies. Regularly check your analytics to see where you are with your goals. Your analytics will show you how many followers you’re gaining and which posts are getting the most engagement. You’ll also find out when you’re getting the most engagement and a lot more, valuable information about your performance.

Woman taking a video with her phone for TikTok.

How to Gain Followers and Likes on TIKTOK: Quick Solutions

You can get lucky, go viral with one video, and gain droves of new TikTok followers overnight. Other TikTok follower growth strategies can also give your follower count an impressive and quick boost. Here are quick solutions for how to gain followers and likes on TikTok.

Grow Your TikTok Audience Through Influencer Marketing

As TikTok follower growth strategies go, this one’s foolproof nearly 100% of the time. We say “nearly” because the success of your influencer marketing will still depend on whether or not you choose the right influencer for your brand. Make sure you tick all these boxes when narrowing down the list of potential influencers you can collaborate with:

  • A follower base that suits your needs in terms of active engagement or numbers. A nano-influencer typically has a higher engagement than a micro-influencer because their followers are more dedicated. But if you’re after numbers, a micro or macro influencer may be the better fit for your brand.
  • A proven record of good performance. You must be able to verify that an influencer’s followers are legitimate accounts. Make sure that their engagement numbers are high enough to help you achieve your influencer marketing goals. Ideally, the influencer must have already achieved success with previous collaborations.
  • An identity and voice that’s aligned with those of your brand. Even if an influencer also specializes in your niche, they may not have an identity and a voice that perfectly complement your own. For example, you may prefer an influencer who has a strong sense of social responsibility over one who is only in it for the money.

Working with the right influencer and having a properly designed influencer marketing plan is a no-fail combo. Get this right and a single post can help you earn hundreds or thousands of new followers over a span of days.

Two people shaking hands to seal the deal for a TikTok collaboration.

Grow TikTok Followers Fast With Apps

Using follower apps to fuel your TikTok follower growth strategies may give you positive but short-term results if you know how to do it right. Buying TikTok followers is so commonplace these days, but it also remains a double-edged sword. If everybody else is doing it, you may feel the need to join the bandwagon just so you won’t be left behind by the competition. At the same time, TikTok users and TikTok’s algorithm are often quick to identify accounts that use fake accounts. Needless to say, getting busted will hurt your credibility.

But if you must, keep these things in mind when using apps or sites to grow your TikTok followers fast:

  • Always opt for gradual delivery of followers.
  • If your budget allows it, get “premium” or “active” followers.
  • Don’t be too quick to trust customer reviews published on the site. Check out reviews on trusted review sites.
  • Find out what the site’s refund policy is and if they offer “free refills” for followers that drop off after delivery.
  • Make sure the site has a reliable and easy-to-reach customer support team.
  • Find out how the site targets audiences.
  • Consider subscribing to a monthly plan for gradual but consistent growth with a regular flow of new followers.

You can check out these TikTok follower sites:

  • Take InstaFollowers for a test run with their free trial package. Get 10 TikTok fans for zero dollars. Just provide your TikTok profile’s URL.
  • If you want to buy followers, SocialWick lets you specify how many you want to get. They also offer a 30-day free refill for followers that may “drop off” of your total purchase.
  • Social Boosting has tons of positive on-site reviews. You can select a follower package that meets your budget.

TikTok Follower Growth Tracker

Use a reliable TikTok follower growth tracker to get accurate and actionable insights about your account’s performance. Make sure to take full advantage of your TikTok Analytics so you can constantly optimize your TikTok follower growth strategies.

You can access TikTok analytics by going to your profile, tapping the three dots, selecting “Creator tools,” and then choosing “Analytics.” Your analytics are divided into Overview, Content, and Followers.

  • Under Overview, you will see follower growth, video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares. The Engagement section within Overview will show you your video performance using metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. 
  • The Content tab will show you extended data and analytics for each of your videos. You’ll find information such as total views, total likes, comments, shares, average watch time, traffic source type, and audience territories. All Content metrics are available for the last 7 days only. 
  • The Followers tab will show you highlighted insights about your TikTok community. You’ll see information like your audiences’ locations, when your followers are most active on TikTok, and any changes in follower growth.

Laptop screen displaying a graph for TikTok analytics.

TikTok Follower Growth Strategies Bonus Tip: Get Expert Help

Developing TikTok follower growth strategies takes time, dedication, and a lot of experimentation before you can figure out what works. If you want to focus on creating TikTok content with viral potential, you can team up with an expert in TikTok growth strategy.

As with all other social media platforms, precise audience targeting and organic content promotion using proven marketing strategies are crucial to growth. You can get this double advantage when you subscribe to High Social.

High Social uses a proprietary advanced AI targeting technology to track down the right fans for your TikTok, whatever niche you’re in. These are TikTok users who fit your target audience filters and whose interests on TikTok match what you have to offer.

They also have an in-house team of social media specialists who will put your content in front of your target audience. You can be sure that the followers you’ll gain are real and genuinely interested. And this is exactly what you need to build a lasting and highly engaged community for your TikTok brand.

High Social can help accelerate your TikTok growth and build a strong presence for your brand on the platform. Start growing your TikTok today!