The Ultimate Guide to Creating Viral Content on TikTok and Instagram

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What does it really take to go viral on TikTok and Instagram? Likes, followers, views, or mere luck? Let’s find it out together!

While TikToks and Instagram reels are in tough competition with each other, it is equally important for influencers and brands to ace both of these mediums in order to create a distinctive presence on social media.

Viral sensations are a common occurrence on social media every other day. People and businesses gain fame overnight. This is not a coincidence. It’s just how social media content works these days. 

Although the fame dies down a few days later, it ends up increasing your likes and followers count and skyrocketing your engagement rates for quite a while. The real deal is sustaining the fame and keep working to build on it.

Breaking Down the Algorithms

If you really want to flourish as a creator or brand on social media, you have to get into the nitty gritty of it. Understand how the algorithm actually works so you can make it work in your favor. Run the algorithm, don’t let it run your content. 

When you post content without a plan or strategy and just leave it on the algorithm, it hardly ever works in your favor. You are lucky if it ever happens without you putting in much effort. You can’t just rely on algorithms and wait for them to make you go viral overnight. 

You have to work hard for it, especially when the digital space is brimming with all sorts of content. If you don’t put in much effort or thought, you will lose the game sooner than you could imagine.  

Instagram Algorithm

The Instagram algorithm is a little complicated. It’s almost as if your content has to fight all odds to go viral. Let us elaborate on this further in simpler words. 

The algorithm focuses on the number of likes, comments, shares, views, and engagement rates on a post first. Along with numbers, the completion rate of the video also matters i.e. how many people watched the video till the end. 

Users’ interest is the last thing that comes into the equation. So on Instagram, even if your video is up to the mark and caters to certain interests, if it doesn’t get a significant amount of engagement, the algorithm won’t pick it up to boost.    

On Instagram, it’s like you have to get engagement to get more reach. It requires a lot of effort and patience to grow over here. But if you get the hang of it, you can do it well.  

TikTok Algorithm

The algorithm of TikTok works way differently than other platforms. The best part about it is that it works in favor of the creators. It runs on creativity and user interest. If you understand how it works, you won’t have to buy TikTok likes, although they have their own benefits.

The entire experience on TikTok is carefully tailored for each individual based on their content preferences and interests. If you make good videos targeting a particular interest, it is very likely to reach more users sharing similar interests.      

TikTok algorithm works to distribute the content effectively regardless of the numbers. It focuses on users’ interactions over the app. The accounts they follow, the posts they share, save, and comment on, what kind of videos they have watched till the end, and those they mark “not interested” or “inappropriate.” 

How To Go Viral on TikTok and Instagram?

Although the algorithm of the two platforms is poles apart, the strategies to go viral are pretty much the same for both. 

Define Your Target Audience

TikTok and Instagram have categorized their users based on their interests, preferences, dislikes, and interactions with various types of content and other users. When you are a creator, producing content is not the only thing to do. There are several other things you have to keep a check on in order to grow.  

One of them is to know who you are addressing through your content so you can craft it accordingly by including more relatability factors in it. The more the relatability, the higher the chances of going viral.   

The First 3 Seconds

Both of these platforms thrive on short form content where people always have the chance to scroll away if they don’t like the first impressions of something. So the first three seconds of any video are highly crucial. 

If you win those first few moments and are able to get viewers hooked to your content, congratulations! You have aced it! 

Be on the Lookout for Trends

Challenges, trends, and making videos featuring a popular soundtrack are a great way to boost your visibility and discoverability. However, it is important to note that copy pasting trends won’t do you any good. You have to bring in a creative element or a plot twist of your own to make things more interesting for the viewers.  

Appropriate Hashtags and Keywords

Inserting appropriate and relevant hashtags and keywords in your post captions is a game changing tool for content visibility. People with similar interests can discover you on their “for you” pages due to the relevant hashtags. 

You can easily do keyword research in the search box by typing all the relevant keywords in mind and observing what comes up. If the content appearing in searches is relevant to your niche, go ahead and use those magic words in your captions. 

Dare to be Different but Authentic

Authenticity rules the hearts of people no matter how much they fall for pretense. You must have the courage to be different but authentic in front of your viewers. Anything built on pretense will eventually fall off. 

Establish your unique brand aesthetic and voice on both platforms. Bring out your creativity and share it with the world. There will be haters but more people will be proud of your authenticity. 

Being genuine will not only take you places, it will also help your audience connect to your content on a deeper level. When lots of people are able to relate to your content, it becomes highly likely for it to go viral.  Another useful hack to go for is to buy likes on Instagram or TikTok from any credible seller to increase your visibility on both platforms.

Cross Promote Your Content

With the amount of content uploaded every minute on various platforms, outshining through it has become a real struggle for many creators. Working on a single platform sometimes doesn’t seem enough. 

So if you are able to build a network on multiple social networking sites, you can always leverage them to promote your content. This increases your chances of being discovered by more people and going viral.

Audit Your Content Often

Keep an eye on how your posts are performing on each platform by tracking the analytics. Observe what your audience likes and engages with and what sort of content doesn’t get enough engagement. 

Conducting a competition analysis also gives you great insight on how their audience are interacting with various posting formats and content types. Doing this will help you work on your weaknesses and in building an effective strategy.  

Be Consistent in Your Pursuits 

The key to achieving something great is not hard work alone, it’s doing it consistently and persistently. So when you embark on the journey of being a content creator on social media, you have to keep experimenting with things to find out what you are good at and what works for you best.  

Post consistently on your accounts and one day, you will get lucky enough to become a viral sensation all over social media. But remember, don’t let fame overwhelm you. Know how to keep it for long!

Wrapping it Up  

In a nutshell, going viral over social media can be luck or a result of consistent efforts. You never know. Putting in hard work and consistent effort is something that is in your control and is bound to pay off at the right time. 

So implement these strategies, don’t lose heart and have fun doing your thing! That’s all that really matters.