What is TikTok’s For You Page?

For many business owners, TikTok is still the wild, wild west. But this crazy popular app is now home to more than 1 billion active users, and believe us when we tell you - even though you might think TikTok is for 16 year olds, your customers are on there.

How TikTok Differs from other Social Media Platforms

You’ve probably noticed that organic reach has been declining on traditional social media platforms. These days, the average Facebook post is getting just 0.18% engagement, Instagram is getting 3-4% engagement, and YouTube is getting 1.63% engagement. But that’s where TikTok differs. TikTok is at 18% engagement, and a big reason for this is the For You Page, aka “FYP”.

The For You Page is the first page you land on when you open the app, and it’s essentially a curated feed of videos from people who you may not follow, but that TikTok believes you’ll be interested in, based on your past behaviour on the app. In fact, it is typical to find that only 1 out of 10 videos in your For You Page are people that you actually follow.

Do you watch cooking videos all the way through, or comment on food related posts? You’ll end up with more cooking and food related videos in your For You Page feed. Are you into watching videos about hockey? Guess what you’ll find in your For You Page? That’s right: lots of hockey related content.

The point is, TikTok wants to catch your attention with topics it knows you are interested in, and keep you scrolling for longer. And curating a feed that is unique to you and features exactly what you’re into is a pretty darned smart way of keeping your attention.

While many of us follow people we know or love, we might not really, truly be that interested in what they post. That’s the beauty of the For You Page - you get to discover creators you never would have been exposed to. And if you’re just starting out on the app, the For You Page is a quick way to get hooked and watching for longer, even when you don’t follow many people.

What’s so good about the For You Page?

In case this hasn’t dawned on you yet - the For You Page is absolute gold for businesses. It essentially means your posts have the possibility of being put in front of a massive audience that isn’t currently following you. This gives creators the opportunity to get more exposure - lots more exposure - than on other social media platforms.

If you usually get 100 views per TikTok, a FYP feature could push that to tens of thousands. That’s incredible exposure that you can leverage without ever spending a dime on ads.

Ever heard the saying, “it takes a platform to grow a platform?” Once you’ve got some hype on TikTok, you can use this attention to redirect traffic back to your other platforms like Instagram or YouTube and start growing your community across the board.

So how does TikTok determine what ends up on this magical For You Page?

TikTok ranks posts by a variety of factors:

1. User Interactions. The more comments, likes, shares and duets your video gets, the more important it seems to TikTok, and the more likely it will get picked up by the algorithm.

2. Completion rate. Are users watching your video all the way to the end, or better yet - watching it multiple times? These factors make TikTok push your video out for further distribution.

3. Hashtags, sounds and captions. The use of trending sounds, hashtags or captions offer TikTok plenty of information about your video that help it determine where to share your video. And if you’ve used a trending sound byte, you’re more likely to get noticed by the algorithm.

4. Your location, language, device or country also play a role in curating your FYP, since TikTok knows that a Danish comedy sketch will only really appeal to Danish users.

6 Tips for Getting on the TikTok For You Page (FYP)

While there is no bulletproof way of ensuring success on TikTok (or any social media platform for that matter), there are things you can do to improve your chances of getting places on people’s For You Page.

Here are some basic TikTok rules to follow:

1. Use hashtags. No need to use dozens of them - stick to a small number of relevant hashtags and mix trending ones with less popular ones.

2. Post shorter videos. Remember when we said TikTok rewards creators who have their videos watched all the way through? The easiest way to make this happen is to produce short, engaging videos that are easy to consume. The shorter your video, the less chance people will swipe it away.

3. Write Engaging Captions. We’re not talking about writing a novel here. You only have space for 150 characters (including hashtags) so focus on writing short, interesting captions that will compel people to watch and engage with your video.

Need some ideas? Create mystery by saying something like, “this took 10 tries to get right” or “wait for it”, or ask your viewers a question to encourage engagement or get people to watch your video several times.

Another idea: tease your viewers with information tidbits that will be revealed in the video: “How I get to sleep at night” or “How I find clients as a freelance photographer”.

4. Make sure your videos are high quality. In this day and age there isn’t much excuse for having poor quality video. If your clips are grainy or low-quality, they won’t be as appealing to watch and the TikTok algorithm will punish you.

And improve your video production value by editing your content. Experiment with filters, transitions, music, etc, to keep your videos interesting and engaging.

5. Post content at the right times.

Since engagement is such an important factor for getting placed on the TikTok For You Page, think before you post. Make sure you’re posting when your audience is most active. Now sure when this is? With a TikTok Pro Account, you have access to Instagram Analytics, allowing you to see video views, profile views, follower growth, trending videos as well as when your followers are online.

Note: You do need a minimum of 100 followers to start seeing data about your audience.

Want to learn how to switch to a TikTok Pro Account? Simply do the following steps:

1. Open the TikTok app.

2. Tap the “Me” icon at the bottom of the screen.

3. Tap the three dots in the top left corner.

4. Tap “Manage Account.”

5. Tap “Switch to Pro account.”

6. Select “Creator” or “Business,” and you’re done!

Happy Tiktoking!

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