We’ve spent the last few months with a software engineer trying to find out how users grow on TikTok and how the algorithm actually works. 

We didn’t figure out everything, but we got a lot closer. As software engineers often have to write algorithms themselves, it wasn’t that difficult to reverse engineer it. 

“If i was an engineer at TikTok, making and maintaining the algorithm, what would I be expecting?”

Here’s what we got:

How do you get on the FYP (for you page)?

You do that by focusing on your numbers. Focusing on your ratios:

You take your number of views + your number of comments + and your number of likes =and you create a ratio.  

• Your views to likes ratio needs to be at least 10%. So if you have 100 views, you need at least 10 likes in order for TikTok to respect that idea. 
• Then your likes to comment ratio needs to be somewhere around 2%. So if you have 10 likes, you’ll need around 2 comments. 
• 100 views | 10 likes | 2 comments  = a good ratio. 

So that’s what they did, they focused on the ratios for 2-3 weeks. And all of a sudden one of the videos got 1 million views. Which led them to believe that TikTok algorithm also takes into consideration how many videos are posted. 

We think there are milestones. For example: 50th video, 100th video, your 150th video… those are the kind of milestones we’re talking. 

Those numbers have the potentiality to go farther. So it would make sense to want to hit those milestones fast. That’s why a lot of people find success from posting 10 videos a day. It’s because they’re hitting those milestones at a rapid speed.

With everything noted, TikTok algorithm is still a black box, you can have hundreds of thousands of followers and still receive only 10k+ views. That’s why you should focus on the ratio. Just make sure you keep putting out great content that people are engaged with.

Let me know what you think 🧐