Miller Digital
Social media and content marketing coach for entrepreneurs
If you’ve been experimenting with TikTok, you’ll know that the platform uses hashtags similar to other social media platforms.
TikTok’s For You page is immediately what you interact with when you open the app – think of it as Instagram’s Explore page. It will show you videos of accounts you do and don’t follow, with videos based on content you have liked interacted with in the past, your location and hashtags.
TikTok’s hashtags are one of the most effective ways to get your videos seen by your ideal audience, and they are best used when they are specific and niched down for your audience. Read on to find out how hashtags work on TikTok!
Looking for more info on TikTok? Check out my TikTok Tips for Beginners blog post.
TikTok's hashtag method
Using hashtags that are your location, niche, occupation, industry or trends are all ways to grow your audience.
However, one of the best ways to grow your audience is to target them specifically with trends and niched down hashtags. Let’s dive into these.
Research what's trending
When you click on the Discover tab at the bottom of your screen, you will immediately see trending hashtags on TikTok.
Click on a few of the trending hashtags, watch the videos and get inspired. At lot of these trending hashtags will have a trending audio or music to go with it. See if they could be relevant to your business at all and create a video!
Remember, not all trends are the best for businesses so carefully choose what trends are best for your brand.
If you type in your niche, industry, occupation or content topic into the search bar and select “Hashtags” you will see all the trending and used hashtags for that topic.
In this example I chose “business” and you can see how many hashtags I could use in my videos with the word business a part of it.
Niche down, and niche some more
TikTok’s For You page can get SUPER specific on the type of content it gives you. Like, creepily oddly specific lol!
I’ve had videos target me because they know I’m married, a dog mom, enjoy White Claws and a business owner!
If your video targets a very specific group of audience, use those hashtags in your videos. For example, if you’re a virtual assistant and you’re sharing your Excel hacks for business owners, use hashtags such as #exceltipsandtricks or #excelhacks. Users who have liked videos that have Excel in it in the past will see these types of niche hashtags first!
Also, using a hashtag with your niche or topic type in front of the work “tok” can help identify your potential audience. For example, #businesstok #healthtok
Using your profession or industry in front of the word “of tiktok” also narrows your audience. (ie: #organizersoftiktok, #websitedesignersoftiktok).
Curious about hashtags on Instagram, too? Check out my free Instagram Hashtag Library download that teaches you how to choose your hashtags.
Your TikTok strategy
Once you start to post more videos on TikTok, go back to your videos and see which hashtags are common on the best performing ones. You can replicate these ones in the future!
Have fun with it! Hashtags are an experiment on this platform and TikTok is made to be fun, so play with it.
If you want to know if your TikTok strategy and content is working to grow your business, book a Social Media Audit with me to optimize your content on TikTok. We’ll dive into what you need to implement and change to connect with your audience so you can get clients!
*Bonus: There is still a bit of debate as to whether the hashtags #fyp, #foryou or #foryoupage actually work to target the right audience, so test it yourself to see if it works for you or not.