Learning how to grow on TikTok is a goal of many this year. It’s now no longer a secret that this app is powerful, and you have the ability to harness even a small portion of that power…and completely change your life.
But not everyone can make it happen.
Most can’t, actually.
What looks like silly, thoughtless posts on accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are actually often a carefully crafted strategy. They include a structure, a purpose, where to send viewers, and even strategic topics that speak directly to the demographic most present.
That might sound difficult, but it’s nothing more than a replicable strategy.
One we’ll teach you about in this article.
Here’s what you’ll learn about how to grow on TikTok:
The Worth of Growing on TikTok
Because you clicked on this article and came here, you knew there was some sort of value to TikTok. It’s an increasingly popular app, and yes, it is still growing.
It was downloaded more times than any other app in 2022 and 2023, and it’s likely to hold the title for a third year in a row. Because of this, there’s a ton of potential for people to create content and get their name out purely because of the massive amount of users.
In 2023, TikTok had 1.7 billion users.
If that’s not enough to convince you of its worth and to learn how to grow on TikTok, then perhaps the opportunity for income will.
One of our clients began using TikTok with the methods outlined below, and her channel grew from 0 to 250,000 followers in only four months. Which wouldn’t matter to your income, unless you had it set up to earn. She does.
In fact, she’s one of our clients earning upwards of $30,000 a month in their business from TikTok leads.
Not only are business owners and thought leaders in their space creating an income, there’s also the potential for other types of earnings with the launch of the TikTok shop. This challenge of Amazon’s coveted speedy shipping and ease of ordering is innovative. It’s still early in the process, which means early adopters still have room to make a name for themselves.
Ultimately, TikTok has the majority of attention. Because they’re making buying easier, it’s essentially shortcutting the influencer-to-buying experience.
Plus, the app is not done evolving. There are now even more opportunities for long-form video content that’s a call to rival that of Youtube, making the app a single place for people to take part in the same activities they do across several apps.
It’s a powerhouse platform.
And you can have a piece of that power.
A Case Study of 2 People and 1 Strategy
We’re going to use several examples from various TikTok accounts, but will heavily focus on the strategy and outcomes of two specifically.
Now, I want to preface these teachings by noting that this is one method to grow on TikTok, and highly specific one. There are many, many ways to gain momentum on TikTok and it’s up to you and what you desire for your platform.
This method and the accounts we study are best for people becoming thought leaders in a specific space. We focus more on content that’s educational, with information shared as opposed to entertainment-driven content like sketches, dancing, duets, or reaction videos.
Throughout this article on how to grow on TikTok, we’ll focus on advice from Taylor Conroy as well as Jennifer at Purely Ayurveda. Both have extremely different niches, with Purely Ayurveda focused on reducing symptoms for menopause and Taylor’s content aimed at financial freedom and money mentorship. Both Taylor and Jennifer grew their channels quickly, with Jennifer growing to 250,000 followers in just 4 months.
The kicker of these two case studies?
Taylor Conroy taught his strategy to Jennifer, who has now surpassed him in followers.
What’s that phrase, again? Oh yeah:
Let’s see how she did it so you can learn how to grow on TikTok in the same manner.
How to Grow on TikTok & Gain 250,000 Followers in as Little as 4 Months
Followers can hold a lot of power in the world of social media. TikTok is no different. But it’s not just the followers that you want to gain, but their attention, trust, and consistent presence in your world of the internet.
This technique can help you grow followers rapidly, but it will also help establish yourself as a thought leader in a certain space, and earn an income tied to your business if that’s what you want.
No matter your goals, here’s a strategy that works.
1. Choose your thought leadership topic
Call it a niche. Call it a genre or a focus or a brand. Whatever you call it, it’s the “theme” of your profile and account.
This is what you’ll mostly talk about. Your content will center around a certain topic you know a lot about and are also interested in. Now, some accounts on TikTok are lifestyle based and include many facets of a person’s life. This strategy is not for learning how to grow on TikTok in this way.
Instead, we’re focusing on a single topic you can continuously post about. One in which you’re the authority.
This isn’t to be confused with a single concept. You can go a bit broader with it. It will be the umbrella you use to come up with content ideas.
Let’s take our case studies for example:
Taylor Conroy (@Taylor_Money_):
The theme is literally in his username, as is common for many people (though not entirely necessary). It’s about money. The bio itself expands on that, with a “Money Mentorship” directed to a link. Overall, this plus his videos will give anyone a quick glance of what he’s about.
Jennifer (@PurelyAyurveda):
Jennifer chose the route of using a username to describe what she does, which is to focus on Ayurvedic practices. Her bio specifies more. It includes the phrases, “Symptom Free Perimenopause and Menopause” and “Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner”. Therefore, her content is centered around these topics exclusively, as she knows best as a certified practitioner in this area.
2. Address perfectionist tendencies
One of the biggest barriers to learning how to grow on TikTok will be this. Taylor Conroy explained the biggest enemies of TikTok growth being perfectionism and procrastination.
The latter is caused by the former.
Until you address the need to appear perfect, to get it “right” every single time, you will not grow. Because TikTok’s environment is not one of perfection. The videos that do best are not overly produced. They’re handheld videos of you talking at the camera.
You have to take action.
Make that video.
Publish it.
If it does well, great. If it doesn’t, great. Now you know what’s not landing with your audience. The more content you make, and the more often you post, the more chances you have of growing on TikTok.
This isn’t an easy fix. The only way you can cure perfectionism is with action. You do it anyway. And you keep doing it.
One thing that can make it a bit easier, though, is using a structure that you know works.
3. Use a 4 step process for videos
Formulas work. There’s definitely room for creativity in how you do this, but try to stick to a structure that’s we know works well. And we know it works because the views, likes, and follows are evidence of this.
STEP 1 – HOOK
This is fairly simple, and you can tweak is to fit you unique. Essentially, the hook is telling people exactly what they’ll get from this video in a way that stirs curiosity and highlights who the video is for.
It should be under 10 seconds, and it’s the first thing you say in the video, as well as the “title” that appears on the image of it.
Here are a couple examples of hooks and the amount of views the video garnered:
“Here’s the one thing I wish I learned in my early 20s that would’ve made me way richer way faster.” | 3.7 million views |
“When I was 24 I made $500,000 in a year and here are the 3 things I did to get there.” | 2.4 million views |
“There’s one thing that rich people do completely differently than middle class people and poor people do.” | 2.9 million views |
“This is how to make a million bucks in one year with no side hustle, no inheritance, and no tricks.” | 497,000 views |
“You need to make friends with this one spice to keep your hormones happy.” | 1.9 million views |
“Hormonal hair loss? Eat this 3 times a day.” | 650,000 views |
“If you wake up between the hours of 2am and 3am and can’t fall back asleep, I’m going to show you a very simple but very strange technique to fall back asleep quickly.” | 630,000 views |
“Things that you didn’t know you didn’t know, part 9.” | 3 million views |
“How much is your lack of knowledge costing you in your relationship?” | 22,200 views |
These hooks are all comprised of a promise of information to solve a specific problem—or to reduce suffering in some way.
Humans are naturally eager to understand how to avoid conflict, remain safe, gain status, or solve problems. This goes back to our survival mechanisms as cavemen. When you can create a hook that speaks to these needs, viewers will stop to listen.
We’ll get into a few more details about how to position your hook when we talk about demographics below.
Also notable: your hook doesn’t always need to be said. It can also exist as a text box on the screen—one that remains there.
Here are a few examples of what that looks like:
STEP 2 – GENTLE INTRO
This step allows you to preset yourself to the audience. More specifically, though, it allows you to establish your credibility and create familiarity. The more someone hears your name in the videos by you, the more name recognition you have.
It’s pretty straightforward.
You deliver the hook, then cut to a section in which you introduce yourself and a reason you may be credible to give that information. You don’t have to say, “I’m an authority on this because…”. Instead, you just phrase it like you’re introducing yourself and giving a fun fact as it relates to the topic of the video.
Here are some examples along with the hooks used:
HOOK | GENTLE INTRO |
“Here’s the one thing I wish I learned in my early 20s that would’ve made me way richer way faster.” | “And by the way, my name’s Taylor. I got nothin’ to sell you. I just love seeing people be super abundant in life.” |
“When I was 24 I made $500,000 in a year and here are the 3 things I did to get there.” | “And by the way, my name’s Taylor. I got nothin’ to sell you. I just love seeing people be super abundant in life.” |
“You need to make friends with this one spice to keep your hormones happy.” | “By the way, if you’re new here, my name is Jennifer. I’m a certified Ayurvedic practitioner who has helped thousands of women move through perimenopause and menopause symptom free.” |
“Hormonal hair loss? Eat this 3 times a day.” | “I know it’s hard to believe, seeing how much hair I have. But there was a time in my life where I lost half my hair within a year.” |
The last example is less of an introduction to Jennifer herself, but more of a credibility hook, that also establishes that she has personal experience. After this, she does introduce herself the same as her other videos.
The point is, say who you are and what you’re about. That’s it!
As you can see with the first two examples, Taylor doesn’t actually say anything about “helping people grow their finances” despite the hook and video topic. Instead, it tells his audience that his focus is abundance, and therefore you can expect his advice to carry that message, even though it seems to be about money.
STEP 3 – CONTENT
This is all about delivering on your promise. It’s also very specific to you and your expertise.
Now, a word of warning about this: don’t use a great hook and squander the content. If it’s just a call to get people to sign up for something or go to your bio to find the “secrets,” you will drive people away. Giving first is the goal.
Share your knowledge. Stay true to the hook, and you can’t go wrong with the content.
Even if it’s not what someone expected, fulfilling the hook will go a long way with them.
Take Taylor Conroy’s content, for example. Let’s pick this one apart to understand how it delivers on the content:
HOOK | GENTLE INTRO |
“When I was 24 I made $500,000 in a year and here are the 3 things I did to get there.” | “And by the way, my name’s Taylor. I got nothin’ to sell you. I just love seeing people be super abundant in life.” |
CONTENT |
And this involves no side hustles, no inheritance, and no tricks. So I was making $50,000 a year as a firefighter when I was 24. And I did not like the feeling of having to look at all the prices on the menus and go to a grocery store and worry about if I had enough money in the account when I was checking out. I hated this feeling of feeling suffocated by my financial situation. I wanted stuff to get better so I did the first of the three things. Number one: I got crystal clear on the amount of money I wanted to make, which was $500,000. That might sound simple but this is incredibly important. Most people are just like, “I wanna make a bit more money.” or “I wanna be rich!” or “I wanna be wealthier.” “One day I want to be a millionaire.” And if you’re putting out the intention or the vibration of just wanting to make more money, then you can go and find a freaking penny on the sidewalk and that’s the universe delivering you more money. What we need to do is get crystal clear on exactly how much we wanna make, and the date by which we want to make it. Which takes me to number two. Number two: And that is, I would wake up every morning and the first thing out of my mouth was my vision statement, which started something like this: “I’m so happy and grateful now that I have a $500,000 by December 31st.” And those are the last words out of my mouth before I went to sleep so that I could hand it over to my subconscious mind to work on in my dreams. And if you think that’s crazy, look up how Kobe trained himself to be able to practice shoot shots in his head while he was sleeping to become one of, if not the best, player in the NBA. And the third thing is incredibly important. And that was to set a goal that was so far beyond what I could conceive was possible to literally 10x the money that I was making which forced my brain to narrow down what the opportunities that I had in front of me could actually lead to that result. Listen to this again. By setting a goal that was 10 times higher than anything I made in the past. Not two times or three times or four times, because those could call be within reach. By setting a goal that was 10 times higher, I needed to stretch my mind and it narrowed down and limited it focused the ways that I could make that money onto one or two, maybe three different paths. Whereas if my goal was to two x my money, there’s a hundred—a thousand—different ways I could do it. Which leads to analysis paralysis, people doing nothing, because in reality, 2 or 3x in what you’re making right now isn’t that exciting. But 10x is. [Call to Action – covered below] |
This TikTok has over 2.4 million views for a good reason. Not only did Taylor explain, in detail, the three things he did to make this happen, but he also did so in the manner he introduced himself with.
The technique he used to make that money had to do with abundance. That’s a key part of what Taylor specific in his gentle introduction.
Why does this matter?
Because some viewers may think he’s about to explain a business strategy. Or a hack to make money. But because he already explained his main purpose in his introduction, anyone who still watched are the right people to hear his strategy.
The content fulfills both the hook and the angle explained through his gentle intro.
How long should your videos be? It completely depends. Taylor Conroy’s videos range between 1 to 3 minutes.
STEP 4 – CALL TO ACTION (CTA)
Lastly, every good TikTok (if you want to learn how to grow on TikTok that is) needs to have a call to action. This CTA is what will inform viewers what they can do next and why.
In the early days of building your channel, focus on just getting them to follow.
Here’s an example of that from the above TikTok by Taylor, along with more examples to get a feel for what actions a person can take.
CALL TO ACTION (CTA) |
“Again, my name’s Taylor. I would love to see you abundant AF in life. Follow for more.” |
“If you guys want more money mentorship, I’m happy to do it. I love to do it all for free. I do live Q&As every Tuesday morning. Check out my bio for that, and follow for more.” |
“Want more information on how to balance your hormones naturally and nourish your hair? Drop in the comments ‘YES'” |
“If you’re curious to know all the steps I do to keep my hair thick, and healthy, and shiny…then drop in the comments ‘HEALTHY HAIR’.” |
Remind them of your name, restate your purpose or theme, and give them an action to take.
Of course, if you send people to the link in your bio, you’ll have to optimize that. More on this in step 5.
4. Post 3 times a day for the first 30 days
This is a hack, and is not meant for you to maintain forever. The idea is simple. You post three times a day for 30 days in order to create a content backlog, and increase views of your profile.
It puts your profile on the map, basically.
There’s nothing more to this strategy than to just do it.
You can go about it two ways:
- Prep the topics and content, then bulk film it
- Do it day by day, and make it a priority
Whichever method will lead to the most consistency is what you should aim for. Just remember you can edit and upload directly in the app, and that’s the best way to do it. It’s the fastest.
After 30 days, you may have already gained your first 1000 followers, or more. Taylor Conroy grew to upwards of 30,000 followers in those first 30 days.
The number 1000 is significant because at this point, you can now add a link in your bio, which is an important step to taking that growth on TikTok off-app. Sometimes with the purpose of monetizing it.
5. Update your bio with a link & more
Don’t even think about this step until you have 1000 followers, partly because you can’t link out anywhere until that point, and party because it doesn’t matter. Your focus right now should be on growing your following and posting videos.
So for the first 30 days, do that.
After you’ve gained momentum and have surpassed 1000 followers—which should happen if you’re following the 4 steps—it’s time to give your followers an action they can take to learn more from you, sign up for something, or buy something. This is ultimately how many users grow an income, so it’s valuable.
The easiest method is to create a LinkTree that you can update and swap out with
The rest of your bio also matters. It can help with search and clarity for viewers.
Anatomy of a Good TikTok Bio:
These are the details to focus on:
- Username: the perma link you’ll have, often either your name, business name, or related to your purpose and theme
- Visual Name: the name you choose to be visible when you post a TikTok. Most often your name, but sometimes your theme for searchability
- Bio: what you do, what you’re about, and actions people can take
- CTA link: include a link tree link that has multiple option to choose from
Here’s a peek at the bios of both Taylor and Jennifer:
6. Reduce posting frequency but narrow topics & CTA
After your 30 days of triple posting, you can cool of a bit. You don’t necessarily want to stop posting altogether, but you can scale back now.
Instead of quantity, it’s time to focus on intentionality. Quality for your followers.
One of Taylor Conroy’s most successful videos was intentional.
It called out a very specific demographic and he did this because in his demographic data for his account, he discovered that the majority of his followers were men in their early 20s.
This paved the way for the hook and video topic, “Here’s the one thing I wish I learned in my early 20s that would’ve made me way richer way faster.”
He knew this hook spoke to the bulk of his audience. So by calling out a specific age, he was able to get millions of views on the video. Those people stopped to listen, because he referenced them.
Dig into the analytics of your demographics to understand the audience you have. Start meeting them at the intersection of your theme and where they’re at.
If you had a purpose like Jennifer’s, in which she makes it clear she’s talking about menopause, it’s likely that her demographic is exactly what she intended. If it turned out she was growing her TikTok with teenage girls, that would pose a real problem. She’d have to look at what she was doing to attract those people.
Remember to take your comments and messages into account too. If you’re receiving the same question over and over, make a video about it! Serve the followers you have while you also create content to grow new ones.
Learning how to grow on TikTok often involves balancing both of these.
This is also the stage you can start to offer non-TikTok resources, like lead magnets. Jennifer offers guides, recipes, and additional information to those who comment on her video, and also at the link in her bio. Taylor offers an exclusive discord group where he shows up live for videos every Tuesday.
Decide how it is you’d like to engage with your audience off-app, and you’ll continue to grow due to the “extras” you offer.
Learning how to grow on TikTok isn’t impossible, and it’s not an oversaturated app. If anything, the more clear you can get on your thought leadership theme, the easier it’ll be to focus on these steps and grow from 0 to 250,000 followers in as little as 4 months, like Jennifer did.
If you want to go viral on TikTok and want to learn how to give a viral TEDx Talk, this guide is for you.