How Does the TikTok Algorithm Work? Tips and Insights to Boost Your Content Strategy

They’ve tried to ban TikTok. Competitors have tried to dethrone it. People have made fun of it. 

Yet despite everything, TikTok is still here and reigns supreme as the top short-form video-sharing platform in the world. If you’re wondering, “How does the TikTok algorithm work?” we’re here to help. If you’d like to make the most of this powerful app and its huge audience, you’ll want to understand the algorithm that governs it.

For all of you interested video content creators out there, let’s explore how the TikTok algorithm works these days, as well as see how you can best position your videos to stand out, get views and engagement, and ultimately—hopefully—go viral.

We also know that finding success with TikTok is more than just algorithm manipulation, so to further help you on your journey, we have some helpful TikTok content creation tips and tricks, including a selection of high-quality royalty free music tracks that can give your TikTok videos a much-needed boost.

What is the TikTok algorithm?

So, what is the TikTok algorithm, and how does it work? A better question to start with might just be: What is an algorithm? According to Wikipedia, an algorithm is “a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation.”

For the purposes of TikTok, this algorithm is the sequence of instructions that dictates what content is shown to different users—specifically on TikTok’s ‘For You Page,’ which serves as the main feed for the majority of TikTok viewers.

To be direct, if TikTok’s algorithm decides that your video meets its certain criteria, it will put it in front of more viewers, which will help it go viral. Thus, if you can create content that TikTok’s algorithm favors, your videos will get more views, and you’ll be able to grow your channel and brand.

Best royalty free music for TikTok videos

One of the easiest—and best—ways to work the TikTok algorithm is to ensure that your videos are safe to use and aren’t at risk of being muted or taken down. This can happen when creators are using music on TikTok that they don’t properly license.

Wondering what music you can use on TikTok? The best way to ensure that your content is 100% safe and useable not just on TikTok but also across all other social video platforms like  YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and more is to use royalty free music from music licensing websites like Soundstripe.

To give you a taste of what we’re talking about, here are some of our top recommendations for the best royalty free music for TikTok, which you can listen to and license below.

1. Newport Nights by LNDÖ

• Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as fun and happy. Synths and samples are the primary instruments in this track.
• BPM: 100
• Key: Ab/G# Major
• Listen and license here.

• Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as hopeful and inspiring. Synth and piano are the primary instruments in this track.
• BPM: 103
• Key: Bb/A# Major
• Listen and license here.

• Description: A high-energy, score song that is best described as suspenseful and inspiring. Strings and cello are the primary instruments in this track.
• BPM: 170
• Key: E Minor
• Listen and license here.

• Description: A medium-energy rock song that is best described as happy and hopeful. The guitar and electric guitar are the primary instruments on this track.
• BPM: 124
• Key: Eb/D# Major
• Listen and license here.

• Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and happy. Synths and drums are the primary instruments in this track.
• BPM: 102
• Key: Eb/D# Major
• Listen and license here.

And in case you’d like to explore further, here are some royalty free music playlists that would also be great for TikTok creators.

City Living Playlist

• Lo-Fi, Jazz, and Hip Hop tracks for real estate in the big city.

No Cap Playlist

• Aggressive Hip Hop, Rap, and Trap. Some tracks contain Explicit Lyrics.

Makeup Playlist

• En vogue tracks that add color to makeup tutorials.

You can also check out much more royalty free TikTok music by exploring the full Soundstripe music library here.

How does the TikTok algorithm work?

Now that we’ve given you some royalty free music recommendations to give your TikTok videos the best soundtrack possible (and protect them from being taken down or muted), let’s dive deeper into the all-important TikTok algorithm.

While TikTok doesn’t publicly share exactly how its algorithm is designed and works, we do know some basic principles about the TikTok algorithm that mirror how algorithms on other major social video platforms also work. 

You can break the key metrics that TikTok’s algorithm considers down into the following categories:

Engagement

This is the most important category that most social platform algorithms consider. Engagement covers all the different ways a viewer will interact and “engage” with a video. These engagement metrics include:

• Views
• Likes
• Shares
• Comments
• Bookmarks (or Favorites)
• Complete watches (or rewatches)

TikTok takes all of these data points, and the algorithm can recommend how appealing a video will be to other viewers based on the results of the above. The key takeaway here is simply that if you create content that gets lots of engagement, TikTok’s algorithm will recommend it to more people, thus creating the “viral” effect.

Content Sorting

The other main way that algorithms like TikTok work is by performing a complicated sorting process that will take any tags that a user might include and scan the content itself to assign it to different category groupings. TikTok also groups its viewers, so the algorithm constantly refines the groups of videos that go to which groups of viewers.

This is why creators who create niche content covering specific topics can be very successful, as TikTok’s algorithm can find viewers interested in the type of content you’re creating. As a takeaway here, if you can understand your creator niche, you can use tags and focus your content on creating the best content for your same niche viewers.

User Information

Finally, the TikTok algorithm also considers the size and standing of your account and the value of the content that you create. What’s great about algorithms, though, is that they can help new users with small followings find views from users who have never heard of them.

However, by the same token, if you already have a big account with lots of followers, your content will be more likely to find more viewers, and you’ve proven to TikTok that your videos are of a certain value and quality.

This is where the importance of following TikTok’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines is crucial, as you don’t want to potentially put your account on any blacklists or indicate that your content is unreliable. 

Royalty free music will always be one of your best protections for keeping your content clean, clear, and safe to use.