TikTok’s algorithm continues to amaze users with its uncanny ability to recommend content that feels perfectly tailored to your interests. Everyone’s FYP is a different experience. So how do you get your videos to land on more people’s FYPs? I’ve embarked on a series of experiments to find out!

I often see other social media professionals recommend posting 5-7x per day on TikTok in order to grow your account. That cadence seemed aggressive and unsustainable to me, but I decided to give it a try for one week. You probably have a lot of questions about how it went, so let’s dive in!

What the heck did you post?

I needed 35 videos to get through my week-long experiment; I ended up posting 36 total. I recorded many in advance–enough to get me through the first 3 days–then gradually created content for the rest of the week throughout the remainder of the experiment. Because I use my TikTok just for fun and learning, I don’t have a specific niche, which gives me flexibility in what kinds of content I share.

So what types of videos did I share?

Talking to camera videos – Topics included this experiment, food reviews, mental health, tattoos, insurance, and books.
Dogs trying food – A series of my rescue dogs trying different fruits and vegetables. These were super quick and easy to record!
Clips with voiceover – Sometimes this was one longer clip (30 seconds) or multiple short clips (3-5 seconds) compiled into a 60 second video.

Examples include: clips of my husband’s first art show with voiceover, an Addams Family pinball game with voiceover, and art from graphic novels with voiceover.

Slideshows – TikTok is allegedly prioritizing this new type of content, similar to a carousel post on Instagram.

Examples include: photos of my husband’s journey as an artist and his decision to pursue art full time and photos of short books I recommend.

What time did you post?

I posted every 3 hours: 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm.

Which videos did the best?

For context, I have 3,800 followers and my videos typically get 200-400 views. Over 1,000 views is great by my standards! Of the 36 videos I posted, only 4 exceeded 1,000 views. I was surprised that with such an intense posting frequency, the algorithm did not boost me significantly.

The best performing videos were: a board game called Pig Mania with voiceover (1,200 views), the Game of Life with voiceover (2,800 views), a conveyor belt sushi restaurant with voiceover review (1,100 views), and a slideshow about my and my husband’s engagement anniversary (1,600 views).

So what did you learn?

TikTok definitely has a delayed release algorithm.

To some extent, we already knew this. Even now, videos I posted months ago continue to get traction. On platforms like Instagram, content dies shortly after posting it, whereas on TikTok, they continue to serve it to people for months. It’s fantastic that your content has more longevity on TikTok!

The delayed release was very noticeable when I logged in every 3 hours to post. The first video would have barely 10 views when I went in to post the second. After about 3-6 hours, it would start to pick up steam, and overnight, they’d get more traction. It’s a good reminder to not delete your videos if they’re not performing well right away!

Posting times aren’t everything, but some may be better than others.

There’s no perfect posting time, but here’s what I observed:

Videos posted at 12pm and 3pm flopped more often than other time slots.
I posted before 9am some days and those videos did surprisingly well.
The evening time slots, 6pm and 9pm, also did quite well.

Value-add content gets a lot of saves.

Videos where I shared recommendations tended to get lots of saves. The two videos that got saved the most were one with recommendations for short books (a slideshow) and a talking to camera video reviewing a workbook for neurodivergent folks.

It’s not clear how the TikTok algorithm values saves. Completion time is important, as are comments, but my videos with tons of saves did not receive as many views as ones with more comments. A rant about insurance got more comments and views than one with book recommendations that got 18 saves. Either way, it’s helpful to know that people are saving content they find valuable!

Making people mad sparks engagement.

I think anyone who has spent time on the internet knows this already, but I certainly found it to be true during the experiment. I wasn’t trying to anger internet strangers, but I shared a video encouraging authors to not reference Harry Potter in their books anymore, and it upset a few folks. People returned to leave angry comment after angry comment, which boosted the video in the algorithm and served it to more people. I’m not encouraging rage-baiting as a strategy; doing so just increases the amount of angry content on the internet and prevents you from sharing in a more authentic way.

Trending sounds help, but they’re not the be-all, end-all.

Of my 4 best-performing videos from the experiment, one had a trending audio with over 100k uses, one had a niche sound with only 350 uses, and 2 were just voiceover with no added audio. It’s fascinating to see that your videos can succeed without including a trending audio. It’s good to incorporate a mix of both into your content plan.

Shorter videos tend to perform better.

3 of the 4 most popular videos from this experiment were one minute long or shorter. TikTok prioritizes video completion, so if people stick around longer, it boosts the video in the algorithm. I’ll definitely be incorporating 60 second or less videos into my content mix more!

It’s also worth noting that this doesn’t mean that longer videos can’t succeed on the platform. My video about the workbook for neurodivergent folks was a full 3 minutes long and did well too, receiving 27 saves! Viewers will stick around if your content is engaging and valuable.

Was it worth it? Should I post 5x per day?

I’ll be honest with you: for me, it wasn’t worth it.

It was worth it to see how it impacted my growth on the platform and to be able to share the findings, but I’m not going to keep posting 5x per day.

It may depend on your goal. If your goal is more followers, this did not grow my account much more than a normal week on TikTok. During the experiment, I gained 49 followers. The week before, posting 2x/day, I gained 46 followers. I’m still a bit shocked that for all that extra work, I only got 3 more followers than I did the week before.

Week over week, it wasn’t a massive change in views either. I had 25,000 views the week of the experiment; the week before, it was 17,000. Those 8,000 additional views were nice, but I’m not sure they were worth that time and energy.

Other stats:

Profile views increased 8%
Likes increased 78%
Comments increased 84%
Shares remained the same
I posted 15 videos before a single one went over 1,000 views.

Again, just because a lot of people say something works, or because you’re trying really hard, doesn’t mean it will work for you or pay off. I’m glad I tried this, but it didn’t work for me and I don’t think it would be sustainable for me long term. It was exhausting!

Next, I’ll be doing an experiment where I only post slideshows for a week. I’ve heard that they have a higher conversion rate, so I’ll report back on how it goes!

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