Mathilde Lacombe

TikTok views tell you how many times your videos have been watched and they are an important metric for establishing your TikTok presence. Increasing your views organically means those views are real, there was no ad spending or boosting videos involved. Going the organic route allows you to create a dedicated fan base and ensures that your growth is real and long-lasting.

In this post, I’m going to share five proven methods to increase your TikTok views naturally. These methods take a practical approach, doing things today that will get your content in front of more eyes while building your account steadily over time.

Create Content That Grabs Attention in the First Three Seconds

The first seconds of your TikTok videos have the power to lead viewers to stay or swipe away to the next video. With that said, the first three seconds are the most important thing for grabbing attention. Without an eye-catching or interesting start, you may find your content getting lost among countless scrolls. You want to capture attention where it stops the thumb; we want to see what happens next.

With all this in mind, you want to start with a strong visual or audio cue that immediately draws in eyes and ears. Here is how to do this effectively in those first seconds.

1. Use Eye-Catching Imagery

Your imagery is the front door to your video. If your images pop and look unique, it will cause thumbs to stop in their tracks. Darker lighting, muted colors, and cluttered backgrounds are the easy scrolls to dismiss in that split second. Think about creating images that pop, jump, or leap off the screen.

Good lighting is an easy way to enhance your visuals. Natural light, or even soft LED ring lights, will help you make your subject pop. You want to avoid it when you are shooting in a room that is too dim or one that casts harsh shadows, which makes your video look muddy or tired.

Bright colors entice the viewer, too. Try to think about connecting with their attention using vivid clothing, props, or backgrounds. A simple example would be a hard or contrasting color behind you or even a boldly clad prop within your scene. You can even boost your video with a colorful wall or fun blanket patterned backdrop to feel fresh and alive.

When and where you shoot can add a creative print of personality to your content, encouraging viewers to explore your videos a little longer and build a curiosity towards your persona. A decent and tidy room, a cool location, or even a small detail that is a little strange or different in the background helps raise curiosity.

Here’s a short checklist of ideas to make more visually appealing videos before you hit “record:”

• Use natural light or soft LED ring lighting for your scene
• Pick a background that has bold or contrasting colors
• Make a slight mess in your setting so your viewers can get comfortable – we want them to have fun!
• Make sure any camera is pointed to your focal subject’ and is clear and sharp, of course.

2. Use Trending Music and Sounds

Sound on TikTok is just as important as sight. And TikTok’s algorithm favors videos that use trending songs or trending audio clips. When you choose a trending sound, your chance of spreading the content in more feeds will increase and therefore your videos will have a greater chance for massive TikTok views.

Trending audio also connects you with what is happening and relevant now. Predominantly, it will give the impression that you are part of the bigger TikTok community so it can increase your discoverable content. Even if your topic is unrelated to what is trending, you will still increase your chance of finding new viewers or followers if it is inserted.

You don’t have to use the same trending sound across the entire video. The first point of engaging your audience comes from using a sound cue for your audience to latch onto when they hear it within your opening. From there you can pivot to your voiceover, or visuals that align with those beats with your audio. 

Finding the right sound: 

• Check out your TikTok “For You” feed to see the sounds the videos that are receiving views are using. 
• See what trending audio snippets are hot in the “Discover”. 
• Align the sound’s pacing and mood to the video’s message. 
• Use “hot” sounds that will fit the style of your content.

When you are using the right visuals, to accompany trending sounds, you are giving your TikTok videos a strong invite and presence. These factors will engage your viewer immediately, heightened your TikTok views, and layout an encouraging step to having your audience pay attention longer. 

3. Write Smart and Clever Captions 

Your caption is your opportunity to provide context or invite interest without distracting your audience from the video. With TikTok in particular, captions keep context and with the fast-paced nature of this platform, captions do not have to be long and elaborate like they might hold a readers attention on other media platforms, and actually short captions that create intrigue or invite interaction work much better.Experiment with captions like these to improve engagement:

• Ask a simple question related to your video to generate more comments.Ask a question, for example: “What would you do in this scenario?”
• Create a funny or bold statement to grab people’s attention, Example:”You are not going to believe this hack!”
• Create a call to action, for example: “Like this, share this, follow!
• Use animated emojis to grasp attention and the desired tone of content.

The caption you create for the video should not be a recap of the video. Think of your caption like a short headline or teaser to entice viewers to stop scrolling and decide to watch your video.

4. Pick Niche And Trending Hashtags

Hashtags are the roadmap that takes your video to interested viewers.The perfect combination of niche hashtags and trending hashtags helps to reach a targeted audience and a broad audience.

Here’s how to find the best hashtags:

Start with TikTok’s Discover tab and search trending hashtags for the same topic as your video.

• First, look at TikTok’s Discover page and search for trending hashtags in the same topic as your video. Use some trending hashtags to ride current waves.
• Second, search for niche hashtags that cater to your exact audience. Niche hashtags will usually have less posts, but will engage high-quality users who care about your content.
• Try to equally balance a mix of broad and narrow hashtags to cover various reaches. For example, use #Fitness (broad) and #HomeYogaTips (niche).
• Third, keep your hashtags condensed to around 3-5 per video if you want to keep focus and control the scope of your engagement.

Finally, spend just a few minutes scrolling through and exploring related accounts or popular videos in your niche. Pay attention to the hashtags they are using so you can test which hashtags are pulling in more views.

5. Think About Posting at Peak Traffic Times

When you post when your audience is most active, you are substantially increasing the likelihood that your videos will get viewed right after posting, and that engagement is a crucial early engagement signal for TikTok’s algorithm to show your video to even more people.

So, how do you find the best times?

• Use TikTok Analytics (by signing up for a Pro account) and see when your followers are online, being mindful of peak hours, and peak days.
• Choose some times over a week or two, and mix up the times you post, and see if some of your videos got more views early on when posted at a different time.
• Don’t forget about time zones and when your audience usually takes action (evening or during lunch breaks).
• As much as possible, follow general TikTok traffic trends: weekdays late afternoon into evening, weekends mid-morning into early afternoon are what seems to be working well for people.
• Once you have figured out your best times, try to consistently post during those times. You won’t always be able to post at your target times, but by posting consistently, you begin to build momentum, and your audience learns to expect your content to be posted during some of their likely engaging timeframes.

When you optimize your captions, hashtags, and timing it will maximize the performance of each of your TikTok posts for many views. These fairly small adjustments can direct more people to your video feeds and keep your content appearing in the places you need. Well, when you are still in active experimentation, adjust change and learn from performance data, and you will likely see your TikTok views increase progressively.

Conclusion

You can increase your TikTok views without spending money through ads with these five actions: producing videos that will grab people’s attention quickly, using trending/hot sounds, optimizing captions and hashtags, posting during prime times, and creating viewer interactions through comments and collaborations. Each of these actions can build upon each other, to maximize reach and connect with real people of interest. 

Consistently test out these strategies, and explore the content type to see the actions that create the best results for your particular content. With consistent work and attention to your audience, your TikTok views will increase naturally and strive to build a loyal following. Continue to build on your approach and keep engaged with the viewers to see sustained growth over a period of time.