How TikTok's algorithm works

Tom jack1

Tom jack1

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How does TikTok's algorithm work to recommend content that users are interested in?
 
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If a user has liked, commented on, shared, and saved videos, TikTok is more likely to recommend similar videos.
 
Algorithm has so many factors to it it is VERY hard to nail it down to one thing.

In general users are placed in groups - what you interact with is what you will see more of.

Sometimes they will recommend an out of niche video to you to see your reaction to it. If good, they will slowly show more if bad they won't show again.

This is why training your FYP is crucial for growth
 
TikTok's algorithm analyzes user interactions, profiles, and content tags, favoring highly engaging videos while diversifying recommendations, all aimed at personalized content discovery.
 
Machine learning to suggest videos according to your history of likes and views
 
It depends on the engagement of your video. If your video immediate starts getting likes and comments after being posted, there would be many chances that it will bet viral and shown to other users in for you section.
 
Sol said:
This is why training your FYP is crucial for growth
Click to expand...
This sentence should give everybody pause. I think this is both absurd and perfectly normal to raise this question.
-> Absurd because what counts in your possible virality is other people's FYP, not yours. You have no way (or do you?) to bend people's intrinseque taste and demand. BTW, I remember reading an interesting and detailed study (TT) that never hinted at any possible way to influence your reach by your own fyp.
->Normal because, for instance, suggested videos in YT are often symetrical (A suggests B that suggests A) but this is not linked to the poster's preferences and actions on the platform and has everything to do with topic, kwds, current virality and whatnot.
The problem with this theory is that TT is not supposed to know whether a poster in one given niche watches a particular video on their FYP out of professional, marketing or entertainment motives at any time they do.
This remains a very interesting remark though, and I may be completely wrong thinking that, unfortunately, your FYP is irrelevant to your growth. Likewise, we know that accounts that have millions of followers may follow 0 or millions themselves, showing no reciprocity principle.

@Sol, do you speak out of personal (and comparative) experience ? Did you notice a difference between accounts whose FYPs were trained vs not trained ?
TY
 
Nowear said:
This sentence should give everybody pause. I think this is both absurd and perfectly normal to raise this question.
-> Absurd because what counts in your possible virality is other people's FYP, not yours. You have no way (or do you?) to bend people's intrinseque taste and demand. BTW, I remember reading an interesting and detailed study (TT) that never hinted at any possible way to influence your reach by your own fyp.
->Normal because, for instance, suggested videos in YT are often symetrical (A suggests B that suggests A) but this is not linked to the poster's preferences and actions on the platform and has everything to do with topic, kwds, current virality and whatnot.
The problem with this theory is that TT is not supposed to know whether a poster in one given niche watches a particular video on their FYP out of professional, marketing or entertainment motives at any time they do.
This remains a very interesting remark though, and I may be completely wrong thinking that, unfortunately, your FYP is irrelevant to your growth. Likewise, we know that accounts that have millions of followers may follow 0 or millions themselves, showing no reciprocity principle.

@Sol, do you speak out of personal (and comparative) experience ? Did you notice a difference between accounts whose FYPs were trained vs not trained ?
TY
Click to expand...
Thanks for the invitation to discuss, let me see if I can explain myself better.

Person A downloads TikTok for the first time, they go through the sign up process and have a greyed out screen showing them how to use TikTok scroll feature.

They scroll to the first video and it’s an NBA highlight, they scroll past because Person A does not like basketball highlights.

The next video is cats, they watch for a bit and keep scrolling, person A likes cats but not enough to watch 2 minutes worth.

The next video shown is a car revving it’s engine, Person A watches this video and goes to the comment section to find out what car it is.

Of course, the following is over simplified but TikTok now knows that Person A does not like Basketball, doesn’t mind cats and loves cars.

The only videos Person A will see during his first few days on TikTok are test videos. TikTok wants to know what Person A likes and don’t like so they can recommend Person A more of it.

Let’s say for arguments sake, Person A scroll past every single video that is NOT related to cars. The bucket that Person A’s account is put in is labelled Cars.

This bucket is where it gets interesting, you see the bucket has millions of people who are interested in cars and enjoy engaging with content about cars. Hell, I love cars and you might enjoy them as well.

We will get to the bucket in a little bit but now that TikTok and Person A have an ‘agreement’ that they both like cars content. Person A enjoys his time on TikTok and wants to feel more involved. Person A decides to go outside and record a video of his own car to show the world of TikTok his vehicle.

Person A records the videos, adds sounds, puts some text and clicks post. TikTok sees this video and checks the account it’s coming from. The algorithm detects Person A’s account and notices that he is in a VERY specific bucket. Person A has only ever watched content about cars, commented on car videos and followed other people who are also commenting on car videos.

This is where the algorithm kicks in and says well Person A has showed explicit interest in cars. I, as the algorithm know that it would be ridiculous to show this video to gamers. I will show it to people that belong to Person A’s bucket and will monitor the engagement on the post. If it is good engagement then great the algorithm will continue showing it to that bucket.

If it is bad engagement then the algorithm will be confused and put a subtle strike on the account. When I see users complain that their videos are stuck on 250-300 views my first train of thought is the bucket they’ve placed themselves in on the new account.

TikTok doesn’t know what you like to see, what niche you interact with or who you engage with. Re-read that again. If TikTok doesn’t know anything about you (you are a new user remember) then they don’t know who to show your content to.

In my PERSONAL experience I find that my videos go viral quicker when i’ve trained my FYP and told it this account is for this niche. I want to interact with people from this niche only and I want them to interact with me. I will not click onto any videos outside of my niche because I want my accounts history to only include videos from this niche.


TLDR

Users are placed in ‘interest buckets’ based on what they engage with. Everything is tracked from watchtime to likes to comments to checking out user profiles who also comment.
It’s TikTok, of course it’s tracked.

When TikTok doesn’t see a history of what an account is engaged with they will send your video out to a random selection. If you are lucky (this is why people say ‘TikTok is luck), the random 250-300 viewers will enjoy your content.

If you are ‘unlucky’ then they will not enjoy your content and now the algorithm is confused because you keep posting niche related videos but none of the random initial viewers are interacting with them.

Sorry for the super long explanation l, it’s 1:30am and I have to be up in 4 hours for work so doing everything I can but sleep.

I hope this makes it a little bit clearer for you to understand but please be aware that this doesn’t mean you can type #cars and spam scroll past every video. This is just another thing we can do to give us the best possible chance of success on TikTok
 
Sol said:
Thanks for the invitation to discuss, let me see if I can explain myself better.

Person A downloads TikTok for the first time, they go through the sign up process and have a greyed out screen showing them how to use TikTok scroll feature.

They scroll to the first video and it’s an NBA highlight, they scroll past because Person A does not like basketball highlights.

The next video is cats, they watch for a bit and keep scrolling, person A likes cats but not enough to watch 2 minutes worth.

The next video shown is a car revving it’s engine, Person A watches this video and goes to the comment section to find out what car it is.

Of course, the following is over simplified but TikTok now knows that Person A does not like Basketball, doesn’t mind cats and loves cars.

The only videos Person A will see during his first few days on TikTok are test videos. TikTok wants to know what Person A likes and don’t like so they can recommend Person A more of it.

Let’s say for arguments sake, Person A scroll past every single video that is NOT related to cars. The bucket that Person A’s account is put in is labelled Cars.

This bucket is where it gets interesting, you see the bucket has millions of people who are interested in cars and enjoy engaging with content about cars. Hell, I love cars and you might enjoy them as well.

We will get to the bucket in a little bit but now that TikTok and Person A have an ‘agreement’ that they both like cars content. Person A enjoys his time on TikTok and wants to feel more involved. Person A decides to go outside and record a video of his own car to show the world of TikTok his vehicle.

Person A records the videos, adds sounds, puts some text and clicks post. TikTok sees this video and checks the account it’s coming from. The algorithm detects Person A’s account and notices that he is in a VERY specific bucket. Person A has only ever watched content about cars, commented on car videos and followed other people who are also commenting on car videos.

This is where the algorithm kicks in and says well Person A has showed explicit interest in cars. I, as the algorithm know that it would be ridiculous to show this video to gamers. I will show it to people that belong to Person A’s bucket and will monitor the engagement on the post. If it is good engagement then great the algorithm will continue showing it to that bucket.

If it is bad engagement then the algorithm will be confused and put a subtle strike on the account. When I see users complain that their videos are stuck on 250-300 views my first train of thought is the bucket they’ve placed themselves in on the new account.

TikTok doesn’t know what you like to see, what niche you interact with or who you engage with. Re-read that again. If TikTok doesn’t know anything about you (you are a new user remember) then they don’t know who to show your content to.

In my PERSONAL experience I find that my videos go viral quicker when i’ve trained my FYP and told it this account is for this niche. I want to interact with people from this niche only and I want them to interact with me. I will not click onto any videos outside of my niche because I want my accounts history to only include videos from this niche.


TLDR

Users are placed in ‘interest buckets’ based on what they engage with. Everything is tracked from watchtime to likes to comments to checking out user profiles who also comment.
It’s TikTok, of course it’s tracked.

When TikTok doesn’t see a history of what an account is engaged with they will send your video out to a random selection. If you are lucky (this is why people say ‘TikTok is luck), the random 250-300 viewers will enjoy your content.

If you are ‘unlucky’ then they will not enjoy your content and now the algorithm is confused because you keep posting niche related videos but none of the random initial viewers are interacting with them.

Sorry for the super long explanation l, it’s 1:30am and I have to be up in 4 hours for work so doing everything I can but sleep.

I hope this makes it a little bit clearer for you to understand but please be aware that this doesn’t mean you can type #cars and spam scroll past every video. This is just another thing we can do to give us the best possible chance of success on TikTok
Click to expand...
This entire post is a nothing burger. You can also just put #cars or the word cars in your caption and it will have the same effect. You have plenty of people going viral who follows no one let alone comment on other people's videos. Correlation does not imply causation in this matter.
 
YouTube Learner said:
This entire post is a nothing burger. You can also just put #cars or the word cars in your caption and it will have the same effect. You have plenty of people going viral who follows no one let alone comment on other people's videos. Correlation does not imply causation in this matter.
Click to expand...
Hey I’ve been trying to find out how to contact you regarding a closed post and my account is new so ig it doesn’t let me dm. Any shot of adding on snap or smth?
 
YouTube Learner said:
This entire post is a nothing burger. You can also just put #cars or the word cars in your caption and it will have the same effect. You have plenty of people going viral who follows no one let alone comment on other people's videos. Correlation does not imply causation in this matter.
Click to expand...
The method is dead didn’t want to msg you to bug you. I never got to try it but was interested in the knowledge your brain must hold idk that’s weird . Had a lot to say on the subject if you care my disc is StitchOfficial#3492
(My most important question has nth to do with the subject if you send me a dm I’d appreciate it a lot just to get your insight on something.)
 
Last edited:
i guess your discovery takes shape depending on the amount of time you've been in videos that interest you
 
I've already seen Age being mentioned as a probable algorithm influencer (fortuitous pun). It would mean that in a given niche (let's say female make-up), the videos of a 20y-o won't be shown to a 45y-o woman interested in make-up, and vice-versa. Ditto skits, comedy, music, psychology...
Have some of you ever experienced this ?
 
YouTube Learner said:
This entire post is a nothing burger. You can also just put #cars or the word cars in your caption and it will have the same effect. You have plenty of people going viral who follows no one let alone comment on other people's videos. Correlation does not imply causation in this matter.
Click to expand...
Agree to Disagree, if training your FYP has no effect on your first couple of videos than more power to you
 
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