TikTok has taken the internet by storm, and if you’re not already using it for your business, you should be! But how does TikTok offer you the videos that you like? How are they able to keep you hooked for hours even when you’re supposed to be working? In this post, we’ll dive into the fascinating world of TikTok’s algorithm with Lidia Infante, Senior SEO Manager at Sanity, and explore the role of demographics, engagement, and personalized recommendations in how TikTok surfaces content.
First things first, TikTok needs to know what you like. The moment you sign up, you provide some demographic information. Your age, gender, and where you’re signing up from help TikTok gather enough information to start assuming what your interests might be and populate your For You page. The topics that you engage with or don’t engage with on your For You page give TikTok information about what you might enjoy seeing on it.
TikTok aims to find related topics to the ones you’ve shown an interest in. For example, if you like cross-stitching, it’s not difficult to assume that you might also enjoy seeing content related to interior design or flower arrangements. TikTok shows them to you, and you stay on the app much longer than you should.
Furthermore, your followed profiles and the topics they talk about or they’re interested in provide TikTok with a strong signal. Your Discover tab behavior is also a valuable signal for TikTok.
Now that they know what you like, TikTok knows it can serve you videos about it. To do that, they need to understand what the videos in their database of content are about. They analyze the visuals with the visual AI, checking the objects in them, the emotions of the faces, if there’s a dog or a chair. Text overlay, captions, and hashtags you use are also relevant. TikTok’s algorithm can understand what the video is about by analyzing the words you’re saying in the actual voice or ambient noise that sets the location of your video. The TikTok sound also provides data to understand the emotional tone of your content.
TikTok is excellent at understanding what you might like. However, they also only want to show you the best content to make the most of the limited time they have for your attention. They measure engagement, among other metrics, and native content creation gives you a little boost. The language your content is in also matters; it helps TikTok understand what you’re posting. Besides, the device you’re using and the strength of your connection influence the type of content you get served.
What TikTok doesn’t want to see on their For You page is content created by a user with a date of birth under 16. QR codes are not accepted because of safety reasons and are disqualified from the page. Dangerous or violent behavior is also not accepted, and engagement baited content is explicitly demoted from the page. TikTok doesn’t permit content that shows tobacco products.
Breaking echo chambers is a real risk of any recommendation algorithm based on interests and engagement, and radicalization occurs across different populations because of familiarity and exposure effect. TikTok claims to offer random content of random interests, random creators that you’ve never seen before on your For You page initially about 10% of the time, but there aren’t any current numbers about this activity. Random content of random interests is not enough though.
Ultimately, TikTok wants to show you videos that interest you and keep you hooked on their platform. They use demographics, engagement, and personalized recommendations to tailor the perfect experience for each user. So if you’re not already on TikTok, hop on and see how the algorithm unravels your mind!
We want to thank the thought leader as the source for this content and such awesome teachings on the subject and we hope that this article can help you and your business! Here’s the link to his post https://moz.com/blog/tik-tok-algorithm-whiteboard-friday
