Thread by @richstemecom

I’ll help you learn how to go viral on TikTok ✅

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Statistics and data can help you replicate the success formula. That’s why I love analyzing them.

Here are the KEY DRIVERS TO VIRALITY that SEMRush found in common after analyzing 600 viral TikToks:

➤ Emotion

Primary emotional responses of viral TikToks:

- Happiness - 58%
- Surprise - 24%
- Anger - 9%

The rest were sadness - 4%, fear - 3%, and embarrassment - <1%.

LESSON: Provoke happiness or surprises in your TikToks.

➤ Account verification

- 83% of viral videos were from non-verified creators
- 17% came from verified accounts

Most likely to go viral from non-verified accounts - fashion, pets, outdoors, challenge, dance, cooking and recipes.

Go viral from both verified and non-verified accounts - humor, fitness and sports, life hacks, advice, and wellness.

LESSON: You don’t need a verified account to go viral.

➤ Viral TikToks by genre

- Humor - 36.5%
- Dance - 21.9%
- Pets - 21.3%
- Fashion - 10%
- Outdoors - 9%
- Life hacks, advice, and wellness - 7%
- Cooking and recipes - 5.6%
- Reaction - 3.7%

And the is rest divided between pranks, fitness, challenges, beauty and skincare, home DIY, and education.

These show you which genres have the most virality chances so that you can plan your dropshipping products around these niches.

LESSON: Tie your product to humor, dancing videos, or pets.

➤ Genre vs. engagement

- Median plays - dance (11.8M), outdoors (9M), fashion (8.5M)
- Median likes - dance (1.1M), pets (1.1M), humor (818K)
- Median shares - outdoors (61.1K), pets (42K), humor (38.3K)
- Median comments - pets (9.9K), humor (9K), outdoors (7.6K)

LESSON: Dance videos, outdoors, and pets showed the best metrics.

➤ TikTok sounds

About 56% of viral TikTok videos used music, while the rest used other sounds.

Out of this 56%, here are the most popular viral song genres:

- Pop - 25.2%
- Hip-hop - 15.7%
- Rap - 15.7 %
- EDM and house - 9.4%
- Trap - 8.7%
- R&B - 4.7%
- Latin and reggae - 3.9%
- Jazz, soul, funk - 3.1%
- Rock - 2.4%
- Soundtrack and show tunes - 2.4%

I’m sharing this with you so that you can leave your personal preference aside and use what has the best chances of success, regardless of whether you like it or not.

LESSON: Use trending pop, hip-hop, or rap sounds on your TikToks.

➤ Content format

37% of viral TikToks focus on a person speaking. Out of those:

- 51% speak directly to the camera (simulating a face-to-face conversation)
- 33% speak to another person
- 11% speak to an animal

Furthermore:

- 60% of viral TikToks featured one person on-screen
- 17% had no humans visible on the video
- Less than 10% show two or more people

LESSON: One-person videos where the creator speaks directly into the camera have great chances of going viral.

➤ Popular hashtags

Not sure if I’ve said it before, but putting hashtags like #viral, #FYP, or #trending won’t make your videos actually go viral.

In fact, viral videos using these hashtags underperformed viral videos using targeted, niche hashtags in most metric categories, except for shares.

Viral TikToks that used industry-specific and narrowly targeted hashtags showed better median plays, comments, and likes.

LESSON: Don’t stuff your TikToks with these hashtags for no reason. Looks scammy. Go for keywords related to your niche or products instead.

➤ Short videos

Finally, keep the length of your videos short. Between 9 and 15 seconds is the sweet spot.

Why?

Because the video retention or completion rate is one of the biggest factors in TikTok’s performance rating.

So, when a video is watched until the end, TikTok sees higher chances of it going viral, so starts showing it to more people’s FYP feeds.

LESSON: Film short TikToks for a better completion rate.

➤ A great hook

The first 3 seconds are crucial for videos with viral potential. Show your product in the hook and don’t forget to add a text overlay to also reach the users that don’t use a sound.

Make these few seconds intriguing.

They’re supposed to be catchy and make the viewer watch more of your video.

LESSON: Test different hooks to find the best-performing one.

Let’s see the KEY TAKEAWAYS (save them):

✔ Provoke happiness or surprise
✔ Create videos in the humor, dance, outdoors, or pet genres
✔ Use trending sounds (pop, hip hop, or rap)
✔ Account verification doesn’t matter that much

✔ Use industry-specific hashtags
✔ Film one-person videos and speak to the camera
✔ Spark engagement with controversy
✔ Post short TikToks that are easy to watch until the end
✔ Split-test different hooks

Hope this thread helped you guys. Would appreciate a retweet to help me push content like this out more often. 💪

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