How to Get More TikTok Followers: The Complete Guide for Brands

TikTok is a great place for digital marketers who want to reach the right audience. As a social media marketing agency, Référenceur has put together several ways to get more TikTok followers, fast.

Dance challenges, teens lip-syncing, pranks, and bite-size entertainment: that’s what most people picture when they hear “TikTok.”

So why should brands and businesses learn to use TikTok? Why does your follower count matter, and why should you want it to grow?

First, because TikTok is a new way to reach a very large target audience.

And if benefits such as greater brand awareness, better visibility in search, more website traffic, and stronger customer engagement are key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter to you, you’ll quickly see why growing your TikTok following is worth the effort.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to get more TikTok followers for free, and with paid options too.

How to Grow Your Organic TikTok Followers Faster

TikTok is one of the hottest digital marketing channels right now. Much of the app’s addictive pull comes from the “For You” feed, which is personalized to each user. That feed is driven by a highly effective algorithm.

So the challenge for content creators is to get their videos onto the “For You” page of their target audience.

Here are the basics for growing your TikTok followers by working with the algorithm, not against it.

Start by Defining Your Target Audience Precisely

Defining your target audience applies to every part of digital marketing, so we won’t dwell on it here.

Just keep in mind that not every TikTok user belongs to your niche (your target audience).

Creating content just to pile up followers can produce a spike in vanity metrics (numbers that look good on the surface but mean little underneath), not in the metrics that actually move your business.

So explore what your target audience does on TikTok, then create TikTok videos that appeal to them in a unique, specific way.

Switch to a TikTok Business Account

If you’re serious about getting more followers, it can make sense to switch your personal TikTok account to a business account.

Besides letting you add a website link to your profile, a business account lets brands track how their videos perform, so they can gain more followers.

Ride TikTok Trends

TikTok launches a constant stream of trends, usually built around sounds and music. The reason is simple: record labels often work with TikTok to promote their artists’ songs in the app. It drives sales and boosts the odds that a song tops the charts.

Using a trending song in your video is easy, since TikTok will suggest it to you.

Using trending songs in your content is a good way to grow your TikTok followers (see our roundup of TikTok trends for 2025), because it increases the chances that your content gets shown to new users. For a business account, stick to sounds cleared for commercial use.

Educate Your TikTok Community

We find that the best TikTok content for businesses and individuals is usually a smart blend of education and entertainment.

Showing your value and your products in cleverly crafted content is a great way to inform and educate your audience about how you can make their lives a little easier.

Use the Right Hashtags, the Right Way

TikTok doesn’t only work with record labels: it also partners regularly with other kinds of companies.

Those campaigns usually build on hashtags and sounds.

By using trending, relevant hashtags, you give your content a better chance of landing on your target audience’s “For You” page.

Browsing trending hashtags in the app (or with a hashtag generator tool) shows you which ones to use.

You can also type “#” while writing your video caption to get suggestions for relevant hashtags.

Getting More Followers Is a Matter of Timing

As on most social networks, you need to know the best time to post your content.

Post when most of your target audience is on TikTok and you’ll get more views, which means more followers.

Try posting early in the morning (during the commute), at lunchtime (during breaks), and late in the evening (when people scroll on the couch), since those are usually the times TikTok users are on their phones.

In short, post your videos when your target audience is online. A TikTok business account shows you when your followers are most active.

Get the Lighting Right

Video quality matters on TikTok: viewers scroll past dark, grainy clips in a second.

So shoot with good lighting, natural light or an inexpensive ring light, to make your videos clear and pleasant to watch.

Create and Join TikTok Challenges

TikTok challenges are hugely popular in the app and often make up a big share of trending content.

If you want to grow your TikTok followers organically, consider joining the TikTok challenges your target audience takes part in.

Use Stitch to Build on Other Creators’ Content

In fall 2020, TikTok introduced a feature called Stitch, a great way to grow your following quickly.

Stitching means using a few seconds of someone else’s video as part of your own, to inform, extend the conversation, or dig deeper into a topic.

And because Stitch was still relatively new when this guide was written, it gives your content a fresh way to reach the “For You” feed alongside regular videos.

So collaborate with other TikTok creators and make your content easy to stitch.

Use Cross-Promotion to Get More Followers

Marketing isn’t limited to TikTok.

You know this already, but it’s a useful reminder of why you need a multichannel digital marketing strategy that includes other social media platforms. Our seven steps to an effective social media strategy show how the pieces fit together.

You already use your brand’s other social accounts, such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to reach specific audiences with a tailored message. Now you can also use those platforms to share your TikTok videos.

That’s cross-promotion: sharing your TikTok videos on your other channels lets your audience know your brand has an active TikTok profile, which brings in more followers.

Use User-Generated Content

Over time, your followers will start creating TikTok content about your brand, and you’ll build up an interesting collection of it.

Sharing it can strengthen trust in your brand, increase engagement, extend your reach, and bring in more followers.

To get more user-generated content, why not launch your own challenge, contest, or branded hashtag?

Use TikTok Growth Tools Wisely

You don’t have to handle every task yourself to attract followers on TikTok.

Consider third-party scheduling and analytics tools to plan your posts, track what works, and spot the right moments to engage with your target audience.

Steer clear of bots that automatically follow and unfollow accounts or post likes and comments for you: that kind of automation goes against TikTok’s rules and can get your account restricted.

Start Conversations With Your Followers

A surefire way for TikTok creators to gain followers is to engage with the followers they already have. Like, comment, and reply to comments.

It all helps you build relationships with your followers and with other content creators.

Paid Strategies to Increase TikTok Views and Followers

Struggling to get followers for free? TikTok ads, whether in the feed or during lives, let you reach a wider audience, gain more followers, and drive interactive engagement.

Here’s how to go beyond organic reach and increase your TikTok followers and views with paid media.

Use TikTok Ads

Use TikTok Ads Manager to reach a whole world of TikTok users. To get started, you first need to create a TikTok advertiser account.

That gives you a range of ad management tools, including targeting, custom audiences, ad creation, and analytics reports to get the most out of your ads.

You can choose ad options that fit your budget and your target audience.

Promote Your Videos

You can use the Promote tool to reach your audience, drive traffic to your website, and build a community around your organic TikTok videos.

Note that you can only promote videos that use original sounds or sounds cleared for commercial use.

Include a Strong Call to Action

As with everything in digital marketing, you get better results when you tell people what to do.

Whether you want people to follow, buy, sign up, or comment, your results depend on effective calls to action (CTAs) in your campaigns.

The Bottom Line

The best way for brands and individuals to get more TikTok followers is to know, first, who you want to connect with. That holds true for every social network.

Then, to grow your follower count, create videos that fit your target audience and ride trends such as music, challenges, and hashtags.

There’s no shortcut to showing up organically on the “For You” page and getting more followers. Do the work and enjoy the results.

If organic reach is too slow for you, switch to a TikTok business account and promote your videos through TikTok’s ad tools.

And as with any social media campaign, include a strong CTA so viewers become loyal followers.

Need a hand with your social media marketing? Référenceur is a French-speaking digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg that works with U.S. businesses remotely, through video calls, shared screens, and monthly reporting. Request a free assessment.

Where Things Stand in 2026

TikTok is still operating in the U.S.: in January 2026, a deal moving its U.S. business into a new U.S. joint venture officially closed, ending the threat of a ban. For planning your posts across platforms, see our guide to building a social media content calendar.