Tik Tok killed the Instagram star!  If you haven’t heard of Tik Tok yet — believe me you will!  Since “shelter in place” and “safer at home” started this week among Covid-19 pandemic, I thought it would be a great time to hone in on this platform that has become wildly popular.

Here are 5 tips for using Tik Tok.

It’s All Video

While IG started as a way to share singular photos, this app is all about video creation.  (A large trend in social media in the last few years.) You can create funny and cute videos (I love the dog videos!), accompanied by music, icons, text and more.  (I just spent the better part of the morning creating a video, trying to figure out all the cool features — ha!)

It’s all about the trends

I love how the app is still in its nascent stage (many people are not on it yet and are somewhat dubious about it).  So if you’re on it, you have the ability to try out new kinds of content and see what works and what doesn’t. A big part of the platform is to participate in the content creation trends. Creating videos that are trending is a great way to get views on your content and gain followers!

The trends are really specific: you should search certain dances or terms within the app like: “And it went like this…”, “alternative woah challenge”, or “happyathome.” Search those terms in the app and see how people are creating videos and lip synching and try it for yourself. Then add the appropriate hashtags and captions so your content can be found by other users.

Tik Tok Bought Lip Synching app Musical.ly

If you were on Musical.ly you likely are already “Tik Tok famous.”  When they acquired the app Musical.ly, all its users transferred themselves to Tik Tok and are already wildly popular.

It’s Popular with a Younger Demographic

Kids rule this app.  So if you know any preteens or teenagers: you can likely get some tips from them on the best practices on the app.

Use the “For You Page” Hashtags to get Discovered

Since the app is relatively new to the scene and still organic in its ability to share user content, the best way to get noticed on the app is to use these hashtags: #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #fy — the “For You Page” is the equivalent of Instagram’s “Discover Page.”

Are you on Tik Tok yet?