How Many Hashtags is Too Many, Why Videos Go Viral on TikTok, & More.
A weekly roundup of noteworthy social media headlines.
The theme of this week’s Social Climber? The stats don’t lie. I’ve chosen to round up the findings of three studies released this week – one from the ‘gram, the other two from TikTok.
The proof is in the pudding when it comes to these results – read on for details on how many hashtags you should be using on IG feed, what most viral videos on TikTok have in common, and why brands and businesses should absolutely be investing in creating TikTok ads.
How Many Hashtags is Too Many?
The results are in! According to a study conducted by Later using data from over 18 million user posts, Instagram has a definitive answer to the social media age-old question – how many hashtags should you be using when you post to feed?
Obviously, the point of hashtags is to get as many eyes on your content as possible, so the temptation can be to slap as many onto your photo or video and see what sticks. Survey says? Give in to your temptation.
Instagram’s findings showed that posts with more hashtags did do better than those with less – more specifically, the sweet spot for driving traffic and gaining a post authentic engagement is using 20-30, relevant hashtags per post.
TikTok Released a New Study Highlighting What Many Viral Videos Have in Common
The TikTok-verse is vast, complicated, and spread across all the far corners of the Internet. So what is exactly is the secret sauce to going viral on the platform, and moreover, do we all, eventually, get the same viral content?
If you’re like me and would like to think that some viral videos just have a certain je ne sais quoi that is imperceptible to TikTok’s advanced algorithm and only recognizable to participants of the human experience, I have some bad news. While organic content does, irrefutably, perform better on TikTok, there’s a pretty clear pattern of what clips that go viral have that those that don’t, do not.
While you should take a look at the entire study, main takeaways include: keep things light (happy), funny, and don’t forget to #FYP.
TikTok Launches ‘CommunityTok’
This week (and just in time for a day of community and giving gratitude)TikTok shared a marketing pitch aimed at attracting new advertisers to the app by way of something called ‘CommunityToks’. In this pitch, the platform is clearly touting its strength and sway over its 1 billion (!!!) users by emphasizing the app’s capacity to drive engagement and community interest to specific topics and niches.
It’s no secret that the app creates thriving trends as fast as you can scroll – think quarantine trends like dyeing sweatsuits with bleach or the rise and fall of the TikTok leggings in the spring of 2020. Here, however, TikTok is emphasizing the larger impact of a diehard fanbase’s engagement – the study shows that 73% of creators say they exchange ideas with other people on TikTok. 66% of users shared that they felt that TikTok had a big impact on US Culture. These stats don’t lie – and TikTok is encouraging potential advertisers to dig into the communities they wish to access on the app, see what they’re doing and how they interact with one another, and create content from there.
The opportunity that TikTok’s algorithm presents to advertisers looking to target specific subcultures and demographics on the app is unbelievable – almost scary. For instance, a yarn brand could easily dominate “YarnTok” with just a few, calculated viral clips. The release of this study, in my mind, just goes to show that TikTok very much understands the worth of accessing these subcultures – and they want you to understand it too.
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