Why Do TikTok Likes Matter?

TikTok is a new medium and 1 billion people use it every month. 

There are not just teenagers, but famous musicians, comedians, photographers, and popular brands on TikTok…

– all competing to get the most number of likes and followers.

With many more influencers joining the platform, being liked gets harder. In an attempt to get featured on the For You page, emerging influencers and new creators often use third-party apps and services to get free TikTok likes. 

Starting new on TikTok you may wonder why would TikTok likes even matter and whether you should rather be focusing on getting more followers instead. 

In this post, we will explain why more users liking videos matters for the TikTok algorithm, and list a few ways to increase the number of likes on TikTok videos.

What does the like mean on TikTok?

Before anything else, let’s first formally define TikTok likes. Technically, the number of likes represents the number of people who viewed your video and tapped the heart button from the right-side menu. 

Yet, the likes are both shown on a video and on the creator profile as the sum of the number of likes on each separate video. Because the likes are collectively displayed on the profile, creators with more content and views have more likes in total.

Other than simply the number, TikTok likes mean engaged viewers and thus, indicate a video’s popularity with a certain group of users. How important this is for the TikTok algorithm and the overall profile growth is covered in depth below.

Why is it important to get likes on TikTok?

There are not one or two, but countless reasons why it is important that once uploaded a video gets likes on TikTok. While we may know that the more people like content, the better, we still wonder whether it has an impact on other videos and profiles as a whole.

Also, what is often overlooked when considering the video likes is the time and regularity at which you are getting them. The first 72-96 hours after the upload are critical as the algorithm decides whether to keep showing a video to more users or slow down and temporarily withhold it.

Again from simple observation, the regularity of uploads could guarantee a constant flow of TikTok likes and views. That said, getting likes on one video does not necessarily mean you get the same or even more likes publishing another one since likes vary from one video to another. Even so, getting likes on every video you upload is key to TikTok’s recommendation system. A creator who knows how to maintain audience interest in his/her posts has higher chances of getting on the For You page and growing the influence and popularity as a result. The legendary “M to the B” video by Bella Poarch is a prime example of how interested the TikTok algorithm is in new creators liked by hundreds of thousands of TikTok users. Thanks to the video, which is now topping the TikTok most liked videos list, a bright 24-year-old is a star on TikTok. 

Being important for the algorithm, likes on TikTok also serve as a sort of creator’s rating for new viewers and followers. Various social experiments in an influence provide a scientific basis to infer that an influencer with 100 000 likes is more likely to be followed and liked compared to the one with 10 000 likes. 

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Do you make money from likes on TikTok?

Getting paid for the number of likes and followers is yet another question to address. Do you get paid for having a certain number of likes? Does having a “good” number of likes make you an influencer?

In short, TikTok does not pay you for X number of likes, and neither brands do. Still, there are ways to make money if your profile engagement rate is 15% or higher. 

Notice, we said TikTok engagement rate and not TikTok likes? The engagement rate is calculated by adding up the likes and comments on all videos and dividing them by the total number of views videos have. While likes are important for driving engagement up, only in combination with video comments and views can they show how engaged your audience is?

Ultimately, it is what the brands sponsoring influencers are looking for. The number of followers does not represent the real popularity of the creator. Also, brands report higher ROI and interest in creators with more likes and comments. Hence, while not paid for reaching a certain number of TikTok likes, indirectly you do make money from brand sponsorships. 

Quick tips to get more likes

Taking everything into account, TikTok engagement rate and essentially, the number of TikTok likes matter for gaining the algorithm’s favor as well as reputation. 

If you are struggling to grow the likes count, perhaps, you’ve missed a few points. 

– Your audience as well as the algorithm should know that you are actively uploading new content every day. There is no need to post multiple times a day but uploading daily would give you a slight advantage over creators who don’t.

– Use descriptive keywords and hashtags on your videos. This improves algorithmic categorization and helps a video get in front of the people who may be interested in it. Also, metadata is used when user searches and again is vital for TikTok’s recommendation system. 

– Focus on quality, not quantity – better a few videos on point than dozens without a clear substance. In that regard, TikTok Live videos are no different. Appear on screen and answer fans’ questions or share the behind-the-scenes process of filming TikToks. Viewers fancy your bloopers.

– Try services and websites offering TikTok likes as a free trial or giveaway. This will help new creators gain likes regularly and on every video they make. Just make sure, the app does not require a password or other login credentials to your account.

– Join TikTok trends and challenges, add trending music and filters, get creative. There is no guarantee your video gets millions of likes, but the number of profile visits, video views, and likes should visibly increase. 

– Choose a good username – easy to memorize, unique, and descriptive. Unless you are an absolute social media star with followers all over Instagram and YouTube, a full name is not the best choice for a username. 

– Learn from example – follow other niche influencers and analyze when, how, and what they post and how it is received by the viewers. 

In Summary 

If you followed along, by now you should have a clear idea of how the liking system works on TikTok. It is also important that you get more likes as you create more content and adhere to a posting schedule. 

For that, we mentioned a few points to check to make sure you are using best practices for boosting TikTok likes. If you are having much more views compared to the number of likes on your videos, you may want to try free likes apps or generators to preserve the views to likes ratio on TikTok. Ideally, for every 20-30 views you should have 1 like, that is a “good number of likes on TikTok” you asked for before.

If for some reason, you have views growing but no likes are appearing on your new videos, we suggest you read a blog post on the TikTok Zero likes issue.