26 March 2021

TikTok hashtag challenges: How to go viral in 2021

TikTok is one of the largest social media channels globally, and people are becoming famous weekly on it by creating good content and utilizing hashtag challenges to reach a new audience. TikTok is a video based social media app where users record short videos that are shared with their followers. The most popular thing to do on the app is to follow hashtag trends that larger creators and brands start, and that usually has to do with dancing or utilizing popular audio to act out a trend. If you are looking to grow your following on TikTok, hashtag trends are one of the best ways to do it, and here is all the information on how to take advantage of hashtag challenges.

How to Find Hashtags

By far, the best way to find hashtag challenges to use in your video is on the TikTok Discover page. This page organizes all of the popular trending hashtags and displays the most famous pieces of content from each of them. If you happen to make a piece of content that makes it to the top of a popular hashtag challenge, then it can introduce you to millions of new people in less than 24 hours. While some people try to recreate every hashtag challenge to try and go viral, the best challenges to recreate are the ones that align with your personal style.

Pro Tip: A lot of people simply select the first few hashtags on the discover page. Often these can have tens of millions of videos on them though, which makes it hard to stand out. Scroll further down and look for some TikTok hashtag challenges that have fewer videos attached (100,00 - 300,000) to them so that you can get in on the ground floor. Some accounts on TikTok try to guess what the most popular new sound will be and that can be an excellent way to find a potential hashtag trend before it really blows up.

How to Recreate a Hashtag Challenge

After finding a hashtag challenge you would like to recreate, the next thing you need to do is to analyze as many of the top videos as you can to make sure you understand the trend. Nothing will stop your video from succeeding as fast as not doing the trend correctly. If it is a dance you are trying to do, there are often walkthroughs on YouTube that you can use to learn the steps. Also, it is crucial to record the video in a well lit room and utilize an editing app like Splice to make the video high quality.

Lastly, be unique with the video. It is tough to stand out if you simply do a direct copy of what someone else has done. Put your own unique spin on it and have a little fun with it. Some of the best videos from hashtag challenges are the ones you don't expect. For example, having your parent recreate the dance with you or something along those lines can be a fun change to the challenge. Once you have created the video, make sure to use the hashtag in the caption so that it can be added to the collection of videos for that hashtag challenge. Also, do not add more than five hashtags. Doing so can make the post look spammy. If you really need to add additional hashtags, do it in the first comment so it does not take away from the caption.

Pro Tip: Here are a few hashtags you can look at that have been popular 2020-2021 trending hashtags.

  • #BlindingLights
  • #GuacDance
  • #TumbleweedChallenge
  • #ShowMeYourWalk

Also, here is a great resource you can use for hashtag inspiration. You can even filter by the top hashtags from a specific country as well.

Create your own TikTok Hashtag Challenge

If you don't like the challenges that are currently happening on TikTok, you can always create your own. Whether you are a brand or just a regular person, you can create a TikTok Hashtag Challenge and go viral on the platform. Obviously, this is much easier if you have a large following or are willing to pay to promote it, but the popular Renegade dance challenge that took TikTok by storm was choreographed by a 14 year old girl who now has over a half million followers. If you want to create your own challenge, the most important thing is to make a memorable video and choose a song that fits it well. Those two pieces are what make a TikTok Hashtag Challenge work and encourage people to recreate the challenge themselves. Also, make sure to make the hashtag easy to spell, short and memorable. Longer hashtags are easier for people to input wrong and can quickly stop the hashtag challenge from being successful.

Pro Tip: Dueting with a popular creator (i.e., connecting your video to theirs and playing them side by side) is a great way to get the attention of large creators that may be interested in the hashtag challenge you created.

Other Ways to use Social Media Hashtags

While TikTok Hashtags Challenges are one of the best ways to go viral on the platform, hashtags are also used on other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. These platforms, and TikTok as well, use hashtags to allow users to add their content to a collection of posts related to that specific idea, place, or niche. For example, using the hashtag #travel collects tons of different pieces of content from users' travel. Creating a good video that uses a popular song, engages the audience, and uses the hashtag can be an excellent way to be found and to help your video go viral. These hashtags can be harder to show up high for since they are more general and less time sensitive then hashtag challenges, but a good social media strategy should implement hashtags in this way as well.

Lastly, if you are participating in hashtag challenges, you really need to be active on your account as well. Don't just post one video a week that's part of a challenge; post often, engage with your audience, respond to comments, etc. This way, your account can grow and set you up to best take advantage of a new TikTok hashtag challenge when they come out.

We hope this information on social media hashtag challenges was helpful for you. Let us know what your best tips are for TikTok Hashtag challenges below!

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