Over the past few years, TikTok has become the most popular social media platform, influencing youth and internet culture. With the app’s core of short video clips – 15 seconds to 3 minutes – that can very quickly become viral, the ease of ‘dueting’ or ‘stitching’ other videos together means the moments go viral even more quickly.
At the core of this trend-setting capacity are TikTok likes. The number of likes a video receives signals its quality, humor, and watchability to other users. Videos need to accumulate tens of thousands or even millions of likes to kickstart viral trends. For businesses and creators trying to drive engagement, understanding the inner workings of TikTok's like system is key.
On Instagram and YouTube, the view count is used as the most important metric of video success. On TikTok, the number of likes a video gets is far more powerful. Rather, they help TikTok’s recommendation algorithm signal that a video struck a chord with viewers and should be shown to even more people.
In other words, videos need to create early liking behavior for TikTok to share them more widely. If a video receives 1,000 likes within the first hour of posting, TikTok interprets this as good engagement and starts recommending it to more niche communities. The more likes the video gets early on, the faster it climbs in visibility. Many creators and brands choose to buy TikTok likes to accelerate this process and boost initial engagement, helping their content gain momentum quickly.
Research indicates it takes approximately 5,000 likes within the first day for a TikTok video to reliably start taking off virally through recommendations. So, creators and brands focus on growth and intentionally try to drive these critical first few thousand likes rapidly after posting.
TikTok’s self-learning recommendation algorithm prioritizes viewer retention as well. If users are watching a high percentage of a video before liking it, the algorithm serves it to more For You pages - TikTok’s personalized feed showing varied content. The combination of early likes and strong retention signals to TikTok that a video should go viral.
In the early days of TikTok, ordinary users could more easily have viral hits through the For You page recommendations. But as the platform has grown, influencers have come to dominate in setting trends.
The largest TikTok influencers, or "creators" in the app’s parlance, include mega-stars like Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Will Smith. But mid-tier influencers with follower counts in the millions are also impactful at propelling video ideas viral through strategic liking approaches.
When these influencers duet or stitch a lesser-known user's video, it exposes the content to their broader follower base. If the influencer likes the video in addition to dueting it, this exponentially increases the original video's like count. Influencers will often duet with rising organic videos showcasing a novel trend, intentionally liking these duets to give the creator a boost through TikTok’s recommendations.
The influencer @tizy, for instance, has pioneered a style of POV-style comedy videos. He will frequently duet with smaller creators’ videos, showcasing a similar style while liking the content. This both introduces niche video ideas to a wider audience and increases the original video's visibility through likes. @tizy has the influence to make or break trends by strategically choosing which types of rising videos to re-share through duets.
For brands looking to leverage TikTok for business, taking a data-driven approach to understanding liking behavior is mandatory. Analytics platforms allow brands to assess audience demographics, optimal posting times, use of strategic hashtags, and early retention rates needed for videos to trend.
Studying competitors’ approaches to gaining likes early on and which niche communities interact most with content allows brands to reverse engineer success. Brands can also partner with influencer marketing agencies to help select influencers who can expose branded video campaigns to new audiences through duets.
Paying close attention to real-time performance data and tweaking video creative and distribution strategies accordingly enables increased likes. Since TikTok’s algorithm favors videos that drive engagement rapidly after posting, optimizing for likes early in the process is key. Brands taking an analytical approach and leveraging influencers effectively are best positioned to make viral video magic happen on TikTok.
One case study demonstrating TikTok’s liking patterns, making a star happen organically, very recently. Seven-year-old Tariq became known as “Corn Kid” through his wholesome interview at the South Dakota State Fair, declaring his love of corn.
The original video amassed modest traction on YouTube but did not go massively viral initially. However, when @schmoyoho remixed Tariq’s interview into a songified music video posted to their popular TikTok account, it instantly rose in the algorithm through likes. @schmoyoho's creative remix focused squarely on Tariq's funny quotes, presented catchy musical hooks centered around corn.
This remix received almost 100k likes within a day, triggering TikTok to recommend it more widely. @schmoyoho strategically leaned into the early viral momentum by posting multiple additional Corn Kid videos daily, each receiving between 200k and 500k likes quickly after posting.
It’s no secret that strategic liking activity on TikTok spreads influencer scandals and controversies like wildfire through TikTok’s algorithm. The case study of one particular recent example was the sexual assault allegations that the massively popular influencer Sienna Mae’s ex-boyfriend, Jack Wright, made against her.
The controversy started when Jack posted a video detailing Sienna Mae’s mistreatment of her with raw, emotional detail. The video was liked almost 3 million times in one day, and that sent it on its way. TikTok’s algorithm got incredibly engaged with the video, which in turn told other creators that you can create a viral video by dueling on the controversy.
Hundreds of reaction and response videos began pouring in from medium and smaller creators, which all leaned into the drama. Many of these videos highlighted Jack's original video to increase its visibility, while sharing additional leaked details and texts to stoke the controversy.
Liking patterns, as TikTok continues to soar as the video platform of youth culture and online entertainment, are important to understand. The early likes a video gets will determine if it will remain in obscurity or become a viral moment.
But TikTok also resembles the fast and furious energy of its younger demographic. Trends manifest and disappear at blinding speeds. Predicting which video concepts might go viral through strategic liking behavior and influencer co-signs involves spotting uniqueness in ideas early.
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