What is the algorithm of Tik Tok’s recommendation mechanism?

The reason why Tik Tok is so popular is definitely due to the algorithm.

The traffic distribution of Tik Tok is decentralized. This decentralized algorithm gives everyone the opportunity to become popular. But why can others easily get 100,000+ likes by just playing Tik Tok with only a few fans? And it’s all in vain even if you take dozens of photos?

What are the rules of the game on Tik Tok? What is the recommendation algorithm?

Once you get into Douyin, it's like being in a deep sea. It can be said that one hit product can bring popularity to the entire brand , and it has become a hot commodity for merchants ' brand marketing . Its victory in the second half of the 15s short video shows the powerful ability of its system to continuously output hit products.

Then it is necessary to understand the logic behind the algorithm: traffic pool, superimposed recommendations, heat weighting and user psychological pursuits.

1. Make good use of traffic pool

Tik Tok will allocate a traffic pool to each work based on the algorithm, just like the traffic of Weibo is concentrated on celebrities and big Vs , and no one reads the newly opened Weibo.

Even if you have 0 followers on Douyin, when you post any video, the Douyin system will intelligently distribute dozens or hundreds of traffic, that is, the traffic pool, and then decide whether to push your work to more people based on your performance in this traffic pool.

Regardless of whether you are a big account or not, as long as you have the ability to produce high-quality content, you will have the opportunity to compete with the big accounts.

Evaluation criteria for Douyin traffic pool:

1. Likes
2. Number of comments
3. Number of forwarding
4. Completion rate

In other words, only if the new video has a high completion rate and a high interaction rate will this video have a chance to continue to increase traffic.

2. Overlay recommendations

Overlay recommendation means that new videos will be intelligently distributed with about 10vv of playback. If the number of reposts reaches 30 (for example), the algorithm will determine that it is popular content, automatically weight the content, and overlay recommendation to you 300vv; if the number of reposts reaches 3 million (for example), the algorithm will continue to overlay recommendation to 3000vv; and so on...

The key indicators of comprehensive weight are still the above four points: completion rate, number of comments, number of likes, and number of reposts . I will briefly talk about them here to inspire your thinking.

For example, since the number of comments is important, when writing the title of a video, should you consider how to guide users to leave comments?

Many videos suddenly become popular, which is actually the result of the weighting of big data algorithms. Therefore, you can continue to comment and like the video through your friends. Who knows, it may become popular someday.

3. Heat weighting

The uncle watched dozens of Douyin videos and found that all the videos that became popular overnight and the videos in the Douyin recommendation section had a playback volume of basically millions, and the comprehensive data (completion rate, number of likes, number of comments, and number of reposts) were all relatively high without exception.

It can be seen that after being tested by a large number of users, the content will enter the recommended content pool of Douyin after being weighted by layers of popularity, and receive the baptism of tens to millions of large traffic. The weights of each popularity are as follows:

Reposts > Comments > Likes

The popularity weight will also be determined based on time. The popularity of a popular video will only last for a week at most, unless a large number of users imitate and follow it. Therefore, a stable content update mechanism and the ability to continuously output popular videos are also needed.

The algorithm only points out the path, but content is the golden key to activate human nature. The number of video views, likes, and attention are the golden keys to judging the quality of content.

4. Psychological pursuit

Short videos use a 15-second direct approach to allow people to feel the beauty in the resonance of vision, hearing, and situation. However, content that becomes popular overnight has its own rules, and the continuous output of content that hits the mark requires a deep insight into human nature.

The core motivations of human behavior are nothing more than three points: pursuing happiness and avoiding pain; pursuing hope and avoiding fear; pursuing recognition and avoiding rejection. Therefore, it is extremely important whether your video can meet the psychological needs of users.

Novel and beautiful things make us feel good; fun and interesting things make us laugh like pigs; and in Tik Tok, you can always find resonance and a sense of accomplishment.

In this condensed 15 seconds, everything you see is interesting, funny, and touching. It can make a brand popular, a city popular, or a person popular. Emmmm, everything is possible.

Finally, here’s an Easter egg:

List of tricks behind popular Tik Tok videos

Image source (Zhihu)

Have you shaken today?

Source: Operation Uncle (ID: yunyingdashu )