One of the best ways to grow your Tiktok account in 2022 and get more views on your videos is to use trending sounds. Jumping on popular trends can give you a huge boost in the algorithm, getting your content in front of more people and potentially helping you to go viral.

In fact, using trending sounds was one of the main reasons I was able to grow my Tiktok account to over 10K followers in my first 10 days of posting.

What Are Trending Sounds?

Trending sounds are sounds or songs that are getting traction on Tiktok and ‘trending’. There will be a sudden increase in the use of this sound. Often it’s accompanied by a dance or a specific joke. You can leverage the popularity of these sounds by using them in your own content to increase your visibility on Tiktok.

Methods of Finding Trending Sounds

There are a number of different methods you can use to find trending sounds on Tiktok (although some are more effective than others!). Here’s a comprehensive list:

1. Trendtok App
2. Discover Page
3. Manual Method
4. Trending Sound Accounts

Trendtok App

If you’re looking for the easiest way to find trending sounds for your Tiktok videos, you can use the the Trendtok app. This app helps you to find sounds that are trending in your country. You want to look out for the sounds that have the little blue dot next to them, these are the songs that are predicted to trend. These are the best sounds to use as you’ll be able to jump on the sound early and reap the benefits before it gets tired.

The Discover Page

A popular way of finding trending sounds is by using the Discover page. This isn’t a method that I’d recommend but I’ll share how to do it anyway (and then let you know why I don’t personally use it!).

To find trends on the discover page, go to the bottom bar on Tiktok and tap the compass icon named ‘discover’. Here you’ll find a mixture of trending sounds and hashtags.

The reason I don’t like to use this method is that often the sounds displayed on the discover page already have hundreds and hundreds of thousands (sometimes even millions!) of uses. The thing about using trending sounds is that you want to use them at the perfect time – just as they’re starting to take off.

If you use them later, they tend to be less effective. People’s for you pages have already been flooded with the sound and they’re probably kind of over it by now. If you can jump on a sound fairly early, it still has its novelty and a lot of people won’t have heard it before. You’ll be riding the wave just as it starts to get popular. Rather than missing the boat as a new trend takes over.

Of course, there are always exceptions to this. If you hear a sound that would work perfectly for your niche and it’s going to help you provide heaps of value to your audience, then by all means use it! No matter how many uses the sound has!

So what’s my preferred method of finding trending sounds for my Tiktok videos?

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The Manual Method

This method takes a little bit longer and requires more effort but I also find it to be far more effective.

Step 1

First you’ll want to scroll through your fyp (for you page). But you need to do so purposefully, paying careful attention to the sounds and looking out for 2 things in particular:

1. Sounds that have potential. They’re funny, relatable, or could work well for a lot of different niches.
2. Sounds that are recurring. If you hear the same sound a handful of times, it’s probably currently trending or starting to trend.

When you find either of these things, move on to step 2.

Step 2

Tap on the sound in the right hand corner of the video. Now we’re going to check for another 2 things.

1. The number of videos that have been made with this sound. You’ll find this at the top of the screen, underneath the sound name. If it’s already got hundreds and hundreds of thousands, or even millions of uses, then you’ve probably missed the boat. If it has less than 100,000 uses however, it’s probably a good choice!
2. Look at the top videos for the sound. If they were all posted within the last couple of days, it’s highly likely that this sound is starting to trend.

Step 3

If both of these things are true, we want to save the sound so we can easily find it later.

Tap the ‘add to favourites’ button. Or if you’re ready to film then and there, you can tap the ‘use this sound’ button instead.

I personally prefer batch working when creating content. So I will search for and save multiple sounds and then film all of them in one go!

When you’re ready to use your saved sounds, go to create a video by tapping the ‘+’ icon at the bottom of the screen. Select add sound and select favourites. Here you’ll find all of the sounds that you saved earlier.

Trend Alert Accounts

If you can’t be bothered to find trending sounds for yourself, there are a number of creators on Titok who share trending sounds and how to use them. Here are some of my favourites

1. Jera Bean – she takes trending sounds and shows you how to do the various transitions etc. that these sounds use
2. Wave Wyld – she shares weekly trend reports, as well as videos showing you which sounds are trending

Now there are a lot of tiktok accounts like this that share ‘trending sounds’ because it helps them to grow their account. It gets them a lot of followers because people want to know what’s trending. However, not all of these accounts are made equal. Not all of them recommend good sounds to use. The ones that I’ve recommended here are the ones that I personally trust but it’s up to your to make that judgement call!

Number 1 Tip for Using Trending Sounds on Tiktok – Don’t Skip This!

This is the number one thing you need to remember when using trending sounds on Tiktok. There’s no point in taking all of that time and energy to find these trending sounds if you don’t consider this one thing!

You have to make that sound work for your niche. You need to know who your target audience is and what they’re interested in, and then create a video that speaks to them directly.

For example, you might have a vegan food account on Tiktok and post lots of delicious plant based recipes. But you find a trending sound and think to yourself, I could use this sound to make a really funny video about scuba diving.

That video may well get a lot of views on Tiktok. It might even go viral. But it’s highly unlikely that anyone will follow you from it. Because when those scuba diving lovers, who enjoyed your video, head over to your page for more, they’ll find that it’s not about scuba-diving at all. Instead, it’s full of tofu! They didn’t sign up for tofu. So they head back to their for you page without giving you a follow.

You want to make sure that the video you make with a trending sound is specifically targeted at your niche. For example I used a trending Taylor Swift sound and I made it all about people not realising what a great marketing tool Pinterest is. Because my Tiktok account is all about Pinterest and social media strategy. I got a ton of followers from this video because I told them what they were missing out on in the video and then when they went to my page, they saw that I provided a solution.

Trending Sound = Visibility

Value = Followers

Trending Sounds Without the Dancing

A lot of people think that to use a trending sound, they actually have to do the trend or the dance. This isn’t strictly true!

Here are two ways that I love to use a trending sound without any dancing:

1. Add text on the screen and point to it to the beat of the trending sound. I’ve done this a number of times on my account and they tend to perform very well!
2. Add the trending sound to a talking video but turn the volume all the way down. That way you’ll likely get a boost in the Tiktok algorithm, even if you can’t actually hear the sound!

Using Trending Sounds on Instagram Reels

You might have already noticed that Instagram reels tend to be a little behind Tiktok. Sounds that went viral on Tiktok months ago are only just starting to be used on Instagram reels today. So a great method of getting traction on reels is to use sounds that are trending on Tiktok!

That sound will likely be just as popular on Instagram as it was on Tiktok and you can benefit from being one of the first people to use it!

A Note for Business Accounts

If you’re a business account, you’ll find that you may not be able to use a lot of sounds for copyright reasons. I would highly recommend switching to a regular creator account!

Use a Hook

One of the best ways to increase your watch time on Tiktok is by using a ‘hook’ at the start of your video. A hook is an enticing sentence within the first 3 seconds that will make people continue to watch – rather than just keep scrolling!

These are game-changing when it comes to increase your watch time on Tiktok (which then gives you a major boost in the algorithm!).

You can get my 50 viral hook ideas here and use them in your Tiktok videos!