How to get seen on TikTok: keywords, OCR and ASR explained
Stop blaming your content. TikTok doesn't even know what it is.
Somewhere out there, a business owner just hit upload for the third time this week. Good lighting. Clear message. Real effort. They post, close the app, and wait.
A day goes by and the view count refuses to budge.
No comments. No new followers. Just silence, like shouting into the sea and hearing nothing come back.
So naturally, they blame the video. Weak hook. Dead trend. Maybe TikTok just isn't for them.
The video was never the problem. TikTok has no clue what it's looking at, and an app that can't identify you sends you nowhere.
You're swimming with no scent trail
TikTok is a feeding ground. Every video is a creature trying to get spotted by the right predator, in your case, your ideal customer. Post something TikTok can't identify and it doesn't put you in front of anyone hungry for you, it dumps you back in open water where nobody's hunting at all.
That's how some stranger's dog falling off a sofa racks up four million views by lunchtime. TikTok knows exactly what that clip is and exactly who wants it. Give your video the same clarity or keep getting tossed back like small fry.
TikTok hunts using two systems, and if you're ignoring them, you're fishing with your eyes shut.
OCR, Optical Character Recognition, reads every word sitting on your screen, your captions, your description. Consider it your scent trail through the water, telling TikTok what species you are before it's even heard your voice.
ASR, Automatic Speech Recognition, listens to every word you say. This is TikTok tasting your content to confirm what it's dealing with.
Between the two, TikTok is circling your video, working out what you're serving before deciding who gets a plate. Slap some text on screen and swipe it away half a second later like it's a chore, and you're chucking away free bait. Stop doing that.
Keywords aren't seasoning, they're the whole meal
Straight from the shark's mouth: a couple of trending words dropped into a caption gets you nowhere. Keywords are what your video actually is.
Say "business tips" and TikTok yawns and swims off.
Say "how small business owners are surviving without an ad budget" and TikTok knows precisely who's hungry for that and exactly where they're hiding.
Give every video a headline, not a vibe
Nobody buys a newspaper with a blank front page. They read the headline, judge you in half a second, and decide whether you've earned the next five seconds of their life.
Your video gets the same brutal window. Put a sharp headline on screen from second one. Skip "business tips" and go for "how small business owners are surviving without an ad budget". Skip "how to get more clients" and go for "how boutique agencies are landing five new clients a week".
Say it out loud too, because TikTok is listening, and so is your audience, who are 65% more likely to stop scrolling when something feels made for them rather than flung out to everyone like chum.
Match your visuals while you're there. Selling handmade goods? Film in your workshop. Running a shop? Film on the shop floor. Recording your message against a blank wall that says nothing about your business fools nobody, least of all the algorithm hunting for context clues everywhere it can find them.
So is it actually working?
Check the search bar above your caption once your video's live. Keywords matching your topic there means you've been correctly identified. "Find related content" means TikTok is still clueless about what you are.
Dig into your analytics too. Search queries lining up with your topic mean you've been sorted properly, and your numbers should start climbing to match.
Habits that turn your followers into ghosts
Getting noticed is only half the hunt. Keeping people once they arrive is the other half, and businesses torpedo this constantly.
Watch for:
🦈 Pivoting overnight. Launch as a homeware brand one week, rebrand as a phone accessories company the next, and your followers won't storm off dramatically, they'll just lose interest fast. Trust takes ages to build and seconds to torch.
🦈 Boosting posts to grow. You're paying the algorithm to deliver exactly what you paid for, which is usually a wave of low-quality followers who vanish the second the boost stops. Ads have their place. Growth isn't it.
🦈 Posting four times a day. Churn that much content out and quality drowns fast. One or two or sharp videos will outperform four nobody remembers.
🦈 Repeating yourself with zero new angle. Doubling down on what works is clever. Doing it on autopilot forever bores your audience into a coma.
🦈 Turning every post into a sales pitch. Ask for everything and give nothing, and people clock it instantly. Feed them something real first.
TikTok isn't the villain
TikTok has said it rewards content it considers helpful and authentic. It wants to push businesses that put the work in, not punish them for existing.
If your videos aren't landing, it's rarely bad luck and rarely your personality. TikTok simply hasn't worked out who you are yet.
Sort your categorisation, nail your keywords, feed the algorithm every clue it needs, and watch TikTok start hunting your audience down for you instead of you doing it alone.
What's stopping you from posting content that gets found?
If it's this, get in touch with Sparky Shark Marketing. We'll sharpen your teeth for you. 🦈
