What does it take to get a million followers on TikTok?

Many food enthusiasts began making short recipe videos for social media, including the app TikTok, during the first lockdown in spring 2020. Now some have been catapulted to success as social media stars.

“Due to the pandemic, social media creators have needed to create content at home, making experiments with food and cooking an obvious go-to”, says Mintel Senior Media Analyst Rebecca McGrath. Hugely popular TikTok food creators are emerging – but how are they using the platform to make their name?

“I went from 200,000 followers to a million overnight”

TikTok experienced a surge in growth in the UK during the pandemic. “I went from 200,000 followers to a million overnight” on TikTok, says 27-year-old junior sous chef-turned-TikToker Poppy O’Toole about her experience when one of her videos went viral. The food content creator says she began posting recipe videos after she was put on the furlough scheme and later made redundant. The caption of her first video, in April 2020, was “hope this TikTok doesn’t flop like my career”. She has since clocked up 1.5 million followers on TikTok and has a book deal.

Chris, co-founder of the TikTok and now Instagram brand Caught Snackin’, says of the TikTok dashboard, “people come across videos without having to search for something specific… If you make good content and people engage with it, it will do well and be shown to more people.” Caught Snackin’ was founded by three London-based colleagues in April 2020, and has gathered momentum. Chris says the account was set up for “fun”, when much of their work in the food industry was postponed due to the pandemic, but it now has almost a million followers, is a full-time job for all three co-founders, and they have recruited staff.

Cake-maker Jessica Clemmings saw a large increase in followers after she posted a video on TikTok of decorating a cake inspired by Batman in April last year. It has had 7 million views. The cake-maker “never expected it to do so well”, but now has almost 300,000 followers.

So why did Poppy, Chris and Jessica choose TikTok? Because “it was different”, says Poppy, who moved back into her parents’ house when she was made redundant and found her younger siblings were obsessed with TikTok dances. “I wanted to do food videos on social media but didn’t want people I knew to laugh at me, so I thought no-one would notice on TikTok”, she explains. But now some young people “would probably recognise more social media stars on the street than they would people who are on TV”, says Poppy.

It “seemed like fun”, says Jessica, who was introduced to TikTok by her 11-year-old niece. Chris reveals he “had never used [TikTok] before so was intrigued”, and he was attracted by the style of the videos, which were simpler to create than longer YouTube videos or the often more polished ones on Instagram.

What makes a cook popular?

What do the video creators who are attracting huge numbers of views and followers think makes their videos popular, and is it as easy as it looks?

60 seconds is all you usually have for a TikTok or YouTube Shorts video, and 15–30 seconds for Instagram Reels. That’s why many of the recipes shown have a simple ingredients list and method.

“A three-ingredient chocolate cake is our best performing video”, says Lydia from Caught Snackin’, emphasising the importance of keeping recipes concise and understandable when the video is short. Jessica finds “tips and tricks work best”, as something more complicated like baking and decorating a cake isn’t feasible in 60 seconds. Poppy found her niche by focusing her recipes on potatoes. She started “#potatotok”, a hashtag that now has 122 million views. Feta pasta is one of the most popular recipes to come from TikTok in the past year, and feta, tomatoes and pasta are all you need to make it. The hashtag #fetapasta has had over 750 million views.

Despite the recipes often being quick and easy, videos can take a long time to make. “One 60-second video takes the best part of four hours”, says Jessica. It’s not just the cooking, and the filming and editing of the video, that take time – thinking of ideas and keeping an eye on trends do too. What is popular one week may have lost traction the next, so you need to keep on top of what other people are posting. Poppy often posts one video per day, and Jessica posts one or two per week.

Content should also be “aspirational and entertaining”, says Poppy. She makes her videos humorous, but the recipes are also important. Chris and Lydia put their success at drawing in crowds down to their easy, “not so healthy” recipes and fun vibe, especially when they use popular, branded foods viewers recognise and want to recreate at home. They prefer to stay anonymous on their platform, saying they are “shy” and never thought the platform would gain this much attention.

Does it make money?

TikTok compensates some creators in the UK. You need to be at least 18 years old, have more than 10,000 followers and have had over 100,000 video views in the past 30 days to access the “Creator Fund”. TikTok says on its website that the amount of money each creator could expect is based on views and engagement of videos, and Poppy adds that her experience is “you don’t make loads [of money] unless your content is consistently viral”.

Sponsorship deals “are a stable way to make money”, says Poppy. Jessica says her popularity on TikTok increased her following on Instagram, where she receives more cake orders. “I do sponsored posts on TikTok to make money”, but it doesn’t sell the cakes she makes, as her audience is global rather than in the city she sells to.