How To Search On TikTok

For years, Google has been the most popular search engine in the world. It hasn’t been close, either. Google currently has more than 90% of the Internet’s search traffic; Bing is its closest competitor at 4%.

When you’re searching for video content, though, there’s no need to log off of TikTok to find it. Those in Gen Z understand; a recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of Gen Zers (and 49% of millennials) are now regularly using the TikTok search engine, especially when looking for tutorials or shopping content.

You can’t use the function to search for results elsewhere on the web, but with nearly nine billion videos uploaded to the social media platform every year, you may not need to look anywhere else.

How do you a TikTok search?

Using TikTok’s Search Engine

Searching on TikTok is intuitive, but you’ll find there are many more ways to narrow down the results than you’ll find on other search engines.

1. Tap the search icon (a magnifying glass) at the top right of your home screen.
2. Start entering your search term on the search bar; as with most search engines, you’ll see suggested topics as you enter each letter of the keyword phrase. You can either choose one of those suggestions to narrow down your search or tap “Search” to look for videos that focus on the phrase you’ve entered.
3. Top TikTok videos about your search term will appear, and you can scroll the feed to find ones that you like. To narrow your search, click the menu icon (three dots) to the right of the search bar and you can filter your search on the pop-up by small, medium-sized, or large accounts, by types of TikTok profiles, or by usernames.
4. If you want to see search results that are trending, related hashtags, or popular users who post on the topic, hit the “back” arrow to return to the search screen and you’ll those results shown in list format.
5. You can refine your search in other ways by choosing a category — top videos, shopping, users, sounds, or TikTok Live streams — from the horizontal menu below the search bar. The results default to “all” videos on the app, but you can also choose from videos you have watched, haven’t watched, or ones you’ve uploaded.

While this may sound a bit complicated, you’ll get the hang of it quickly — and chances are good that you’ll be spending a lot more time searching on TikTok instead of Google.