On TikTok, the search functionality is limited compared to other social media platforms. Users can only search for users, sounds, and hashtags. The reason behind this limited search is that TikTok is designed to be an entertainment app focused on short form video content rather than a comprehensive social network. The app wants to make it easy for users to find new creators to follow and discover popular trends, songs, memes etc. Searching for specific videos or content is not the main priority.
Finding Users
Searching for users on TikTok allows you to find new creators to follow based on their username, name or even hashtag they are associated with. You can search for your friends, family, favorite celebrities, influencers, creators in your niche or even hashtags like #comedy, #dance etc. This makes it easy to expand who you follow and discover new accounts that align with your interests.
Discovering Sounds
The sounds search feature lets you lookup popular songs, dialogs, sound effects, audio clips used in TikTok videos. You can find the original video that started a trending sound or find other videos using the same sound. This is an easy way to identify viral trends, songs and audio memes on the platform. You can also discover new music and add songs you like to playlists.
Exploring Hashtags
Searching for hashtags opens up relevant videos using those hashtags. This allows you to find videos around topics you are interested in like #cooking, #dance, #comedy etc. Exploring hashtags helps you find both broad categories and very niche content. You can jump on trending hashtag challenges or go deep on your special interests. The hashtags search essentially helps discovery of videos based on keywords.
Why So Limited?
TikTok limits search to just these three categories for a few key reasons:
- Keep the experience focused on watching videos rather than reading text or shopping.
- Avoid cluttered search results like on YouTube or Google.
- Focus on helping users find the right creators, music and topics to follow.
- Promote engagement with hashtags and viral content.
Some other factors that contribute to the limited search include:
Emphasis on Personalized Recommendations
TikTok’s main strategy to surface content is its “For You” page which provides a personalized feed of videos it thinks you will enjoy through artificial intelligence algorithms. Search is secondary as a discovery mechanism.
Limit Spam and Abuse
Opening up search increases risk of spam, abuse, scraping and spread of harmful content. Restricting it reduces moderation overhead for TikTok.
Promote Casual Entertainment Experience
TikTok wants to create a more casual, video-first experience rather than a comprehensive search engine. So search is not the priority.
Technical Limitations
Transcribing and indexing billions of short video clips in multiple languages poses technological challenges for search. TikTok search capabilities are still evolving.
User Base and Goals
The young Gen Z demographic on TikTok is more interested in browsing fun videos than precisely searching for specific content. So TikTok caters to those usage habits.
Will Search Expand in the Future?
As TikTok continues to grow, there are some signs that search capabilities will likely expand over time:
- Allow searching video titles or descriptions beyond just hashtags.
- Enable searching for sounds using lyrics.
- Improve rankings to surface more relevant results.
- Expand to include searching text, filters, effects and stickers.
- Support logical operators like quotes or minus for complex queries.
- Leverage AI for voice search and contextual understanding.
However, major upgrades to search may be gradual to maintain TikTok’s core user experience. Search is unlikely to ever match the breadth offered by Google or even YouTube. But there is clearly room for enhancements that give users more options while maintaining TikTok’s fun, easygoing vibe by recommending engaging content.
Tips to Work Within Limits
Here are some tips to find content within the current search limitations:
- Get creative with relevant hashtag combinations like #FoodTok #KoreanFood #EasyRecipe
- Use alternate spellings or synonyms if you can’t find the sound.
- Browse and engage with hashtags to improve recommendations.
- Follow creators you find interesting even if not an exact match.
- Check out trending sounds and hashtags daily for inspiration.
- Find the exact way a sound or hashtag is written by looking at video captions.
While TikTok’s limited search functionality can be frustrating at times, focusing on its strengths around user videos, sounds and hashtags often yields some exciting new finds. The more you interact with the app, the better recommendations become. With user growth still soaring, search capabilities will likely continue to evolve over time as well.