TikTok
TikTok growth, answered honestly
18 questions creators actually ask about TikTok — why reach drops, how the For You feed decides, what the rules allow — answered in the platform's own published vocabulary, plus the open TikTok comment exchange and the three exchanges built and waiting on a member vote.
What you can use today
Four exchanges are written and tested. One has shipped. The other three are held for a member vote, and every card below says which is which.
Watch
Built, not shipped One video, watched through.A matched creator opens your video in the TikTok app and watches it to the end. Watch time is the signal TikTok weighs most heavily and the one that costs a viewer the most. It is also the only one of the four whose price is not flat: a ninety-second video asks far more of a viewer than a twelve-second one, and the cost follows the ask.
- Room opens at
- 7 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 1× to 2.25× by length, up to 5.175× looped
- Status
- Held for a member vote
Saves
Built, not shipped One tap, on a video you were already watching.A save is never served on its own. It is offered only as the second step of a watch-then-save pair on the same video, because a burst of saves arriving with no watch time behind them is exactly the fingerprint automated-engagement detection looks for.
- Room opens at
- 7 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 0.5×
- Status
- Held for a member vote
Comments
Open Reading the video properly, then writing something true about it.A written comment is the highest-intent action on the board and the most visible one: it sits under your video where anyone scrolling past can read it. It also carries the most risk if done badly, which is why it is one of only two exchanges with a cap of its own, and the tighter of the two.
- Room opens at
- 7 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 1×
- Status
- Open to verified accounts
Deep Dive
Built, not shipped Three videos, watched end to end.A visit to your profile rather than to a single video: a matched creator opens your account and watches several videos through. It is the most expensive action on the board because it asks the most of the person performing it, and it is the only one aimed at the profile rather than a post.
- Room opens at
- 7 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 3.5×
- Status
- Held for a member vote
Delivery is confirmed by a combination of automated checks and pattern review, and every engagement can be disputed by the creator who was expecting it. Disputes carry screenshot proof, a right of reply and a human moderator, and the penalties run both ways — filing a false report costs the same as failing to deliver. Nothing on this page claims an engagement is verified when it is not.
Something happened to your reach
Answered using TikTok's own published vocabulary, because knowing the platform's name for what happened to you is the difference between appealing it and waiting it out.
Why your TikTok views dropped suddenly
A sudden drop has five common causes: a platform-wide decline that has nothing to do with you, a maturity rating that quietly shrank your audience, a per-video recommendation label, an accou...
Am I shadowbanned on TikTok?
TikTok has never used the word "shadowban" and never will. It does document five separate states that produce what creators mean by it — content that stays live while reaching almost nobody....
Ineligible for the For You feed
"Ineligible for the For You feed" is TikTok's own name for content that does not break a rule badly enough to be removed, but is not suitable to push to a broad audience. It stays live on yo...
Not eligible for recommendation
This is the per-video form of For You feed ineligibility, and the only one of these states TikTok actively tells you about. The label appears on the video itself, carries a reason, and carri...
How to check your TikTok account status
TikTok has one authoritative source: the account status page inside the app, which reports strikes and account-level restrictions directly. It is the first thing to check and it will not ans...
How long TikTok restrictions last
There is no single answer, because there is no single restriction. Strikes expire 90 days after they are applied. A per-video label is permanent for that video unless an appeal overturns it....
New TikTok account, no views
A new account posting to nobody is the normal case, not a restricted one. The recommendation system works from history — what your previous videos did, who watched them, what they did next —...
Was your reach cut, or was it the content?
Compare engagement rate — likes, comments, shares and saves divided by views — for your recent videos against your own baseline. If it held while views fell, distribution was cut. If it fell...
TikTok traffic sources, and what they tell you
Traffic sources tell you where a video's views came from: the For You feed, the Following feed, search, your profile, or a sound or hashtag page. The mix is more diagnostic than the total, b...
How TikTok decides what to show
What TikTok has published about the For You feed, signal by signal — and the exchange built around each one.
How TikTok decides what to show
TikTok has published how the For You feed chooses videos. Three groups of signals feed it: what you do (the videos you watch, like, share and comment on, the accounts you follow, and what yo...
Watch time and completion rate
Yes — more than anything else you can read in analytics. TikTok's own published example of a strong signal is a viewer finishing a longer video from beginning to end. Completion rate is the...
Do saves matter on TikTok?
Yes, and for a duller reason than most advice gives: a save is rare. Most viewers watch and move on, a smaller share like, and only a small fraction bookmark a video to come back to. An acti...
How to get more comments on TikTok
Comments come from three things: a video that leaves something to say, a creator who replies, and viewers who were plausible viewers of that subject to begin with. TikTok names comments amon...
Profile views, and why they do not convert
A profile visit is the closest thing TikTok has to a viewer asking "is there more of this?". They arrive from one video that worked, look at the grid, and watch one or two more. Whether they...
Getting help without breaking the rules
Groups, the guidelines, and what buying numbers actually buys. Answered straight, with the caps rather than the adjectives.
TikTok engagement groups, and what PodSwap runs instead
An engagement group is a set of creators who agree to engage with one another's videos — usually a chat where links are dropped and everyone is expected to act on them. Most fail for two rea...
The wrong audience is worse than none
Volume-based groups fail for a duller reason than most people expect. Attention from people with no interest in your subject does not usually get you penalised; it gets your video correctly...
Is this against TikTok's rules?
TikTok's rules on fake engagement target artificially inflating numbers and deceiving the recommendation system: bots, bought followers and likes, services that sell them, and instructions f...
Why not just buy TikTok comments or views?
You get numbers. A bought view is usually a bot, a click farm or a device farm; a bought comment is a generic line from an account that never watched. Neither is a plausible viewer of your s...
TikTok never says "shadowban"
It documents five separate states that produce what creators mean by the word. Only one of them notifies you, and only one of them can be appealed.
Ineligible for the For You feed
Your content stays live and stays on your profile. It is excluded from recommendation, so it reaches almost nobody new. People can still find it through search or by going to your account.
Governed by the For You feed Eligibility Standards, published 14 August 2025 and effective 13 September 2025.
Not eligible for recommendation
The same thing, applied to one video and labelled on that video, with a reason and an appeal button.
This is the per-video form and the only one of these states TikTok actively tells you about.
Account restriction for deceptive behaviour
TikTok's own wording is that it may limit your ability to post new content, to appear in top search results, or to appear in the For You feed.
Account-level rather than per-video, and the state most creators mean when they say the word shadowban.
Strikes
A removal plus a mark against the account. Thresholds scale with severity, and there are separate thresholds for comments and for LIVE.
Strikes expire after 90 days, which is why an account can recover without doing anything in particular.
Content levels and age-restriction
A maturity score gates your content away from 13–17 year olds, shrinking the audience it can be shown to.
No violation, no strike, and no notification. This is the state most often mistaken for a shadowban, because nothing anywhere tells you it happened.
What PodSwap built for TikTok
One page per exchange with what actually happens on both sides of it, how you get started, how the two platforms compare, and the machinery they share: matching, rooms, points, every safety limit with the configuration key that sets it, and the nine things deliberately not built.
The comment exchange
The comment exchange is the one TikTok exchange open today. A creator matched to your follower bracket and subject opens your video in the TikTok app, watches it, and writes a comment about...
The watch exchange
The watch exchange has a matched creator open your video in the TikTok app and watch it through — a watch-through, which is the signal TikTok weighs most heavily. It is built and tested and...
The save exchange
The save exchange is built and has not shipped. Its defining rule is that a save is never served alone: it is offered only as the second step of a watch-then-save pair on the same video, bec...
The deep dive exchange
A deep dive is a visit to your profile rather than to a single video: a matched creator opens your account and watches several videos end to end. It is priced at 3.5×, the most expensive act...
PowerSwap on TikTok
PowerSwap rotates you through the exchanges you have switched on in a single session, and pays one engagement better per point than running an exchange on its own — 6 actions per point on th...
Getting started on TikTok
Sign in without a password, give a TikTok handle, and prove you own it by leaving 5 real comments through the app. The wizard is 8 steps and 6 of them are Instagram's own. A new account can...
TikTok and Instagram on PodSwap, compared
Instagram is the full product: five exchanges open, PowerSwap, and every free tool on this site. TikTok is open with one of four exchanges shipped, PowerSwap offered, the same five-comment v...
How TikTok matching works
Matching weighs follower bracket first and subject second — the same order as the Instagram side, for the same reason. Two accounts of wildly different sizes cannot help each other: the smal...
Rooms and the headcount thresholds
Rooms are closed by default and open two ways: on a headcount, or at an announced time. All four TikTok rooms open at 7 creators, matching Instagram exactly. In a room of N each person can e...
Every safety rail, with its config key
Coordinated attention is detectable by its shape, not by any single action: forty identical actions in four minutes, saves arriving with no watch time, the same two accounts trading every da...
Verification, and what is read
You can connect a TikTok account today. Ownership is proved by leaving 5 real comments through the app — the same proof Instagram uses, run by the same wizard. No password is ever requested....
Points, and what each action costs
You earn points by engaging and spend them to receive. Actions are priced by the attention they cost the person performing them rather than by how many taps they take — a deep dive is three...
What was deliberately not built
A feature list read backwards. Nine mechanisms that exist on the Instagram side, or that any competitor would ship, are absent from the TikTok side — each for a stated reason. The shape of w...
The Instagram side is the full product
Five exchanges rather than one, and every free tool on this site. The exchanges are open, the tools are free, and the Instagram index lists all of it in one place.