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TikTok for Indie Games: A Posting Plan for a Small Studio
TikTok decides who sees a video by what people do with it, and TikTok says that neither your follower count nor your past hits are direct factors. For a small studio that is the opening: an account with no audience yet is not locked out, because each clip is judged on how people react to it. What works is short vertical gameplay with the hook in the first seconds, posted at a rhythm you can keep until launch. Here is what TikTok’s own pages say, including the account choice that decides which music you can use, and how to turn it into a posting plan.
How TikTok decides who sees a clip
TikTok’s own explanation of the For You feed, in its newsroom post How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou, lists the signals it uses. The version online is dated November 2023, so it is older than the rest of the sources here, and it is the newest explanation from TikTok itself that we found.
What TikTok says it looks at
- What people do: the videos they like or share, the accounts they follow, the comments they post and the content they create.
- The video itself: details such as captions, sounds and hashtags.
- Device and account settings: language, country and device type, which TikTok says carry less weight than the other signals.
- Not direct factors: follower count, and whether the account had high-performing videos before.
Videos that have just been uploaded or are still under review may not be recommended yet. Source: TikTok Newsroom.
TikTok’s Community Guidelines, released on 25 August 2026 and in force since 24 September 2026, add two rules that matter for a studio. Their integrity and authenticity section says content is ineligible for the For You feed “if it includes unoriginal or reused material without anything new”, and the same goes for content that tries to get people to inflate likes or follows. So posting your trailer again every week, or captions like “like this if you want a release date”, risk the same treatment. The For You feed standards also say that a video with few views has not necessarily broken a rule.
Business account or personal account
The choice decides which music you see. On a Business Account, TikTok’s help page on the Commercial Music Library, last updated in July 2026, says the Add Sound screen shows only sounds from that library: about 1 million songs, free for businesses. A personal account sees every sound by default.
For a studio the simplest answer is your own game’s soundtrack. You own it, or you licensed it, so check that the licence covers social video before you post. A track people hear in every clip also becomes the sound of your game, and it is the sound they will hear again when they launch it.
What to post
TikTok publishes creative best practices, last updated in June 2025. They are written for paid performance ads, but they describe the same feed your organic clips play in.
TikTok’s creative basics, in its own numbers
- Vertical 9:16, at least 720p, with sound or music, and nothing important where the app’s buttons and captions sit.
- The first 3 seconds: say what the video is about.
- The first 6 seconds: put your hook here, to keep people watching.
- Text on screen: 5 to 10 words per second when you use it.
- Style: DIY rather than polished, so it fits next to what people post, with people on camera: creators, employees or customers.
Source: TikTok for Business.
For a game, that turns into clips like these. Each one starts on gameplay in the first second, not on a logo.
- One mechanic, one clip. The thing your game does that others do not, shown once, start to finish.
- The fail. The moment the player dies, falls or gets caught. Players recognise it, and it shows the stakes.
- Before and after. A level, a character or an effect as it looked six months ago and as it looks now.
- You, on camera. Thirty seconds on one decision you made and why. TikTok’s own advice is to put people in the video, and the developer is the person nobody else can copy.
- A reply to a comment. Someone asks how a system works; you answer with a clip.
Say the game’s name on screen and in the caption every time, so a viewer can find it on Steam without asking. Footage from your trailer is fine as raw material, but cut something new from it: a reused clip with nothing added is the content the guidelines take out of the For You feed. Our guide to indie game trailers covers the footage you will cut these from.
A rhythm you can keep
There is no official posting frequency, and TikTok’s pages do not give one. Pick a number of clips per week you can still manage in launch month, when everything else is on fire, and keep it. Record in batches: one afternoon of capture can give a week of clips. Then look at what happened. Which clips people watched to the end and which ones they commented on tell you what your game’s hook really is.
Answer comments, especially questions. A question in the comments is a person who wants to know more, and a video reply is a new clip you did not have to plan. Every post follows IndiePump’s outreach rules too: read a community’s rules before you post into it, and if TikTok slows you down, stop rather than retry.
Working with TikTok creators
Creators who cover games on TikTok need the same thing as streamers: a reason to care and a key that works. Our guide on getting streamers to play your indie game covers the email and the keys. One rule is specific to TikTok. Its page on the content disclosure setting, last updated in April 2026, says creators must turn the setting on when a post promotes a brand, product or service, and it counts any money or benefits received. TikTok also says that labelling a post as a paid partnership does not change how it recommends the video, while undisclosed commercial content may lose its place in the For You feed. If you pay a creator, ask for the label. TikTok says it does not cost them reach.
A creator who finds your game on TikTok will look for a press kit next. These three studios on IndiePump.space list a TikTok account in their press kit, so a creator can see how each game moves before asking for a key.
Studios with TikTok in their IndiePump.space press kit
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