What to do in week one after a paid TikTok follower delivery lands

A paid follower delivery is a launchpad, not an outcome. What happens in the first seven days after the delivery completes determines whether the lift compounds into organic growth or fades back into the noise. This is the playbook.

Why week one is the whole game

• The FYP ranker re-scores your account's distribution profile after a meaningful follower growth event.
• The first 7 days are when the ranker decides whether the new cohort behaves like real, engaged followers.
• If your engagement-rate ratio collapses in week one, the ranker treats the new followers as inactive and reduces your distribution accordingly.
• If you ship content that holds the new cohort's attention, the ranker treats the growth event as natural and lifts your baseline distribution.

Before you ship anything else

1. Audit your profile

New followers will visit your profile in the first 48 hours. If the profile looks abandoned or the most recent post is weak, the new cohort will churn before the algorithm can read them as engaged.

• Pin your strongest recent post.
• Update the bio so it states clearly what the account is about.
• Make sure the link in bio resolves cleanly.

2. Switch on auto-engagement coverage

Use automatic likes and automatic views on every post you publish during the first 30 days. The point is not the engagement itself — it is keeping the engagement-rate ratio stable while the new cohort is being assessed.

The eight actions for week one

1. Post a "welcome" hook within the first 24 hours

The first post after a follower delivery should reintroduce the account to the cohort. New followers do not know your back catalogue. A high-completion intro post resets their expectations and sets the FYP cohort similarity model in your favor.

2. Ship your strongest hook format two times in days 2 to 4

Cohort consistency matters. The ranker reads your next 8 to 12 posts to decide whether the new followers are well-matched to your content. Pick the hook format with your highest 90-day completion rate and use it twice in this window.

3. Reply to the first 20 to 30 comments yourself

The ranker reads creator-replies as evidence that the new follower cohort is engaging genuinely. A burst of creator-replies in the first week trains the comment-threshold model to read your account favorably.

4. Engineer one save-driven post in days 4 to 5

Saves are the strongest single signal for phase 3 distribution. A save-driven post (how-to, list, tutorial, before/after) in the back half of week one earns the kind of compounding distribution that turns paid followers into organic ones.

5. Post a follow-up to your top-performing post from week one

If a post hits in days 1 to 3, ship a follow-up using the same format and the same hook structure in days 4 to 7. The cohort that engaged with the original is primed for the follow-up.

6. Cross-post to TikTok Shop (if applicable) only in days 5 to 7

Commercial intent posts should come later in the week, not first. The cohort needs to see two or three pure content posts before they read a commercial post as something other than spam.

7. Pin your highest-completion video on day 7

The pinned video is the first thing new visitors see for the next 30+ days. Pin the post from week one that earned the highest completion rate.

8. Measure and adjust on day 7

Pull your week-one metrics: follower count, engagement rate ratio, save rate, total reach. If engagement rate is below 4%, the cohort is not engaged enough — slow down posting and improve content quality. If engagement rate is at or above 4%, the cohort is healthy and you can resume normal cadence.

What not to do

• Do not post low-quality "filler" content. The engagement-rate ratio is being measured against this week's posts more than any other.
• Do not push hard commercial content in days 1 to 4. The cohort needs to like the account before they tolerate commercial posts.
• Do not delete posts that under-perform. Deletions in week one trigger an audit-flag in the ranker's manipulation-detection model.
• Do not buy a second batch of followers in week one. Compounding deliveries inside the same scoring window stack the velocity signal in a way that does trip the filter.

What success looks like at day 7

• Engagement-rate ratio of at least 4% across the first 30 days' posts.
• At least one post in week one that earned above 2x your typical reach.
• A save rate of at least 2% on the save-driven post from day 4 to 5.
• Net positive follower growth from days 4 to 7 (some week-one churn is normal; net negative is a problem).

For the bigger picture on how delivery pacing feeds into all of this, see our cover story on the first 72 hours. For the buyer-side guide on choosing tiers, see how to buy TikTok followers safely.

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers to the questions we get asked most about this topic.

How fast should I see engagement from the new followers?

Inside the first 48 hours for most deliveries. Followers from real accounts engage organically — they like, comment, and watch when your content matches their interests. If you see zero engagement from the new cohort in 48 hours, the network was probably bot-driven, not real-account.

What if my engagement rate drops in week one?

It will dip slightly — the new cohort is being assessed, not yet locked in. A 1 to 2 percentage point drop from your pre-delivery baseline is normal. A 5+ percentage point drop means either the new followers are inactive or your content quality dropped, and you should investigate before continuing.

Can I post normally in week one or do I have to change my cadence?

Slightly fewer posts than normal is usually better. The probe window for each post is now competing for attention from a freshly-expanded cohort that is still calibrating. Two to three high-quality posts in week one beat four to five mediocre ones.

What about week two and beyond?

After week one, the cohort is locked in and your distribution baseline has reset. Continue with auto-engagement coverage for the first 30 days, then resume your normal posting strategy. The lift from a successful week one persists for months.