Does #fyp actually do anything? I analyzed 3000 TikToks to find out

Everyone keeps telling me to spam #fyp #foryou #viral on each video I post to get onto the For You Page so I pulled the data on ~3000 viral videos to see if it actually works

Here are my findings...

1. fyp made no difference to reach. Videos without #fyp actually had about 5% higher median views
2. A few hashtags work, spamming them backfires. The sweet spot was 1–3 hashtags, about 18% higher median views than using none. But it then drops off fast, videos with 7–10 hashtags had ~39% lower median views than the 1–3 group (and ~28% below using no hashtags at all). Past a handful, more tags correlated with less reach, not more
3. I ran a frame by frame analysis to compare the videos. What actually correlated with views was how fast the hook lands. Videos that resolved their hook in ≤2.1 seconds got ~30% higher median views than slower ones. The algorithm prefers retention more than hashtags. Findings were from fypnow.com