TikTok is primarily driven by the virality of a creator's content, but it also relies heavily on a clever and catchy username. One can rebrand themselves and their account simply by changing their username.
Even if going viral isn't your primary goal on TikTok, who hasn't outgrown or gotten bored of their usernames before?
Thankfully, the platform took notice of this common occurrence and made it possible for users to change their usernames.
Steps to change your username on TikTok
For those unaware, TikTok offers two names for every user — their name (or profile name) and their username. The latter is the one that comes with the prefix @.
Before you change your username, here are a few requirements to keep in mind:
"Usernames can contain only letters, numbers, underscores, and periods. Changing your username will also change your profile link."
Here are the steps you can follow to change your username on the app:
1) Launch the app on your phone.
2) Click on the TikTok profile or "Me" icon at the bottom-right of the screen.
3) This will take you to your profile page. Under your profile icon, click on the "Edit Profile" button.
4) Under the "About You" section, click on "Username" to edit it.
5) You can remove your old username and input the new one. A green check-mark to the right will tell you whether the chosen username is completely unique. Without this confirmation, you will not be able to proceed with your new username.
6) Once the new username has passed all the requirements, click on the red "Save" option on the top-right corner of the screen.
Once your new username has been saved, the changes will automatically be made to your profile's URL.
However, TikTok restricts the number of times one can change their username. Its current policy allows a change of username only once every 30 days.
Although some might find this policy inconvenient, it was likely implemented to prevent a situation where followers are unable to locate a creator's account due to their frequent username changes.
This is especially the case for creators who have just recently started going viral. Traffic will only be driven to their profile if other users can look it up via their username on the viral TikTok. So it is in the best interests of creators to refrain from changing their username more than once a month.
If users still wish to change their username within this period without having to wait, there is a nifty hack that allows them to do so.
This hack essentially entails fooling the phone and TikTok into believing that a month has passed by. To do that, you need to go to your phone's settings. Select the option that corresponds to the phone's date and time function.
Once there, turn off the "Set Automatically" function (or some other variation). Manually change the date on the calendar to just over 30 days after the last username change.