This is the October 2026 edition of Postdom's TikTok trends report, kept as published on 5 October 2026: 559 top TikTok posts from September, measured across 13 repeatable trend formats.
This is the archived copy of the October 2026 edition, which is also the latest. The monthly report is updated in place at /research/tiktok-trends.
In Postdom's TikTok Trends Report for October 2026, 7 of the 41 top posts from accounts with under 1,000 followers passed 1 million views (559 top TikTok posts from September 2026, scanned 1 October 2026).
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Definition. A trend format is one of 13 repeatable formats in Postdom's trend library, such as POV or "this is your sign"; a top post is one returned by a TikTok keyword search limited to the past month and sorted by likes.
Last updated . First published with the October 2026 edition: 559 top TikTok posts from September.
This edition is frozen. Next edition: 1 November 2026. Data lead: Ana Ibáñez Lario. Data licensed CC BY 4.0.
"This is your sign" posts had the highest median of any format with 10+ examples: 1,382,588 views (n=13); 10 of 13 passed 1 million.
7 of the 41 posts from accounts with under 1,000 followers passed 1 million views; the largest "this is your sign" example drew 5,174,342 views from 491 followers.
Expectation vs reality (79x, n=8) and "Me when..." (62x, n=13) drew the most views relative to the poster's follower count.
Posts under a week old averaged a median 104,176 views a day since posting; posts 28-30 days old, 22,404.
20 of 24 top reaction videos were posted in the last 14 days of September; only 1 of 6 "The urge to" posts was.
Local services (160 posts): median 431,966 views, 51 over 1 million; 45 came from accounts under 10,000 followers, and 15 of those passed 1 million.
27% of the 559 posts came from accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers.
Charts to embed
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Seven posts from accounts with under 1,000 followers passed 1 million views. These are top search results, not typical outcomes.Embed this chart
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The TikTok trends worth copying, October 2026Embed this chart
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Median views per post for the 13 trend formats. Formats with fewer than 10 posts are directional only.Embed this chart
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Views divided by the poster's follower count. A high ratio means the format travelled well beyond the poster's own audience.Embed this chart
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The share of each format's top posts published from 17 September onwards, a rough signal of which trends were still rising.Embed this chart
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Lifetime views per day by post age. Each age group is a different set of posts, so this shows correlation, not a per-post decay curve.Embed this chart
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Twelve reference posts were recorded on 29 or 30 September and again on 1 October.Embed this chart
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Download the data
Trend summary (CSV) trend-summary-2026-10.csv. One row per trend format: posts, median and maximum views, posts over 1 million, median views per follower, posts from accounts under 10,000 followers, share posted in the last 14 days and median length.
Views per day by post age (CSV) decay-by-age-2026-10.csv. Median lifetime views per day and median total views, grouped by post age on the scan day.
Aggregate figures only. The files name no accounts. Licensed under CC BY 4.0: free to reuse, including commercially, with credit to Postdom and a link to this page. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Every file is listed in the research data library.
All editions
Each month's figures stay on this page, so you can compare months or cite an earlier edition. Each edition also has its own archive page, kept as published.
Published . Sample: 559 top TikTok posts from September.
A "this is your sign" clip from an account with 491 followers drew 5.2 million views; the format led all 13 with a median 1.4 million.
Trend summary (CSV) trend-summary-2026-10.csv. One row per trend format: posts, median and maximum views, posts over 1 million, median views per follower, posts from accounts under 10,000 followers, share posted in the last 14 days and median length.
Views per day by post age (CSV) decay-by-age-2026-10.csv. Median lifetime views per day and median total views, grouped by post age on the scan day.
Published criteria for every edition
Each edition is scanned in the first days of the month and covers TikTok posts published in the month before.
A top post is one returned by a TikTok keyword search limited to the past month and sorted by likes, across the same five niches: local services, consumer brands, consumer apps, software and general.
Each post is tagged by an AI model, from its caption and metadata, with one of the 13 repeatable formats in Postdom's trend library. Posts that match none are used only in the post-age, small-account and local-business figures.
Every edition reports the same figures: median views per format, posts over 1 million views, median views per follower, posts from accounts under 1,000 and under 10,000 followers, the share posted in the last 14 days, and views per day by post age.
Formats with fewer than 10 posts are marked directional and never lead an edition.
Accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers are never named or linked.
TikTok only. Instagram Reels are not part of the scan.
Method and full data tables
Definitions
Top post: a post returned by a keyword search limited to the past month and sorted by likes.
Trend format: one of 13 repeatable formats in Postdom's trend library (POV, this is your sign, me when, expectation vs reality, before-and-after, reaction, day in the life, unpopular opinion, tell me without telling me, who said X 3 times, the urge to, we listen and we don't judge, things that just make sense). 353 posts matched a broader format (for example get-ready-with-me or storytime) but none of the 13, and are used only in the age, small-account and local-business analyses.
Views per follower: views divided by the poster's follower count on 1 October 2026.
Views per day: views divided by days between posting and 03:20 UTC on 1 October 2026 (minimum half a day). A lifetime average, not a daily count.
Share posted in the last 14 days: posts published on or after 17 September 2026.
Local services: the niche tag assigned by the model to 160 posts (mostly searches for salons, coffee shops, restaurants, barbers, bakeries, dentists, cleaners, gyms and realtors).
The sample is drawn from the top of TikTok's search results, so it shows what worked, not typical outcomes. A business copying a format should not expect these numbers.
Formats with fewer than 10 posts (who said X 3 times, the urge to, tell me without telling me, expectation vs reality, things that just make sense) are directional.
Format and niche tags were assigned by an AI model from captions and metadata, so some posts may be misclassified. The reaction group, for example, includes general "my reaction when" clips as well as the brand "reminds me why" version.
Follower counts are the poster's following on 1 October 2026, not at the time of posting.
Views per day compares different posts of different ages; it is not a per-post decay curve. The 12 twice-measured posts are a small, illustrative check.
TikTok only. Instagram Reels were not part of this scan.
About this series
This is the first monthly edition. Postdom will rerun the same searches at the start of each month, report which formats rose and which faded, and keep the method unchanged so months can be compared.
For the formats in Postdom's weekly scan, with example videos and scripts to copy, see TikTok trends this week.
These are the top of TikTok's search results, not typical outcomes. Most posts from small accounts never come close.
Five formats rest on fewer than 10 posts (who said X 3 times, the urge to, tell me without telling me, expectation vs reality, things that just make sense). Treat them as pointers.
Views per day compares different posts of different ages. It is not a decay curve for any one post.
Examples marked "observed 29 September" come from an earlier reading and are not part of the 559-post sample.
Accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers, including the 491-follower account, are not named or linked.
How to cite
Postdom. (2026, October 5). TikTok trends report: October 2026 edition. https://postdom.com/research/tiktok-trends/2026-10
This edition is kept as published, so this link always shows the same figures.
Data lead and press contact: Ana Ibáñez Lario, at dean@postdom.com. See the press page for custom cuts and embargoes.
Changelog
: Archived the October 2026 edition at its own URL, unchanged.
: First published with the October 2026 edition: 559 top TikTok posts from September.
