Blue Comments Are Fairly New on TikTok — How to Utilize the Feature

The Gist:

• Blue TikTok comments are links to TikTok search results about keywords from the video.
• TikTok started testing the feature in 2022 as users started relying on the platform as a search engine.

If you spend enough time in the comment sections of TikTok videos, you’ll start seeing blue comments. Not blue as in melancholy or bawdy, mind you — literally blue in color. So, how do you get your comments to turn blue on TikTok?

As it turns out, it’s not up to TikTok users. TikTok’s algorithms highlight the comments based on search keywords, and there’s no surefire way to get your comment to change colors.

As a WikiHow article on the topic explains, TikTok automatically turns words in comments blue when its algorithms determine that those words are especially relevant and highly searched. The blue words are actually links to TikTok searches for those keywords. (You’ll also see a magnifying glass next to the blue words in another indicator those words are searchable.)

One Twitter user’s video about the feature shows a comment reading “Miles Teller was absolutely robbed of an Oscar nomination,” in which Miles’s name is highlighted and links to TikTok search results about the actor.

In another example, cited by a HubSpot blog post, the words “haptic keyboard” in a comment on a video about Apple’s iOS 16 operating system appear blue and lead to a search about haptic keyboards.

There’s also no surefire way to get your comment to turn blue — again, it’s up to TikTok’s technology to deem your comment blue-worthy. However, there are ways you can up your chances of getting that special treatment.

For one, you can pick a popular TikTok video and then leave a comment with words that are frequently spoken or written in the TikTok video itself, the description, or other comments, according to the WikiHow guide. The guide also says that words that show up as hyperlinked keywords on the video or in any other blue comments are good words to drop.

As an example, the WikiHow author commented on a TikTok video about Paris Fashion Week with the keywords “Jisoo” (a BLACKPINK member in attendance) and “Fashion Week,” following the lead of the hyperlinked keywords that showed up on the video. That comment apparently turned into a link at the time, but now it’s unlinked and showing up in boring old black, so perhaps TikTok’s algorithm is fickle!

TikTok started testing the hyperlinked-comment feature around August 2022, as TechCrunch reported. At the time, the feature seemed to be available to only a subset of TikTok users.

The feature comes as social-media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have been becoming the search engines of choice for younger internet users. Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan recently stated that nearly 40 percent of young people use TikTok or Instagram to find a place to eat instead of Google Search or Google Maps, per TechCrunch. So, it makes sense that TikTok’s engineers would be experimenting with new search functionalities on the platform.