Location-based content on TikTok and Instagram is a powerful way for creators and businesses to connect with local audiences. But how do these platforms even know where you are, and why does it matter?
Understanding how TikTok and Instagram identify and promote location-based content is key to making the algorithm work for you. From device data to local interactions, they’re constantly scanning for cues to tell them what region you’re targeting.
Mastering the rules behind Instagram and TikTok local videos can unlock a new level of engagement. Keep reading for detailed insights on how location-based content works across platforms, including which strategies work best and how to troubleshoot common challenges.
How TikTok identifies local content
As a user, TikTok’s algorithm identifies your location and shows you relevant local content. In addition to things like engagement, watch time and relevancy, the algorithm uses your location and user settings to decide which videos to push your way.
If you let TikTok access your location, it will show you more videos from your area and share your posts with nearby users first before reaching a broader audience. This is especially helpful for new users, as the algorithm relies on location data to recommend videos when it doesn’t yet know their preferences.
Even if you don’t share your location data with TikTok, the app still gathers data like your IP address to determine roughly where you are. It also prioritizes your SIM card. If you live in Germany, for example, but are traveling to Australia, TikTok will still primarily show you Germany-based content and push your videos out to German users, unless you change your SIM to an Australian one.
Additionally, it gathers location data from people you follow and pushes content from those areas. For example, if your IP address is in London, but most of your followers and friends are in Toronto, the app will show you both London- and Toronto-area content.
A user’s location data doesn’t just affect which videos are shown to them. It also affects which terms are suggested under the search bar, which comments appear first under videos, and which accounts it suggests they follow. If a user has notifications enabled, the app may even send push notifications suggesting videos, accounts or search terms they think the user may be interested in, based on various data points, including location.
See also: TikTok marketing strategy: Should you go global or local?
How Instagram identifies local content
Like TikTok, Instagram’s algorithm uses various factors to determine what content is locally relevant to you. Location relevancy affects both a user’s feed and their explore page.
The algorithm determines this with the following data:
Hard location data
Instagram has a lot of explicit location data to work with—geotags on posts and stories, location data from users’ devices, and users’ IP addresses.
User interactions
The algorithm analyzes what accounts users follow and what content they like and search for. Using their location data, Instagram prioritizes local businesses, events and places that align with the content type they interact with.
Cross-posting with a hyper-local account can boost your local relevance.
“In our work with Libby, an app that helps users access library eBooks, posting in collaboration with local libraries—physical buildings with followers usually just from their region—has really helped us show the algorithm that this is the local audience we want.”
– Paula Uccelli, Project Manager at VeraContent
Popular content in your area
Instagram boosts content that receives higher engagement in your geographic area, including posts from nearby users or businesses.
Captions and AI-recognition
Hashtags are no longer an effective way for Instagram to categorize or distribute your content. The platform’s AI now relies on more advanced signals. Instead of hashtags, Instagram analyzes your content’s visuals, audio and the actual text in your captions to understand what your post is about and which audience should see it.
See also: Meta algorithm changes impacting global organic and paid reach
Key factors for creating local content on TikTok and Instagram
Connecting with your local market isn’t as simple as posting and hoping the algorithm will know what to do. You need to signal to it that your content is local and targeted towards people who live in a specific area.
Both TikTok and Instagram promote content that is properly aligned with local interests. The following factors let the algorithm know how to boost your content to a desired geographic area.
Start with a local profile
Just tweaking your basic info and profile page can help you attract local viewers. On your profile, you should:
- Consider using the name of your city, neighborhood or region in your username or handle.
- Mention your location in your bio.
- If applicable, include local contact information, like an address and phone number.
See also: Launching on TikTok: Strategies, trends and tips for brands
Use location tags and geotags
If you haven’t already, start tagging every post and story you make with either your neighborhood or city, your business address if you have a physical location or a local landmark. It’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to let the platforms know that you’re targeting people in a specific area.
Use hyperlocal hashtags
You’re probably already tagging your posts with relevant content hashtags like #wellness or #fashion. But do some research and see if your city has relevant local hashtags, like #torontocoffee or #londonfoodie. If these hashtags are already being used in your area, using them increases your chances of appearing in local search results.
As mentioned, hashtags are less relevant on Instagram; however, they are still important on TikTok.
Optimize your posts
Beyond hashtags, incorporating region- or city-specific words and phrases into the caption, description AND subtitles of a video can greatly boost your organic reach.
Align with local trends and sounds
Scroll through posts tagged with your area and see what audios and trends have been dominating recently. As previously mentioned, if people in one area are watching a specific trend or audio, the Instagram and TikTok algorithms will boost other posts using that trend or audio.
“Each market values different kinds of information, and we’re really seeing this in our work with Libby. In the UK, for example, educational and informational posts perform best, while in Australia and New Zealand, meme-driven entertainment content gets the most traction.”
– Paula Uccelli, Project Manager at VeraContent
Instead of simply translating a well-performing post into different target languages, our team often builds custom content for each region. While we have an overall strategy, the content we make for each account is super-localized and produced by each account’s community manager.
See also: Global social media marketing trends to watch in 2025
See below an example of a video that we created for the “Propaganda I will never fall for” trend:
Feature local culture, businesses and events
Beyond using already popular ideas, spotlighting elements of your local community can make your content resonate with local audiences and help you escape the cycle of endless trend-chasing.
If there’s a big event going on (like a major music festival), weave it into your content plan in the days leading up to it. Or just make a post talking about how beautiful your city is!
Your SIM card
As previously mentioned, the SIM card in your phone greatly affects both what content you’re shown and who your content is shown to on TikTok. For example, if you have an Australian SIM but travel to France, you’ll see France-based content, and any posts you make will be shown to some French users, but not nearly as much as if you changed to a French SIM on your phone.
Keep this in mind if you travel internationally or want to target an audience in a different country. Changing your SIM card as necessary may make a huge difference in your results.
Post natively and frequently
Whether you’re posting for a global or local audience, the more consistently you post, and the more you post natively in the app (like directly onto Stories and Reels on Instagram), the more the algorithm deems your content “high-quality” and pushes it out to users it thinks will be interested in it.
How user behavior impacts local content recommendations
As you can probably tell, a massive part of the algorithm is based on user behavior. When targeting local users, it’s important to understand how local user behavior affects content recommendations. That way, you can be proactive, not reactive, with your content.
A strong indicator for the algorithm is who users follow. If someone follows a lot of Barcelona-based content creators, even if they don’t live in Barcelona, the algorithm will assume they’re interested in that area and push more of that content to them.
Of course, engagement like liking, commenting and sharing affects what users see, particularly if they’re doing these things on local content. However, search history and watch time also affect what they see, and these factors can be powerful.
If someone spends a lot of time consuming content tagged to a specific location, the algorithm thinks they’re interested. That makes sense. But did you know that someone searching for “Best Ramen in Chicago,” even on Google, can make both Instagram and TikTok show them more food creators in Chicago? Developing both location and content niches can help you take advantage of this powerful influence.
What does this all mean for marketers targeting a local market?
Don’t just hope that users will engage with you. Proactively follow local businesses, influencers and even regular users. Engage with their content. Not only will you be getting great insights into what sort of content to post on your own account, but you’ll be boosting content relating to your region as a whole.
Plus, the higher your content’s quality is and the more engagement and watch time it gets, the further both your and the whole area’s content gets pushed. It’s a ripple effect that can have strong results if done correctly.
Practical tips for optimizing your content as “local”
Here are our top social media tips for ensuring your local Instagram and TikTok videos reach the right viewers:
Get to know your audience
While this may seem obvious, taking the time to do a full demographic analysis can give you the right data to optimize your content. Find out your audience’s age, location, interests and preferred social platforms and brands. See what’s trending in your area and what’s getting engagement.
Do local users have any pain points? They don’t even necessarily have to be related to your business. For example, if people in your area always complain about the subway, incorporating this into your posts can engage and interest people.
Use specific local references
We already mentioned incorporating local words and phrases in your caption, and it’s because it works. Recognizable slang and language quirks (like spelling water as “wooder” in Philadelphia) can signal your authenticity and local-ness. If you’re in an area that may not be instantly recognizable on video, make sure you have on-screen text or captions that mention it.
Having a local community manager is not completely necessary, but it can make a difference when helping your content resonate both aesthetically and with the right references.
“We try to showcase that we’re working with someone from the region. In the UK, for example, Libby incorporated Great British Bake-Off memes when a new season came out, or referenced 90s TV shows only popular in the UK that their primarily millennial audience loved.”
– Paula Uccelli, Project Manager at VeraContent
Collaborate with local influencers and businesses
Finding and collaborating with other local content creators can help your brand seem more like a part of the community. On TikTok, partnering with creators can also allow you to reach those creators’ followers and have the algorithm see your content as local. On Instagram, you can tag other businesses (when appropriate) in your Stories or posts.
A key obstacle when working with local accounts, especially for international businesses entering a local market or using new or underutilized accounts, is that initial messages often end up in recipients’ message requests, where they’re likely to be overlooked. You can overcome this by consistently engaging with the accounts you want to collaborate with and by building support from other community partners.
See also: Promoting your global brand with TikTok influencer marketing
Incorporate user-generated content (UGC)
While UGC has been the hot topic in social media marketing for some time now, it can be a powerful tool for engaging with a local market. Incorporating authentic UGC in your content strategy can boost trust with the local community.
Encourage UGC creation organically through clear incentive programs and engagement strategies, like a free scoop of ice cream if someone posts and tags your business on their Instagram story.
The Libby UK account has created a successful series of posts called How I Libby, compiling different UGC posts from followers in an on-brand collage format. It’s a great way of tagging people, getting tagged back and starting a conversation.
Post around local events or holidays
Adapt your content calendar to your market. Instead of more generic holidays like National Coffee Day, create posts themed around big local events like city-wide festivals, big sports games or an important local cultural celebration. Being there with content ready makes you more discoverable to users in your area.
See also: International holiday marketing: Dates, culture & language
Engage actively with the community
As mentioned, follow and actively engage with content creators in your area. The algorithm sees when creators habitually interact with users geographically close to them. Plus, liking, commenting on and sharing those posts further builds your presence in your area’s digital community.
Optimize with analytics
Both Instagram and TikTok let you see where your followers are based. On Instagram, you can check the Top Locations section on your Insights page. On TikTok, check the Followers tab on your analytics dashboard. Here, you can see where your content is resonating in your area, and if there are any places you aren’t yet resonating with that you want to focus on.
See also: Local video marketing: How to get more views in your area
Common challenges and how to overcome them
Problem: You’re based in a smaller city, and fewer users are looking for location-specific content.
Solution: Slightly broaden your strategy. If local users aren’t often looking at local hashtags, keep using some but also incorporate broader hashtags like #citylife or #smallbusiness. Focus on posting at peak times when users are more active.
Problem: Local audiences aren’t engaging.
Solution: Engage first. Engagement usually needs to be initiated before it grows organically, especially if audiences don’t recognize your brand. Leave thoughtful comments on local posts, share stories tagging local businesses and respond to all comments you get on your own posts.
Keep in mind, too, that different markets behave differently. In the UK or US, for example, users are more open to tagging your brand in both grid posts and stories, whereas Australia and New Zealand users may only tag you in their stories. DACH market users, partly because most personal accounts there are private, tend not to tag at all.
“While we’ve had a successful UGC strategy in the UK, because of each market’s engagement patterns, we’ve had to tailor expectations and strategies for each region, so we’re not relying on UGC in a market that rarely creates it, for example.”
– Paula Uccelli, Project Manager at VeraContent
Problem: You don’t know where to look for local trends.
Solution: Regularly look through regionally popular hashtags and follow as many local influencers as possible. If you regularly interact with area-specific content on your business account, your Explore Page and Discover Tabs will more frequently show you relevant local content.
Problem: Your social apps can’t tell where you are.
Solution: Make sure you have VPNs disabled on the phone you use for social media account management, geotag as much as possible and incorporate local references into captions and descriptions to reinforce your physical location.
If you’re traveling, consider leaving your social media account phone at home or switching SIM cards as needed when posting or sharing content.
Problem: Your creative feels tired or repetitive.
Solution: Rotate your content. Locally themed posts don’t have to be literal. They can be emotional, cultural, educational or even historical. Showcase different areas in your city, highlight local stories and businesses, add personal commentary, and feature humorous or goofy content.
Want to manage your social accounts like a pro, no matter the language? Download our free resource, How to Manage Multilingual Social Media Accounts—the ultimate guide to growing engagement and reach across borders.
Make sure your videos get seen by the right people
Creating localized video content is a resource-heavy and time-consuming process. So, you want to ensure they get seen by as many relevant people as possible. A few tweaks to how you post your videos on each platform can go a long way.
If this sounds a bit overwhelming, or if you don’t have the resources to go all-in on each location that you’re targeting, get in touch with us. We’d love to help! Book a call to see if you qualify for a Free Content Consultation.