# Research a topic on TikTok without applying for the Research API

Give a topic and a limit. RouterGrowth searches public TikTok videos and returns captions, authors, dates, views, likes, replies and reposts as JSON. It is not TikTok's Research API program: there is no academic application to file, and it reads only what TikTok shows publicly.

HTML page: https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/research-api
Part of: [TikTok tools](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok.md)

## The call

[`social.search`](https://www.routergrowth.com/catalog/social.search): Public posts matching a keyword on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook: brand mentions, category conversations, competitor chatter.

Price on this network: $0.00525 per post plus $0.00175 per call, $0.002 minimum a call. The exact quote is shown before every run.

## What a real run returned

Run on 2026-10-19: 5 records in 8.0 s for $0.028. Personal fields are masked. Five public TikTok videos on microplastics, from 2021 to 2026, with view and repost counts for each.

| created_at | text | views | likes | reposts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-06 | Unbelievable levels of microplastic pollution 🤦‍♀️ #microplastic #plastic #plasticpollution #plastic #contaminatedland | 156200 | 987 | 254 |
| 2025-03-27 | Testing Voss water under the microscope 🤢 #microscope #water #microplastics #plastic | 505300 | 4308 | 506 |
| 2021-11-26 | #plasticpollution #keepingitclean #microplastics | 334200 | 51500 | 919 |

## How to do it

1. **Get a RouterGrowth key.** Mint one in the dashboard, or connect the MCP server to Claude, Cursor or Claude Code.
2. **Search the topic.** Run social.search with platform tiktok and the topic as query. Try the hashtag and the plain phrase as two queries.
3. **Collect the corpus.** Repeat for each term in your study and keep the records, with url and created_at, in a table.
4. **Read the reactions.** Pass the most viewed videos to social.comments to study what viewers said.

## Ask it like this

- Search TikTok for microplastics, plastic pollution and nurdles, keep 30 videos each, and chart views by year. (`social.search`)
- For the ten most viewed microplastics videos, pull 50 comments each and classify them as worried, skeptical or neutral. (`social.search`, `social.comments`)

## Connect

MCP server: `https://api.routergrowth.com/mcp`

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http routergrowth https://api.routergrowth.com/mcp
```

```bash
npm install -g routergrowth && routergrowth setup
routergrowth run -c social.search -i '{"platform": "tiktok", "query": "microplastics", "limit": 5}'
```

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.routergrowth.com/v1/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ROUTERGROWTH_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"capability": "social.search", "input": {"platform": "tiktok", "query": "microplastics", "limit": 5}}'
```

## Worth knowing

- **Not the Research API program.** TikTok's Research API is a separate program for approved researchers. This page is an independent route to public videos.
- **Public data only.** Only what TikTok shows publicly: no demographics, no private accounts, no full historical archive.
- **Record the run.** Every result has a run_id and a date, so a study can cite when the data was collected.

## Questions

### Is this TikTok's Research API?

No. It is not affiliated with TikTok and needs no research application. It searches public videos.

### Can I get every video ever posted on a topic?

No. A call returns the videos TikTok search surfaces for the query, up to your limit.

### Are the results sorted by date?

No. This run mixed videos from 2021 to 2026; sort by created_at in the analysis.

### Can I study the comments too?

Yes. social.comments returns comments with text, likes and reply counts for any public video URL.

## Related

- [Read a TikTok account's recent videos through one REST or MCP call](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/api.md)
- [Scrape the recent videos of a TikTok account, with their numbers](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/video-scraper.md)
- [Search TikTok for a keyword and get the videos back as rows](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/scraper.md)
- [Scrape a brand's TikTok profile into one record your agent can use](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/profile-scraper.md)
- [Scrape the comments under a TikTok video and read what viewers ask](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/comments-scraper.md)
- [How TikTok video data is billed: quoted before the run, charged per video](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/api-pricing.md)
- [Search TikTok from a Python script and get videos back as JSON](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/tiktok/api-python.md)