Look up any TikTok creator by @handle — full profile in 30 seconds

When you reach for handle lookup vs keyword discovery

Two different jobs, two different tools. Use keyword discovery when you need a cohort of creators in a niche. Use handle lookup when:

• A creator's name landed in your inbox via an outreach reply.
• A competitor's ad video featured a creator and you want their stats.
• You're vetting an inbound deck a creator's agency sent over.
• A team-mate Slacked you a TikTok URL — "is this person worth a contract?"

Keyword discovery is breadth-first; handle lookup is depth-first on one creator.

What the lookup returns

The Activity & cadence card on /kols/[username] renders four headline numbers:

1. Account age — from TikTok's user.createTime. New TikTok accounts (under 6 months) frequently lack the audience trust that drives conversion. Multi-year accounts with consistent cadence are the safest bet.
2. First video — min(video.created_at) across the scraped batch. Gives you the creator's actual content history vs the signup date (some creators sit on an account for years before posting).
3. Last video — max(video.created_at). KOLens highlights amber if it's older than 30 days; that's the "quietly quit" signal.
4. Posting cadence — median days between consecutive posts, plus a last-30-day rate as videos / week.

Beyond the headline four

The same lookup populates avg / median / max view counts, average likes, view-to-follower ratio, engagement rate, and a 6-stat profile strip (followers, page likes, lifetime hearts, etc.). Plus the most recent 50 videos as a clickable grid — handy for one-glance content vibes.

How to look up a handle

1. Go to /kols (logged in).
2. The top bar has a "Look up by handle" input. Paste any of:
   • @mr.kwanga
   • mr.kwanga (no @)
   • https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.kwanga?lang=zh-Hans
3. Choose how many videos to sample: 30 / 50 / 100 / 200. More videos = more accurate cadence. 50 is the default and matches the 1-credit price.
4. Click Look up · 1c. ~30 seconds later you're on the creator's full profile page.

When a lookup fails

• 404 "Account may be private…" — TikTok served no videos for the handle. Possible causes: private account, deletion, region lock, shadowban. KOLens refunds the credit automatically.
• 402 "Not enough credits" — Your balance is below the lookup cost. Top up at /pricing.
• 503 "Could not verify credit balance" — Backend can't reach Supabase. Retry in 60s; if it persists check the admin diagnostics endpoint.

Power-user: from the Claude plugin

If you installed the KOLens Cowork plugin, just ask Claude "Look up @mr.kwanga on TikTok" in any conversation. The plugin calls the same endpoint, charges the same 1 credit, and renders the profile inline. Useful for pasting research into a campaign brief mid-discussion.