Tips for building a TikTok following
Follow TikTok’s tips on creating content.
Building a presence on TikTok isn’t easy. How does TikTok’s recommendation engine choose what to share? How do you create content to get traction working on a shoestring budget? What does TikTok and experts advise? DemLabs is in the early stages and experimenting with different styles of TikToks. Here’s what we’ve learnt in creating a DemLabs presence from scratch
“TikTok’s recommendation system weights videos based on their value to a user. A strong indicator of interest, such as whether a user finishes watching a longer video from beginning to end, will get more weight and whether the video’s viewer and creator are in the same country.”
- User interactions – such as the videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create.
- Video information – details like captions, sounds, and hashtags.
- Device and account settings – language preference, country setting and device type. These factors get lower weight in the recommendation system since users don’t actively express their preferences.
DemLabs on TikTok
TikTok’s model
“TikTok’s model is unique in that it doesn’t really matter who you follow – TikTok curates an experience just for you. All you have to do is watch passively, occasionally liking or commenting, and TikTok does the rest. Based on how long you watch each video, how quickly you swipe away, whether you watch multiple times or don’t even finish, and if you bother to like, comment, save, or send to a friend, TikTok knows what resonates with you the most. They use this information to serve you better and better content, to the point where people find it a little bit scary how accurate and all-knowing their algorithm is!” – Serve Me The Sky
Spokesperson
Pick a spokesperson with your target audience in mind. We wanted to expand outreach to a younger audience, and found a presenter through Students For Justice. She is a college student who regularly records 15-20 second TikToks daily about current issues.
Keep it short
The sweet spot for video length on TikTok has doubled. Documentation provided to creators suggested 11-17 second videos performed best… Over 63% of all videos with the highest click-through rate (CTR) highlight their key message or product within the first 3 seconds. So get straight to the point and keep it short and direct.”
Post frequently
“In general on TikTok, the more content you create, the more your potential reach increases and the more followers you gain. Ideally, you’ll work your way up to posting three times per day. It sounds like a lot, but the videos can be short and simple! – Serve Me The Sky
Experiment
Shoot natively for TikTok: When shooting, be sure to make use of TikTok’s vertical full-screen experience and capture 100% screen space by shooting in 9:16. TikToks shot vertically have an average 25% higher 6-second watch-through rate. Strike a balance between authentic-looking content between user-generated videos and a polished advertising look.
Use music: Choose from one of TikTok’s thousands of commercially licensed tracks to make music a key story. Use fast-paced tracks above 120 BPM with higher view-through rate (VTR). This TikTok on the “Sad case of SCOTUS is set to the music of “New York, New York” with hashtags: #clarencethomas, #supremeCourt…
Ride on the latest trends: Great content on TikTok often revolves around trending storylines. Referencing these trends in your ad can be a true performance driver as well as a natural conversation starter within the community. This TikTok is about Elon Musk recently censoring content for Turkish President Erdogan. It is set to the rap of “Blocked Pookie”
Keep it real: Keep your story real and entertaining. Tell stories in emotionally appealing ways. Keep them real and relatable. Great TikTok content often includes an undertone of lightheartedness and positivity. This TikTok uses a portion of a news clip about the Republican Abortion Pill ban overlaid with captions.
Keep it light: Use humor that appeals to your target audience. This TikTok has no spoken words but just Makayla with a puzzled look. Caption “POV: Trying to understand how the government is banning, abortion, books and TikTok, but can’t call for gun reform.” In the background, the soundtrack “Welcome to Ohio” plays.
How does TikTok’s algorithm compare to Facebook and YouTube?
Cost-effective?
Creating a TikTok in this project cost $20 per TikTok and average about 250 – 2,000 views each so far. This translates to a reach of about $10/CPM which is cost effective with other approaches.
Cost per thousand (CPM) is a marketing term that’s used to denote the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one web page. An advertiser must pay $2.00 for every 1,000 impressions of its ad if a website publisher charges $2.00 CPM. The “M” in CPM represents the word “mille,” which is Latin for “thousands.”
Rates for social media advertising tend to be higher and they can vary depending on the platform. The average social media advertising CPM for Facebook is $7.19 in 2023. The average CPM for the Twitter platform was about $6.60 in 2022. – Investopedia
TakeAway: Reach more people cost-effectively with TikTok.
Deepak
DemLabs
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Reposted from Democracy Labs with permission.
