Are there too many influencers?

It never once crossed my mind that I should try to become an influencer. Then, I wrote a series of poetry books in 2020 and not a single book agent would consider publishing my work unless I had a massive social media following.

So in 2021, I set out to make content on TikTok about love and relationships — topics that tied into my writing. At the time, I had very modest goals. Reach 10,000 followers and then start querying agents again to sell my books. Now, a year later, I’ve surpassed my follower goals on TikTok, I’m creating videos for Youtube, I’ve landed multiple brand deals, and I’ve made thousands of dollars in just a few short months after taking influencer marketing seriously.

Is the influencer market oversaturated?

And as it turns out, there are a lot of other people becoming influencers and content creators right now too — and their platform of choice is TikTok.

TikTok is the world’s fastest-growing social media app. It has one billion active users and of them, eighty-three percent have posted a video. That’s a lot of video content being uploaded onto the site and subsequently being crossposted on other apps like Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube. Now, some marketing experts and mega influencers who have been in the business for the past decade are asking whether the influencer market is oversaturated since so many more people are creating content and thus, competing for the same limited attention of audiences.

Youtube star Emma Chamberlain says social media culture is dead

One mega internet star who theorizes the power of influencer marketing is changing is Emma Chamberlain. Chamberlain, who rose to fame through her Youtube videos, amassing more than 14 million subscribers, said on her podcast back in April that the strength of influencers is on the decline. Now that there are more people posting “day in the life” vlogs on social media, the concept of peeking into someone’s life doesn’t have the same novelty as it did just a few years ago, she reasons.

Celebrities who have benefited from audience interest in “day in the life” content are the Kardashians, who are considered the most powerful influencers in the world. The family built their fame through their reality show, which gave audiences backstage access to their daily lives. When the show first premiered in the mid-2000s, it felt like a new, fresh concept to see the ultra-wealthy showcasing their lives in full display for the public.

Despite the Kardashians being on TV for several years now, they are still influential. They’ve solidified their place in modern pop culture not just as reality stars, but also as businesswomen, launching successful products that they sell to their fanbase. And their longevity in the media has been one of the main reasons they’ve been so successful. In the world of marketing, staying top of mind with consumers helps brands build trust, love, and loyalty, which the Kardashians have with their following.

It’s easier to create content for influencer marketing

Nowadays though, you don’t need a TV network to pilot a show about your life or even a DSLR camera to film Youtube videos to make content for social media and build a following. TikTok has changed consumers’ expectations of video content. Low-lift videos created by users, as known as user-generated content (UGC), have become more desirable to watch because it feels authentic to audiences.

I’ve found that my best-performing videos on TikTok aren’t highly produced (and I have a professional background in filming, editing, and show producing). Instead, my highest-watched videos are simply of me speaking into the camera and sharing my life experiences, expertise, and opinions.

Creating low-lift video content like this is easier and more accessible thanks to a number of new mobile apps that have simple video editing suites. I think that’s why there are more people creating videos right now than in the past 10 years — that’s how long I’ve been working in professionally in the social media space. With its lower barrier to entry and the possibility of making a good income through content creation, there are more people attempting to become influencers. In fact, influencer marketing-related services and companies grew by 26 percent in 2021, according to Linkfluence. Additionally, the influencer market grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $13.8 billion in 2021, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.

But as more influencers enter the industry, how many of them are actually influencing audiences?

Do influencers really influence?

There is some anecdotal evidence claiming the strength of influencer marketing is diminishing. Back in 2019, an Instagram influencer with more than 2 million followers couldn’t sell more than 36 T-shirts to her followers. And marketing experts say that’s not uncommon, mainly because followers don’t equate to consumers. Additionally, 50 percent of businesses launched by influencers fail more than 50 percent of the time — but that’s pretty similar to small business failures. In fact, only 25 percent of small businesses last more than 15 years.

Does that mean influencer marketing is dead? Not necessarily. In marketing, converting audiences into purchasing customers can be a challenge, especially if you’re an emerging brand. And we can think of influencers as brands who have cultivated a following based on the identity they’ve created online with their content. And even major brands struggle with this, especially at a time when the brand name doesn’t always guarantee sales and market saturation is high for many categories.

Do brands want to work with influencers?

It is the golden age of brand deals. Forbes reports that brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing during 2022. However, I’m a bit skeptical of this number as inflation continues to worsen and consumer sentiment grows pessimistic about the economy, which usually means that companies start cutting their marketing budget as a way to save money. And influencer marketing could fall into this cost-cutting bucket should we enter a recession.

Additionally, as social media platforms fill up with sponsored posts and branded content, some audiences are craving authentic connections from creators.

I think the issue isn’t that there are too many influencers competing for the same amount of attention from audiences. Rather, audiences are looking for the next big thing to keep them engaged like a new platform, a new style of storytelling, or a new concept.

As digital consumers, we’ve been trained to expect something greater because social media algorithms are always promoting more extreme versions of opinions and content that we’re watching. And creators constantly have to adapt to make themselves seem appealing to audiences.

For example, when I originally started uploading content to TikTok, it was mainly content based on my writing and poetry, but I wasn’t getting the traction I was looking for, so I started posting about my personal experiences with love and relationships. Those topics resonated with viewers and my audience started to grow. Every few months, I saw that my growth would stall out, so I had to reinvent myself in a different way. For instance, I started sharing my tips and stories about working a corporate job and being a manager. That helped me continue to grow my following. Then I expanded my brand by sharing content about money, finance, and investing. That pivot helped me increase the scope of my brand. For a long time, I resisted posting “day in the life” vlogs because I didn’t want to give away too much of my life.

But as my growth stalled again on social media, my video views dropped, and my brand deals slowed down, I pivoted again. I recently started sharing small glimpses into my life to see if that sort of content resonated with my followers.

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The moral of the story is that as a content creator or influencer, you have to be adaptable and constantly change because you’re operating on someone else’s platform and you’re playing by their rules. This causes a lot of influencers to make content that over time feels largely the same, and unoriginal. When audiences feel like everything is a “repost,” that’s when we start reaching levels of market saturation and consumer fatigue.

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Is becoming a mega influencer possible?

If your goal is to become a megastar like Emma Chamberlain, Charli d’Amelio, or David Dobrik, it will probably be a lot harder to reach those levels of fame and success now because of market saturation. We all know virality is a big part of helping drive exposure and brand awareness, but as more video content is uploaded on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube, it can be hard to break through the noise. Unless you’re new to an emerging platform or have amazing luck to have your content consistently go viral, chances are the way to become a successful influencer is to focus on being a consistent content creator.

Audiences want more than a spokesperson to vouch for brands. Nowadays, they want to relate to content and be a part of a community. Instead of striving for 2018 influencer celebrity status, it may be worth focusing more on community building and audience development because ultimately, the most powerful part of an influencer isn’t their aesthetic or brand, it’s their audience.

Cultivating authentic connections with viewers is something companies, brands, and celebrities strive to do all the time. If you’re a content creator looking to grow your brand in a meaningful way with your audience, then here are a few things you can start doing today:

Research the audiences for your niche

Whether you create relationship content or personal finance content, each niche has its own audience. Look to see what other creators are posting about in your niche and don’t just watch their videos, look through their comments. See what their community is asking for and check whether you can help fill in the gaps by providing your own expertise.

Engage with your community

Every comment you get on your videos is an opportunity to make a meaningful connection. If someone says they like your video and you notice they don’t follow you, ask them to give you a follow. Providing a call to action in your comments can help inspire viewers to subscribe to your channel.

Deliver on promises

If you say you’re going to start a series or launch a product, provide a status update to your community. For example, I had to tell my community during the start of my TikTok journey that I was pivoting away from poetry content to relationship-based content, but I was still planning to work on finding an agent to release my book. Even though I haven’t published my books yet, I did keep my audience informed about my plans because some of them followed me because they wanted to keep hearing about my literary work.

Get personal

Posting videos of trends and viral sounds can help get you views, but you need more personal and substantive content to convert a viewer into a follower. Ninety percent of your content will most likely not go viral, but that’s OK. That 90 percent of content is created for your current followers. That content is something they want to watch and that’s why they’ve subscribed to your channel.

Create, reiterate, adapt, and evolve

Being a content creator on a social media platform means your strategy will always be changing because you’re trying to hit a moving target thanks to how often social media algorithms change. One month’s strategy may not work next month. When you see dramatic shifts in your views, don’t panic — experiment. This is an opportunity to assess your content. Have you deviated too far from your niche? What are other creators doing? Should you try something new?

Creating content with new hooks, music, topics, and formats could help your channel feel fresh and help audiences discover your content.

Like what you’re reading? Follow me on TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram to see more stories and tips about love, money, and work.

How to become more empathic

Recently, a friend reached out to me to vent about work. Generally, I’m the kind of friend you call for advice. I want to help. But as she started sharing her work problems, I started feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Eventually, I had to stop her midstory and tell her I was going to have to call her back. I hung up the phone, exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to feel empathy.

What is empathy?

Empathy is our ability to understand how others are feeling. It helps us forge connections and make meaningful relationships. Empathy is comprised of three primary components: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. The cognitive component is our capacity to understand another person’s thoughts, feelings, or perspective. The emotional component is our ability to share feelings and relate. And the compassionate component helps us not just hear someone’s concerns, but also actively reduce their pain and suffering.

Why are we less empathic now?

Empathy is an important part of the human experience, but the moments we experience it are fleeting as we spend more time preoccupied with work, stressed out about obligations, and absorbed in our digital lives. In fact, we’re becoming less empathetic and it’s affecting our personal relationships, the way we navigate workplaces, and how we interact with each other in our society.

I was recently listening to a Wall Street Journal interview with Brian Chesky, the founder, and CEO of Airbnb. He’d announced that the company’s employees can now work from anywhere remotely. Chesky said he make this decision because he wanted to give his employees more flexibility. But he also said he wanted to create community spaces that help cultivate empathy because being on screens all day disconnected people from each other.

“I hope that we still have physical communities because I think right now when you hear the word community, most people think of social media… The problem with online interactions is there’s not a lot of empathy. The interactions are more fleeting. You don’t really build the same kind of understanding. You’re not as curious. You’re more judgmental,” he said.

This decline in empathy has been happening since the early 2000s, experts observed. Researchers at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research analyzed data on empathy from 14,000 college students over 30 years and they found that most students were less empathetic than college students from 1979 — an era notable for its women’s rights, gay rights, and environmental movements, as well as the Watergate scandal, the energy crisis, and the ongoing Vietnam War.

“We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000,” said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research. “College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait.”

This data, although older (2014), shows we’ve been trending downward on the empathy scale.

What causes us to lose empathy?

Researchers believe we’re losing our empathy because we’re exhibiting the negative consequences of repeated exposure to stressful or traumatic events. For example, the pandemic was traumatic for many people, especially those who weren’t able to stay home during the peak of the virus and had to work on the frontlines. During that time, the U.S. saw an increase in domestic violence. It was also common to see social media videos of people displaying incivility. And that constant stress and trauma can cause people to withdraw from others.

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I remember when I was a young journalist, I was left alone during the weekends to report on major breaking news. One of those events was a mass shooting. My job was to speak to the people who were affected by the shooting. It was obviously a really painful experience listening to these people share the worst moment of their lives. After I finished my work, I locked myself in my bedroom during my days off, barely eating or sleeping. I didn’t have the energy to speak to anyone. The vicarious trauma I took on from work had sparked a habit of self-isolation. As my career continued and I covered more of these traumatic events, the more numbness I felt.

What is empathy fatigue?

Whether you work as a journalist, healthcare provider, or teacher, empathy fatigue is a real problem. Empathy fatigue is when we’re emotionally and physically exhausted and we lose our ability to care. And with the pandemic, racial injustice issues, climate change, and inflation, there are too many issues to worry about, causing us to feel overwhelmed and apathetic.

“Over time, we start to see people experiencing a sense of numbness and distancing themselves from others,” said Susan Albers, a psychologist with the Cleveland Clinic.

Extreme cases of empathy fatigue are dangerous. For example, it can trigger depression. It doesn’t just affect our mental and physical health, but it also affects how we treat each other.

How do we treat empathy fatigue?

Psychologists suggest that you can combat empathy fatigue by doing the following things: Focus on being aware of how you’re feeling. For example, if breaking news and Facebook stress you out, then limit the amount of news you watch every day, and put a limit on your social media exposure. Add balance back into your life by exercising, going on walks, getting proper sleep, and connecting with people around you.

How to become more empathetic

Empathetic people tend to have higher life satisfaction, stronger relationships, and better health. So how do we increase our empathy? Scientists have two theories for how we can become more empathetic. Research shows that we have neurons called “mirror neurons” that activate when we see and feel emotions, according to WebMD. And scientists believe these “mirror neurons” help us experience empathy. However, there are other scientists who believe empathy can also be learned. When we see how people react and feel we can intellectually understand their emotions and learn how to empathize.

There’s consensus from scientists that empathy is a vital quality. It’s an important part of not just the human experience, but the natural world, even animals like squirrels, dogs, cats, and elephants, show empathy. One of the ways to become more empathic is to practice.

What should you do to be more empathic?

Be curious about the world: Empathic people strike up more conversations with people around them, even strangers. They want to understand their surroundings. They listen to others. They’re better at perceiving what’s happening in their environment. Curiosity is a great teacher. It helps us better understand different perspectives, beliefs, and information.

Find things that unite rather than separate: Finding commonality can help create stronger bonds. Whether that’s where you went to college or your love of the same TV shows, finding similarities can help you connect with people.

Perspective-taking: Ever heard of the phrase, “put yourself in someone else’s shoes?” Perspective-taking allows you to see and experience how others go through life. Volunteering is a good way to gain perspective. Growing up, it was common for me and my brother to volunteer on the weekends. We did beach cleans up. We helped little sea turtles get safely into the water during hatching season. We removed invasive plant species from the Florida Everglades. We picked up trash from gopher tortoises’ homes. In hindsight, all these experiences helped me appreciate nature better. And today, I find myself opting out of using single-use plastic when I can or preferring to buy products that are made from glass and aluminum instead. Empathy doesn’t just help us treat others better, it helps us treat our world better.

Listening and sharing: We all know listening is essential. But it can be hard. Social media has trained us to put our needs and thoughts out first. But by taking a step back and listening to others, we can form deeper connections. And that can inspire us to share our perspectives and feelings as well, which can help strengthen relationships.

Experience art and culture: Going to a museum, looking at artwork, reading new books, watching an indie movie, and exposing ourselves to creative and thought-provoking content can help us better learn about the world around us and help us appreciate people, places, and things.

Meditation: Just a few minutes of compassionate meditation, silently repeating phrases that express intention that moves us from being isolated to connected, apathetic to caring, judgmental to understanding, can help us empathize better, according to researchers at Emory University. In general, meditation has a profound effect on our brains. Mount Sinai Medical Center researchers scanned the brains of people who were meditating and found the areas that experience empathy brightly light up. In addition, meditation can also help calm our nervous system, so that we’re able to be more receptive to other people’s feelings.

Why should you be more empathetic?

Empathy helps us understand the world around us. Kindness and compassion make us better friends, parents, leaders, lovers, citizens, and humans. There’s a lot of scientific research about why empathy is important. But I think we all know that we need to fix this loss of empathy urgently. We’re drifting apart from each other. We’re lonelier, angrier, more anxious, and divided than ever before. We’ve seen protesting, fighting, and even wars break out because people can’t understand each other’s perspectives.

Practicing more empathy can help us start filling the void that we’re feeling. It can be a way to bring us closer together. And maybe it can help us get back to loving one another, and ourselves again.

Why is everyone so rude right now?

A few months ago, I went to Seattle for a business trip. I was looking forward to revisiting the city, a place I had grown to love and had been to half a dozen times.

When I jumped into a local cab from the airport, I greeted the driver, but she didn’t reciprocate, which I was used to coming from New York City. When we arrived at my location, she didn’t help me with my bags. I still left a tip. At the hotel, the automatic doors were broken. As I was making my way to the hotel’s side door, a man pushed past me, barked at me to move, swung the door open, and slammed it in my face. After checking into my hotel room, I looked at my watch and saw that I needed to meet a colleague at the office. While hustling to leave on time, I thought I locked myself out of my hotel room. I went down to the concierge and asked for another room key, explaining to the woman at the front desk that I had accidentally locked myself out. The woman, who looked like she was a little bit older than me, blurted out loud without even looking up, “That’s pretty stupid of you.”

Unsure how to react, I just stared at her in silence as she slowly made me a new room key and tossed it in my direction. When I left the hotel, I couldn’t help but think: Why is everyone so rude right now?

It turned out my original room key was safely tucked away in my back pocket.

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Why are people mean, rude, and disrespectful?

It’s not just you, people are getting ruder. Social media is flooded with videos of angry customers yelling at service workers, patients fighting with healthcare personnel, and even Americans sparing with other Americans while shopping for groceries. Since the mid-2000s, journalists, researchers, and philosophers have pondered whether our society is getting ruder. And the answer is, yes. But why?

Theories about why incivility is rising range from the anonymity of social media platforms, which have made us more emotionally disconnected from each other to stressful working environments, which are causing people to take their workplace traumas back to their personal lives. And it appears the stress of the pandemic has only made matters worse for some people who haven’t been able to cope with the stress and anxiety of the unknown.

David H. Rosmarin is an assistant professor of psychology in Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, and he is a clinician at McLean Hospital. He said in a 2020 interview that the hospital program he runs, Spirituality and Mental Health program, has observed rising levels of anger. And that anger is manifesting itself as aggression and domestic abuse. When it comes to the pandemic, there’s heightened fear, anxiety, and depression, which has also fueled people’s anger.

“One of the ways of thinking about anger — which I find helpful from a clinical standpoint — is to conceptualize it as a secondary emotion. Fear, anger, joy, and sadness are your four primary emotions, and secondary emotions occur as a reaction to our primary emotions, rather than to the situation,” he said to the Harvard Gazette.

Rudeness is rising, and that’s a serious problem

Incivility is rising — and that’s a bad thing, Christine Porath, a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and author of “Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace,” said in an interview on the NPR podcast “The Hidden Brain.”

Rudeness takes an emotional toll on us. When we encounter incivility, it puts us in fight or flight mode. Oftentimes, we endure the abuse and stay silent. But the pain lingers long after.

“Incivility is so costly,” Porath said to Forbes. “It robs cognitive resources, hijacks performance and creativity, and sidelines people from their work. Incivility impairs thinking. People miss information right in front of them.”

Porath’s team wanted to learn more about the hidden costs of rudeness on people’s brains. They ran an experiment with two groups. One group was subjected to rudeness. The other group was not. After their sessions, both groups were given a brick. Researchers asked the subjects what they could do with a brick. The control group, the one that didn’t face any rudeness, had creative ideas, like building homes and making art. The group that endured rudeness had destructive answers. They said they could hit people with the brick and break someone’s nose. This showed researchers that rudeness can negatively impact people’s cognitive skills and creative abilities.

Why are customers angry at retail and service workers?

There are also cultural reasons why people are ruder nowadays. For instance, the “customer is always right” model, which became popularized across retail and service industries after World World II, has enabled people to abuse retail, service, healthcare, and hospitality workers. And because consumer purchasing power is so important to businesses, most companies allow their employees to be mistreated, berated, abused, or sometimes even physically assaulted. The pandemic put renewed focus on how much abuse workers endure from customers, from passengers on airplanes yelling and hitting flight attendants because they didn’t want to wear masks, to customers throwing food at service staff when they were unhappy with their orders.

“We’ve gone past the point where the retailer was in charge to a point in society where the customer is in charge,” Mark Cohen, an adjunct professor and director of retail studies at Columbia University, told Insider in 2021.

Some workers have reached their limit. Since the pandemic started, there’s been a rise of retail and service workers who have quit or refused to go back to their old jobs because of low pay, hard working conditions, and rude customers.

Acting mean, rude, and disrespectful makes us feel powerful

Rudeness is contagious. When someone yells at us, we’re likely to pass on that negative emotion to someone else. Trevor Foulk, who researches organizational behavior at the University of Maryland, told the Washington Post that rudeness is sort of like the common cold. It’s easy to catch and pass on to others.

“When it comes to incivility, there’s often a snowballing effect. The more you see rudeness, the more likely you are to perceive it from others and the more likely you are to be rude yourself to others,” he said.

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Radical candor can disguise rudeness and mean behavior

Rudeness has also found its way into our homes as people continue to work from home. Whether it’s subject line only emails, curt slack messages, or colleagues scolding you, incivility has become pervasive.

At the streaming company Netflix, for example, three marketing managers were fired in July 2021 after making disparaging comments about their coworkers, according to TIME.

“What happened here was unfortunately not simply venting on Slack or a single conversation,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a comment on LinkedIn. “These were critical, personal comments made over several months about their peers…including during meetings when those peers were talking or presenting.”

Sarandos faced backlash for his comments from some Netflix leaders who claim that the company’s culture of radical candor allows for this sort of communication.

If you don’t know, in 2017, a new workplace trend caught on in management: radical candor. But Kim Scott, the ex-Google employee who defined the term and wrote the book, “Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity,” said radical candor is most successful when paired with caring, meaning the intention behind your bluntness is to do good and uplift others. However, some companies and managers have taken radical candor to the extreme in the workplace by publicly shaming employees for poor performance in front of their peers.

How do we protect ourselves from rudeness?

Rudeness hurts us emotionally, and it has become more common to be rude than to be nice to each other. I once heard someone say that being polite is so rare that people nowadays confuse it with flirting.

Like most of us, I don’t like when people are rude to me. Rudeness affects me emotionally. When the hotel worker called me stupid and threw the room key at me, I thought about that exchange for weeks afterward. My meeting with the colleague after that exchange felt uninspired because I was thinking about what that woman said to me. Since rudeness impacts so many of us negatively, how do we protect ourselves?

Most people lack self-awareness, Porath said. And they typically don’t know they are being rude. Generally, people are unaware of their tone or attitude. Based on her research, only 4% of people intentionally try to hurt others for fun.

When someone is being rude or hurtful to me nowadays, I try to point it out in a gentle but firm way by saying: “The way you’re speaking to me is making me uncomfortable.”

I’ve found that this phrasing has helped me navigate difficult personalities in more productive ways. However, I do think personal safety should always be your number one priority. Therefore, if you can avoid or limit your interactions with rude people, it’s best to do it because it’s hard to determine how strangers will react when confronted with their bad behavior.

Sometimes, we can’t avoid rudeness. But if we do face it, we can try to be conscious of not passing it on to others by giving ourselves time to recover after a negative interaction. We can reduce the impact of rudeness by focusing on our personal happiness, growth, and wellbeing.

The best way we can protect ourselves from rudeness is with a resilient mindset, which we can build by having creative passions, strong support systems, and fulfilling relationships.

At the end of the day, your emotional well-being matters. If you don’t want to deal with rude people at work, you don’t have to. Thanks to our globalized society, there are more opportunities than ever before to find better jobs, better work cultures, and better quality of life. It just takes a little bit of time and energy to find the best environment, career, and place that fits your needs.

How to interview someone for an article, podcast, or video

Being able to tell someone’s story in an authentic and empathetic way is a strong skill that great journalists master. Nowadays though, more content creators are using journalistic techniques in order to film Youtube videos, record a podcast, or write an article. Before you dive into interviewing and reporting on someone, here are some tips on how to be a great interviewer so that you can tell the best story possible. 

1. Before your interview, do your research

I have managed journalists for years, and one pattern I have noticed for newer or undisciplined journalists has been that they rarely prepare for their interviews. Whether you’re interviewing a famous TikTok star or a politician, ahead of an interview, you should spend time learning about that person’s background. Understanding where your interviewee went to school, what their childhood was like, or any other information you can find that’s publicly available can help you better connect with your interview guest later on. In addition, it’s important to research the topic you’re interviewing for because chances are that unless you are writing a biography, you should have a thesis, topic, or angle you’re trying to tell through your interview. 

2. Have a thesis

Just like when you used to write essays for schools, interviews and articles always have an overarching thesis, main point, or topic. Having an overarching thesis to guide your interview is important because it will keep you on track, it will make the interview more organized, and it will lead to a better story that’s easy for readers to understand. For example, if you want to interview a famous TikTok star, you should have an angle other than the fact that the TikTok star is famous – everyone already knows that. Your angle could be something like: Learn how this TikTok star built her brand by telling personal stories. Or another angle: This TikTok star has cultivated millions of followers, but now she wants to leave the platform. Those are two very different angles, but they are interesting and can be informative for readers. When you reach out to the person you plan to interview, they will likely want to know what the topic of your article, video, or podcast is about, therefore, it’s important to have your thesis ready to share.

Sometimes, your thesis may change as you conduct your interview and learn more from the interviewee. So you should also try to be adaptable. 

3. Write questions down beforehand

It’s always best to have an authentic conversation, but it’s also important to be prepared for your interview. Generally, people are nervous when they start an interview. We’re naturally guarded when we aren’t sure where a conversation is going, so start slow. Ask comfortable questions, such as asking them to share a bit about their background. People love sharing stories and information about themselves. In addition, get the clinical stuff out of the way by asking the 5 W’s: Who, what, when, where, and why. 

Let’s take the example of our TikTok star, we’ll call her Ray. 

• Who is Ray the TikTok star?

• What is Ray doing now to grow her brand?

• When did Ray get started on TikTok?

• Where did Ray get started on TikTok, and where is she going?

• Why did Ray decide to build her brand on TikTok? 

These are pretty basic questions that will help warm the interviewee up for more detailed questions throughout the interview process. 

4. Record your interview, but have a natural conversation

People tend to tense up when you tell them you are going to record an interview, but generally, I advise recording because it helps you keep a record of the conversation so that you don’t misinterpret anything later on when you are transcribing and writing your article. If you notice your guest is nervous or tense about the recording, reassure them that you are recording the conversation so that you can actively listen to what they are saying and not focus on note-taking. 

And as you do your interview, keep it natural and professional. Scripted conversations aren’t engaging, and can lead to a very structured and unnatural experience. Speak to this person as you would a friend. Engage in what they are saying, ask follow-up questions, react appropriately, and show empathy. 

For example, say in our fictional interview with Ray the TikTok star that she shares that she started posting on TikTok after her grandmother died in order to help her through the pain. That’s a very vulnerable moment that Ray is sharing with you. This is a really critical time to demonstrate empathy. You can do this by expressing your condolences when there’s a natural pause in the conversation. And by asking follow-up questions like: “Were you close to your grandmother? Can you tell me more about her? Has your relationship with her inspired your work? If so, how?”

5. Listen actively

This is the hardest skill that most people fail to master. We’ve been trained through social media and our modern digital culture to react first and often. But the best stories happen through listening. Here are some tips I try to use when I’m listening actively:

Look at the speaker: Face the speaker and maintain a natural amount of eye contact. It’s distracting to see someone staring into the distance or looking at their phone when you are talking to them.

Watch for non-verbal cues: Facial expressions, posture, tone, those are all subtle signs that mean something. If someone says they are happy but they are not smiling, chances are they probably aren’t truly happy. 

Don't interrupt: It’s natural when you get excited or you have a thought that you want to immediately jump into a conversation and share your thoughts. But that can be a disruptive experience. If you have that urge, write your question down and wait for a natural pause. I struggle with this one a lot because as an East Coaster, I feel like I need to show my enthusiasm and agreement with someone by verbalizing it or adding to their story or point. Sometimes people enjoy it, but oftentimes, I’m interrupting them and that robs us of the experience of fully listening to their point or message. 

Avoid forming an immediate judgment: During an interview, someone might reveal surprising news. It’s important to react naturally and calmly so that the guest feels safe and understood. If Ray the TikTok star reveals she’s leaving the platform, you don’t want to react by saying, “No!” That will likely make her become guarded, cautious, or wary of going deeper into the conversation. Instead, you can say, “Tell me more about that.” Usually, people will want to continue explaining why they’ve reached a decision or point. 

Subtly show you’re listening with nonverbal cues: Nodding, making eye contact, tilting your head slightly to show affirmation or listening can help your guest understand and see that you are actively listening to them.

Don't impose your opinions: This is a common mistake I see with some journalists. They may hear something they don’t personally agree with and they will interrupt the interviewee. Sometimes, it’s appropriate, especially when someone says things that are fundamentally wrong or inaccurate, but if it’s an opinion that you don’t agree with and it isn’t factual wrong, try to avoid pushing your feelings and judgments onto your guest.

Stay focused: If you find yourself drifting in the conversation, try writing down bullet points as you listen. I used to be a science reporter, and sometimes, my guests would go on long explanations about their research and use language I didn’t understand, so I would lose focus. A way to combat that is by taking notes and asking for clarification or asking them to restate the sentence in a way that you can better understand. 

6. Ask clarifying questions and more details

This is the biggest problem I see with unseasoned or untrained journalists or interviewers. When someone says a statement that seems vague, don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions or get clarifying information. If Ray the TikTok star says she is leaving TikTok because it’s a bad platform, you should ask: “Tell me why you think it’s a bad platform?” And “Can you tell me specifically what happened to you on TikTok that makes you feel like it’s not a good platform for you to use?” Those questions can push your interviewee to reflect and give you better responses. Sometimes the best answers come from the follow-up questions. 

7. Try to stay on topic 

A good conversation can flow like water, it has its own rhythm and motion. Sometimes it is smooth or it can be choppy, but it’s always going in a specific direction. As you conduct your interview, try to keep it focused on the topic, thesis, or main point that you are discussing. For example, if the main point of your interview with Ray the TikTok star is about how she built her TikTok career, chances are you may not want to be focusing too long on her grandmother during the interview. However, sometimes an interview can take down an unexpected path. For example, what if Ray reveals that the reason she is leaving TikTok is that she needs to focus on earning more income because she’s struggling to pay off $250,000 in student loans? That information could reframe your interview and story. Instead of your story focusing on Ray building her TikTok brand, it may become a story about how a famous TikToker is leaving the platform because she feels like her videos are not being fairly compensated by the platform. 

8. Tell your interviewee when the interview is over and when they can expect the story 

After you conclude your interview, tell your guest what to expect next. Chances are they will want to know when the story is coming out so that they can read, listen, or watch the interview. Typically, professional journalists don’t share an article or story for approval ahead of publication with the interviewee. However, in content marketing, it is common for some companies to get the interviewee’s approval before publishing. Personally, if I’m doing an interview outside of my professional job, I still operate with journalistic integrity. I tell the truth, I stay objective, and I let the interviewee’s words speak for themselves.

If you like this content and you’d like to see more subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Should you be filming 10-minute videos on TikTok?

It seems like every app wants to be like TikTok nowadays with its snappy videos and trending sounds. But TikTok has other plans. 

TikTok announced at the end of February 2022 that it was going to offer creators the option to film videos as long as 10 minutes. It’s a big move for a social platform that is known for short videos. There are many TikTokers who believe the move is in an effort to viral YouTube where long-form content is commonplace and in certain niches, expected. Already, users on TikTok are speculating that the app is prioritizing longer videos because many users are experiencing low video views for videos under a minute. 

I’ve personally uploaded two different videos to test out whether the rumors are true. I filmed a 1-minute video about the internet’s reaction to Kim Kardashian's “work more” comments in a Variety Magazine interview on a Friday evening. The video only got about a thousand views, which is not a good showing on my channel because I have about 70,000 followers. 

@jareenimam #stitch with @varietymagazine the girl boss movement is dead #TurboTaxAlphorn #hustleculture #girlbosstories #workculture #moneytiktoks ♬ original sound - Jareen Imam

So the following day, Saturday midday, I posted a 3-minute video that was a longer version of Kim Kardashian's “work more” controversy. That video also underperformed, with less than a thousand views. Of course, there are other factors to consider when assessing performance metrics, like when the video was posted, but overall, I didn’t see any evidence on my channel that longer videos are being prioritized by TikTok. 

@jareenimam Working hard isn’t the problem #TheAdamProject #hustleculture #girlbosstories #workculture #moneytiktoks #richvspoormindset ♬ FEEL THE GROOVE - Queens Road, Fabian Graetz

I personally don’t think TikTok is introducing 10-minute videos to rival Youtube. I think TikTok wants to be more like Youtube in the sense that it wants to monetize more of the content on its app with advertising. If you go onto Youtube, you’ll find videos that are anywhere from 2 minutes to hours long. For instance, I recently published a 17-minute long tutorial on Youtube about how to turn a hand-drawn work of art into an NFT design using Canva. I would have never posted or made a video like that on any other platform. And the reason I feel like I can make videos that long on YouTube isn’t because I have the space to make them as long as I want. Rather, I feel like I have the opportunity to be compensated for my time through YouToube’s monetization program. 

Youtube creators who are successful at monetizing their videos can earn millions of dollars thanks to YouTube’s advertising program. However, TikTok’s creator fund doesn’t work in the same way. That’s led to a lot of frustration for TikTok creators who have gained millions of videos but earned only a few dollars on the platforms. When TikTok pays creators from the creator fund, it is essentially pulling from a limited pool of money that the company gives to creators based on their video views and watch times. And as more creators join the fund, the smaller TikTok’s payouts become, critics have said. 

TikTok however, has denied these claims, saying there’s plenty of money to go around. In the summer of 2020, the company said they were expecting to grow the creator fund to over $1 billion in the U.S. in the next 3 years and double that figure globally. Since then, the company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, has ballooned in growth. Increasing its revenue 70 percent year-over-year in 2021 to $58 billion, according to Reuters. 

However, that revenue growth hasn’t translated to higher payouts for TikTok creators. It’s caused some creators like author Hank Green, who has more than 6 million followers on TikTok, to flee the platform and join Youtube because he claims that it doesn’t financially make sense for him to be spending so much time on TikTok’s platform if the creator fund doesn’t compensate creators fairly. 

"Literally, when TikTok becomes more successful, TikTokers become less successful,” Green said in a video that has gained hundreds of thousands of views.

I, myself, have about 70,000 followers and although I have plenty of videos that have garnered millions of views, I have only made about $40 from the creator fund since I joined in late 2021. (I’ve made more money through Google Ad Sense on this blog.) 

Now that TikTok is introducing 10-minute videos, there are many questions about whether TikTok creators will be compensated in the same way as Youtube creators. I suspect not because where exactly is TikTok getting that revenue from? YouTube, which is owned by Google, has a thriving, multi-billion dollar ad revenue business. For instance, it’s common for popular videos to rank on Google’s search engine, thus driving SEO traffic to the creators' videos. Youtube videos are also easy to embed into websites and blogs and are generally much easier to discover. Whereas, TikTok videos are hard to discover on the platform, and their embedding feature isn’t compatible with many websites and platforms. In addition, Youtube advertisers can buy programmatic ads, display ads, banner ads and more to be featured alongside popular Youtube videos. TikTok doesn’t have this infrastructure – yet. 

Slowly, I think TikTok will integrate more ways for advertisers to participate on its platform beyond branded content, sponsored posts, and sponsored hashtags. But it will obviously take time. 

Even if TikTokers have the option of posting longer videos, there are no clear answers about whether creators will be compensated for their time. But in a world where social media popularity is a form of currency, maybe some creators don’t really mind not getting paid for their time and effort.

Ukraine War social media reporting

The Russo-Ukraine war has sparked a flood of misinformation online. There are TikTok users claiming to be inside of Ukraine, posting fake images and videos and encouraging people to donate to their accounts. There are clips from movies and documentaries such as Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom (2015) on Netflix that are circulating online, claiming to show the war on the ground. Out-of-context photos are being posted all over social media channels, stoking fear, anxiety, and confusion. With all this misinformation and disinformation circulating online – how are journalists and citizens supposed to debunk and verify information independently in such a widespread and fast-moving crisis? 

The reality is, they can’t. At least, not without help, tools, and strategies.

The Russian government has long used disinformation as a way to push its political agenda. Putin, a former KGB agent, uses methods of misdirection and deception to create instability and gain strength, according to Western intelligence experts. In fact, U.S. intelligence communities were so certain Russia was going to invade Ukraine that they declassified Putin’s invasion plans in order to try to overcome Russian disinformation weeks prior to the war. But that didn’t deter Putin from invading Ukraine. Russia has built a powerful propaganda machine that weaponizes social media platforms, blogs, websites, and messaging apps. A portion of that propaganda machine was put to the test during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. One of Russia’s coordinated disinformation organizations was called the Internet Research Agency (IRA). And one of its key strategies was to tap into the emotional sentiment of people using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in order to help push propaganda. Social media research reveals that users are more likely to spread false or misleading news that upsets or angers them. The Russian government is an expert at manipulating social media platforms’ algorithms in order to get misinformation to go viral online. Although the IRA ceases to exist under its original name now, there are many experts who believe Russian-backed groups are still coordinating propaganda messages online, launching cyberattacks, and conducting other nefarious digital acts in order to push Russia’s agenda in Ukraine.

It’s important to remember that debunking photos and videos is a losing game. There’s too much misinformation online. A more productive mindset is to focus on what you can verify. What do you know to be true based on sources and eyewitness statements? What can you report to the public? What information progresses the story? What is relevant and important information to help citizens make informed decisions? Those questions should guide your social media reporting. And if you are trying to debunk critical footage, then focus on conserving your energy by finding efficient methods of doing so, that way you have time and resources to dedicate to reporting verified information.

The best advice I have for journalists and citizens who are trying to navigate this information space, and this is coming from an expert in social media newsgathering and verification, is to try to rely on verified reporters who are on the ground for primary information. CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and other vetted and reputable news organizations have reporters in Ukraine. However, journalists can’t be everywhere, and that’s why citizen journalists who record user-generated content, also known as UGC, are also incredibly vital in capturing the full scope of what’s happening in Ukraine.

Here’s an example of a newsworthy moment that was captured by an ordinary citizen and uploaded to social media. The video shows a Russian tank driving down a Ukrainian highway. We know this is a Russian tank because it matches earlier reports of Russian tanks that were crossing into Ukrainian territory. While driving down the road, the Russian tank crosses multiple lanes and runs over a pedestrian-controlled vehicle. The video is horrific. And the incident seemed unprovoked. 

WARNING SOME READERS MAY FIND THIS CONTENT GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING:

A Russian tank runs over a driving civilian car in Ukraine.

The Russian thugs have lost touch with humanity. #UkraineRussia pic.twitter.com/q5QzVTdJL0

— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) February 25, 2022

Verify videos by using multiple sources sharing similar footage 

So how would we go about verifying this incident? One of the easiest ways to verify whether a video is real or not is by checking whether other social media users are posting videos or photos of the situation from different angles, which is what happened in this case. Since the incident occurred in an urban area, there were several citizens who documented the Russian tank crashing into a pedestrian-controlled car. When it comes to verifying this footage, we can have more confidence that this video not only happened in Ukraine, but also that it took place fairly recently, and was observed by multiple eyewitnesses.

Additionally, there was more footage that appeared on social media channels, like Reddit and Twitter which showed local Ukrainians using their physical strength to try to pull the elderly man out of the wreckage after the incident. Thankfully, the elderly man was alive, according to local reports. 

If you’re trying to find similar videos to corroborate a video you’re investigating, then here are some of my tips for how to find that content:

Reverse video search using Google

There’s no easy way to reverse video search online, currently. There’s a lot of time, energy, and processing power that has to be used in order to do that. Therefore, this hack, using Google Images may help you.

1. First, play the video and capture a screenshot of the video. What you capture in this screenshot is very important. It should be something identifiable like a monument, a visible street sign, a landmark. Try to avoid capturing images of people. Unless they are famous or wearing a uniform, they likely won’t yield many results on Google Images.

2. Next, upload your screenshot to Google Images using the camera icon.

3. When you get your results, scan through them to see if you can find anything similar. Or click on the option “More” and navigate to “Videos” to find possible related video content.

To be clear, this process doesn’t always yield results. The thing about social media investigating is that it is a process of trial and error. For example, the video below was posted around Friday, February 26, and it shows a Ukrainian man running onto a road to stop a Russian convoy from entering Ukraine. It’s a tense video and reminded a lot of people online of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest and massacre. The video was posted on Twitter by the news outlet HB.

✊🏻Українець кидається під ворожу техніку, щоб окупанти не проїхали pic.twitter.com/cZ29kknqhB

— НВ (@tweetsNV) February 25, 2022

I took a screenshot of the video, which came out a bit grainy, and I uploaded it to Google Images.

Google was able to identify that the image likely was from Ukraine and the Russian invasion, but it wasn’t able to locate the exact video or original source. 

How to use Reddit to find similar videos

If the video is going viral and you want to find more like it, you might want to try Reddit. The platform has a very active community of digital sleuths. For example, you could try navigating to r/videos or r/news and looking for posts that match the video you’re investigating. Likely, if the video is going viral somewhere else online, it will be posted on Reddit or sometimes it may have originated from Reddit. What’s interesting about the Reddit community is that some users will post similar videos or add context to news-related content as a way to inform the community. Reading through the comments of posts that match your video may help you discover other videos that are similar too.

For example, the video showing the pedestrian-controlled vehicle being run over by a Russian tank was posted onto Reddit. And then other users replied in the comments of the video to provide other angles and footage showing the same incident. Therefore, corroborating the video.

However, this process might also not also yield results. For example, the video of the Ukrainian man stepping in front of a Russian convoy was uploaded to this subreddit. But if you look through the comments, you don’t find similar images or videos. And that’s likely because it was captured in a rural area, and it’s possible that just one of these videos exists because there weren’t that many people around to document the incident. 

Google Earth for verifying Ukraine War photos and videos

But what happens when you don’t have multiple videos of a situation? What do you do? You can try to match the landscape of the video to see if there are similarities with Google Earth, but this is only partially helpful. Because satellite imagery on Google Earth isn’t immediately updated. In fact, some street view images can be a few years old. Since Russian separatists have been in parts of Ukraine since 2014, we can run into problems where location information matches, but those photos or videos may have been captured at another time. 

For instance, there was a video circulating online that showed Russian paratroopers floating in the sky as they headed to their destination. The video was circulating throughout TikTok with people claiming Russians were dropping down on Ukraine, however, this video was actually from a training session from earlier in the year. Journalists were able to figure it out because it was still live on Instagram, and the account that posted it (@romanadler123) appeared to have uploaded the video in 2021.  

@jareenimam There are a lot of internet scammers right now trying to profit off your empathy #ukrainewar #moneytiktoks #ukraineconflict #internetscammers ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Google Earth does not have historical street view imagery but the feature does exist on Google Maps.

1. A way to check out old images on Google Maps is to navigate to Google Street View.

2. From there, depending on the address you’re looking up, a clock icon may display under the address at the top-left of the map, which means historical street view imagery is available for this location.

3. From there, click the clock to expand the dates to show the imagery that is available.

For example, you can test this process out by looking up this address: 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043 – this is Google’s main campus. Once you look up the image on Google Maps, you can navigate to street-view and look for the clock that gives you a timeline of historic street-view information. 

Google Earth does let you look up some historical satellite imagery. To do this, you will need to download the desktop version of Google Earth. Whenever you use the app, it will default to showing you the current satellite imagery. But to see past satellite images of the same location, you can do the following:

1. When looking up a location in the search bar, hit enter, and then click on “View.”

2. Then click on “historical imagery,” which will allow you to select a certain time.

Although these tips may seem simple, they can be extremely powerful. This war already has a lot of disinformation, with the right tools and strategies, you can work on staying informed and safe. And remember, the situation in Ukraine is fast-moving and changing rapidly. If you aren’t sure about the validity of the information you’re watching, then turn to reliable news sources that have journalists on the ground in Ukraine. Stay curious.

How to find EXIF data

When you want to learn more about a photo, sometimes reverse image search might not be enough information to determine the full story of the photo you’re investigating. If you want more information about the location of a photo, the time it was captured, and the make and model of the camera that captured the image – then you’re going to need to dive into the photo’s EXIF data (exchangeable image file). 

Why does EXIF data exist?

Although EXIF data may seem spooky to some, or an invasion of privacy to others, it’s actually pretty useful information. For example, have you ever looked at your iPhone and it displays a photo that you captured on a specific day or location and it automatically creates an album for you? Well, if you think about it, you likely didn’t have to manually enter that information for each photo on your phone, right? That’s because EXIF data allows photo-storage programs and services to organize your photos based on date and location, which can make it easier for you to find photos on your computer or phone. 

When you share that original photo via email or upload it to certain websites or platforms, the photo’s EXIF data will be attached to it. Many digital security experts believe it is good for consumers to know about EXIF data when they share their photos because consumers may be unaware that they are sharing way more information than they may intend to do.

How do I look up a photo’s EXIF data?

There are a few ways to look up EXIF data, which I will show you in this article. I will also show you a case study for why this technique can really help you determine whether the photo you’re looking at really represents what someone claims it does. 

When you take a photo, you’re not just capturing the world around you. You’re also capturing information like date, time, camera model, and other camera settings that are stored as metadata onto your photo. Even information like shutter speed and GPS location are recorded. You don’t need a lot of fancy software to look up this data. 

If you’re on a web browser, the website EXIF data viewer is an easy way to upload a photo and look through its metadata. Be mindful of the image size you are looking up though. Web-based EXIF readers usually can’t handle high-resolution photos.

How to check EXIF data on Windows 

You can also check EXIF data on your computer, which is my favorite way of doing it. On Windows computers, you just have to right-click on the photo that has been locally downloaded onto your computer and choose “Properties” in the Windows dialogue box. Once you select properties, navigate to “Details.” There, you will find all the camera information you’re looking for – the metadata (e.g. EXIF data). 

How to check EXIF data on a Mac 

If you’re using a Mac OS, you can also view EXIF data. Once you open a photo on your Mac, you will be in “Preview” mode. From there, click “Tools” in the menu bar. Then click “Show inspector.” This will open a new window where you can select “EXIF.” Here’s a visual breakdown below:

Step 1: Select your photo on your Mac and open it in “Preview”

Step 2: Navigate to “Tools” and select “Show Inspector”

Step 3: Go to “Exif”

Step 4: Based on the device settings of the camera you used to capture your original photo, you will be able to see a lot of information. As you can see here, this photo was captured on July 14, 2021 on an iPhone.

How can journalists use EXIF data for research?

Journalists, citizens, and digital sleuths can use EXIF data to help corroborate an eyewitness account. For example, if someone says they witnessed a stage collapse at a concert and they captured photos of the incident, you could ask them to send you the original photo they captured via text or email. From there, you can look up the EXIF data to see if the photo was really captured in the place, time, date, and with the camera, the eyewitness claims it was captured. This information can help confirm an eyewitness’ story. 

Case study of Ghislaine Maxwell

You can also debunk a story or photo with the help of EXIF data. Take the case of Ghislaine Maxwell (who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021), Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, who in 2019 appeared to be at an In-N-Out Burger soon after reports of Epstein’s death. When I was working at NBC, I got an email to our tips inbox which claimed that Maxwell was not running from the cops or impacted by Epstein’s death, but was instead enjoying her life in sunny California. I thought the email sounded really odd. And I noticed the tipster sent the email with an attached photo. 

Before we even start looking at the EXIF data, I noticed the photo had a lot of information in it. We obviously know this is an In-N-Out Burger based on the signage. But where exactly is this restaurant located? Using clues like the buildings behind Maxwell, the billboard, and the bus stop we can make a determination about the exact location using Google Maps and Google Street View. 

What’s distinctive in this photo in the background is the cannabis billboard. I’ve spent some time in California, so I have seen similar billboards near highways. There are also a lot of buildings clustered around the In-N-Out Burger, which makes me think this photo may have been taken near Los Angeles or in another dense California city area. When you look up all In-N-Out Burgers in Los Angeles in Google Maps, you see that there are about 12 locations.

The next part is a little tedious, but basically, I used Google Street view to look through all the locations until I found one that had the same cannabis billboard in the background. From there, I was able to figure out that the photo was taken at an In-N-Out Burger in Hollywood/Universal City. Not only did the billboard match, but there was also a bus stop and the buildings around the In-N-Out Burger that had green roofing, which matched the tipster’s photo.

So that’s how I was able to establish the location. 

Fun fact about bus stops and billboards: Generally, you can call up the business that owns billboards and bus stops because that’s how they attract new clients who may want to advertise with them. When you look at the bus stop in the photo, you see a poster for “Good Boys,” which at the time my former team received this email, was premiering that weekend. The movie was a Universal movie, so my team was able to call the Universal marketing team to ask if the movie was being advertised at that bus stop location. The marketing PR team said no. Which meant that this photo was possibly altered. 

Since we figured out the location of this In-N-Out Burger through Google Street View, my former team at NBC was able to figure out the business that owned the bus stop ad spot. We called the number and determined that there wasn’t a movie being advertised there. It was a healthcare ad for a hospital. It was likely then that the person who doctored this photo wanted us to believe it was captured recently by adding the movie poster to the photo. 

After that, I uploaded the photo into an EXIF data reader and found that the metadata was tagged with the word “Meadowgate.” A quick Google search of the words “Meadowgate” and “California” pulled up the full name Meadowgate Media Investments Inc, which was listed on a number of public records. I was able to look through public records and determine that the owner of Meadowgate Media Investments Inc is Leah Saffian. And that she was a practicing attorney in California. 

Generally, you can find a lawyer’s license to practice through their respective state’s bar website, which is what I did. The State Bar of California website listed Saffain’s law office address, which was on Meadowgate Rd, Encino, CA. 

After I uncovered this information, I checked LinkedIn and found a possible page associated with Leah Saffian. From there, I discovered some social media postings on Instagram from Saffian that led me to believe she had close ties with Maxwell. It turned out she was Maxwell’s personal lawyer and friend.

Ultimately, my former NBC team and I were able to determine the photo was taken by Saffian, that it was altered, and was captured months prior.

How do I see EXIF data from social media?

So this is all well and good, but what happens if a source doesn’t initially send you a photo? What happens if the photo you’re investigating is from social media? 

Well, chances are you have probably downloaded photos from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter before. And if you have, it’s likely the EXIF data has been removed from those images. The reason for this is because when most photos are uploaded onto social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twiter, and Pinterest, the photos are compressed, and the quality changes, thus also changing the photo’s format. When that happens, much or sometimes all the photo’s EXIF data is erased. 

That generally means personal data is stripped out. And so is the copyright in the metadata, hence why it’s so easy for people to falsely claim they captured a photo on social media. 

What websites store EXIF data?

The popular photo-sharing app, Flickr, keeps EXIF data on images. Generally, people looking at your photos on Flickr will be able to look up the EXIF data to learn about your camera, lens, aperture, and other settings you used to capture the photo. It also will contain the date you captured your photo, and sometimes the location.  

If you want to remove EXIF data from your Flickr photos, you can do the following: 

• Click on the photo in Flickr and open it.

• Below the photo, click Show/Hide EXIF.

• Keep EXIF data secret

• Users can also update their privacy settings to hide the EXIF data for all photos uploaded to their accounts.

Also, personal websites, company websites, and websites that generally host photos will likely have EXIF data. You can download the photo to your computer locally and then upload it to any of the resources I have listed above. I’ve used this method several times to track down sources for stories back when I used to be a journalist for news networks.

Case study Lev Parnas

For example, when prosecutors were investigating Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born American businessman who worked with Rudy Giuliani, who was accused at the time of violating federal campaign finance laws (he was since indicted), I was able to go onto Parnas’ consulting website and download photos from his website. From there, I look up the EXIF data for those photos. That information helped me determine when and where those photos were taken. 

How do I remove EXIF data from photos?

Now, what if you want to remove EXIF data? Sometimes, when you’re looking through a photo, you might not find the EXIF data attached. More sophisticated users generally know how to erase metadata quickly. If you want to share photos, but you also want to make sure your EXIF data isn’t available, you can take these steps to remove it: 

Use an image hosting site to wipe EXIF data

Image hosting site, Imgur, is a common photo hosting website that many users on Reddit frequent. You can also remove some EXIF data from your computer, which I think is generally an easy way of ensuring much of the critical EXIF data on your photos is erased if you are planning on hosting photos on a website or sharing them via email or text.

How to remove EXIF data on Windows

• Select the image and right-click.

• Select “Properties” and the “Details” tab.

• Select “Remove Properties and Personal Information” at the bottom.

• Select the options to remove in the next window and select OK.

On Windows, you cannot remove all EXIF data from the image but you have more control than you do on a Mac.

How to remove EXIF data on a Mac OS

• Select the image and open it.

• Select “Tools” and “Show Inspector.”

• Select the “GPS” tab and “Remove Location Info” from the bottom.

• Mac OS only allows you to remove location data from EXIF. To remove more you’re going to need an image editor.

As you can see, EXIF data can be powerful information to help you verify and determine whether a photo is real or not. If you liked this article, check out my other blog posts where I discuss how to verify videos and other tips for content creators. I also have a Youtube Channel where I upload a lot of skill-sharing tips and tutorials. Follow me there to keep learning and growing, and remember, stay curious. 

How to investigate like a digital sleuth

The situation is intensifying between Russia and Ukraine. The latest news indicates that some journalists are being restricted from accessing areas in order to do their reporting.

Although I don’t work as a journalist with a news network currently, I think this is an important time to share some basic social newsgathering tips and skills with the public. Some of the tips and techniques I have in this article can, hopefully, help any journalist or citizen get the information they need to better understand whether something is real or not.

In this article, we’ll explore common ways to verify or debunk photos and videos using examples from January 2020. 

How do you verify a photo?

Reverse image search is one of the best ways that you can easily check whether a photo is real or not. There are plenty of resources to help you determine the source of a photo. My favorite tool is TinEye, which is an image search and recognition website. The owners of the website state that they are experts in computer vision, pattern recognition, neural networks, and machine learning, which they use to help them decipher and analyze photos.  

In January 2020, as tensions between the U.S. and Iran were increasing, Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar posted a photo of former President Barack Obama shaking hands with the Iranian president. "The world is a better place without these guys in power," he tweeted. 

But was the photo actually real? 

I downloaded the photo Rep. Gosar shared on Twitter, it has since been deleted, and I uploaded the image to TinEye. Immediately, the website brought up similar images, only many of these images were of President Obama and former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. I was also able to compare the photos and see that the color of the flag was changed, along with Singh being removed from the photo and swapped with a falsified image of Rhouhani. It turns out the original, undoctored photo was taken in 2011, which I was able to verify through reporting from news wires that published the photo back in 2011, and also White House archived records.

Fun fact: If you ever want to explore or learn more about White House photos, it’s helpful to check out the National Archives Catalogue where most of United States’ presidents’ diplomatic meetings and visits are photographed and stored on the website.

You also use this reverse image Google Chrome extension called RevEye, which I find really handy because you can easily right-click an image and reverse image search. The Chrome extension allows you to search images against different search engines like Yandex (Russian), Bing (Microsoft), and TinEye. Sometimes, this can be handy because different search engines yield different results. 

How do you verify a video?

This is a bit harder. The first step is to watch the video all the way through. Ask yourself these questions:

• What am I seeing in this video?

• What are the landmarks? For example, do I see buildings in the background?

• Are there street signs? If so, what language are they in?

• Do I hear anything? Anyone speaking? If so, what language? What are they saying?

• What time of day is it? What is the weather like in this video? For example, is it rainy or sunny or snowy?

Back in early 2020, tensions between the U.S. and Iran were rising. Then reports emerged of a plane possibly exploding over Tehran. Soon after, this video started circulating on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, claiming to show a passenger plane being shot down. Below is a short version of the original Telegram video.

Here’s how my former NBC team and I answered the following question:

• What am I seeing in this video?

  • The video shows a flash of light in the sky above what looks like an area with white buildings or factories. 

• What are the landmarks? Do I see buildings in the background?

  • There are white buildings in the background. There appears to be a black, metal structure in the foreground, and possibly a fence. 

• Are there street signs? If so, what language are they in?

  • We don’t see any visible street signs.

• Do I hear anything? Anyone speaking? If so, what language?

  • In the video, you hear a loud bang. And dogs barking after the bang.

• What time of day is it? What is the weather like in this video? Is it rainy or sunny or snowy?

  • It’s not clear what the weather is like at this time. But it is nighttime.

Here’s what we know from official sources who spoke to NBC News or shared information publicly on verified social media channels:

• Ukrainian passenger jet Flight PS752 went down after shortly departing Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport in Iran. 

• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said in a public statement that 82 of the people on board were Iranian, 63 were Canadian and 11 were Ukrainian, including the nine crew members. Ten were from Sweden, four were from Afghanistan, three were from Germany and three were from the United Kingdom.

• Western intelligence told reporters they believed a missile struck the plane

While leading my former team at NBC News, I was able to use visual clues from the video, and cross-check them against satellite imagery in order to identify the moment the plane was struck with an object in midair before crashing.

Here are the steps my former team and I took in order to verify this video: 

Look up flight data: Every commercial airplane has a transponder, which gives information like a plane’s altitude and location to ATC. A transponder can help identify an airplane. It’s very hard, almost impossible, for a commercial plane to just disappear. That’s why the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was so troubling, because its transponder signal disappeared, and thus, so did the plane. Websites like Flight Aware and Flight Radar 24 can help you find planes based on information like flight number, location, and time of flight. 

In order to verify whether the explosion in the Telegram video was actually of a plane, we first needed to determine when Flight PS752 was scheduled to take off from Imam Khomeini airport. Using Flight Radar we were able to locate the flight’s path, which shows that it was actively flying in the air for a short period of time after taking off from Imam Khomeini airport at night. This helps us know two things about the plane: It took off during the nighttime, so the sky was dark. And it was in the air for only a short amount of time, according to flight data from the transponder.

You can see that flight map below:

Satellite imagery: Next, we used Google Earth to look at the surrounding area near the Imam Khomeini airport, which is known as Parand, a planned city in Robat Karim County. We determined that we needed to look at Parand based on the flight path data. 

Although we knew we needed to look at the region of Parand, we needed more help identifying where exactly to look because it is still a city with an area of 5.664 mi², therefore, we looked back at the Telegram video to see if we can find any visual clues. Remember we noticed those white buildings in the background? Well, if you zoom into Parand on Google Earth, you can see that there are a few places in the city where the building architecture looks very similar.

We went back to Google Earth and zoomed in closer to the city until we found a set of buildings that appeared to match the buildings in the Telegram video. We also noticed that this set of buildings had black metal structures nearby that looked similar to the ones in the video. Considering the flight information, and where directionally the plane was flying from, we were able to determine the approximate location of where the video was captured. 

This helped us verify that the video did show footage from Parand. We found another video that was similar to this one, only we could hear someone in the video say the word “Ferdosiye," which is a city about 22 miles from Parand. And the debris of the plane was found in Khalajabad, the following morning, which is relatively close to both locations. 

That’s how we were able to verify the Telegram video, which shows the moment a missile struck Flight PS752. 

Applying social newsgathering techniques to verify Russia-Ukraine tensions

These two case studies are good exercises you can use to help prepare you if you’re hoping to learn more about the situation between Russia and Ukraine, or if you’re interested in learning more about other newsworthy events. For example, videos below surfaced in February 2022 on TikTok, allegedly showing Russian tanks (National Guard) heading towards the Ukrainian border.

@tod8885 #бтр#танки#война#врек#дорога ♬ Война - Нищий Король

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies (Maxar also provides satellite imagery to Google Earth, and publishes their findings on their public social media channels and sends them to news organizations) shows Russia amassing troops near Ukraine's borders. 

TikTok videos have also emerged showing men dressed in military uniforms that look similar to Russian military uniforms. The video below shows some of these men gathering at a train station in Buynaksk, which is located in Russia’s southwestern Dagestan region. You can compare the building architecture at the train station to what is documented on Google Maps, Google Reviews, and Google Image Search. In addition, you can crosscheck this video with other photos of the train station that were published publically on social media accounts to help verify the location. As for the uniforms, you can also check the pattern and uniform style of the troops by taking a screenshot of the video and uploading it to TinEye. This reserve image search technique, which you can sometimes use even with a video thumbnail, can help you find similar images or identify patterns.

@_dobro_100

Командировка

♬ оригинальный звук - Гаджишка

As you can see, we’ve applied some similar principles and techniques to the Russia-Ukraine TikToks as we did with the Iran case studies above. Investigating like a digital sleuth by using social newsgathering skills takes time and practice. But it’s important to keep in mind that the best investigators are persistent, skeptical, thorough, and think critically. 

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be publishing more content around how to conduct social newsgathering investigations. In the meantime, stay curious. 

How to tell a great story on TikTok

When I first started on TikTok, I was really struggling. My first few videos were bad. I was mostly posting videos of my poetry, and frankly, it wasn’t engaging a lot of people. So I started experimenting. I started posting different types of content, such as posting drawings and painting tips. Then, one of my painting videos went viral, garnering more than a million views, but I noticed that I didn’t gain any followers and the virality didn’t lead to any growth for my channel. 

I was back to where I originally started, a channel with stale, unengaging content.

As a systems thinker by nature, I took a step back from what I was doing to assess how I could make things better. What could I fine-tune, cut, optimize? First, I tried to make my videos shorter. I went from posting 15-second videos to seven-second videos. There wasn’t a lot of change in engagement metrics. Next, I tried to follow trends like lipsyncing trending sounds, or using popular filters. But I didn’t get much traction. Then, I tried using viral music in my videos. Again, I didn’t see any noticeable differences. It felt like nothing was working. TikTok wasn’t broken. The real problem was that I wasn’t posting engaging content. 

I needed to go back to basics. I needed to refocus my efforts on telling a good story. 

After analyzing my work and the work of other successful TikTokers, I found that there are a few storytelling formats and techniques that could help me connect with audiences and keep them watching. Here’s what I found:

Tell a great TikTok video by using a hook

1. Start with a provocative question: This is a common mechanism a lot of content creators use. They pose a question and then they go on to provide an answer in the video. I often use this technique when I want to dive deeper into a topic. For example, I’ve seen TikTokers say things like: Did you know there are some influencers who fake their lifestyles in order to seem famous? And then the rest of the video explains why. 

2. Share an interesting fact: There are many successful TikTokers who basically just share facts on their channels. It could be animal facts, science facts, pharmacy facts, there are a lot of topics to explore. These content creators will state an interesting fact at the beginning of their videos: Dolphins are the bullies of the ocean. When I hear a statement like that, I want to learn more, so I keep watching. It’s really effective in grabbing the attention of viewers.

3. Open the video with a quote: I’ve seen a lot of TikTokers start their videos with a powerful quote, either from someone famous or something they have thought about, and then they share it with their audience as a motivational mantra, or as a piece of information they want their audience to keep in mind. For example, a healthy person has many wishes, but a sick person has only one.

4. Use motion or sound to grab viewers’ attention: It’s common to see content creators step into a video frame or use their hands or swiftly change camera angles in order to keep their videos visually interesting. I try to use this method often when I’m sharing a video that is mostly just commentary.

5. Start with a big piece of data or a strong statement: I often use powerful statements or data at the start of my videos because they help me quickly launch into the point I’m trying to make. I found that if you are declaration and clear at the beginning of your videos, audiences see you as an authority or someone who has something interesting to say and they want to continue watching.

Use the narrative arc to engage viewers 

The narrative arc, or story arc, is used to describe a story’s progression and timeline. It shows the rising and falling tensions or emotions of the story. This progression of rising and falling in the story happens as the plot progresses and as the characters develop and encounter new challenges. You already know that every story has a beginning, middle, and end, but there’s a certain format great stories take in order to be compelling and drive engagement. 

The rise and fall in a story, the cause and effect, creates a compelling universe for the audience. This dynamic helps the story build its logic and rules. You will see story arcs not just in movies and TV shows, but also in video games, board games, commercials, and yes, even in short TikTok videos. 

In fact, there’s a video I put together that demonstrates the story arc. Take a look at the video below video and see if you can answer the following questions afterward: 

1. When the video starts, what’s the current situation the main character is facing?

2. What does the character desire?

3. What event happens that destabilizes the main character? 

4. What is the climax or main action of the video?

5. What resolves the climax of the story?

6. How is the main character after the climax of the story? How does she feel? Did she get what she wanted?

@jareenimam Too many choices #RufflesOwnYourRidges #understandingrelationships #datingtiktok #datingmemes #moderndatingbelike ♬ Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) - Edison Lighthouse

As you can see from the video, even though it was only a minute long, the video has a beginning, middle, and end, and it follows a basic story arc. I break down to show at which points the story progresses forward. 

Stories that follow a narrative arc keep audiences engaged because audiences are seeking a resolution for the main character or they want to see a resolution to a situation. And by introducing new challenges and situations, you keep the story interesting, and the audience engaged. 

Develop a story using classic storytelling formats 

1. Rags to Riches [a complete rise]

Everyone loves a great rags-to-riches story. It’s when the main character comes from adversity, poverty, loss, tragedy, and they overcome those issues and succeed. It’s sort of an American Dream narrative – coming from nothing and becoming something. We see this all over movies:

Rocky (1976)

Citizen Kane (1946) 

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 

Scarface (1983) 

Annie (1982)

Pretty Woman (1990)

The Pursuit Of Happyness (2006)

2. Riches to Rags [a fall]

Riches to rags is a less common storyline and operates more like a cautionary tale. One true story that comes to mind for me that fits this formate is the story of Bernie Madoff, an American financier who was ultimately convicted for running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, worth about $64.8 billion and destroying the financial lives of millions of people. His fraudulent actions led to his imprisonment and great suffering for his family as well. 

Other movies that follow this story format include: 

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Schitt’s Creek (2015 TV show)

Midnight Mass (TV show)

Psycho (1960)

3. Man in a Hole [fall then rise]

This story format is believed to draw some of the strongest emotional reactions from audiences. A 2018 study by the University of Birmingham found that this story format usually created buzz and blockbuster success. In fact, “man in a hole” films had the highest gross domestic revenues, earning $37.48 million on average. This story format isn’t always popular with mass audiences, but it is provocative and memorable. Some of the most evocative stories follow this format.

The most famous “man in the hole” movie is “The Godfather.” Another great example is the movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” where a fallen Batman tries to redeem himself and save Gotham. 

4. Icarus [rise then fall]

This is another cautionary story format that follows the “rise then fall” narrative. It’s also called the story of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the Sun and then fell into the sea. 

Other popular movies with this format include:

Mary Poppins (1964)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Goodfellas (1990)

The Aviator (2004)

The Artist (2011)

Marie Antoinette (2006) 

Scarface (1983) 

Casino (1995)

5. Cinderella [rise then fall then rise]

This Disney classic actually derives from a pretty gruesome fairytale. But it’s one of those narrative formats audiences love. A beloved character at the top of life endures hardship, falls from grace, and then rises back to the top. It’s a story of loss and redemption. People love a good comeback story, and Cinderella's format is one that is inspiring and gives audiences hope. 

6. Oedipus [fall then rise then fall]

Oedipus is a Greek tragedy. In mythology, Oedipus is the king of Thebes. When he’s younger, he leaves his parents’ kingdom after he learns of a prophecy that states he would kill his father and marry his mother – only he doesn’t know at the time that he’s adopted. On his journey to outrun the prophecy, he unwittingly kills his biological father and then goes on to marry his biological mother in a neighboring kingdom. When it is discovered that Oedipus’s wife is actually his mother, she hangs herself. Oedipus, crushed with grief and despair, blinds himself. This story format is another cautionary tale that warns its audiences about the dangers of pride and trying to fight one’s destiny. 

Other movies that have a similar format

Back to the Future (1985)

The Graduate (1967)

Black Swan (2010)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Tell a great story like Pixar 

If you want to explore telling stories beyond the classic formats, then Pixar’s Story Spine might intrigue you. In 2012, Pixar Story Artist Emma Coats shared the 22 storytelling tips Pixar uses to build a great story on Twitter. The list sort of went viral, and people were dubbing the list Pixar’s 22 rules of storytelling. In this list of rules, number 4 intrigued a lot of people because it seemed like a new storytelling format: Pixar’s Story Spine. 

Here’s how it goes: 

Once upon a time, there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

If you think back to every Pixar story, they all basically follow this narrative arc. The main character is living their life. Every day they follow a certain routine. But one day, something happens that changes their routine or causes them to have to break from their routine. And because of that, they have to act. And that action causes another effect. And this cause and effect go on until we get to the resolution of the story, which brings the main character back to equilibrium, and back to their new normal. 

It’s believed that Pixar didn’t come up with rule number 4. In fact, Hollywood lore has it that a Pixar employee took an improv class, which was being led by writer, director, and teacher Brian McDonald who introduced his students to the idea of the story spine. The Pixar employee took the lessons he learned from the class and brought them to Pixar. And then the story spine was ultimately incorporated into their rules of storytelling. 

This format is so successful and so good at captivating audiences that Silicon Valley hopefuls use this format to pitch their startups to potential venture capitalists, it’s THAT effective. 

If you want to explore the other Pixar storytelling rules, I’ve listed them below: 

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.

3. Trying for a theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

4. Once upon a time, there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working upfront.

8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

12. Discount is the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

16. What are the stakes? Give us a reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. 

Telling stories is a part of the human experience. It’s how we communicate information, emotions, and beliefs. If you can tell a good story, audiences will find you.

Building the best hashtag strategy to grow on TikTok

Going viral on social media is sort of a formula. It’s a lot of consistent hard work, great storytelling, timing, and honestly – luck. Yes, unfortunately. Some of us are luckier than others, much like life. However, of all the social media platforms operating right now, TikTok is your best platform to go viral on, and thankfully there are some mechanisms you can use to help you get your content discovered. In this blog post, we’re going to talk about developing a TikTok strategy and some best practices to consider. 

How to identify your niche on TikTok

This is the biggest, most obvious tip for using hashtags. If you are new to TikTok, you’ll learn soon enough that there are a few topics that are really popular on the platform. Some of these topics/niches include entertainment, dance, pranks, fitness, DIY/home, beauty, fashion, cooking, advice, pets, nature, according to a 2022 report by Statista. Everyone’s “For You Page” (FYP) is different. It’s based on our individual preferences and viewing habits. The trends I see most consistently on my “FYP” are finance, relationships, social media strategy, comedy, and food. So once you identify what your niche is, you’ll be able to start figuring out what hashtags to use. A good cheat code is that you can generally add the word “tok” to the end of most topics, and that will likely be a relevant hashtag on the platform. For example, foodtok, moneytok, and beautytok are some popular hashtags on TikTok. 

How do you find relevant TikTok hashtags?

Finding hashtags can be pretty easy on TikTok. One of the quickest ways is to do the following:

1. Launch the TikTok app

2. Navigate to the “Discover” page at the bottom of your screen. 

3. The discover page will show you what’s trending on the platform currently from trending hashtags to trending sounds. 

4. You can also search hashtags in the search bar above.

5. Another way to discover hashtags is by drafting a post. As you are about to post your video on TikTok, you can start typing a hashtagged word, and it will show you similar hashtags using the same word. For example, if you typed #dating, the app will also pull up #datingtok, #datingtips, #datingadvice, and a variety of other similar hashtags. Personally, I like to scan my options here and pick the hashtags that have the lowest views. 

Should you use social media analytics tools to find relevant TikTok hashtags?

I don’t recommend this option because TikTok has some of the most transparent analytics compared to any other social media platform that I’ve used. You can easily find relevant hashtags and their usage through the discover app. Hootsuite, a social media dashboard and analytics app, published a list of top 100 hashtags on TikTok, which you can look through, but I don’t recommend using most of them because many of them are too broad and overused to be effective in your content discovery strategy.

Use hashtags other content creators are using on TikTok

This is a very effective strategy. There’s nothing more informative than seeing what other content creators in your niche are using and replicating their strategy. TikTok actually encourages this. The app has a culture of content creators remixing ideas with their own original twists. If you see content creators you admire, look through their videos and check out what hashtags they are using. If you find hashtags that are relevant to your niche, brand, or business, use them. 

Learn what hashtags TikTok audiences are using

Some niches have a very strong sense of community. For instance, avid readers on the platform generally post content using #booktok. It’s an incredibly popular hashtag and that’s because the community actively participates in using the hashtag themselves. TikTok isn’t just a platform to broadcast your content, you want to invite audiences to engage and interact with your content. Therefore, seek out what audiences are already using and that will inform your strategy. 

Use hashtags that have less than a million views

It might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s better to add less popular hashtags for your content, as long as they are relevant because it raises the possibility that if your content does go viral, you’ll have a chance for your video to be “at the top of the hashtag.” That means when someone visits that hashtag page to see other videos that have used that same hashtag, there might be a chance that your video ranks at the top, which will add to your views. For instance, I post many videos about love, relationships, and understanding people. One of the hashtags I consistently use in my content is #findinglove. When I first started using the hashtag it had a little over a million views. The hashtag related to my content, I was talking about dating, marriage, and relationships, and therefore when some of my relationship videos eventually went viral, a few of them ranked at the top of the hashtag. 

Should you use #FYP, #ForYou, or #ForYouPage when posting on TikTok?

No. Definitely don’t tag your videos with #FYP or #ForYouPage. This doesn’t help your content get discovered, no matter how many TikTok “strategists” on the platform claim it does, it doesn’t. It doesn’t help the algorithm identify what your content is, so it won’t help you get reach relevant audiences. 

Should you make your own TikTok hashtag?

Yes! If you want to create a sense of community and you are consistently posting onto your channel, it could be a good idea to create your own hashtag. There are a few brands and businesses that have done this well, such as Fenty Beauty. Fenty uses hashtags like #FENTYICON and #ICONENERGY regularly, which have about 3 million views and 4.4 million views, respectively. If you visit those hashtag pages, you’ll see other beauty bloggers using those hashtags whenever they are reviewing Fenty products. 

Should you use TikTok’s promoted hashtags?

If you start posting on TikTok, you’ll notice that there is usually a sponsored hashtag, denoted in blue, that is being promoted by TikTok. Brands oftentimes buy these sponsorships and want to encourage social media users on the platform to use their sponsored hashtags. I like to include generally one sponsored hashtag in my post, and I look at including the one that has the least amount of views because it means it is just started to be used by content creators. Sometimes, you’ll see hashtags with more than 10 billion views, which is a lot, even for TikTok. There isn’t a hard science for whether you should use a sponsored hashtag that has that many views, because, for instance, the Olympics can garner those kinds of numbers, but generally, I try to go for smaller hashtags, even when they are sponsored. 

How many hashtags should I include in my post?

No more than 5 hashtags are generally recommended, and I agree. This is one of the biggest differences between developing a hashtag strategy for TikTok as opposed to Instagram. You’ll see Instagram users flood their posts with 20 or 30 hashtags, and some of them aren’t even relevant to their content. However, there’s a space limitation on TikTok, 100 characters. So generally, you can fit a short caption and about 5 hashtags. Since you have less room for hashtags, that means you need to focus on using relevant hashtags for your content strategy. 

And there you have it. Those are the hashtag strategies I used in the past 6 months to grow my TikTok account from zero followers to more than 60,000. These tips are also used by some of the most successful content creators and brands. Implementing is quite easy, you just need to stay consistent. Success might not come overnight, for instance, I didn’t go viral until my 50th post on TikTok, but I kept consistently posting videos and using the hashtag strategy that I outlined above.

Good luck, and let me know how your TikTok journey goes! 

Who are the top journalists on TikTok?

With more than a billion active users on TikTok, according to the app as of 2021, more brands, companies, and media organizations are trying to grow on the platform and connect with this highly engaged audience.

I’ve been a journalist for more than 10 years, building social media strategies for the largest media companies like CNN, CBS News, and NBC News. In 2021, I joined TikTok. The more I used the app and the more my channel grew, the more I started to take notice of how other creators were using the app, especially journalists and media organizations that were standing out on the platform.

Here is a list of a few journalists and news organizations that I think are dominating TikTok and why they are succeeding:

Best news organizations on TikTok

The Washington Post

@washingtonpost

Many in the U.K. have been fined for having parties during lockdown, but prime minister Boris Johnson has been exempt from these fines.

♬ original sound - Erich

At the top of the list is The Washington Post. It is one of the best examples of how a large media organization can tell original journalism on TikTok in an authentic way. The organization has 1.2 million followers on TikTok. The newspaper’s TikTok guy, that’s really what they call him, is named Dave Jorgenson and he’s a video producer at the Post. I first noticed his videos on TikTok during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. His TikTok videos lean into current TikTok trends as he tells complex news stories and facts in simple, digestible ways. Typically, his videos range between 15 seconds to 30 seconds, keeping viewers engaged and entertained.

Good morning bad news

@goodmorningbadnews Reply to @goodmorningbadnews #goodmorningbadnews #capitalism #finance #economics #economy #elonmusk #jeffbezos #unemployment #covid #covid_19 #inflation #stagflation #stockmarket #america #business #stocks #wallstreet #billion #trillion #networth ♬ original sound - Good Morning, Bad News

Ever heard of the phrase no news is good news? Well, the media company Good morning bad news creates content that dives into bad or unpleasant news and tells it using a combination of dry humor, simple language, and an easy-to-understand format. With almost a million followers, the channel has carved a space for itself on the app, leaning into telling the bad, or good news, and helping the audience understand complex information clearly and succinctly. The channel publishes content that not only touches on one-off news moments and events, but it finds its strength creating content that is published in parts, such as its “Omicron superhuman immunity” series and “Capitalism is dead” series.

Morning Brew

@morningbrew Meme Stock Reunion (@dhtoomey) #meme #stocks #investing ♬ original sound - Morning Brew

Morning Brew makes business news entertaining. The account has more than 300K followers and uses irreverent humor and current TikTok trends, like sounds and formats, to craft short business videos. The channel publishes series like Markets 101, which helps serialize some of its content. Its TikTok hosts leverage humor to help them tell important business news in quick and funny ways.

Best individual journalists on TikTok

Max Foster, CNN

@maxfostercnn #royal #titles #katemiddleton #learnontiktok ♬ Blue Blood - Heinz Kiessling & Various Artists

The London-based CNN anchor has grown his account to more than 400K followers by sharing a variety of politics-based news, explanatory videos, and CNN footage. Unlike other big network journalists, his content feels more authentic to the TikTok platform because he uses features like the built-in TikTok greenscreen, which isn’t the sleekest feature, but a feature TikTok creators use to record platform-specific content. Foster also uses engaging hooks to captivate the viewer. His video, “Will Kate be queen,” which refers to whether Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, will become the Queen of England, got more than 1.8 million views. The video didn’t have high production. And the information in it wasn’t earth-shattering. It was a simple video that used the greenscreen feature where Foster explained the likelihood of whether Kate would become queen — spoiler alert, the chances aren’t that high (currently). I’m not a big fan of following news anchors on social media — I was a journalist for more than 10 years, and I worked at CNN for 6 of them. Generally, big network anchors don’t always do their original reporting, or they come off as awkward on social media platforms, however, I think Foster does a good job making his content accessible and not pretentious for the average TikTok viewer.

Taylor Lorenz

@taylorlorenz Gotta fake it till you make it! #contentcreator #creatoreconomy #influencer #influencers #creator #influencers #journalist #news #reporter #journalism ♬ Giddy Up Let's Ride - Kinsu

Taylor Lorenz is one of my favorite TikTok journalists right now. She reports on the creator economy, which I’m passionate about — so I’m a little biased. However, I think this tech reporter does a great job demystifying complex topics. Whenever I watch her content, I feel like I’m learning something new. For instance, she posted a video about how there’s a trend where influencers are faking brand deals to appear like they are more successful or in demand than they are and how that’s a big shift from the mindset creators once had about working with brands a few years ago. Lorenz talks directly to her viewers, and she uses great hooks and questions to grab viewers’ attention. With more than 500K followers, I think many other viewers agree that she’s worth the follow.

Cleo Abram

@cleoabram Reply to @rfb722 okay here we go! #learnontiktok #NFT #climatechange ♬ original sound - Cleo Abram

Another favorite journalism TikToker of mine is Cleo Abram. She’s a technology reporter who has done content series around topics like NFTs, crypto, space, and science. I’ve learned a lot of interesting facts from Abram’s videos, and I appreciate the way she can tell an engaging story, typically with a beginning, middle, and end. She also incorporates graphics and animations in her video to help illustrate the points she’s making. And she’s not fixed on only sharing videos about her niche. She has also published videos that were popular around celebrity news. For instance, one of her more popular videos is about why Kristen Bell was her favorite celebrity interview. By creating content that sometimes expands beyond her niche, Abrams can capture viewership from a larger audience.

Bianca Graulau

@biancagraulau This was in Ocean Park in #puertorico ♬ original sound - Bianca Graulau

I haven’t come across many journalists of different backgrounds or diversity, unfortunately. But I am glad I discovered Bianca Graulau’s channel. The Puerto Rico-based independent journalist tells powerful stories about socio-economic issues, climate change, and local issues impacting Puerto Rico. I’m from Florida, and for a few months in 2021, I was living in South Florida, that’s when I came across Graulau’s channel on the app. I think she uses a lot of great visual imagery to tell her stories, and I like how focused she is on reporting micro and macro issues about Puerto Rico.

Kyla Scanlon

@kylascan Evergrande #fyp #foryou #KeepItRealMeals #AEJeansHaveFun #evergrande #bankruptcy #business ♬ Calm LoFi song(882353) - S_R

From what I can tell, Scanlon isn’t a professional journalist, but she gained a following of more than 114K viewers by sharing daily business news updates around topics like the stock market, crypto market, and other business news events. I first took notice of her work when she posted a video about Evergrande and how its real estate lending practices could be the next Lehman Brothers situation for China — thus, possibly affecting larger global markets. I found her storytelling to be sharp, witty, concise, and engaging. I watched that whole video through, and now I consistently watch her content.

That’s wrap of my top TikTok journalists 

This is my (current) short-list of standout journalists on TikTok.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. And that’s because it’s not easy to find journalists on TikTok organically unless the algorithm detects that you’re a news junkie. I enjoy a lot of business and tech news, therefore my list above is a bit slanted towards those topics. However, I did do deeper dives into major network newsrooms like CNN, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and I looked through their TikTok content. I think most of those channels are fine, but they all sort of feel the same and unoriginal. That’s why I didn’t add them to this list.

For instance, if you’ve seen one White House press briefing on one network’s channel, why would you need to see it again on another channel? TikTok is about brevity, originality, and adding your own twist to a trend, sound, or piece of content. Another point I want to share is that TikTok doesn’t have a good search platform. It’s really hard to find a TikTok video again once you’ve swiped past it if you’re not following the creator. If you’re a journalist or a news organization trying to get discovered on TikTok, make sure to add the word “journalist” or “news” to your bio for audience discovery. I’ll post another blog post about how journalists and creators can optimize their TikTok accounts for audience discovery.

In the meantime, if you want to discover more journalists on TikTok, Harvard’s NeimanLab is actively compiling a list of journalists in a spreadsheet that you can browse.

How to get started on TikTok

Learn how you can start recording TikTok videos.

It’s true, a lot of people are on TikTok. It may be one of the fastest-growing social media apps currently. In 2021, the short-form video app said it had reached 1 billion global active TikTok users each month.

It’s clear TikTok is taking over the world, or at least, the trend of short, digestible videos has become incredibly popular. And there’s no better time to get started creating on the platform than right now. I’ve been working professionally as a social media expert for more than 10 years, and I believe TikTok has one of the easiest interfaces when it comes to making short-form videos. It’s fast and easy to learn, so the barrier to becoming a TikTok content creator is low. 

Here are simple steps you can take to start filming your own videos on TikTok. 

Step up your TikTok profile

When you are starting off on TikTok, it’s generally a good idea to write a bio that includes what topics you’ll be posting about. Adding your topic or “niche” to your bio can help audiences easily understand what your channel is about and it could help you grow your account. It’s OK if you don’t know what content you are planning to produce when you first begin. For instance, I originally started my channel sharing my poetry. But over time, I started posting videos about art after I had an art video of mine go viral. However, I changed my storytelling strategy again when I realized I didn’t have enough art content to produce. Now, I have a clear sense of the content I create, which centers around love, money, and careers – topics I have a lot of experience researching and discussing. And that is also reflected in my channel bio. 

Start recording on TikTok

When you are ready to start filming, simply click the plus button at the bottom of the TikTok app. This will launch your phone camera to record video. Here you have the option to upload clips and edit them natively in the app, which I don’t recommend doing because the editing suite is not as comprehensive as other tools like Final Cut Pro, Abode Premiere, or iMovie. 

Instead, I recommend either uploading fully edited videos to TikTok. Or recording natively on the app, which users theorize TikTok prefers. Meaning, you are likely to have more exposure of your content to a larger TikTok audience if you natively record on the app and use its features, like trending sounds and stickers. TikTok hasn’t officially confirmed this, but it is a common theory successful TikTokers credit with helping them grow on the platform. 

Determine the length of your TikTok video

On TikTok, you can record videos between 15 seconds, 60 seconds, and 3 minutes. TikTok users like watching short videos. Therefore, I recommend creating content that is anywhere between 7 seconds (yes! I know that very short) and 30 seconds when you are starting off. The common length of videos though is about 15-second clips, which I think is a good length to record when you are getting started. 

Use storytelling techniques for your TikTok videos

Unlike Instagram Stories where users can post snippets of their life, TikTok’s audience rewards good storytelling. Therefore, it’s a good idea to format all your videos with a beginning, middle, and end. Even 15-second videos have these narrative arcs. 

When you start off your video, have a captivating hook. A common hook is posing a question or a problem and then explaining the answer or solution to the audience. Think about your favorite movies, how did they hook you? For instance, for many crime thrillers, the grisly crime scene starts off the movie. The audience knows immediately a crime has been committed and now they invested in trying to figure out who did it and why.

Make your TikTok videos dynamic

There’s nothing more boring than watching someone talk directly to the camera. TikTok users are used to short and engaging videos. To add dimension to your content, use motion – like panning and zooming – to keep the audience engaged visually. Use sounds and text-on-screen to keep them watching.

Use trending sounds to promote your TikTok

Sound and music are really important to TikTok’s community. Users are encouraged to upload original sounds and reuse the sounds of other users in their videos. There’s an option when making your video to add music to your video. You can navigate to “TikTok viral” where you can select the sounds that are currently the most popular on the app and apply that to your video. Adding trending sounds to your video can help “push” your video potentially to the “For You” page, which is the page most TikTok audiences use to watch and discover new content. 

Use relevant hashtags to boost your TikTok videos

Once you composed your video, you’re ready to post it. But before you do, you will have the option to add captions. It’s important to add a short caption with room for you to add up to 5 relevant hashtags. Adding hashtags to your video is crucial because it helps the app categorize your content and share it with audiences who are interested in the topics you’ve hash-tagged in your video. 

Don’t worry about your TikTok video views  

When you are starting off on TikTok, it might happen that you strike it big and your first video gets a million views. It’s rare, but it happens. But then the next video might get only 10 views. First-time users of the app generally have their first 5 videos amplified by TikTok to a larger audience – causing inflated video view numbers. That helps garner large video view numbers when you are starting off. Some social media experts hypothesize that by doing this, users get excited about using the app, and want to try continuing to reach higher video views. However, it’s natural to see those video views taper off as you continue using the app. For instance, when I started off on the app, my first 5 videos got about a thousand views each, and I had no followers. That’s pretty good. But my next 10 videos got less than a dozen views. During these low points, I would experiment with my videos and try to change something about them, such as how I told stories, my filming techniques, or even the way I used lighting in my videos. I tested out multiple variables to see if those changes impacted my view count. Through that process, I was able to refine my storytelling and editing to produce better quality videos, which yielded better views later on – and my audience took notice.

Just get started recording on TikTok

Finally, just get started. Your first video won’t be as polished and perfect as you want it to be. But that’s OK. TikTok is a platform with many users of all skill levels. There isn’t an expectation of perfection. Focus on telling a good story, have fun in the process, be yourself, and you will find your audience.