Should you be filming 10-minute videos on TikTok?
TikTok now has 10-minute videos, but should you start making them?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
When the video starts, what’s the current situation the main character is facing?
What does the character desire?
What event happens that destabilizes the main character?
What is the climax or main action of the video?
What resolves the climax of the story?
How is the main character after the climax of the story? How does she feel? Did she get what she wanted?
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:
You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
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.
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.
Once upon a time, there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working upfront.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Discount is the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
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.
If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
What are the stakes? Give us a reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
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:
Launch the TikTok app
Navigate to the “Discover” page at the bottom of your screen.
The discover page will show you what’s trending on the platform currently from trending hashtags to trending sounds.
You can also search hashtags in the search bar above.
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?
Find out why these journalists are succeeding 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
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.
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 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
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 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.
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.
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.
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
It seems like just about everyone is on TikTok. If you’re curious about getting started on TikTok this blog post will show you how to get started recording on TikTok, easily.
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.