A recent insight that’s caused my TikTok followers to grow by 5x daily.
For the longest time you couldn’t repost viral videos on TikTok as is.
On Instagram you can do this with Reels. Any video of mine that goes viral on Instagram will be reposted as is every ~6-12 months. The only thing I’ll change is the description.
Here are two recent ones. Repost on Oct 22 with 773,000 views. Repost on Oct 1 with 968,000 views.
But again, TikTok, unlike Instagram, for the longest time didn’t allow direct reposts without videos being altered.
But rules were meant to be broken – or in this case changed – so as a point of policy, every now and then I’ll retry things that could be impactful.
Retrying on TikTok
Two months ago I retried on TikTok. I took a previously viral video and reposted it with only the description changed.
It didn’t go viral, but it wasn’t suppressed in reach as has been the case in the past. The video got a few thousand views (not suppressed) rather than a few dozen (suppressed).
I concluded TikTok now allows reposts of your own viral content.
But could I make one go viral again?
I tried a few more times and…
1.3 million views so far. The only thing changed was the description.
And, follower growth for the period after:
Here’s why
Here’s why this is great news.
If you’re active making videos, one well-performing video essentially equals many well-performing videos.
Repost the same video every couple of months.
The more hits you have, the more you can compound growth by posting previous viral videos along with new videos.
How I do it
Here’s how I do it.
I use the automation listed here to have my videos back up to Google Drive as they’re posted. All 2,000+ of my videos are backed up and searchable with their descriptions.
Every week I’ll sort TikTok by most popular and look at old viral videos that can be reposted:
That’s it!
I repost previous viral videos to Instagram Reels and now TikTok, and compound growth.
Social video is one of the greatest all-time marketing channels.
One viral video is many viral videos.
