After nearly 70 days of daily posting on TikTok, averaging 3.3 videos a day, I finally had my first viral video. Here’s what I learned.
About my videos
- My TikTok is @build_in_public
- These are my most successful videos so far:
- The one that went viral – “Apple just took the eyedropper tool and made it real.”
- The most disruptive thing to happen to the Internet in the last 20 years – “Google just revealed its war plans for ChatGPT.”
- Sharing more tech updates that interest me – “The founder of Nest has a new startup and it’s trash.”
My niche is building in public as on Twitter this niche is saturated, but on TikTok it’s still non-competitive. I also use Repurpose.io to have all my videos appear on all platforms simultaneously. I’d recommend this solution for anybody putting out videos frequently on any platform.
What I learned
Like everybody has said, TikTok is still a fantastic marketing channel. I’ve gotten users for my projects – Commit Club and Reverb – through here, visitors to my this site – Edwardsturm.com – and increased SEO rankings from the traffic.
Making content as you’re learning does really well. If you’re a student of anything, share your learnings through TikTok videos and you’ll build some authority in your niche while solidifying your knowledge through summarizing. My best performing videos are usually ones in which I share something that I just learned.
Making daily TikToks does not have to require effort and time. Before starting on TikTok, I thought you had to use Premiere, do all this editing and transcription work, etc etc. No.
I shoot all my videos in the TikTok app. I use the app to apply a noise filter and transcriptions. I do simple cutting in the app. I choose a song in the app. I find hashtags in the app. It’s 10/10 easy and fast (15-20 min per video).
Optimize for fun. A controversial piece of advice, but I see video and content creation as a long-play move. This is why my #1 KPI is fun. If I continue enjoying it (ie making production as seamless as possible), there will be very little friction with me turning out content.
Hope this inspires anybody thinking about starting. It’s the easiest thing in the world and you don’t have to have an existing go-to-market as the algorithm will throw views at you.
