Breaking TikTok: 5 Top Tips For How To Break Out On The App

TikTok is an app that truly has the power to change lives. 

Throughout 2020 creators flocked to TikTok as a way to stay connected and express themselves during the pandemic, and its popularity exploded as a result. As of January 2021, the app had been downloaded over 2 billion times and had over 689 million active users every month.

So how does it change lives? Through an incredibly smart algorithm. 

TikTok’s algorithm is designed to serve up videos that the user really wants to see, based on a combination of what’s currently popular and what that specific user has enjoyed in the past. This means that content you post on TikTok will be served up to people who are genuinely interested in it, which leads to greater engagement.

TikTok creators have been able to leverage this to create huge followings, promote their businesses and even quit their day jobs!

If you want to break out on TikTok, there are a few things you need to bear in mind.

Hooks

TikTok videos are short. You can upload videos that are up to one minute long, but the optimal length is between 9 and 15 seconds.

Even with such a short video, it’s tough to keep a viewer watching for the whole thing. If you don’t hold their attention, they will swipe past you and onto the next one.

The best way to keep a viewer watching for your whole video is by using hooks. A good hook at the very start of your video is particularly important, and you should keep using them throughout.

The most effective hooks work because you have evoked a strong emotional response from your viewer. The emotions most likely to keep us watching are surprise, disgust, anger, joy and intrigue. 

This video is a great example of the use of hooks. Firstly, it’s incredibly funny which evokes joy in the viewer, and this continues through the whole video. Secondly, intrigue is used throughout – will his Mom ever catch him? This combination has kept millions of viewers watching all the way to the end.

Three of the kinds of hooks you can use to evoke these emotional responses are:

• Questions. Questions are used to evoke intrigue in your viewer. You let them know that by continuing to watch your video, their curiosity will be sated. You can do this either by posing a question or by implying one. 
• Pattern interrupt. Pattern interrupt is a powerful way to grab someone’s attention. Pattern interrupt occurs when you say or do something that breaks someone out of the default thought pattern or state of mind.
• Offering value. If you can create a video that gives people information that they genuinely need, they are going to keep watching. The key is working out what people are looking for.

Resonance

Videos that do well on TikTok do so because they resonate with the audience. This means that the creator says something that speaks to something personal for the viewer. 

This video immediately draws on a pain point for most of us. We’ve all wondered at one stage or another what we’re doing with our lives, and this creator calls us out on that. He uses resonance by talking about something that is important to the viewer, combined with pattern interrupt – forcing us to think differently. This powerful blend is what has meant the video has racked up tens of thousands of views.

If you want to resonate with your audience, create content that is genuinely valuable to them. You can offer them humour, insight, entertainment or advice but whatever it is, always think about what adds value for your viewer.

Vulnerability is also an important part of being a content creator. What is likely to draw people to your content are the personal things that you share, that make you an individual. It’s important to be sparing with this, though. People like some vulnerability, but they probably aren’t going to be interested in someone who just talks about themselves for an entire video! 

The best way to create effective TikTok content is to find something that you are genuinely passionate about and create your content around that. If you are genuinely passionate about something, this will come across in your videos and your audience are much more likely to resonate with it.

Consistency

Once you have got the hang of creating videos that your viewers enjoy, it’s important that you remain consistent with your content.

This means sticking to the topic or theme that your audience has come to expect of you. This is also known as a niche – a particular field that you are an expert in.

Being consistent with the content you create is important because it means that your audience knows what to expect when they watch your videos. If they started following you because they love the amazing cakes that you make, they may not be interested if you suddenly post a video about your political views. 

At EAEO we work hard to find an influencer within a niche that is completely relevant to your product. This makes influencer marketing through TikTok incredibly effective. 

Hashtags

The TikTok community is about a conversation between its users, and if you can add to a relevant conversation then your content is much more likely to be successful.

If you open up the TikTok app and go to the discover page, you can see all of the hashtags which are currently trending on the app. These are the topics that a lot of people are talking about. If a hashtag is trending and it’s used on a video, it’s more likely to be shown to people on their ‘for you’ page who have engaged with similar hashtags in the past, so adding it to your video can be a great idea.

Using trending hashtags is a great way to make your content more visible, but only if they are actually relevant! It’s worth looking at the trending hashtags when you’re planning your content to see if there is something you can add to the conversation.

EAEO Influencers working with brands are experts in making use of the hashtags which are relevant to the product they are promoting. This means that the content they post will be seen by the people who are already interested, which is a perfect way to create engagement.

Lives

One of the most unique things about TikTok is the relationship that it allows creators to form with their audiences. Because of the nature of TikTok videos, people feel a personal connection with the creators they follow, and TikTok lives are a great way for creators to deepen this connection.

When a creator goes live they can talk directly with their audience, and the audience can ask questions which the creator can respond to. This gives the audience the opportunity to get to know their favourite creators better. Going live is also another opportunity for creators to be discovered by new fans.

If you’re going to go live it’s important to add value and stay on topic, as with video creation. What lives give you that videos don’t is the opportunity to go deeper into a topic, and to actively engage with your audience. You can learn a lot from a live about what your audience actually wants, which you can use to feed into your content in the future.

It’s through lives that influencers truly cement the bond with their audience, and become a trusted influence.

If you follow these five tips you should find your TikTok content going from strength to strength! The most important thing though is just to give it a go and have fun while you do.

If you’re interested in working with a TikTok creator as part of your brand campaign then please get in touch, we’d love to help!