I’m getting too old for this sh*t. I don’t know anything about Fortnite, PUBG, dance challenges or Addison Rae. I was raised with Myspace, P2P sharing of MP3s, Motorola Razr and MSN Messenger, so when TikTok came along, I was kind of baffled. It took a whole week of being on the platform for me to understand what the hell I’m seeing – but after that, I was hooked!
First off, it seemed like TikTok knew what kind of content I wanted to consume. It wasn’t just random dance videos and weird overdubs – it was all these sick little niches that I liked, like content about marketing, new tech and travel. I found myself falling deeper into this rabbit hole every day on my train rides to/from work, decrypting parts of this machine called TikTok one video at a time.
The TikTok community is mostly young, but that reality is changing fast. The more mainstream the app becomes (2 billion downloads and counting is pretty mainstream I guess), the more older its users guess. Another contributing factor (at least in my eyes) is the development of different niches that create space for people from all walks of life.
While most of the people on TikTok are Generation Z (60%) the platform is slowly getting older – and with that, comes opportunity.
Why should you care?
Bringing in new fans to your ecosystem is one of the best ways to grow as an artist. Imagine a world where you can carve out a niche all to yourself and absolutely dominate it! Take for example Spencer X. By putting his own unique twist on existing music, Spencer grew a massive TikTok following (45 Million and counting) and that translates into more streams on Spotify, Apple Music and other DSPs.
So how do I get more followers and views on TikTok?
Unlike Instagram or Facebook, TikTok is built on discovery. That means that the only thing that stands between you and an endless sea of fans is great content, posted consistently in context! We’re working on some great courses for content creation, but in the meanwhile here are some tips –
- Don’t bury your hook! TikTok videos are snappy – so make sure you get a good hook in the first 3 seconds of the video.
- Call to action – Create content that encourages collaboration or action. To that end, a series of content can be very effective (like for part 2).
- Carve out your niche! Keeping some of your posts in a similar niche will help you get noticed by more people in that relevant niche, allowing for more TikTok followers
- Keep it short! We found that the most important factor in getting a video to go viral is the percentage of watchtime. Getting people to watch more of your video will get you more views.
- Be authentic! This is solid advice for all social media accounts, but especially for TikTok!