What a difference a week makes in the world of social media.
Especially on TikTok.
Last weekend, one of my TikTok videos generated 1.5 million views in less than three days!
Here’s the story…
The video is a short set of clips, showing my son’s batting skills progressing from the time he was 4 years old until now, age 8. I thought the video would be popular but really didn’t expect much virality.
Here’s the video:
@the.anthony.jones ##littleleague ##baseball ##competitivebaseball ##coachpitch ##baseballdad
♬ Legends Are Made – Sam Tinnesz
I uploaded the video on Thursday evening. Within an hour, it reached 3,100 views. For the sake of comparison, most of my videos only receive a few dozen views in the first hour, so I was sensed this one might actually have a chance of going viral. I went to bed and woke up the next morning to a disappointing 3,500 views. It was like TikTok just hit the brakes altogether. What happened!??
I decided to re-create the video using a different song. The song in the first video was “Legends Are Made”, which fit perfect with the context of the video. My concern was related to potential copyright issues, even though the song is approved for creators to use. This time I chose a more generic song and re-posted.
It performed even worse.
But late that evening, 24 hours after the post, the views on my original video had jumped to 8,000. When I woke up the next morning, it had 300,000 views! And by the end of the weekend, it had a mind blowing 1.5 million views!
I showed the numbers to my son and told him he was officially “TikTok famous.” For a moment, I was Super Dad. 💪
Total Stats Updated May 17:
1.9 million views | 272,000 likes | 1,418 comments | 445 shares
4 Lessons I Learned…
- Be a Little Patient
Just because a video doesn’t go viral in the first 24 hours doesn’t mean it’s dead. I think videos have up to 48 hours to filter into the “For You” page, which is key to going viral. - 19K New TikTok Followers in 3 Days
This video took my follower count from 2,000 to nearly 21,000 in just three days! To put that in perspective, I’ve been highly active on LinkedIn and it’s taken a lot of work to grow that following to 33,000 people over the course of five years!
I added 19,000 followers in 3 days on TikTok as a result of ONE video. 😲 - Now is the Time
TikTok isn’t saturated and now is the time to jump on that wagon if you’re looking to build your brand or just have your content get seen. Most people with TikTok accounts are not posting content on a regular basis. The vast majority simply log on to watch and share videos. I guarantee I could post this same video a year from now and it would be lucky to get half of those views– because more people will be posting videos. In other words, more competition. Just like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram today, which are totally oversaturated with content. - Show me the money! But not really.
During this process, I learned about the TikTok Creator Fund, which pays creators who have a minimum of 10,000 followers and 100,000 views on their video content. I also learned it’s important to keep my day job. This was the payout from my viral video:
Oh, I should mention that Parker demanded half of the profit, since he was the star of the production. So, make that a cool $9.38 in profit. The yachts and private jets will have to wait.
Regardless, TikTok has now become a focal point of my personal branding efforts.
Follow my personal TikTok account: @the.anthony.jones
Follow my LinkedIn Tips account: @LinkedInMarketing