If you haven’t followed me yet, please do so by clicking on my name in the top of your screen – I will follow you back 😂
I, like many other South Africans, discovered TikTok during the 2020 Level 5 Covid-19 lockdown. So I have been on TikTok for almost a year. I recall seeing some TikTok video about a woman called Thembi and Malcolm (now better know as Malcolm_FKN_Wentzel which had leaped out of the app and into social media during this time.
Since then TikTok has stolen all my social media time.
I started posting (again, like many) videos of my dog. My first attempts were utter failures. I decided to rather watch TikTok than create.
As the year progressed, my time spent on the app increased substantially, I was consuming almost anything I could find. My TikTok algorithm was (is) a mess.
In October 2020 we got very busy with studio productions. Anybody who has worked in television, video or live productions know that there is a lot of waiting time. My waiting time soon transformed into creating behind the scenes video, and by Christmas I was really rolling out a lot of content every day.
The creation of videos with the complete freedom of using any soundtrack I could imagine. and the freedom to create whatever I wanted really appealed to me. The art-director in me did help with getting my videos looking ok. Not as slick as the professional TikTokkers who do a thousand times better than me.
I started off 2021 with 333 followers.
By early January my path crossed with a “grower” known as growing_with_marius. The whole growth culture had just started on TikTok and I really enjoyed the energy of Live Grow Parties.
Soon I was in it :-). I was attending grow parties daily and saw the impact it had on my followers. My following increased to 4k (by March 2021), Most of my growth came off grow parties, live chats and TikTok Lives,
My journey on this fascinating app continues. I will keep this site updated.
My First “Viral”
My followers are less than 5k (March, 2021) and my video views on this audience tends to reach between 100-200 views. This video is the exception.
Commenting on Controversy
Shortly after Easter 2021, there was a great release of Christiaans on TikTok. These included some who are still standing like Christiaan Met Twee AA’s (Christiaan Otto) and Joe. One called all things human a sin, and the other professed to have been sent to bring change.
Crazy times.
One night, I commented on a video by Christiaan and my video was reported and removed. I posted a comment video which reached 3,8k views.
Life Hacks:
Life Hacks seem to work like a charm. I have had great performance using the TikTok concept of “Show me the life hack which…”
TikTok Releases advertising in South Africa
TikTok has released its advertising module in South Africa. This will allow users to promote their content to a specific audience and allow advertisers to more effectively target who sees their branded or promotional content.
I am not sure how advertising will land in TikTok land. The platform forms a very personal relationship between the viewer and the content creator, and I am not sure how many TikTokkers will feel about a hard-commercial message being shown in a discussion between you and a fried.
As with all things, time will tell.
I have a presentation about this module on Monday and will update this blog with relevant content.
TikTok Advertising
It has been a while since I updated this page. The launch of TikTok’s advertising features was great and the launch well attended by many media strategists and planners.
And now – almost 8 months later, and having used the advertising features, all I can say is it is a great platform. It delivers an insane CPM (Cost per Thousand) Rate – but don’t be fooled by a low CPM. You need to get you viewer past the first 2-seconds – and to do that you do need great content 🙂
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