OMG I Went Viral on TikTok (Here’s What I Learnt)

So I’ve been avoiding TikTok. I admit it. We use it (loosely) for Spaghetti, and the team (including Jo who loves cooking, life hacks, and dogs – so many dogs) love it.  

But I have resisted it.  

That said, recently I’ve been really into Facebook and Instagram Reels. The scene was set for the slippery slope to TikTok.  

So, a few months ago, I got on TikTok and posted one video and then… forgot about it! 

So last week I returned and got back on it and well… one of my videos has gone past the 1/4 million view mark and I’d gained 3,000 followers in a week!  

OMG I Went Viral on TikTok (Here’s What I Learnt) 

@thecontentcowboy Hpw long does it take to see the benefits from going sober? Does it take years? Or months?  Well… there’s some good news for those who are impatient like me!  #healthandfitness #sobriety #fitness #soberlife #sobertiktok ♬ Emotional – Bang Nono

How? “Tell me your secrets!!” I hear you say.  

Look, I’m by no means a TikTok expert but as a social media fan, trainer, and agency owner I did apply all I knew to my first few videos and in this blog I’m going to share what I’ve learnt so far and what worked.  

I hope it helps your content.  

No cash, no follower hack, just posted 

Firstly, I did this without any followers. I think I accidentally followed a few accounts when I set it up. But apart from that, this was a standing start from zero. I decided to post about my alcohol journey rather than marketing and use it as a little side project/experiment. I’ve taken many ideas, thoughts, skills, tactics, and other stuff from my social media creation and consumption (mostly from Reels) to create the content here.  

The below tips back up that, although TikTok is a fairly new channel, the way the platform works is very familiar to other channels.  

Niche, niche, niche 

One thing I really wanted to do with this channel was to niche. Really niche. In our business we get dragged into all sorts of content, and our company Instagram is a good example of this. It does the job for us. It engages clients, followers, and future employees; but it will never go viral or grow to a big channel. We’re cool with that. But part of me wanted a channel to really grow and I know that successful channels do this simply by going all in on one – often very niche – topic.  

So, I chose my sober life as the niche and decided to take many of the popular posts from my own Facebook as the subject matter. Using these posts as inspo (as they say on TikTok) for the posts I’m going to create a tonne of content on this new (to me) channel. 

Get to the point  

Issues that had really held me back from TikTok before was: 

1. It’s all video. 
2. You need really short, snappy, edited video. 

I know how to speak and present, I love video, and I can (when I try) get my point into a small timeframe. My first and all subsequent videos start right away, almost like a summary of the entire video, much like the popular videos I was seeing on Reels. It’s what TikTok needs.  

Users decide in a matter of seconds whether they’re going to watch the autoplaying video on your device so as a creator you have literally seconds (maybe 2-3) to grab the attention of users.  

So all the videos start with the end and middle and point of the video all summed up in a short and sharp intro. I aim them at the viewer and use a topic I know will stop them in their tracks and then (importantly) I follow that up with great content.  

I also realised that you don’t need to over edit the videos to take out all the “ums” and “ers”. One comment did say I spoke too slowly but that’s one from 100s so I’m not about to focus on that.  

(Todd can be accused of many things, but speaking slowly isn’t one of them! When he’s had too many coffees and gets excited only dogs can hear him. – Jo) 

Many of the top performing content creators edit all the silence out but as a public speaker and presenter I’m up for the challenge of keeping them unedited for now.  

Get good now, get perfect later!  

SEO-friendly  

TikTok is a search engine. Most users know this and they search the channel for content much like us older generation do with YouTube. We know our SEO here at Spaghetti Agency and we understand about researching keywords and using those words and phrases in content. TikTok is no different.  

The title of the video, the words you use in the video, and the hashtags all have a part to play here it seems. The more I look into this the more I learn, too. There’s a super sneaky hack that some content creators do that seems to work that involves using keywords in on screen text that you hide below that I might look more into later.   

In short though, to go ‘viral’ on TikTok you need to consider what it is people want to see and to do that you simply do some searches of your own. This is simple: Just search in the app see what TikTok auto-completes from your search keywords. It’s actually really simple to do, but it was a happy accident when I started.   

Reply, reply, reply 

I’ve always been an advocate of replying to comments on social media and have long known that these replies and subsequent replies to those replies helps boost your content. So, just like I do on LinkedIn and Facebook I replied to nearly all the comments on my videos and I do it right away, too, as I’ve added the notifications to my iPhone.  

Yes, I’m risking being slightly more involved that I wanted to be, but in the beginning you have to go all in on a channel and I’m invested on that for now. So, notifications are on and I check it a lot. 

Be concise! 

All my videos are over 60s, most are 3 minutes. This is actually long for TikTok but it’s what I want to do. To do this though, you can’t afford to waffle. I’ve used a simple video tip I’ve used for years with Facebook live, and it’s this: 

• Cover 3-4 points only 
• Write them on a post-it note 
• Pop that note above your phone where you can see them 

This keeps your content on point and concise and ensures you’re not only keeping to what you want to say, but makes you plan what you want to say, and also helps you sum up the entire video at the end if you wish. Bullet points are simple and effective, and of course you could then use these points as in app text to summarise the video at key points if you like.  

Hashtags! 

Yup, those little things matter here too. I’m not sure (yet) how important these are, but I did some research on the top (and less so popular) hashtags when I created my videos. I’m aiming to focus on one niche and that means I’ll use the same hashtags for most of my videos.  

Usual hashtag rules seem to apply here: 

• Use a couple of big trending ones 
• Use some smaller (sub 10K views) ones 
• And then add some specific ones 

This is not an exact (or even correct) strategy yet, but that’s my focus right now. Some of the more influential marketers on there seem to agree with that theory.  

Use trending music? 

The music you use seems to affect the content, too. I’m aiming to stick to non-vocal, instrumental music that matches my content, so I’ll be avoiding the latest TikTok dancing trends (thankfully!). But you can get all scientific here, too. The general thoughts are that you choose music that’s trending now but not music that’s trending from last week. In short: choose music that is about to be hot.  

Thoughts here are to find sounds with 10K views or less or maybe a little more. Choosing music with millions of views is cool but you won’t benefit from reaching more people through that element as you’re highly unlikely to get high up the music section of algorithm as you’re late to the party!  

Keep posting! 

And then you need to keep posting. I’ve been known to say the ‘C’ word a lot, so why not drop it here: 

Consistency!  

As with all marketing consistency is going to work here too. I’ve committed to posting a video every day, from the same place, with the same strategy, on the same topic, all created within the TikTok app, and posted at the same time. It seems 5-6pm is my time to post and I’m sticking to that! Consistency works in all areas of life, and on social media it has always been (and will always be in my mind) the hack to end all hacks.  

How to go viral on TikTok 

I appreciate I’m 6 videos and a few weeks in here. I’m no expert. There are people who know way more than me.   

That said, I felt it was relevant to share right at the start of the journey how it’s working and how I’ve managed to gain 100s of 1000s of views and 1000s of followers without really having any experience on the channel.   

I’ve taken skills from elsewhere and applied them here and, ultimately, I’ve created content that I would find interesting. I’ve applied all the parts of the content that get me to stop in my tracks and watch to my own content creation.  

1. Add value 
2. Get to the point 
3. Be interesting, niche.  

You can do this too. Next time you stop in your tracks on a TikTok, ask yourself why. You’ll learn loads by asking yourself questions.  

Oh… and if you’re interested in following my journey of sobriety, or as they say on TikTok are “Sober Curious”, then drop me a follow here:  

@thecontentcowboy

Do You Struggle to Create Content to Generate Sales?

We’ve Created a FREE Online Marketing Plan…

Use our simple ideas generator to help you make better content, over and over again…

Learn More

Tags associated with this article