This Week On The Desk
TikTok Is Getting Harder 💵
Signings ✍🏾 - Lil Baby, Busta Rhymes
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨 - Michael Brun
Links 🔗
TikTok Is Getting Harder
TikTok is like a talent show and the microphone is the algorithm. Understanding how to turn the microphone on and off is beneficial, although trying to break down everything technical about the microphone does nothing more to bring people to your show. The type of show you put on is what brings people to the show.
The part of the algorithm that I would say is the "on and off" button is the watch time. The watch time math can be broken down like this:
E(playtime) x V(playtime)
E is the estimated time variable and V is the Value variable which is your content.
E is gotten from a predictive model run on past similar videos the user watched and V is gotten from your video's metrics.
Now this is only part of the large equation and gives your video an overall video score, but I think it is one of the most important things that turns your video "on" or "off".
Your video only competes with videos in the same time range and has predictive models run against it. Now it's harder than ever to grow on TikTok because people have become much more sophisticated in keeping users attention and it will most likely only get harder.
This is why any content you might have made in the past might not be working as well anymore.
It's also important to note not all watch time is the same, a video that beats the estimated watch time and gets a save, like, etc is better than one that doesn't. But the best metric is when viewers stay on your profile longer, bringing the session time on your profile up.
You can up this by pinning one of your most viral videos and creating video replies to the top comments.
Creating a viral video is 80% skill/science, 15% art, and 5% luck.
Part of the art is understanding what conversation to start, framing videos around hot topics does really well most of the time.
A part of the skill is knowing when to post, let's say you are a fitness influencer. You'd want to start working on your new year fitness videos in October and tweak them until you can get a video to 100k views. Leave the 100k video on your profile and let it obtain the metric validation. Toward the end of the year when most people start thinking about their health you’ll have beaten most people to it.
There are many tactics and tricks one can do, but at the end of the day, it's about the show and the feeling people get from watching.
Studying communications, copywriting, storytelling, and showmanship is the best way to heighten video quality and increase views. Also, when I say quality I don't mean fancy edits or 4k video, rather the psychological ones.
For more insight check out the TikTok Academy.
Signings ✍🏾
Lil Baby signs with WME
Lil Baby has signed with Kevin Shivers, James Rubin, Justin Nabors & Andy Nees @ WME for bookings (previously repped WW by CAA).
Busta Rhymes signs with UTA
Busta Rhymes has signed with Justin Hill & Mike Guirguis @ UTA for worldwide bookings.
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨
Michael Brun - DJ/Producer | Instagram
Links 🔗
How niche communities on TikTok are rewriting mainstream culture
Everything We Know About TikTok Academy
TikTok is building an e-commerce ecosystem
#WhoeverNeedsToHearThis
“Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” – Mike Singletary
