We are no longer in the age of the internet where you can consistently post things as they pop into your mind and expect to hit over a million views over, and over. This may be true for one-hit-wonder content. A video of your pet doing something silly all while capturing it on video spontaneously still has the opportunity to drive a lot of traffic to your page. That is, if it hits.
So many people are trying to make content like that today. It's not sustainable to last in the long run, or to turn your channels into something monetizable. Crazy and funny animal videos still do well, however, there are usually a few techniques that help those videos break the 10,000 view threshold, then the 200k threshold, into the 1,000,000 views/likes threshold.
So, what content styles work well in the long haul? Here, we've created a list for you of content planning and style tricks that are made to last through changing trends and topics.
Lighting
One of those techniques is lighting. Make sure people can see your content no matter what environment they’re viewing it from. Whether that’s in their bedroom at night, or sitting outside on their patio.
Some videos are filmed off the cuff of your cat sticking their head in an empty paper towel roll. This type of content is typically more forgiving, because people will understand that this wasn’t planned and surprised you as much as it surprises the Viewer. However, this type of content is not reliable for long term growth. Eventually, people will become suspicious, or even concerned, if your cat is constantly getting into trouble. Which could get you into trouble with Viewers. We don’t want either of those things to happen. I’ll provide other content ideas later on.
A reliable source of lighting is standing in front of a window in your room. Mid-day, this can provide some wonderful, free lighting for content production.
Another source of lighting is a ring light. There are a variety of different ones on the market.
Audio and Captions
Another aspect which is the MAIN REASON VIDEOS DON’T GET PAST 100K views and likes is: AUDIO. I cannot stress how important it is for people to be able to hear/read what you’re saying in your videos! Meta just announced to a core group of Creators in September 2022 that only 60% Facebook and Instagram viewers watch videos and ads with the sound on. And, if they can’t understand the video without sound, THEY WILL KEEP SCROLLING past your video under the first 2 SECONDS!
That means, their view on your content doesn’t even count as a real view towards your video. This should be very, very important to you and in the front of your mind as you’re creating content, and before you hit publish. One of the best, and easiest, solutions is adding captions to your video. At first this may seem like a hassle, but I promise you, it’s very much worth it.
View and like counts increase dramatically, into the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions, just for the simple 1-5 minutes you take out of your day to add captions to your video. Think of it like this: many people watch content in work, in school, on a bus, a train, or around family members. Many people also can’t be wearing headphones at those times.
Viewers want to know what you have to say, but if you don’t provide that information to them in captions, then they will quickly scroll onto the next video.
You can use tools like https://www.descript.com (Descript) and the Captions app to create captions for your videos.
Privatize Old Videos
The first thing people want to do when they find your content on the For You Page that they like, is to check your page for more content like that. Privatize all “old” videos. If you have content from 2016 that is not generating income, views, or subscribers and followers, then you need to privatize it. This content may only serve a nostalgic purpose for you, and no helpful information to Viewers TODAY.
Maybe it’s not relatable anymore, or the tips don’t solve a problem now. Maybe the topic is completely irrelevant now. Privatize it. When you have content like that on your page, it distracts potential Viewers and followers from clicking on your better and newer videos, and typically they end up overwhelmed and going back to the For You Page. You don’t want this to happen.
Make it very easy for people to binge-watch your content, even if that means having significantly less content on your page.
And please, for the love of everything good, privatize the embarrassing, old high school selfies and group photos. You want your brand to appear polished and relevant today.
Create Playlists
Create playlists. TikTok, like YouTube, now has a feature for Creators to make playlists. This is hugely beneficial to helping Viewers stay on your page longer before they move onto someone else. If you have a series of content that is recurring on your page, create a playlist for it. You can title your playlists like: Transition Ideas, Amazon Finds, Pregnancy, Car Storytime, Music, DIY, Gardening, whatever you want!
Take Notes
Sometimes, and I hate to say it, watching bad content can help you create better content for yourself. But, please, only let the bad content you watch online take up 10% of your online viewing activities. What you want to do is actively watch this type of content. Take notes. Is the person taking too long to get to the point? Did they give an awkward intro they could’ve cut out? Does their lighting suck? Does their audio suck? Are there pointless pauses that could’ve been cut? Take note of every time you felt like clicking off of the video and write it down. Then, reframe.
What could you do to make your content better than theirs? Do you have better lighting? Check. Can you add captions? Check. Can you cut out weird pauses? Check. Before you know it, you will be teaching yourself what you need to do in order to improve your content.
Bookmark Content
Inversely, use the bookmark feature to save content that is high performing, that you enjoy watching, and can pull inspiration from. Do not copy from these people. You do not want the reputation of copying other people’s work. It makes your content boring.
TikTok and Instagram have features where you can categorize your bookmarks. Do this. Maybe yours look like: Food, Lifesaving Tips, Travel Tips, Work From Home Ideas, Transition Ideas, Music Producing Tips, Cosplay Ideas. Whatever folder you fill up the fastest, consider creating content within that niche.
Learn SEO
What is SEO? It’s “Search Engine Optimization.” It is absolutely crucial in a day in age when people use TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and social media in general as a search engine, like Google.
Think about it. When you want to find someone who has good style, where do you go? You no longer look on Google for someone’s blog. You search it on your preferred social media platform. Where do you go when you need interior design ideas? You go to Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube… In order for your content to come up in the search results when people look for content like yours online, you have to optimize it to where people can find you.
Think about it. When you want to find someone who has good style, where do you go? You no longer look on Google for someone’s blog. You search it on your preferred social media platform. Where do you go when you need interior design ideas? You go to Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube… In order for your content to come up in the search results when people look for content like yours online, you have to optimize it to where people can find you.
We are not in the days right now where you can post a selfie with an angel emoji as the caption and suddenly get a million followers. You are not a Jenner, Kardashian, Hadid, or Billie Eilish. And, I guarantee you, for the big campaigns they all participate in, they have a content manager, or assistant, who thoroughly details the SEO for their content. Music videos, TikToks, Instagram posts, and the like all need it.
Instead of writing a whole book about SEO, I’ll give it to you like this: add relevant tags to your content when given the option, make sure the title, or caption, accurately describes what is happening in the video (not just what you think about it), and include popular sounds when available. Even if you bring that sound volume to zero decibels, your video will still show up under that sound with the tens of thousands of other people who have uploaded under it. Jump on it, quickly.
You can use websites like Wordstream, Keyword Tool, and Google Trends to search popular keywords to use in your titles, descriptions, and videos.
You can use websites like Wordstream, Keyword Tool, and Google Trends to search popular keywords to use in your titles, descriptions, and videos.
Prevent a Shadowban
(TW) Make sure your videos don’t include anything graphic: this includes nudity, blood, violence, speech, symbols, drawings, or sounds. This is SUPER IMPORTANT, as social media platforms are becoming increasingly strict about what they don’t allow on their platform. You have to avoid this to avoid a shadowban. This means, your content won’t even be promoted to where your Subscribers can see it.
It can be as as “simple” as recounting an experience you had where someone else treated you in a way they shouldn’t have. That could turn into a shadowban. I know, in many instances this doesn’t make sense. If you want to be able to continue to turn your online presence into a career, it’s important to keep all of this in mind ahead of time.
Even if you don’t agree with the policies, you have to abide by them in order to grow your accounts. If a social media notices that you're posting content like this too much, they will shadowban you. You can typically find out if you’ve been shadowbanned if your content goes from 10,000 likes on average to 200 on average.
Once you’ve been shadowbanned, it’s pretty difficult to get that ban reversed, since social media platforms are not open about doing this. If the shadowban lasts too long, where it’s hurting your business, then it’s recommended to start a new account and encourage your followers to follow you on there. I know, the numbers won’t be the same at the beginning.
Over time, though, if you upload content that is now within the Terms of Service, you will be able to reach a much larger audience again. Continue promoting the new account until you’re ready to fully switch over, and take down whatever content got your main account shadowbanned in the first place.
Plan Content in Advance
Will all of this in mind, plan out your content in advance. Give it several weeks of thought if you have to. Make a list of content for the next year and write it down as what you’re going to title the video. You can start this list at any time of the year. You want to include: 1) intended upload date, title, SEO used to push the video, and content. I know this sounds like a lot, but it will help you decide what content is worth spending time on before you invest any time or money into the video.
When it comes to TikTok, especially if you want to cross-promote on other platforms like YouTube and Instagram, you need to package your content differently in each platform. Instagram Reels likes videos 3-30 seconds long. TikTok likes videos 3-60 seconds long. YouTube likes videos 2-5 minutes long, and in some cases, up to 50 minutes long. Of course, all of these numbers vary on the specific type of content you are creating. And, if your content isn’t super interesting, it’s better to be on the shorter end than the longer end, so you don’t lose Viewers to another channel.
You’ll notice TikTok’s, Reels, and Shorts are formatted 9 x 16. This makes sharing across multiple platforms easily. Follow these easy steps to make it look like you’re on every platform all the time:
1) Set up an account on my.repurpose.io.
2) Click on the Connections tab. Link your social medias to your Repurpose account (TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Google Drive, etc.)
3) Click on the Workflows tab and create a new workflow. Make sure TikTok is your starting point to all of the social medias that you want to upload that content to. Choose if you want some on auto-publish, or manual-publish (I typically leave them all on, except for Linkedin and Youtube Shorts). You don’t want every TikTok on LinkedIn, or YouTube Shorts, especially if you reply to comments often.
4) Go to settings for each social media attached to Repurpose and set the publish date after the current date. If you upload content at the same time everywhere, you could be stealing your Viewers’ attention, running down your own views. If you’re uploading on TikTok, you at least want to wait a day to upload that content to Reels, so you’re accessing a broader audience (+ your own) and reminding them about you on another day. All with the same content.
5) When you’re creating content on TikTok, you want to make sure the description works for all the other platforms you’ll be uploading it to. Make sure it has SEO (keyword rich), and include a few hashtags that will be relevant to the video (but not overwhelming). YouTube Shorts includes other things like a keyword-rich title, description, and video tags, which are typically longer than what is going to be on TikTok and Reels.
6) When your video is dropped into Google Drive, add it to Descript so that your video can be transcribed (captions). You may need to make edits on the captions, but this at least speeds the time up in getting them done. You can then use the transcription as a jumping off point for your text or email blast you’ll send to your Viewers, a mini Facebook, or blog post, or post it on your Google My Business page.
7) Take the videos you’ve downloaded from TikTok and add them to your Pinterest Idea Pins. Do some research on Pinterest SEO upfront, and eventually you will be able to figure out how to format the titles and descriptions there.
This replaces the old screen-recording your videos on TikTok before you upload them, cropping, trimming, and uploading between each app individually. You can also use ssstik.io to save your public videos without a watermark.
Listen to Your Audience
If you’re getting tons of positive feedback on a particular style of video, consider creating more content like that. If you’re getting tons of criticism on a video, consider that maybe your style, or content, needs changing. Commenters are very forward about what type of content they do and don’t like. Listen to them.
You don’t have to change everything because 5% commenters say you do. But, if over 50% of people are suggesting you do something other than what you’re doing in your content, consider that. They will really let you know what they want to see. Sometimes, you just have to ask them! Use an Instagram, or YouTube poll, or create a whole separate video and ask your Viewers to comment their feedback.
Sometimes, people are just upset about something going on that has nothing to do with you. They might even take it out on you. At that point, if you feel like taking down your video, consider reposting it on a later date.
About the Author:
Eliza Rose has been professionally working on social media for over 10 years. Her niches have spanned across beauty, fashion, lifestyle, music, and business. She now dedicates her time to teaching what she's learned through the process, to help other people turn their business and personal goals into a reality.
