Check Out Our New TikTok Channel

With the immense popularity of TikTok, especially with Millennials (Gen Y) and Zoomers (Gen Z), we knew that we needed to learn more about the medium. According to America’s SBDC, incorporating TikTok into your small business’s marketing strategy can help solidify your brand recognition and messaging, highlight your product and service offerings, and connect with a growing and influential audience that has the potential to become loyal and lifelong customers. 

Millennials and Zoomers seem to intuitively know how to use TikTok, but for to many of my clients, it still remains a mystery. While I’ve been a TikTok video watcher for some time, I have not explored what it takes to be a content creator. In the tradition of Life Hacking, I knew the time had arrived to give it a try. I set up a SteveBizBlog TikTok account and went to work exploring this new medium of content creation. Join me as I share my learnings and experiences from the first few weeks of my journey of discovery.

My TikTok Journey

My first TikTok video was just a test to see what it took to produce a video and to make sure I had the appropriate tools to do it. It was a short test, where I experimented with creating a basic title, adding background music and hashtags. It was nothing special but it demonstrated that I could produce a TikTok video and that others could see it.

Desktop vs. Mobile App

With the first test out of the way, I went down a rabbit hole exploring the web-based version, thinking I could use my desktop webcam and a green screen to produce better quality videos vs. my mobile device. I discovered that the desktop version of TikTok is woefully inadequate and does not support most of the features offered by the mobile version. The only advantage of the desktop version over the mobile is the ability to schedule posts. Therefore, I reverted to using the mobile version of TikTok. The next TikTok post was somewhat similar to make sure that I could repeat the process, but instead of just a test message, I wanted to provide some real content so I could get some feedback on my delivery and video length. I decided to create a post talking about how to use the concept of “We Groups” to make prospects drop their guard and become more likely to trust you.

Using a Phone Stand

I shared the above post with my son Hank and daughter-in-law Andi who are Millennials and avid TikTok viewers. The feedback I received was that the camera angle was too low and didn’t look natural. To produce the TikTok video, I simply used a desktop stand to hold my phone in place. Unfortunately, the stand would not let me elevate the camera to the proper angle, so I purchased a tripod stand with remote control from Amazon for under $20 to raise the level of the phone on my desk.

My next TikToc video tested the use of the new phone stand to elevate my phone. I also wanted to test out the duration feature of text boxes. So far, I had one text box with “SteveBizBlog” visible throughout the entire video. This time, I wanted to use multiple text boxes. At the beginning of the video, I created a text box with the title/description of the video and used the duration to make it disappear after a few seconds. Then, I had “SteveBizBlog” appear at the end of the video for ten seconds.

For this test, I shared how a person’s experiences in high school, based on being socially connected, more closely resembled the qualities of a business owner than a person’s experiences in college, which stressed mastery of the subject matter.

Thumbnails

As I explored content that took longer than two minutes to deliver, I discovered that it was getting harder to find appropriate background music that was long enough. Since I didn’t think that the background music really provided any value and the fact that it made the informational videos sound more like a commercial, I decided to stop adding background music to the videos.

With a few videos under my belt, I discovered that it was nearly impossible for someone to look at the thumbnails and get a sense of the video’s content. So for my next test, I wanted to add a title to the thumbnail. I created a TikTok video about what I call the Affordable Loss Principle.

Native Recording

When you record a video directly from TikTok, you are given the option of a 15 or 30-second video or a three-minute video. I felt pressure to get my message done in the preselected amount of time. Moreover, since I was doing the TikTok videos in one take, sometimes my dog would bark or the phone would ring, forcing me to stop the recording and try it again.

As an alternative to recording the TikTok video directly from the app, I recorded the video using the video option on my native camera app. Once done, I used the upload feature to import the video so I could use the mobile app to edit it. Recording the videos using the native recording option made it much easier to manage the videos in my gallery. For my next test, I created a TikTok video about the difference between Smart vs. Dumb money and changed the placement of the thumbnail title from the bottom of the frame to the center, which is the default location.

What I discovered with TikTok thumbnail title placements was that it looked better when the titles were placed closer to the bottom than in the middle of the screen covering my face.

Front vs. Back-Facing Camera

Until then, I was using the front-facing camera on my phone. Anyone that has ever taken a selfie knows that when you use the front-facing camera, everything is recorded in a mirror image. Any text displayed in the foreground or background is not readable unless you are a dyslexic like me.

So for the next set of TikTok videos, I wanted to devise a way to use the main back-facing camera. However, using the back-facing camera presented a problem since the phone’s screen was now facing away from me, making it impossible to know if I was properly centered on the screen. To resolve this issue, I hung a small mirror on a pegboard behind my phone. Since the phone stand came with a remote, I could get everything set up and ready while looking at the screen, and when I was ready to record the video, flip the camera around and use the remote control to start and stop the video.

To test this new video recording arrangement, I recorded a TikTok video about the limits to one’s liability if you are a manager of an LLC.

Saving Drafts and Longer Video

At the time of writing, the mobile app did not allow you to schedule your TikTok videos to take advantage of the best times to post. Although the website version allows you to schedule a post up to ten days out, or you can purchase another app to do it, I wanted to limit everything to free. What I discovered is that when your video is exactly as you want it, rather than posting your TikTok video when you are done creating it, you can save it as a draft. I created several videos and saved them as drafts. Then, when I want to post the next TikTok video, all I have to do is simply open up the draft and select the “Post” option. This way, it only takes seconds to send previously created, edited, and saved videos.

Until now, all my videos were under three minutes which is the limit when you record directly from the TikTok app. I read that TikTok will allow you to record a video up to ten minutes in length. I selected a topic that I share frequently on what I call the viable customer model that I knew would surpass the three-minute barrier to see what, if anything, would happen. As you can see, I recorded a 4:23-long TikTok video with no issues that I saved as a draft a few days before.

Appending an Outro Video

At the end of each of the TikTok videos, I’ve simply used a text box popup so far to display “SteveBizBlog.” My hope was merely to make viewers aware of the brand. However, what I really wanted was to make it clear that there was a website that contained a lot more information and to encourage them to visit it. Cross-promotion from social media to a website is one thing that I always advise my clients to consider. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no obvious way to do this in TikTok for mobile.

With a bit more research, I found out that you can string together several videos from your gallery. I went to Canva and discovered there is a TikTok template allowing me to create an outro animation. I found a free template for a TikTok outro and modified it. I downloaded the animation and added it to my phone’s gallery.

The next step was to discover how to append the outro to a recorded TikTok video. My next TikTok video leveraged the back-facing camera’s ability to display text properly as I recorded a TikTok video about “What Color is Your Time” with the addition of an outro animation at the end.

Conclusion

While there is still a lot to learn regarding creating TikToc videos, the past few weeks of experimenting have gotten me to a point where the process is repeatable, relatively easy to do, and tolerant of errors. At some point, I want to be able to schedule them, but that is for another post if I ever figure it out. The following is the basis of what I learned:

  • Focus on editing TikTok videos using the tools available in the mobile app as they are far superior to what you can do with the desktop version, unless you do all your video editing with another video editing tool.
  • Use an adjustable phone stand so you can position the camera lens at your eye level, so viewers are not forced to see your chin and the ceiling behind you.
  • Use thumbnail titles so viewers exploring your channel can quickly see what each video is about.
  • Record the videos using the native camera app and upload the videos into the TikTok app to edit them.
  • Consider using the back-facing camera so that anything that you present to the camera is readable by the view and not in a mirror image, as is the case when you record with a front-facing camera.
  • Save completed TikTok videos as final drafts so you can publish them in just a few seconds to take advantage of the best times to post.
  • Use a tool like Canva to create an outro animation, even if it is only to thank the viewer for watching your video.

Are you ready to start developing your own TikTok videos?

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