How to become TikTok famous?
Finding my strategy for posting consistently on TikTok ⚡️ lifetothemax no.19 ⚡️
When I started this newsletter in January to keep me accountable for my goals, I knew some of my goals would be easier to keep up with than others. As a refresher, the five goals I’ve decided to focus on are:
Publish one newsletter a week.
Read 30 minutes a day. (182 hours total)
Work out once a week.
Post 52 videos on TikTok.
Consume less, create more.
Other than a slump during March, I’ve been very consistent with posting newsletters every week. When it comes to reading, I’ve already read close to 14 books. I’ve even outdone myself with working out (I’m working out multiple times a week, and I’ll discuss this further in a newsletter very soon). My phone screentime is also down to an average of 2.5 hours a day, from a crazy 8+ hours in the first few months of the year (read about this transformation here: Kicking my phone addiction).
However, I have struggled with one goal: TikTok. I’ve only posted nine times this year, which means I’m about 15 behind the target. If you’ve been following me for a few years, my lack of consistency with posting videos online may not surprise you. Since freshman year, when I started posting YouTube videos, I’ve loved to call myself a “social media influencer”, despite the fact that I’ve only posted about 40 videos in the span of five years (and the biggest “influence” has been on my sleep schedule, or lack thereof). It’s actually crazy to think that I haven’t posted a video in close to a year and a half, because it was such a big part of my life, and it was so much fun to do.
The reason I stopped posting on YouTube, among others, is that I wasn’t getting that much out of it anymore, and I was spending wayyyyy too much time on every video. I’m talking 2 hours of filming plus 15 hours of editing on some videos. Basically the “return on investment” was negligible: I wasn’t having fun making videos anymore and I was spending too much time doing something that no longer was fun.
And then came TikTok, the holy grail of going viral for a 15 second, unedited video. I knew this could be the answer to my concerns (and I still believe it can be). I started making cooking videos in August of last year, and once again, I was having fun making videos. The one-minute time constraint meant I was forced to make short-but-sweet videos. So I edited them to be really snappy, added some music and narration on some of them, and made really cool videos again. One even went semi-“viral” (read about it here: Viral on TikTok).
But then, I don’t know why, I just stopped posting. Maybe the pressure got too high. Needing to make every video better than the previous meant I was spending more and more time editing. I started sitting on footage of four or five potential videos that I thought were not even worth editing for whatever arbitrary reason. I got in my head, and the dreadful feeling of hating something you love doing which I experienced with youtube (is that called burnout?) started creeping back. What if I just don’t like making videos? What if my videos are just not good enough? What if I’m just not good enough?
But no. I like making videos. I really like it. It’s one of the few things that I picture myself doing long-term. So I need to figure out a way to get over this slump.
I need to find a strategy for TikTok. Something to keep my videos short and sweet, easy to make, and most importantly FUN! A strategy I can stick to when I do get bogged down with negative thoughts.
So I need to experiment with a new format.
For the sake of this experiment, I want to start with a brand new, fresh TikTok account. Let’s think of a name that sounds nice and snazzy, something like… @maxlascombe. Yeah, that’s perfect!
FYI, I’m actually writing this intro on Monday, June 14th, the day after I posted last week’s newsletter (if you haven’t already, give it a read: 10 lessons I learned from the first 10 books I read in 2021) because this experiment starts tomorrow.
Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, June 15th), I’ll post one TikTok each day and document the process. It may not work, and I may miss a day or two, but this will be all about experimenting, all with the goal of Finding my Strategy for TikTok.
A new and improved Max. I’m a TikToker now.
See you tomorrow 😉
Wednesday, June 16th
Aaaaaaaand I’m late. It’s not Tuesday anymore, it’s Wednesday. I finished work too late yesterday and didn’t feel up to posting a TikTok. Oops.
But, on the bright side. Guess who just posted a TikTok and has two thumbs?
THIS GUY! 👉😎👈 (Imagine those are my thumbs.)
Watch the video here: My first TikTok (on my new account)!
So yeah, I posted a TikTok. I decided to go with something super simple to film. I put the phone down, and just introduced myself to the camera, and spoke about this newsletter and why I started it in the first place. Took me 5-10 minutes to film (had to do a few takes…) and then editing took me 10-15 (mostly adding captions). Boom. Done.
Here’s what I liked about the process:
The time between conceptualizing to having footage was extremely short.
Having the whole video in one take meant I spent a tiny bit more time filming (because I needed multiple takes to get it right) but I drastically reduced the editing time (which is less fun).
What could be better:
I was hoping to make use of TikTok’s auto-captioning tool, but for whatever reason, it didn’t work. Next time I’ll make sure to wear Airpods while I film so the sound is clearer, and hopefully, I won’t have to spend any time on captions because it’ll be done automatically.
Tomorrow, I want to try filming multiple videos in one session. If I can film one about the goals I’ve set out in this newsletter, and one or two about interesting ideas I’ve written about in the newsletter, I can hopefully maximize the use of my time.
Enough for today, see you (hopefully) tomorrow!
Thursday, June 17th
I posted two TikToks today!
Once again, I just put my phone down and filmed multiple times until I got one take (for each video).
This time, I spoke in one video about the five goals I’ve been working on this year, and in the other specifically about the goal of reading 30 minutes a day, and what that has allowed me to achieve. These took slightly longer to film (still less than 15 minutes each) because I started overanalyzing what I was saying and kept getting tongue-tied. If you know me well, both videos may seem a little unnatural, but I still like how they came out. They also took much less time to edit because I was able to make use of the auto-captioning feature. It worked great!
Here’s what I liked about the process:
Especially for the second video, I was able to take an idea directly from one of my newsletters and just talk about it briefly, hopefully providing value to the viewer in less than 60 seconds. That means I could theoretically, with future newsletters, just add 15 minutes to the process after I publish to just talk about one or two ideas from it and post that on TikTok.
What could be better:
As I said, I got too “in my head” when filming these, and the end result was less spontaneous and natural-sounding than I would have liked. As I get comfortable with this kind of content, I think this will improve.
So far, so good. I’ve posted three TikToks this week, and my first one did pretty well! Over 400 views, 40 likes, and some pretty nice comments from strangers! I even got ten followers without sharing it with any friends myself (although my girlfriend may have)!
This is all good news, but it reminds me of something I want to note now:
I cannot put too much emphasis on how each video performs. The key is consistency, and as long as I stick to it and keep posting some good content, something will come from it. If my two new videos don’t do as well, that is fine. If they do better, that’s great, but I shouldn’t care about that too much. I can’t rely on short-term wins to motivate me to keep going, because as soon as they’re gone, so is the motivation. I just have to keep at it.
All of that is probably obvious to you the reader, but I think it is valuable for me that I put it in writing now so that I can force myself to remember it.
Ok, that’s enough for today. See you tomorrow.
Friday, June 18th
I’ve had a terrible headache all day.
I made it through work alright but I don’t feel up to filming a TikTok. I’ll give myself a break for today.
See you tomorrow (hopefully minus the headache).
Sunday, June 20th (not Saturday)
I didn’t post anything yesterday. No excuses this time.
I just didn't find the context to film. I’m currently at my girlfriend’s family’s house, and as you can imagine it’s not always easy to find the space to film.
With this in mind, I took advantage of a trip to the supermarket today with my girlfriend to film some quick TikToks in the car. It was a very good experience. The short trip forced me to keep the videos even shorter and sweeter than ever before, and I had immediate feedback from my girlfriend so that I didn’t get in my head as I did on Thursday. I filmed three videos, and when I got home I was able to widdle them down to the best one.
Once again, I used auto-captioning, so it took me probably a total of ten minutes to create that video from beginning to end. It isn’t the perfect video, but that is the point. If I can post 100 videos like that, which at this rate would take 17 hours (as much as I previously have spent on a single YouTube video), then the odds of a handful of those being amazing is quite high. That’s the idea. That’s what I have to work towards.
Okay, now, time for reflection.
Overall, I posted four videos this week. Not a huge sample for an “experiment”, but I think I did learn quite a bit from it.
Firstly, I don’t think working on TikToks during the week is going to be very sustainable. On weekdays, I ended up staying on my computer until 9-10 working on TikTok on top of my other goals, much to the discontent of my girlfriend. If I want to make this a long-term habit, I need to find a better way to fit this into my life. One solution that might work is making Saturday my TikTok day. That means I film a few videos on Saturday, reply to some comments, and outside of Saturday, I forget about TikTok entirely. I’ll give it a try.
Secondly, I think I found a good content strategy for TikTok. The key is extracting super short, insightful ideas from my newsletters, and then making a few videos from that. I think I can provide value to the viewer while not making it too much of a hassle and staying consistent.
Finally, I want to temporarily reset my goal for TikTok. As you know, I was 14 TikToks behind schedule last week. With the four from this week, I’m now “only” 10 late. I think resetting my goal to three a week, with all three of those TikToks being posted on Saturday, is both achievable and ambitious enough to catch up with my lateness. So until I’m fully caught up, the new goal is three a week! Should be easy enough. Right? Right?
💪 Goals
Year progress: 46%
With my focus on TikTok and the strong habits I set for the other four goals, I think this week may have been my best to date: on schedule for reading, way ahead on working out, wrote this newsletter throughout the week, my average daily screentime was 2h45, and I posted on TikTok four times! I don’t see what else there is to say? I’m doing great.
We do have a very, VERY, exciting milestone coming up next week. It’s the halfway mark. Next week will be exactly six months since I started this weird experiment, and it may therefore be the right time to reintroduce the other five goals I had set myself at the beginning of the year but decided to put on hold to prioritize the five above. I also just want to reflect on what’s been working, what hasn’t, and how I can finish out 2021 better than ever. Subscribe to read that if you haven’t already.
📥 Input
Newsletters posted: 19 📈 +1
Hours read this year: 85.5 📈 +3 (on schedule)
Workouts this year: 41 📈 +4 (17 ahead of target)
TikToks posted in 2021: 9 (@maxzechef) + 4 (@maxlascombe) = 13 📈 +4 (10 behind target)
Screen time this week: 19h25
📤 Output
Newsletter subscribers: 42 (thank you ❤️)
Books read this year: 13
Number of abs: 1
TikTok followers: 125 (@maxzechef) + 22 (@maxlascombe)
📚 Reading
Currently reading:
“The Hobbit”, J. R. R. Tolkien.
“Atomic Habits”, James Clear (This book is really amazing so far. Really excited to talk about it in a future newsletter. Shout out to Oscar and others for recommending it.)
Please leave any book recommendations in the comments and add me on Goodreads.
Thanks to all my subscribers and readers new and old. Really means a lot that you read this week after week. If you’re not reading from your email inbox, please consider subscribing below:
See you next Sunday ❤️
In the meantime, you can read last week’s newsletter:
Great read! I might have to download Tik Tok now 🙂
I like your TikToks!! :D