TikTok calls itself the “destination for short-form mobile videos.” In some ways it’s a bite-size version of YouTube, with videos ranging between five and 60 seconds in length. Creators have access to an assortment of filters and effects, as well as a massive music library.
Like any social network, TikTok is a meme machine with an influx of influencers cashing in on opinions likes and shares in a virtual world that also uses virtual coin. Why not? There are TikTok celebrities who count followers in their tens of millions – and not all of them are mainstream stars.
Its algorithm is central to its success: the focus is immediate because the video plays the instant the app is opened. Users can follow favourites, and they don’t have to for the feed to be filled because of the artificial intelligence of personalised preferences.
Mark Zuckerberg views TikTok as, “if it were Explore for stories and that were the whole app.”
What makes a TikTok account take off?
Posting often. And not skimping on quality videos. The more often you post, the better you become at it and the better chance you have of one of your videos going viral. It can take hours, weeks, months or even years. It’s TikTok: it has it’s own timing. It reveals itself.
It reveals you.
If you know TikTok, you’ll be very familiar with the For You page. It’s where you go to find the newest content related to your profile and location and the videos you’ve already engaged with by liking them. It adjusts for things you’ve indicated are not of interest to you. It includes captions, sounds and hashtags.
A strong indicator that is used is whether you watch a video in its entirety or not.
It doesn’t even matter whether you have a lot of followers or not; neither your follower count, or whether your account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors in the recommendation system that TikTok uses.
The key to garnering video engagement is to work with the TikTok algorithm so that you can get your content on as many For You page feeds as possible.
If posts include at least one of these: #fyp, #foryou, or #foryoupage hashtags in their captions, these posts are more likely to surface on more For You pages. The Discover Tab gives you the trending hashtags, and you can type them out if you want to check a particular hashtag’s performance. Create your content to match, because jumping onto a hashtag just because it’s popular rather than relevant to your content can really backfire.
Captions should be short. TikTok’s not a composition platform! Consider asking a question, or using a joke, or making it somehow a little mysterious.
What makes it interesting?
Digging deeply into your passion. Whether it be fashion or food, discussion or dance, history or the hysterical.
It’s all about laying it bare. So if you’re in Sydney, why not start on Bare Island?
Bare Island, via a 400 metre walkway off La Perouse is where in 1937 the coal collier SS Minmi struck the rocks of Cape Banks and broke in half. Of the 20-man crew fortunately only one shipmate was lost. Little remains of the ship today – just some rusting hull remnants now fused to the rocks where she ran aground. There is strange beauty in its decaying hulk as it continues to succumb to the waters of Botany Bay.
While you’re there, spot the 1880s fort that was once the backdrop for Mission Impossible II.
Is that mission too impossible?
Have a crack at Sydney’s ‘Footpath of Fame’ – behind Pier One in the Rocks, where you’ll find a collection of cement slabs inscribed with an eclectic bunch of characters making their mark on the world, including Big Bird and Santa Claus. Racehorse Gunsynd is there, among Jack Brabham, Betty Cuthbert and Pro Hart.
While you’re there grab a cocktail and enjoy the sunset as it bathes Luna Park and the Harbour Bridge in its amber glow.
Check out the MCA. Find the art of your TikTok there. If you don’t know what it stands for and where it is, you definitely need to find yourself there.
What better place could there be than Taronga Zoo to post your content? Incredible animals and stunning harbour views? Do the night safari and sleep there if you like! How slick a sound TikTok would that be?
If exotic creatures become your theme, take a 35km trip along the Great Wester Highway to Bungarribee, Sydney’s first new zoo in a century. With its state-of-the-art enclosures and its impressive circuit park design you can TikTok amid the aquatic worlds of rivers, deltas and shallow seas, familiar outback critters, tree-dwellers of South East Asian jungles and the majestic beasts of the great plains of Africa.
Not feeling that adventurous? Not particularly at one with nature? Then The Cipher Room, for a real-life puzzle adventure is for you. With three rooms in Newtown and one in St Peters to choose from, with each having conundrums to solve within an allotted time, and they are all immersive and original escape rooms. Choose The Cabin for a decidedly scary serial killer theme. Or 1930s New York in The Marlowe Hotel – voted by one who has been to 90 escape rooms in Australia as the best they’ve ever experienced. Want to TikTok your content as a 1945 spy? Espionage is the option for you.
For Mr Pepper’s Toy Shop, go to the St Peters site.
And to relax after all that brainwork, to Bondi and the most photographed ocean pool in Australia – Bondi Icebergs. With a very reasonable casual entry fee, there’s access to the stunning 50-metre saltwater pool and sauna as well.
Wendy’s Secret Garden in Lavender Bay, a part public, part private land of secrets of the heart expressed through the toil of grief and the beauty of that love. If your TikTok content is a reflection of that, there is no better place to be. Anything not respectful, gentle and nurturing has no place here. It is a place of enchantment where once there was tangled overgrowth and debris.
Be creative with your research to find where it is in Sydney that best illustrates you and your TikTok content. Sometimes these most popular places are not for you. Often, places that are beautiful are ruined because of that popularity so keep that in mind. Byron Bay and Mullumbimby are prime and recent examples of this. It’s why the local community wants to put a stop to the Netflix series “Byron Baes”. COVID-19 marked the beginning of that drastic and negative change; what was once an affordable and long-term healthy lifestyle choice is swiftly becoming the playground of millionaires only.
Keep that in mind while you’re wielding your TikTok power stick. Go viral, but don’t be like a virus. Be discerning. Be respectful. Remind yourself that there are plenty of fish in the sea by going to the Sydney Fish Market at Pyrmont. Get up early and be there for the 5.30am catch auctions. Or rock up later for a restaurant lunch or a kilo of fresh prawns to eat on the bench tables outside.
Your highlight TikTok location is the one in which you shine. It is relevant to your content and the message you have. It may be somewhere nobody’s really been. It could be somewhere everybody’s been on numerous occasions and never taken any notice.
Whatever you do, do it well and your TikTok account may eventually need a Social Media Marketing Agency like the Influencer Marketing Hub to manage it. While you’re letting them drive all that growth, be ethical. Have respect. For the earth on which you stand, and the people standing on it. We’re already living on borrowed time.
TikTok. TikTok.
