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Building an indie business, in the center of venture capital. I am Alex Edmonds, people on the Internet. Call me supremerumham. And this is the building an indie business podcast. Okay. So today I'm going to be discussing my TikTok experiment. So, when I first released the podcasting book. In July of 2020. I needed to promote it. So I started a TikTok account to take clips of the podcast and promote it. Like post those clips on TikTok, and, You know, I'm just sharing them, hoping that people would find my videos, and then buy my book. Right on, and there's a reason I did this. Um, so someone I really look up to, I guess, is the word, and respect in the maker community and Anne-Laure Le Cunff She um, she posted on Twitter. If you're famous you automatically become Twitter famous, but you can't become famous on Twitter. And then she said. TikTok is designed to create celebrities. So I figured that I would be able to grow my following on TikTok, to the point where I'd be able to sell copies of the book. It didn't work out like that. I did the TikTok experiment for a couple of weeks. And I'm going to be talking about how I did it, the things I've noticed on TikTok the benefits. My different experiments that I did on TikTok. What else, the end results, the problems that I found with Tick tock, and that's about it. Okay. So, how to. So, you have a limit of how long your video can be and that's a minute. So you want to make it shorter than that. Because a lot of the videos on TikTok are shorter than that. So people are expecting your video to be short. So, to be able to capture people's attention properly, you need to stick with that flow of what's on the platform. TikTok also has effects arm on the platform where, for one video you can have like a picture as your background, or you have sparkling stuff in your picture so you want to use that because those effects are searchable so if someone has them on their video, you can click on that effect and see the other people who have used it. And that'll give you more visibility. Um, you can also add music to your videos. And that is also searchable. So what I've noticed is that loud music, and people create dances from the music and doing those dances is very successful, but I don't dance so I didn't do that right arm benefits. You can take those videos, and use them on other platforms like Twitter, or that other platform that we don't talk about on the podcast on the TikTok audience, or like people on the platform. Currently the user base is directed towards like Gen Z. So, it's kind of young, how I know about TikTok is from my little nephew. Right. So, but the, the, the age of the people that that the age of the people on the platform is getting older, so that way. If you're on the platform early. Then, when those people go to search your that type of your kind of content, let's say finance content, because that's what I do my stuff will be there and I will be popular I guess so. It'll be higher in the rankings when they search for that stuff. Right. Um, you can edit the videos on the platform, which is good because on, like, on Twitter I can't edit on Twitter I have to edit it on my own and then post it on Twitter. Right, so that's good. Okay, so let's get into my experiment. So, the first experiment that I did is I would post one video a day, morning, noon, and that night, and they will just be a little one minute clip. So the first time I did it. I'm about to throw a lot of numbers at you. I got 21 views 11 views and 16 views. The next time I did it. This is all in one day. I got four views, 879 108, then the next day I did it, I got 11 162 161. And then I did 78 and then 77. I don't know why I don't have a third law. Third calculation, I don't, but I don't. Okay. And then I tried a new experiment. Um, I did three in a row. So, I would post three videos in the morning. Three at noon, and three at night. And those numbers are 9884 84. I'm on a noon. I did, 193 173, and 85. And if you notice I said four numbers for noon, and that's because I did a Seinfeld reference in one of my podcast episodes. I think it was. I got a lot of problems with your people and you're gonna hear about it. And I think that was in reference to social media. When I was talking about promoting the podcasts on social media. So, I saw an opportunity for that, and I went for it. And that only got one view. Because Seinfeld is old. In terms of TV, and a lot of kids don't know about it, so they don't search up Seinfeld on TikTok probably. So, yeah. And then at night. I got 8678 78 and 77. Um, my next experiment was to do screenshots with music. So, I had my Twitter threads that I was doing at the time. And so I just took a Twitter thread screenshot of part of the Twitter thread. And I added music and an effect to that Twitter thread to make it a video. And I did this once a day, and the numbers are 38 164 331 62. And I did this for another episode. and it was 108 111. no 1119 161 5978 77. And so, my end result was that I, my most popular screen, or my most popular post on this platform TikTok was arm. It was a screenshot video with music playing and that got 873 views. I only had seven followers, at the end of my experiment, I was only following 10 people though, mostly comedians, I had 18 likes two to three comments in total. I gave up after a couple of weeks, because I didn't really know how to create clips arm, and I wasn't seeing results. So, it's not that I didn't know what to create clips, it took me a while it took me like half an hour. And I don't want to spend that time, especially when I wasn't seeing results. I even deleted the account. Um, one problem also was that it wasn't very targeted with my, my, what's the word I'm looking for. oh yeah with like who I was targeting so you could have hash tags in your description, and I wasn't very targeted with who I was targeting. Right. Um, okay, some problems with the platform, are that you can't add a link to your profile. You need to unlock that. I think you need 1000 followers to unlock that. Right, so you can't do it right away, which it devalues the platform, when you start out for you. Right. And so that's why I said, you should. TikTok should let people pay for that in the episode that I did about TikTok's revenue. Okay. And then there's no like pin video. Like a video that you can pin like on Twitter, which I thought, kind of a basic feature. And then the formatting is not that great, your text is covered by the video. So, you can't see the bottom of the video and you could barely read the text on it. Right. So yeah, um, then I did a second experiment, which I'm currently in the middle of. And this experiment. The reason why I did this experiment was for a couple of reasons. My nephew created the TikTok account, which I just wanted to like support him and see his videos. So I created the account so I would be able to like his stuff and comments on it. So that way he gets TikTok followers. Right. And then I learned how to make podcast clips faster. And then, friend of the podcast David Shawe told me that once you have 50 videos, things change in the algorithm. I guess they regard you as a new account, until you make 50 videos, so that when you make 50 videos, they, um, they, they show you off and the algorithm more. And then I thought my audio content would do better on TikTok, and Twitter hasn't been really working out. I guess that's part of the reason, like, what Anne-Laure Le Cunff was saying that, um, you can't become Twitter famous on the platform alone. You need your following before. And then I wrote the blog post about TikTok so I just wanted to try it out a little more. And then I did my research on it turns out that videos of your face with music playing in the background, and that are short, do well. And that was basically the opposite of what I was doing. So I'm using Kid Cudi songs because he just came out with an album, and I want to promote him while promoting myself. Right. And then this time I'm targeting. I'm more targeted with who I'm approaching on the platform. I'm targeting people interested in finance and indie makers using those hashtags. I'm only posting finance related content. So right now I'm promoting the how free apps make money episode. And then, I'm not gonna promote like Thursday episodes, because that's personal stuff. So right now I'm using the hashtags finance revenue indie ackers indie makers, and money talk, which is a. What do you call it. Um, tech talks like finance section, I guess, are like a window into that. And then I use red text that says revenue research in every video, hoping it's more likely to catch people's attention. And then I also connected my YouTube channel to direct people to that while I'm waiting to get 1000 followers. Right. So that way people can follow me somewhere. If they are really interested in my content. But this second experiment is just me trying to get to the 50 video mark. Yeah. So, I've. Yeah, I've started posting videos, the first three videos actually do really well compared to all my other videos. In the first experiment. So, these videos have 380 followers, or 80, views, 505, and 473. And then I also started to speed up the videos because you can do that on TikTok so that way they're shorter. Then I added text to the videos to get more interaction so like the first 30 seconds of the videos, say, do you know how free apps make money. And then they go into the video, and that way it'll create more interaction. Because people comment on the videos. And I haven't got any interaction yet, but the first video got 180 98 views and the next one got 53, views. And then I added an effect to the videos to start out, and that's like a turning on the TV effect. So like, there's this flash that starts and that would catch people's attention in my opinion. And then, so those, I did that for three videos. And the result was 150, views 73 views 75 views and three views. Right. And then I just went back to like posting similar normal clip clips of the podcasts, and the numbers of the number of views dropped. Unfortunately, so I have 50 250-859-7627. You know, it's just at least some views. Yet, right. So then I just happened to make a video and post it on Twitter. And that was like me. I had this whole joke about Boardman Oregon and how I'm getting website traffic from for all of my website's from Boardman Oregon, and I like posted. I did a video showing people on Twitter. And so I posted that one on TikTok and that got 170 67 views. Yeah. And then I started to promote the podcast with my face. So I promoted the Christmas tree episode, first, the second one. I'm on TikTok I was like hey, new episode this week. It's about Christmas trees, and that video, had the background of the tweet, promoting the episode that way I just don't have, you know, my bookshelf in the video I posted that one at 1pm. And it bombed it totally bombed I only got three views. Yeah. So that sucks. Um, same video. Okay, so I'm posting. Now I'm posting the same video, but in different formats so I took one minute of the podcast. And I tweeted that section out. And then I screenshotted it, and posted that on that video to talk. And then I added music and added an effect. That one unfortunately got 28 views only. And then I did a normal clip, and that got 48 views. So a little more. And then I did a face video with the one with an effect, a weird one it was like, kind of like, it reminded me of Tron, so it was kind of like that. And then I added music. And then you can add a cover to the videos which I didn't realize until recently I added it to the very first video. And I was like, how do you do this text, and I couldn't remember how I did that. But that video with my face and the weird effects and music and cover. Got 57 views. So, um, yeah I have more results now. I wonder if it's different because I posted the video at night. So, yeah. Right now my current results are. I have 10 followers, four of them are strangers. So that's great, and I have 92 likes and total. Um, so what's next for me. I'm gonna try different formats, but at the same time. So, I will do. Like my screenshots in the morning. And then my face pictures in the morning. And then my normal clips in the morning. Hold on, I need water and compare. And then I'm going to do all of them. And at noon, and then all of them night and see if there's a difference between the times. And then I'm going to post, one at every hour that I'm up. So I'm going to post. The most popular format. At 1am, not 1am, like 8am 9am 10am, and just do that every day, and see if there's a difference. Yes. Yeah, so I'm going to do that. Luckily you can like, create a draft of everything you could set it all up. Couldn't edit it. And then it'll stay like on your phone. And then when you're ready to post it, you can post it. So, yeah. That way I don't have to like create the clip at like seven in the morning. And then I have to post it right there. I can just create it. Right. Um, so, I've done like 20 videos at this point. And it's all the same episode. It's all the free apps episode. So I'm going to do my next episode. I don't know which one probably the movie theater episode. And I'm going to do that one, all my face and see if that changes anything. So that's our up you update you guys when I have 50 videos and see if that changes anything. Um, so my conclusion for this episode is that the single digit videos on that app single digit views is concerning to me. But if I hit 50 videos, this might all change. I'm wondering if the post time makes a difference. And I might need to start interacting with people on TikTok so like going the hashtag money talk and start commenting on videos so that those people will follow me. Yeah. So, I'm gonna update you guys. Thank you for listening to this. Have a nice day. Bye.