TikTok has experienced massive growth in the last two years with a billion monthly active users. This poses a great opportunity for business owners to hop on the app and reach a brand new audience. But as with any app, there is quite a learning curve. We’ve talked a bit about using TikTok for business in other posts, and today, we’re gonna walk you through how to create your very first video and use TikTok for business. Be sure to stick until the end, because we’re also gonna show you a super easy way to cross-post your video for faster growth on TikTok!
TikTok Interface Walkthrough
We’ll take you guys on a walkthrough of the TikTok interface. When you open the app, you’re gonna notice there are two feeds side by side.
The first is For You, which is like the wild, wild West. This is where you can see anything and you have no idea what you’re going to see. And to the side of it, you access your Following feed. Here is where you only see the content of the people that you follow.
Most users spend 75% of their time on the For You page. A great comparison for the For You page is somewhere between the Instagram Explorer page and Facebook’s News Feed. You’re gonna see a whole variety of content here, some of which is tailored for you, some of which TikTok is testing in their algorithm. You’re gonna see popular content, you’re gonna see brand new content, you’re gonna see content that may soon go viral.
The more time you spend on TikTok, the more your For You page is gonna be tailored for you, your interests, and what you like to engage with. But a great way to get started is to go and follow accounts for brands, businesses, influencers that are in a similar niche but not necessarily competition.
How to Record a TikTok Video
Now we’ll show you guys exactly how to record a TikTok video.
So the very first thing you’re gonna do is, see the very bottom of the screen here, the plus button? Click on it to record.
TikTok Recording Features
Then, it’s gonna take you to the next page and you’ll notice that there are a ton of awesome features that allow you to record and edit within the TikTop app.
So the first is the flip functionality, which is pretty self-explanatory.
We have speed control, which is where you control the final playback speed of your videos. If I record a video at 3X speed, it’s actually gonna record a lot slower, and then it’s gonna playback three times faster. If I record at .3X speed, we’re gonna record really, really fast and then it’s gonna slow everything down in the final playback speed. So there’s a lot of fun that can be had with that.
Next up we have the beautify filter. This is everyone’s best friend. You can turn on the Beauty filter to remove fine lines and shadows. However, in the wrong lighting conditions it can look like a mask and very fake. So do try to leave the Beauty filter off as much as humanly possible!
Next up we have filters and these are so much fun because you can play with them. There are some that are designed for your skin. Some designed for architecture and landscapes. And some that even are designed for food! And then there are some that are designed for vibes. But you can mix and match different ones to get a different effect overall. It’s up to you to decide if you want to go with a uniform look. However, I’m up of the mindset that can literally create a different look for each video depending on what suits the video most and makes it grab attention.
Next up, we have the timer, and this is multi-functional. It has several different uses. First and foremost, it allows you to record hands-free which is awesome. So the three-second or 10-second timer are available here. And that is where you can adjust whether you have a three-second headstart or a 10-second headstart if you need to get setup or get to a different place in the shot. You hit Start Countdown and then you can set your phone down, walk away, and start the process of filming.
Now, this is where a lot of the TikTok magic happens, and that is in Effects. These allow you to truly have fun with your overall creation process and it allows you to create some really cool things. So let’s just take a quick peek at some of these. A couple of the popular effects include Green Screen. So you can totally look like you’re in a city somewhere in Europe!
Another great one you can find in Effects is Shake. And this one is especially funny when you’re trying to accentuate the stress, anxiety or emotion of a moment. And of course, where would we be without the Clones? Just imagine what you could create with five clones standing behind you, backing you up with every single move. Also, you don’t have to apply an effect to an entire video!
TikTok Playback Features
Once you’re reviewing the video in playback mode, you can add some text, you can add stickers. You can also add some effects, but not as many as in pre-production. But the text is really helpful, because it adds to the narrative of your videos. But remember, most people are watching 61 minutes per day with sound on. So that means the text is just there to add a little extra flavour.
You can add some text by selecting that little button at the very bottom that says Text. There are also several different options here as you can see. You can also change the colour of the text with these little bubbles at the bottom. And you can make it bolded, especially if you wanna make sure that it shows up well across maybe a lesser desirable background.
Now here are a couple other features that are incredibly helpful as you create videos. The first is at the very bottom of the screen. You’re gonna see that there’s the option of 15 seconds or 60 seconds. You can shoot videos up to 60 seconds, but our advice? Don’t start there. Start with 15 seconds and make sure that you’ve got the knack for creating videos before you go into longer videos. This is obviously just the recording process, but we’ll also show you what the process of actually publishing a video looks like!
How to Publish a TikTok Video
Up at the very top you’ll see the Sounds. Here you can either discover sounds, look through their playlists, find the TikTok-recommended music.
Another option as well, of course, is to record your own sound when you’re recording your video by hitting the big red button and holding it down as you record. And then it becomes a published sound within the app for others to even use! Now once you’re happy with this, you’ll click next.
Finally, you’ll add your captions and your hashtags. Now keep in mind there’s a 150-character limit here. So the goal is to keep your caption very, very tight. Full of keywords that tell TikTok exactly who to put it in front of and then use hashtags that are mostly niched down in order to ensure discoverability. Oh! And once you publish a caption and a video with hashtags, there is no editing. So keep that in mind.
TikTok auto-populates a bunch of suggestions for hashtags, so it makes it easier to find niche-down hashtags. When you’re first starting out and building your account, I recommend trying to stay in the five- to six-figure search counts for hashtags. 40,000, maybe 120,000. Don’t necessarily go into the millions until you have videos consistently performing. Your goal is to use up as many of the characters as you can.
From here, you can select your cover. And you want to pick the cover from your video that has the most action, so that when people see the thumbnail, they say, “What’s that? “What’s going on?” And now, you’ll Post it or Draft it!
How to Crosspost TikTok Videos
As promised, here’s how to easily cross-post all your TikTok stories to your other social media platforms for an instant, organic boost and cross-pollination between platforms. So as you go to post a video on your TikTok, you can use the ability right above the Drafts button to share your posted video to your Instagram. You can also share it via text message. And once you post the video, you have the ability to share it on even more platforms with a direct link.
If your video is officially posted, go ahead and click on a video. You’re gonna look for the three dots so you can copy the link to share it anywhere you want. You can Message it, SMS, Instagram, Stories, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, Email, QR code, and many others. There are so many different ways that you can use the content you created on TikTok to share it elsewhere!
But just keep in mind, the content you create on TikTok might be a little bit different than the culture of other platforms. Just remember that as you share your content from TikTok! So now you technically know the mechanics of TikTok. The best way for you to get started is to just go film your very first TikTok video now!
