Sam Perry - an Australian TikTok creator with 654,000 followers - reveals the behind-the-scenes workings of her videos and the app.
Which content performs best for you?
The content that performs the best for me is make up and fashion content, as well as engaging content that opens a discussion in the comment section.
The reason I find that fashion content doing well is because they are generally haul type of videos that allow people to voice their opinion about what outfit they like the best, which opens more discussions and comments that allows the video to be seen more, which in turn makes it perform better.
What is your best performing video?
My best performing video is a high heel haul video that accumulated 9.1 million views with just under 11,000 shares and 5681 comments.
It isn’t my most viewed or liked video but it is the most engaged, with most of the comments being of which pair of shoes they liked the best, this really allowed the video to take off because of the way it could be interacted with.
Where is your audience located?
My audience is quite diverse when it comes to location, a large portion coming from the United States and Australia.
When it comes to content being based around the viewers, it isn’t something I actively think about for every video, unless it is something specific, for example when I do fashion hauls the brand may be Australian owned and operated which caters more to my Australian audience.
Which fashion brands have you worked with? What was this experience like?
I have worked with Princess Polly, Hello Molly, Sabo Skirt, The Iconic AU and Superdry.
My experience with all of these brands was amazing, they gave clear briefs that were easy to understand what they were after.
As much as the briefs are clear, they also left a lot of creative control to me, including the styling of the clothes, location, music and captions.
Most of the time the brands which to see the videos before they go live and they give their feedback then, most of the time they are happy with the content and give the go ahead to be posted.
What are some dos and don'ts for the platform?
TikTok as a platform is very reward and punish, so there are many dos and don’ts.
I am very fortunate to have a close relationship with TikTok Australia to understand the platform a lot more than the average user.
The quality of the video and the timing of the posts are crucial, the algorithm rewards videos that recorded within the app and very high quality videos, this doesn’t mean don’t post anything made outside the app, it just means that the videos should be shot very well, with good lighting and in vertical.
Horizontal and super cropped videos do not perform well because the viewing experience isn’t as enjoyable.
Another mistake a lot of brands I see especially make is using TikTok like Instagram stories, this doesn’t work because the algorithm doesn’t usually favour videos that are too posed.
To get your videos the most of amount of exposure is by having a personality or story to it, for example an outfit styling video should be shown as a getting ready for a date or event video instead of just a how to style this clothing item.
Users want to see a story and/or engaging content.
What is your advice to brands if they want to work with TikTok content creators?
My advice to brands that want to work with TikTok creators is to reach out to social media agencies that have TikTokers on their roster if they are looking for a variety of talent, otherwise if they want to work with a specific creator it is best to go straight to the creator’s messages through Instagram DM or email, where the creator themselves can help where to go from there.
As many ask why not message directly on TikTok, the answer is quite simple, messages on TikTok do not go through to the creator unless both pages mutually follow each other.