I Want to Feel Rewarded Giving My Attention: 30 Days of Posting TikToks Daily

The name of the game is: overstimulation.

I’ve made a TikTok every day for the last 30 days. You can watch them here and here. I teach storytelling techniques, public speaking frameworks, and job interviewing tips using Gamma.

This is what I’ve learned from making content:

1. Something needs to pay off for us not scrolling past

Scrolling the fyp is the normal behavior. Staying to watch a TikTok is breaking the pattern. You need to hook people to watch and then reward people for actually watching.

Make it worth watching all the way to the end by providing value until the final second.

AKA I want dopamine hit after dopamine hit. This is whole other article.

2. Why should I watch?

Value comes in all forms.

It can be entertainment value like making me laugh. Emotional value such making me aw at cute kittens.

It can be knowledge like knowing how ballerinas break in pointe shoes (such a badass process, I watch every one that comes on my fyp).

It can be a value in showing a makeup hack for Asian hooded eyes.

*A tip: To know if you’re posting VALUE. Go ahead and run a 1,000 view promotion ($7-11) on TikTok and when it prompts to pick the video you want to circulate, see how long it takes you to pick which one. Minutes, right? You can’t pick. You don’t like any of them. When you put money behind it and wonder which one you’re going to put on a pedestal and serve to all of us, you notice quickly that you’ve been posting JUNK. That’s ok though. You’re learning.

3. MORE IS MORE

As a presenter, I was taught that the audience can’t read and listen at the same time. I still think that's true. But on TikTok, we want to flex our reading brain and listening brain more.

We scroll and read the comments as we watch your video.

Morgan, Gamma’s Marketing Intern, brilliantly started adding a flash of text that was different that the verbal hook I was saying, serving the audience 2 different hooks– a text hook and a verbal hook.

Each video has 3 hooks: text hook, audible/verbal hook, and a visual hook.

The overstimulation of TikTok’s UI shares a lot of the similarites with other Asian sites, even search engines such as Naver vs. Google.

4. “The more personal, the more universal.”

The more specific I make the content, the better it tends to perform.

When I pull examples from my own personal experience and share them, it gets more saves and more shares.

5. Say the product’s name and show how the product would be used

“Do you always show the product in use?” - David Ogilvy wrote in his memo, Are You The Greatest? which was a list for his creative directors at Ogilvy & Mather offices

You’ll notice by my 12th TikTok for Gamma’s account, I drop the name “Gamma” in every. single. TikTok.

It’s no longer “and let me present a deck.” I say, “here’s my gamma,” or “to help explain my point, here’s our gamma.”

6. Curation is the new creation

The accounts that curate things from other platforms are performing very well. Surprisingly well.

There’s an account that screenshots popular reddit threads that I follow, like, tag my friends in the comments, and SAVE.

I was shocked that I was not scrolling, not watching, but reading on TikTok.

This kind of cross posting wouldn’t fly on YouTube. No one goes on YouTube to read yet on TikTok due to the short form expectations and faster hook to determine what you’re getting yourself into, reading is possible.

I’ve also observed my own behavior as a TikTok viewer, logging close to 14 hours per week sometimes.

Here’s what I’ve learned from observing how I consume content:

7. The longer you’re on TikTok, the more jaded you get to the classic quick hooks

Similar to how we’ve gotten used to any click baity website or YouTube thumbnail or title. You’ll just learn how to suss them out.

What’s sad about this is that: The content MIGHT actually be great but I’ve become so tired of the same hook, I scroll.

Me scrolling TikToks to find a local dinner recommendation in Paris later

8. People like to learn from other people

I search “how to do x” on TikTok before I look it up YouTube... if not Google, chat GPT etc.

Hence, the new SEO content creating strategies.

When I travel to new places, TikTok is my first source because I would rather see the place through a person’s experience than still photos on some website that was probably sponsored.

In terms of other life skills like using the parking brakes or correctly poaching an egg in ramen, then I enjoy watching OTHER people try their methods and see if it works.

Shoutout to the stitching capability.

An example of this is the flax seed face mask trend that claims to aid hyperpigmentation. Now there’s a slew of people trying it and giving their honest takes.

9. Showing personality is you playing the long game

Mikayla is the perfect example of this. Her actual content has ZERO relevance to my life. I have no aspiration to apply full glam myself the way this woman beautifully teaches but I am in love with her big personality and strong Boston accent. I could watch her stuff for hours.

The formula for building an audience as YOU the creator being the focus: high quality x unique personality.

10. I want to be obsessed and binge your content

If your video is good, I want more available. Give me the rabbit hole to go down.

Here’s the flow: If I love what I’ve watched > I go to the profile to see other types of content > I follow. If the profile looks bleak or the last video uploaded was 2022 and there is nothing else for me to watch, I don’t follow. Give me video content to binge. I want to scroll through and like and bookmark all your stuff. More of the reason to keep posting.

11. Thank God for 2X speed

If you’ve got VERY INSIGHTFUL content in the video but boring delivery (aka lack of visual stimulation like no change in camera angle, not facially expressive, monotone voice, low energy), I’ll hold down the screen to watch it on 2X.

But I will watch it because I get the feeling I am going to learn something that I won’t get anywhere else.

12. Show feelings to get likes

Raw human emotion wins every time

I’m thankful for the plethora of intimate life moments that people share with us. Groom reactions to bride walking down aisle, college acceptance reactions, buying her first car, even raw post-breakup stories, etc.

I’ve never seen a video that displays raw human emotion not in the 1K+ likes range.

My next post will be about creator energy:

As an extrovert, the energy I give to the camera does not come back to me the way it would if I was talking to a person. I’ve learned to design my days around making sure I’m getting sources of energy in— brainstorming sessions, reading about storytelling, having my own conversations about creating conetnt, seeing friends who know nothing about my content, watching OTHER great TikTokers.

Energy is so key because people can FEEL your passion. Just watch Mikayla.