The Art of Making a Viral Tiktok

Before this blog begins, I’d like to clarify: I will not be teaching you how to make viral tiktoks. The title is adjacent to clickbait. Its cousin, perhaps—but not a lie. Because I do want to talk about the art of making a viral tiktok, if only to lead to my own experience with circular advice the internet gives about marketing and going “viral” that has given me a few small successes, but also a lot of pitfalls.

So, I thought I’d sit, write down some of the advice I’ve been given, and categorize it into the good, the bad, and the weird. This way, maybe someone else can find use of it, or, at least not feel so alone in trying to make their way through the strange landscape of internet social media marketing.

Worst Tiktok advice: Be authentic. I know, a bummer. Everyone always describes this as one of the pillars of attracting an audience—be yourself! And while it seems like a nice idea, let’s call a spade a spade. It’s bullshit. There are many accounts based entirely on making up a fake persona, or actively lying on the internet. In fact, many effective tiktok schemes involve factually incorrect titles, ragebait, and leaning into the kind of extremes that may or may not be true.

Even in the cases of the most authentic creators, their work is still only a flat perspective of them. A portrait, not a three dimensional person. So, they may be “authentic” in the sense that they’re not lying, but what they’re showing on the internet is but a teaspoon of their personality. Not their full, real self.

Therefore, the real advice shouldn’t be authenticity. It should be: know who you’re *trying* to be on the internet. Because a good Tiktok account won’t hold your full self. It never could.

Think of a book. Do you know *everything* about the characters? Even the main character? No. You know a list traits, likes, and dislikes. You know some of their actions. But their story is still a carefully curated *version* of them that fits a narrative. Figure out your narrative online, and commit to that. Not some vague and difficult to hold expression of “authenticity”.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be fake. Just know its okay and even welcome to be a character.

Annoying but semi-true Tiktok advice: Be consistent. It’s stupid. And frustrating. But it works. When you start looking into online marketing, everyone will tell you to post at least once a day on Tiktok. It will help get more consistent followers. I have gotten 50-100 followers more since posting 6-10 times a week versus 3-5.

There is a caveat: I have 100% gotten more “viral” tiktoks when I posted less frequently.

Most of my 15k-25k+ tiktoks are from before my consistent postings. Now my average sits in the 250-450 range, and gleefully accept anything sitting in 1k-10k. So, take it all with a grain of salt. Getting a following is easier with consistency, but I’d say going viral while being consistent can be a little trickier.

Hard to follow Tiktok advice: Follow trends. This one is a hard truth of the tiktok game. If you follow a trend too late, you won’t get far. If you follow it too early, you won’t go far. If you follow it just a little too late, you’ll net an extra 1k+ views. If you follow it at the perfect early time, you hit those more viral-esque numbers.

As inane and frustrating as it sounds, on Tiktok you gotta keep trying at this trend game, because if you never follow it, you can get yourself stuck in 250-350 hell. Trust me, just spent the last week or so there because I stubbornly started using some old middle school music of mine. So, we’re going to do less of that.

You will never perfect the timing with trending sounds, but there is something else you can do: have a clever spin on it. Everyone will be doing X dance or X cat cucumber trend, but if you do a good job switching it up, the sound makes people look but your joke/idea will make people look and laugh even longer.

And if you make a trend and you win the whole game, but that one is the hardest to guesstimate about. So just try to be clever.

Best Tiktok advice: Keep trying and learn. But not just passively. Don’t keep throwing shit at the wall. Look at tiktokers you want to be like. The kind of circles you’d wish to be grouped into. Watch them. Like them. Favorite them. Make your own algorithm seek them. Take inspiration while you create, and when you post, collect every video of yours that do the best and use those kinds of ideas to improve your future content.

Learning to create a brand online and market it sucks. Especially if you’re not an overnight viral Tiktok sensation. It makes everything-slowgoings. But as long as you keep trying and keep learning, you’ll make headway, little by little. Some people blow up overnight and use those numbers to build on from there, but others take the slow and steady pace.

Don’t tell my spouse I’m using this, but he there’s a saying about success that he loves: Success is the point where skill meets opportunity. You can’t make opportunity appear, but you can always work towards making sure you’re talented and prepared for it.

And if this all sounds like a lot, don’t let me ruin your Tiktok fun! Fuck me and do you. Nothing I say is gospel. But I still think my advice might be a little more realistic than the stream-lined top ten tips you might get off a perfectly curated marketing site.

Now I’m not perfectly authentic either, but at least no one’s paying me to make it look pretty. I’m just sharing what I’ve experienced over my DIY crash-course in social media marketing.

We’re only at 422 Followers and 47.7k likes, but we’re trying every day for a book we love. And maybe that’s the obstacle a lot of the times for me. It’s that I love the book, not the social media.

Prayers.