Creating a TikTok Video

We would always recommend that you plan your TikTok videos when you are promoting your brand on the platform. Remember that your aim is always engagement with the users and although spontaneous videos can certainly do that those that are planned tend to do a lot better.

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It is pretty straight forward to create a TikTok video. If you have ever posted a story to Instagram or Snapchat then you are going to find the tools available in TikTok easy to use, intuitive and powerful.

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The first thing you need to do is to tap on the “Plus” icon at the bottom of the screen. This will open the camera on your device and you will see a large red round record button. You can create either a 15-second short video or a 60 seconds video.

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It is not necessary for you to use your camera to record something on the fly. There is an “Upload” button that you can use to upload a video that you created earlier. Whatever way you choose to go you can use the tools within TikTok to add a number of special effects including:

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• Speed up your video

• Slow down your video

• Alternate between your front and back smartphone camera

• Add a timer

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There are a number of effects available in TikTok and when you tap on the “Effects” icon on the left side of the screen you can browse through them. There is a “World” tab where you will find effects suitable for the environment such as a slice of augmented reality pizza!

If you are using a dog or a cat in your video then there even special effects available for them as well. The “Beauty” button is a real lifesaver. Use this to erase any dark shadows that you may have under your eyes.

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Then there are the various filters available which are all numbered unlike with Instagram where they all have names. As with Instagram, the filters in TikTok are there to allow you to change the color filter of the camera.

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The timer feature is very useful as you can set it to create hands-free recordings. Without this feature, you would need to hold the recording button down all of the time when you are shooting your videos from within TikTok.

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We recommend that you spend time playing around with the various special effects tools in TikTok. It will not take you very long to become an expert and after this, you can start testing the Duets feature. To create a Duet video just tap on the share button with the original and then choose Duet.

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It is always good to add a musical track with TikTok videos and you can do this after you have uploaded it to the recording screen. In fact, videos can go viral on TikTok simply because of the chosen music track.

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To add a music track all you need to do is to tap on the “Add a Sound” icon which is on the right side of the recording screen. You will then see a streaming menu of songs and artists similar to Spotify. Just browse the most popular tracks on TikTok and you can also find other songs on Apple Music as well if you want.

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Remember that you will not find complete songs on TikTok. Instead, you will find short clips to use with your short videos. You cannot edit these clips which may not be what you want. But there is a solution as you can actually play the music on another device while you are shooting video in TikTok. This is then registered as an original sound.

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You need to be careful that you do not infringe any copyrights if you record sound from another device though. Within the sounds menu, you will find the tracks associated with TikTok challenges.

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Once you have finished your video just tap on “Next” and you will see a page that looks a lot like the post page for Instagram. On this page, you can create a caption for your video and add relevant hashtags.

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If you want to you can add the account handles of other users here and you can make changes to the privacy settings where you can enable or disable Duets, turn the comments on or off and to download to your smartphone’s photo gallery you can tap on “Save to Album”. To make the post later you can tap on the “Draft” button and return to it later.

Content Marketing on TikTok

 

Whenever you are posting content to TikTok you need to think about engagement. Once you start to create entertaining videos that drive engagement your followers will want more from you. So you had better have a plan to keep them entertained on a regular basis!

There are going to be a number of marketers that make a lot of posts on TikTok at the beginning and then post nothing afterward. This is not the best way to go. It is like telling your audience that you have nothing new to offer them. Your followers will feel that you no longer want to communicate with them and you want to avoid this.

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Create a schedule for your TikTok posts. You need to make a commitment if you want to be successful on social media platforms like TikTok. New content posted regularly will increase your chances of more engagement and more followers.