Let me explain.
But take everything I’m about to say with a grain of salt because I’ve never used the platform before in my life.
If you’ve been living under a rock, TikTok is like the more successful version of Vine. It’s a platform mostly known for people creating short form videos, whether they’re dances, skits, jokes, etc.
And the way it developed in terms of how users interact with the platform is that they watch a short video, scroll up to watch another one, and repeat.
Apparently, it’s a platform where it’s easy to rack up tons of views and create a following, but it may not be the following you’re expecting.
A podcaster I’ve been following for a very long time, David So, said it perfectly.
“TikTok is a very different social media app, where people don’t really become invested in the individual. They just watch, scroll, and move on. Watch, scroll, move on. Watch, scroll, move on.”
There was even an article where a TikTok content creator, with over one million followers, set up a meet and greet at Vidcon, but not a single person showed up.
It was quite painful to see, but not the most shocking thing either.
You can’t expect to bond with your followers if all you do is post videos of yourself doing TikTok dances and lip syncing sound bites.
You’re not showing any of your personality, your thoughts, or your life.
With all that said, this doesn’t mean TikTok is a bad platform.
Back when I used Instagram to build my email list, I considered using TikTok after hearing how easy it is to rack up views. So when I say it’s ‘worse than I thought,’ it just means that it doesn’t fit with how I want to build my little freelance business as well as what I originally thought.
The same concept exists within the email marketing realm.
There are two types of emails:
1. You have the ones that are just pure sales emails. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but expect your email list to turn into a churn-n-burn type of deal.
2. You have the relationship-building emails. These are the emails that are more personality driven, more on the long-form side, and there’s more loyalty within your email list.
Nothing wrong with either of those two. They both have their pros and cons. It’s just a matter of what type of business you’re in and your goal is with the email list you’re building. Do you purely see it as an income source? Or are you looking to create a lifetime following?
If you’re looking to learn the latter, then I recommend checking out How to Become an Email Titan.