Please read this section with these questions:
1. How are TikTok short videos recommended?
2. How to improve the completion rate of TikTok short videos?
3. Is it possible that my previously released works will become popular in a few months?
When users open TikTok, they will default to the “For You” interface, but the short video content that each user sees is very different. Look at it from another perspective: As a TikTok creator, some people can get millions of likes for their works, while others have posted hundreds of posts but still only have dozens of views. If your purpose of coming to TikTok is traffic and monetization, then before you start making content, you should at least understand the underlying logic of TikTok’s short video algorithm.
Underlying logic 1: TikTok algorithm recommendation premise attribution priority principle
When registering an account, the background will give the account an “ID card” based on the user’s location, which is the “birthplace” of the account. This cannot be modified after successful registration. No matter where the owner of this account moves later, it will not change this.
The main impact of the account’s attribution is where your works and comments will be recommended to. If you are a British account, most of your work traffic will be from the UK, while American accounts will be pushed to Americans. So before choosing the account’s attribution, we must think clearly: which country’s market do I plan to enter, whether the products I sell have a market and demand in this country, whether the style of the work can be welcomed by users in this region, and so on.
This is an important reason why I chose to deploy many US TikTok accounts and live broadcasts. All of our project selection data point to the United States as the largest consumer country, where users have a high degree of acceptance of products. At the same time, I have a deep understanding of the US market, am sure of the content preferences of users in this region, and am also good at other marketing methods of independent stations in the US.
However, TikTok’s e-commerce in the United States has always been imperfect. Even though we have done internal testing of TikTok’s yellow car in the United States, users jump to the independent station through the yellow car to complete the purchase behavior, rather than directly like the closed loop in the UK and Southeast Asia. Even so, I still put the main battlefield in the US market. Not only because I am more familiar with and good at marketing in the United States, but also a more important reason is that my main transaction scenario is the independent station. In the part of the seventh chapter on enterprises going overseas, I will tell you why enterprises going overseas should choose to build brand independent stations. The United States is the world’s largest consumer market in many product categories, and independent stations are more inclined to choose the United States. So I chose the US market as the main battlefield to do TikTok, and at the same time developed a part of the market in the UK and Southeast Asia. If you are an individual entrepreneur, you can choose the market in combination with the monetization method in Chapter 6.
When you choose a country or region for TikTok, refer to the above factors, combine the market capabilities and product sales logic that you and your team are best at, and work backwards from the end to the beginning to figure out which account you need, and then register. Otherwise, if you find that the location is wrong after registration, you will need to start all over again even if you have operated your fans, and the time, opportunity, and money costs will all be wasted.
Underlying logic 2: The relationship between fans and playback volume
1. You can have playback volume without fans
TikTok will give each work 300~500 basic playback volume (except for accounts and works that have been punished for violations). Even if it is a new account without any fans, your first work will have such basic playback. So in theory, the more accounts you have and the more works each account posts, the more playback volume you can get.
But because it is a new account, it has not released many works and has no fans, so TikTok does not know you yet. The basic playback volume recommended to you is the random recommended general traffic, which depends on luck. If the video you posted is about beauty, and there are 300 men in the random traffic, then the data of this video will be very poor, and it will not be recommended to the next traffic pool because of the poor data.
2. The impact of fans on playback volume
For accounts with fans, the basic playback volume of each work is also 300~500, which is fair. However, accounts with fans are more likely to be recommended to a larger traffic pool because of good video data. This is affected by the following two factors.
First, a certain proportion of these basic playbacks will be directly pushed to fans. These people are already screened and verified people who like your work, and the probability of them liking, finishing the broadcast, and interacting again will be very high, thus directly contributing to the data.
Secondly, the account content, tags and fan portraits have been identified and recorded by the TikTok platform. For TikTok, this account is no longer a “stranger”, and it is getting to know it better bit by bit. When you publish your work at this time, the platform will push traffic with similar tags based on the current account tags and popular crowd portraits. Although these traffics are not as accurate as fans, they are definitely more accurate than the general traffic of new accounts.
So whether your account has fans or not, you will get basic playback volume, but the accuracy of the push will be different. This will greatly affect the data of the work and determine whether the video can continue to be recommended.
Tips
This is why a user will see different content when opening TikTok, because the background will make customized video recommendations for them based on their interest tags. If the content tags of your account are accurate enough (of course, the premise is that the content is good), it will also be recommended to accurate users.
Underlying logic three: TikTok’s short video traffic pool ladder
This is a rough distribution diagram of the traffic pool level. The purpose of showing this diagram is not to limit the number of levels or the number of views at each level, because TikTok’s background algorithm is more intelligent and complex, and it will be optimized and adjusted in real time. We can’t memorize it as a formula. Understanding its grading logic is to help you know when you see the data of your own work: what stage is my account in? How is my content polished? And how is my account label optimized? In this way, you can formulate a strategy that is more in line with this stage.
Underlying logic 4: Which data can help short videos break through a larger traffic pool? IPOINT(1 point) → LIKE(Like)
2 POINTS(2 points)→ COMMENT(Comment)3 POINTS(3 points)→ SHARES(Share)
5 POINTS(5 points)→ COMPLETION RATE(Completion rate) POINTS(6 points) → RE-WATCH(Repeat viewing)
We observe the last two items with the highest scores: completion rate and repeated viewing, which actually point to the same indicator-how much time this work can help TikTok retain users.
So we must do everything we can to extend the time users spend on our short videos. The more we help the platform retain users, the more users the platform will match to us, creating a win-win situation.
I have summarized several methods to improve the completion rate. On the basis of good content, these methods can be used to increase the completion rate twice.
(1) Put the most attractive copy at the beginning of the video and present it in the form of dubbing.
For example:
“I spent $200,000 to buy a ring. Let’s see how my husband reacts.”
“Come with me to see if a $1,000-a-night hotel is worth it.”
“I gave this gift to my girlfriend and she immediately agreed to marry me.”
(2) Show the value that this video can bring to users in the first sentence.
For example:
“This video teaches you how to draw illustrations.”
“This video teaches you to master the basic pronunciation rules of Chinese.”
(3) Put valuable information into a picture and put it at the end.
style=”text-indent:14px”>In a food tutorial video, inform the audience at the beginning that there will be a recipe ingredient list at the end.
In a video on how to identify a good diamond, inform the audience at the beginning that there will be a diamond 4C rating reference table at the end.
(4) Summarize the content of the video into several points, and emphasize the last one as the most important at the beginning.
For example:
“The 10 most beautiful attractions in Chicago, the last one is my favorite.”
Start directly from the TOP10 and rank to the TOP1 (you can start from the TOP5 in the early stage). These skills are called “skills” because they are not the decisive factors affecting the completion rate. The core driving force is still the strength of our content. So I need to remind you: Don’t use skills as a life-saving straw, they are just icing on the cake.
Underlying logic 5: “Delayed detonation” of TikTok works
Although TikTok’s long tail effect is relatively short, we may encounter the situation of “delayed detonation” of works: works released two or three months ago suddenly have a lot of traffic now.
Due to the inaccurate account positioning and push crowd at the time of release, this work was not triggered to be pushed to the next traffic pool. As the account continues to operate, the tags continue to enrich and deepen, the account becomes more and more popular, and many fans will click on the account homepage to view other works. At this time, the data of the video will be updated. If the updated data triggers the recommendation mechanism, TikTok backend will recommend traffic to this work again.
This situation may also occur because the user finds this video through search, watches and interacts, and also updates the data of this video, triggering another recommendation. So I mentioned before that copywriting and topic tags are very important, because this will help your work have a higher probability of being searched and gaining traffic again.
The above are the five underlying logics of TikTok’s short video traffic recommendation algorithm that I have summarized. I believe that after you understand the algorithm, you will be able to more clearly determine the direction of short video optimization and efforts and achieve better results.