A super detailed guide to operating Tik Tok!

Here I come, bro! 5G mobile phones will be released next year, and you’re just starting to play short videos? It’s okay, it’s not too late to play after reading this article. It will take another 2 years for 5G mobile phones to become popular.

As of June 2018, Douyin's total global users have reached 800 million, with more than 150 million daily active users in China and more than 300 million monthly active users in China. The user boundaries are constantly expanding, and the user portraits are more rich and diversified; users are highly active and use them frequently.

"Two Weibo and One Douyin" has become the marketing standard for enterprises, but for those of you who are still confused about how to use Douyin, this super useful article will make your trip worthwhile!

1. Why can’t I publish works immediately with a newly registered account? I need to maintain the account first?

Before you officially start publishing content, it is best to maintain the account for 3-5 days. The main purpose is to increase the initial weight of the account. Maintaining an account is to simulate real-life behaviors, such as liking, following, commenting, sharing, watching live broadcasts, and online time. That is to say, it is not that if I follow and like one post every day, it counts as a day. It is based on your online time on Douyin. That is to say, you may post a few hundred posts in the early stage, but the content you post must be relevant to your positioning.

2. What are the 4 common types of short videos?

Video + subtitles, voice and text, picture sliding, real person + subtitles

3. What are the two common formats of short videos?

The horizontal screen is 16:9, the vertical screen is 9:16

4. Does the more videos you post, the faster you gain followers?

The number of fans has no direct relationship with the number of works. Sometimes posting too many works can have a counterproductive effect, and the resulting screen-flooding can cause fans to become aesthetically fatigued. Therefore, I would rather spend a week polishing one work than making 21 works in 7 days.

5. How to enable 1-minute long video permission?

You need 1,000 followers to activate it.

6. How to activate the e-commerce showcase function?

Meet these three conditions at the same time: ≥ 3000 fans + ≥ 10 video works + real-name authentication

7.How to obtain live broadcast permission?

This is opened by Douyin operators who actively invite them. Generally, operators with several thousand to tens of thousands of fans can receive it. (However, if you don’t have tens of thousands of fans, live streaming is basically like looking in a mirror.)

8.What is DOU+?

DOU+ is a content heating tool. To put it simply, it is Douyin’s official advertising platform, which can help you recommend your videos to more potential users.

Please click on the link for detailed information on DOU+ usage guide: http://aweme.snssdk.com/falcon/douyin_falcon/dou_plus/online/?showNavigationBar=0&hide_nav_bar=1

9.What should I pay attention to in the early stages of making videos?

First, if the first five videos do not become popular, the account will basically become a zombie account, which means that the videos released later will not get any recommendations. Even if a popular video appears, it is only occasional luck. The four indicators of most videos are pitifully low.

Second, don’t increase your followers, don’t increase your likes, don’t increase any amount, absolutely don’t increase it!

Third, remember the second point.

10. Can you become famous by copying other people’s works?

Moving videos is a shortcut, but sometimes shortcuts are not suitable for everyone. Some people become famous because of a lot of luck. It’s okay for a short period of time, but it’s very dangerous for long-term account building. The safest way to produce something is to be down-to-earth and original.

11. In which fields can Douyin be used and in which fields can it not be used? What are the audit standards?

Blacklist industries that Douyin prohibits cooperation with

Whitelisted industries

And the review standards for entry

12.What’s the algorithm of Tik Tok?

Tik Tok’s algorithm is actually a funnel mechanism, which is basically the same as the decentralized recommendation algorithm of Toutiao. It is divided into three steps:

First, the cold start traffic pool is exposed

Assuming that 1 million people upload short videos on Douyin every day, Douyin will randomly assign a cold start traffic pool with an average exposure to each short video. For example, after each short video is reviewed and released, it has an average of 1,000 exposures.

Second, data selection

Douyin will analyze the data of likes, follows, comments, reposts and other dimensions from the 1,000 exposures of these 1 million short videos, and then select the videos with each indicator exceeding 10%, and evenly allocate 100,000 exposures to each. Then we will see which ones have more than 10% likes, follows, reposts and comments, and then roll them into the next round of larger traffic pool for recommendation.

Third, boutique recommendation pool

After rounds of verification, short videos with extremely high indicators such as like rate, playback completion rate, and comment interaction rate are screened out and have the opportunity to enter the boutique recommendation pool. This is how the videos with tens or even millions of likes that users see when they open them.

All the practical information and tips shared below are closely centered around the most important point: by increasing the number of likes, attention, comments, forwarding rate and other indicators, you can obtain more official and accurate recommendations and gain greater exposure.

1. If you want to better operate your Douyin account, how can you make good use of Douyin’s recommendation algorithm?

Tip 1: Adjust the release time

Statistics show that 62% of users watch Douyin before meals and before going to bed, while only 10.9% watch Douyin during fragmented time such as on the way to work or in the toilet.

There is no uniform standard for the best time to publish. The so-called 12 noon, 18:00, and 21:00-22:00 on weekdays, or Friday night and weekends, etc., are all just time periods when everyone may be relatively free and can only be used as a reference at most.

The truly scientific way to adjust the release time is to imagine: after you release the video, are your targeted users in the most appropriate state to watch the video at that point in time? For example, chicken soup and emotional stories are best posted between 9pm and 11pm, because this is the golden period when most men and women feel empty, lonely and cold, which just suits the occasion. For inspirational and career-oriented stories, 8am to 9am and 11:30pm to 12:30pm are their golden time periods.

Regarding release time, there is no best, just the most suitable time.

Tip 2: Improve 4 indicators

Tik Tok evaluates your performance in the cold start phase mainly based on four indicators: the number of likes, comments, reposts, and completion rate .

Therefore, if you want to get recommendations, you must mobilize all resources to improve these four indicators after the video is released:

1. In the video description, guide users to like, comment, forward or finish watching the video.

Many short videos will write "Be sure to watch to the end" or "If you feel sorry for the little sister, please like it" in the video description and at the beginning and end of the video, in order to increase the completion rate.

2. In the video description, set some interactive questions to guide users to leave comments and increase the number of comments.

3. Reply to user comments, extract the core ideas of the video, guide more users to participate in the topic discussion, and further increase the number of comments.

4. Prepare great comments in advance. After the video is released, ask friends to write in the comment section and guide users to interact more around this topic to improve these four indicators.

Tip 3: Actively participate in challenges

There are many ways to become popular, but the simplest and most effective way is to use the “Popular Challenge” function of Tik Tok.

On Douyin, there are different challenges every day. You can judge the potential of a topic to become popular based on comprehensive comparisons, and then select the topic that you think is most likely to become popular and imitate it, which can increase your chances of being recommended.

Tip 4: Continuous Maintenance

Tik Tok’s recommendation algorithm sometimes “digs up old videos” and thus makes some high-quality old videos popular.

Therefore, for high-quality videos, you need to continue to like, comment, and forward them, and keep operating them. Maybe after a while, this video will be recommended.

2. What is the process of producing professional Tik Tok short videos?

The first step of filming - determine the topic and script

What is positioning? Is it to be practical? Want to be funny? Want to be serious? Or do you want to hunt for novelty?

What is a script? It is the process and overall plan of filming.

The second step of shooting - shooting ideas and forms

How to make the picture attractive? Handsome men and beautiful women appear in the film, using filters, beauty and special effects to make the picture beautiful enough

How to keep viewers staying longer?

Practical: Quickly explain the theme, cover with copy

Entertainment: with attractive music

The effect is better when combined with real people

The third step of shooting - shooting tools & rules

Combined with tools that can help with shooting: shooting brackets, lighting, etc.

Prepare costumes, makeup, props, etc.

Make full use of the built-in camera's built-in functions: speed, countdown, slow motion, etc.

Need to be original and without watermark: mainly refers to videos uploaded locally

Shooting Complete – Editing Video

Background music: Use different styles of music to create the style of the video. The Android version of Tik Tok can upload music locally

Special effects utilization: (mainly for locally uploaded videos), make full use of effects such as action, reverse flow, and repetition

Cover selection: Choose the most exciting video as the cover

Video Release

Release time: Combined with the target group’s habits of using Douyin and their status at the time

Title: Not too long, concise, add suspense, rhetorical questions, etc.

Cover: Choose the most exciting picture as the cover to attract viewers

Comments & Private Messages: Actively reply to comments and private messages, and fans who are turned over can become loyal fans

3. What kind of content is likely to go viral on Douyin?

1. Good-looking, handsome men and beautiful women

2. A drama lover

3. Talented people such as singing and playing the piano

4. Skill teaching, such as cooking and decoration

5. Creative and special effects

6. Male and female cross-dressing

7. Cute babies and pets

8. Beautiful scenery and travel sharing

9. Cartoons and Animation

10. Real and touching video stories and character moments

In short, it is a beautiful moment related to life

4.Why doesn’t Tik Tok give recommendations?

1. There is a watermark

2. Content that is not suitable for dissemination. Douyin attaches great importance to the health education of minors.

3. Content that looks like advertising

4. The content and format are boring and monotonous for a long time. After several recommendations, the effect is not good, which will reduce the account weight and gradually become a "zombie account"

5. The video is blurry and indistinguishable

5. Will it really become popular if you post it twice?

uncertain. Of those that are exactly the same twice, very few will become popular, and most of them will remain mediocre.

So, how can you make it popular the second time you post it? You can optimize the title copy, replace it with a more eye-catching cover image, re-edit and optimize the video content, and interact in the comment section, so that the second time you post it, it will have a chance to become popular.

6. Do I need to add location when posting videos?

It depends on two situations. The first one is that the work has certain local attributes, such as dialect, region, iconic buildings, title description, etc. Then, adding positioning will increase the weight of the recommendation. But if your content is too vertical, or has a unified style, and the overall content has nothing to do with local attributes, then don't add it.

7.What are the benefits of adding POI (adding location information when publishing)?

Helps with exposure. POI is the normal information of the video and is a distribution entrance of Douyin. The POI details page is a content aggregation page similar to the follow page. Any video with this POI becomes your potential drainage channel. Enrich video information. For fans of food videos, POI can let them know the location of the store and make your video content more informative.

To put it simply: without reducing the original traffic, a new traffic entrance is added. It is beneficial as long as it is added at the right time. See the previous item for details.

8. What are the benefits of guiding users to click on the POI icon?

For food exploration videos, if users click on your video to learn about the location information, it means that users have become interested in the store through your video, and that your video content is highly attractive to users, which will give your content a greater chance of becoming a video with more traffic.

9. How to guide users to click on the POI icon?

There are many ways to guide users to click on the POI icon. There are three paths:

a. Voice guidance in the video: Want to know where this store is? Just click the icon in the lower left corner!

b. Video copy guidance: Go to this store today and click on the icon to meet me!

c. Comments guide clicks: Reply to users who ask where the store is, and tell them to click the icon above the comment to find out!

10.Will guiding users to click on POI icons be considered advertising?

Won't! Because a store is a reasonable content scenario for a food exploration video, telling users the address is reasonable information.

However, the store name and activities cannot be exposed in long shots, such as 5 seconds in a 10s video.

11.How to choose the Tik Tok cover?

Add a title so that the targeted audience can know what the theme you want to express is at a glance, which is more conducive to accurate traffic;

Once a stranger on Douyin becomes your fan because of one of your Douyin videos, the unified cover style will allow new fans in your vertical field to quickly become your accurate fans, which is conducive to the accumulation of high-quality fans and the cultivation of stickiness.

12. Methods to increase exposure of Douyin account

1. Grab the hot comments: Pay more attention to some big names in your own field, and leave wonderful comments at the beginning of their video push. Once his video becomes popular, the number of likes and attention on your comments will also increase. The fans of big names are also your potential fans. By constantly grabbing the hot comments, you will attract a steady stream of traffic.

2. Go to DOU+ and recharge quickly. To put it simply, this function is to pay the TikTok platform to increase the exposure of precise recommendations based on natural algorithms.

13. Is it necessary to design a slogan when making a short video for personal IP?

Better add! This slogan is your label, a unique element that makes people remember you. For example: I am Papi Jiang, a woman who combines beauty and talent.

14. Is it worth spending a lot of time just to make a hit video?

It makes no difference. Looking through other videos in some video accounts with millions of likes, maybe only this one is popular, and no one watches the others. Such accounts have no commercial value. What is really worth spending a lot of time studying is the model and process of how to continuously produce popular videos, rather than being obsessed with creating one and thinking you are awesome. “Dripping water wears away a stone” does not lie in the charm of one drop, but in its continuous power.

15. How to come up with a good title (descriptive copy)?

First of all, you must understand that under the algorithm recommendation mechanism of Tik Tok, the function of the title is not only to attract attention. The most important function is to tell the algorithm through your title what precise audience to recommend to. For example, all the words and sentences in your title are written around self-media, then in the first wave of 1,000 recommended traffic, naturally a larger proportion will be recommended to fans who like to watch self-media types! Are the four indicators obtained in this way much higher than those of inaccurately recommended videos?

Therefore, please don’t use the various shocking expressions in WeChat. Under the decentralized algorithm recommendation, this set of expressions is useless.

16. How to use titles to stimulate fans and increase comments?

Use interrogative sentences instead of declarative sentences. For example: Declarative sentence: Learn about 5 tips for skin care. Question: In addition to these 5 skin care tips, do you know any other ones? By comparison, do you find that the latter is more likely to stimulate the desire to add comments and view comments?

17.What is the best length for a short video on Tik Tok?

Generally, it is controlled between 7 and 20 seconds to get a better video completion rate. If it exceeds 20 seconds, your content will most likely be scrolled away if it is not outstanding.

18. I don’t have any fans in the early stage. Can I get some fans?

I advise you not to have such little thoughts. Because the mechanism and path of machine-generated followers are contrary to the official logic of Douyin, many accounts have been used to increase followers but nothing happened. In fact, it’s just that the official has not bothered you yet. But for operators who want to build a big account, once they increase followers multiple times or on a large scale, their future videos will not receive any traffic recommendations, and the account will be useless.

19. Is mutual promotion through following and liking each other useful?

It is useful, but it does not help much in increasing the number of recommendations, because the official weighting of this type of operation is very small. It is okay to play with it in the early stage when you are just starting out, but if you want to improve the four indicators in the later stage, you still need to rely on original and good content.

20. Am I being restricted? Why aren't my videos as popular as before?

Tik Tok is an algorithm-based content distribution platform with no operational intervention. All without hot/throttling logic. Videos are not as popular as before, so the first thing to consider is the content. The algorithm distribution is very fair and just, and excellent content can stand out without any other factors. Now there are more high-quality creators and more high-quality videos, and users' requirements for videos are constantly increasing, so everyone should avoid being stagnant, constantly polish the quality of content, learn more, and summarize more.

21. Will it affect distribution if I delete bad videos?

It will not affect. But it would be a pity to delete it, so I suggest you keep it private.

22.My video prompts that the video is missing/the video is under review. Why?

The video disappeared = the content violated the rules and was removed by the platform

The video is under review = the video enters the Douyin platform review process normally, just wait patiently.

23. How long does the review take?

Generally, the review will be completed within a few minutes; depending on the machine and manual status on the day, the review time for some works may be longer. Douyin has dedicated staff to monitor the review time, allocate machines and manpower in a targeted manner, and try their best to ensure user experience.

24. How to authenticate food self-media?

Food certification is a personal certification. Please apply for it in [Account and Security] – [Apply for Official Certification] – [Personal Certification] in the APP. To apply for food self-media certification, you must have more than 500,000 fans on platforms other than Douyin and more than 1 million fans on Douyin.

25.How to authenticate original musicians?

To upload original music, please log in to https://musician.douyin.com/# on your computer and participate in the original musician project! When more than 2 songs are uploaded, the original musician's logo will be displayed.

26.How to authenticate the enterprise account?

Douyin Enterprise Account Encyclopedia Link: https://www.toutiao.com/i6591308376175542788/

Enterprise certification process link: https://www.toutiao.com/i6538278409796059655/

If there is a problem with corporate certification, please send the Douyin account, screenshots, questions and other information to [email protected], and we will reply within two working days.

27. What should I do if my account is stolen?

Account hacking case analysis: https://docs.qq.com/doc/DZkp1QWJzVnRaZ25G

Stay calm, we have a solution for account recovery. Please follow the steps below. At the same time, please be reminded that the official will not ask you for a verification code. First find the operations staff, explain the details of the theft, and ban the account to stop the loss in time.

Please prepare the relevant materials according to the instructions below and send an email to [email protected]. Please name the email subject as [Appeal Information + Douyin Nickname].

The materials you need to prepare are as follows: download and fill out the "Account Appeal Application Letter", print a paper version and sign it, upload an electronic version (named as nickname + Douyin ID + application letter) and a paper photo with a signature.

A photo of myself holding my ID card and a piece of paper with the words "Only used to recover stolen TikTok account" written on it. The person, ID card and paper must be in the same photo, and the handwriting must be clearly legible.

A detailed description of how my account was stolen, including the fraudster’s account information and all screenshot evidence (please summarize the image evidence in the same Word file, named nickname + TikTok ID + description).

28.What should I do if someone steals my video?

Please fill in the Douyin infringement complaint link yourself: https://douyin.jinshuju.com/f/1eYlFN. There will be dedicated personnel to check and handle it every day and follow the existing infringement handling standards.

Douyin data analysis applet: Xigua Index (currently the most authoritative Douyin ranking list), KolRanking (Douyin third-party monitoring applet, presenting influencer data in different categories)

Video shooting tools: Wuta Camera, Fisheye Camera, Tik Tok built-in

Audio screen recording tools: Quik (more complicated to operate), QuickShot, Zishuo, MeiCe

Video material platform: 80s (massive film and television resources free download), Weibo Party (free download of all videos on the Internet)

Video screen recording tools: KK Recorder, Screen Recorder Master, Camtasia9 (free HD screen recording, unlimited recording)

Video processing tools: KineMaster, PR (professional-level software, computer operation, relatively complex), Videoleap (can only be downloaded on Apple phones), Quick Clip (produced by 360, completely free), iClip, Impression (master-level filters), VUE (excellent tool for shooting segmented videos, the source of many Douyin special effects)

Title tools: Leshow, Quik, Legend, Wondershare Archer (PC operation, simple and convenient operation, powerful functions)

Voice Changing App: Voice Changer, VoiceChanger

Watermark removal apps: Shuiyinbao, InShot (powerful, with free cropping and other functions)

Music Library: Tik Tok Popular Music Rankings

Image design platform:

1. Design: Cut out pictures online and make special posters

2. Tuguai Monster: Online Photoshop, you can draw pictures as long as you can type

3. Chuangketie: PPT, business card functions are rich, and there are many different templates

4. Fotor Lazy Design: Print online and scan the code with your phone to make pictures

13 high-quality, copyright-free photo galleries:

1. Pixabay (Address: pixabay.com)

Recommended keywords: Support Chinese search, no copyright

2. Pexels (Address: www.pexels.com)

Recommended keywords: ultra-high quality

3. Visual Hunt (address: visualhunt.com)

Recommended keywords: You can search for images by color

4. Unsplash (Address: unsplash.com)

Recommended keywords: high-quality photo websites

5. Paixin (address: www.paixin.com/popular)

Recommended keywords: High-quality creative content sharing platform, its free gallery is enough

6. Gratisography (Address: gratisography.com)

Recommended keywords: High-resolution photography gallery, many creative pictures

7. LifeOfPix (Address: www.lifeofpix.com)

Recommended keywords: Most of the pictures are European landscapes, suitable for travel pictures

8. Stocksnap (address: stocksnap.io)

Recommended keywords: Founded by many photographers, with a wealth of free photos

9. Magdeleine (address: magdeleine.co)

Recommended keywords: Free high-definition inspirational pictures website, you can find pictures by color and emotion

10. Streetwill (address: streetwill.co)

Recommended keywords: clean and tidy photo sharing website without any advertisements

11. Bieyang.com (Address: www.ssyer.com)

Recommended keywords: The largest copyright-free high-definition image website in China

12. Foodiesfeed (Address: www.foodiesfeed.com)

Recommended keywords: Free photo gallery for professional food

13. Kaboompics (address: kaboompics.com)

Recommended keywords: A website that provides high-quality image materials for bloggers, website owners, freelancers, and web designers

Douyin account trading platform: Weiboyi, A5 trading platform

Other tools:

Photomosh: An online tool that can turn any image into a glitch art effect in one second

Mishuo: A tool that can simulate WeChat chats. Many interesting conversations on Tik Tok are recorded with the help of it.

Interesting tips: There are thousands of popular Tik Tok templates. You only need to modify the text, avatar, and pictures to generate a cool video.

Bi: A short video creative traffic-generating software

What are the operational strategies to increase followers from 0 to 1 million?

1. Clear content positioning

2. Flexible topic selection mechanism

3. Stable update mechanism

4. Invest passion in your followers

5. There are some good-looking girls or boys on camera

The core principle is: high-quality video content is the only shortcut to obtain recommended traffic

Source: Ceshen Notes