I don't know why I'm here. Or why you're here. But here's how this whole TikTok thing started.
For starters, it didn't come out of nowhere.
It probably seems like I pulled this entire thing out of my ass, but it's actually been a work in progress for years.
I've had several different TikTok accounts, most of which have been at least moderately successful. However, aside from the Eratosthenes page, I've been anonymous due to the experimental nature of the pages. I've deleted all but 2 accounts.
I made multiple pages because I wanted to test what worked before I went balls-deep into a single project. Things like visuals (what works and what doesn't? Pictures, graphs, etc) music (should there even be music?), audio choices (vocal tone, speed, humorous vs. serious), content, and pace of the video. I discovered a few interesting things:
1. The attention span on TikTok is worse than Tinder. You have less than 2 seconds. The hook is everything. 2. If they don't swipe in the first 2 seconds, then they're at least moderately interested, which means that you have another 8 seconds for them to debate swiping. If you manage to keep them past that, you will likely hold them for the entire video.3. The TikTok algorithm will experiment. Every now and then it will present a video to a viewer that they wouldn't normally seek out,but overall the algorithm knows exactly what the target audience is.
4. Music boosts the algorithm.
5. Don't use shitty quality anything. That means no pixelate images, distorted audio, or sloppy editing. Keep it consistent. Keep it high quality.
I am nothing, if not thorough.
Once I felt confident with my findings, I applied them to the Eratosthenes page.
I have a BA in Mathematics and was on course to purse a PhD, but I dropped out of graduate school after a crisis of conscious (see my post: From Woodland Fairy to Mathematician). I went into marketing instead because I live in Los Angeles and that's what you do. The entertainment industry is all.
I make TikTok videos to put the complex into laymen terms. Sometimes I consider going back to graduate school, but I'm not sure hyper-specializing in a lab coat somewhere on the fifth floor of a building no one will ever know about is for me.
