Needing a feeding is a cooking Tik Tok without 4 hour long methods, expensive spices that you can’t pronounce or Thermomixes, because let’s be real what 20 year old wants to deal with that when their hungry.
In my beta pitch I discussed how I received useful feedback during my seminar discussions that encouraged me to make content that included:
- Collated food ideas
- Video transitions between clips
So while the concept of my video did not change from this feedback, it supported the purpose of my videos and how uni students engage with them. Instead this feedback allowed my editing process to undergo iteration, as instead of spending time filming new content I was able to repurpose my Tik Toks and old cooking footage to create entirely new content. The Simplicity Cycle Manifesto states “We introduce new elements to the things we make, and these elements make the thing better.” So introducing different styles of content (such as collated food ideas) that still works towards my original purpose of producing content to help a younger audience. This small change is content allowed me to demonstrate FIST.
The result of this content included
Observe – Shorting attention spans and increase in content consumption online
Orient – Tik Tok views require engaging content on the For You Page in order to maintain their focus which includes a combining content into the one video
Decide – Create Tik Toks with multiple food ideas collated into the one video with the same theme
Act – Create videos such as “eggs 2 ways” and “frozen berry dish ideas”
“When things go out of whack we can see something new and strange; and that is when we learn something.”
Franklin Spinney 2019
While I was convinced that the shorter the video, the better I could hold viewers attention and increase my watchtime. Yet after posting 54 second video, I noticed my “average time watched” was 22s which is actually higher than many of videos that are 20-30 seconds long. This video also received a higher ratio of likes per view, so if people find the video engaging and appealing to their niche, they will stick around to watch it.
When researching ways to increase Tik Tok watch time and interesting suggestion appeared that noted that seamless video loops increase the completion rate. Over the next few weeks I want to experiment with this, in my shorter form videos, to see how it compares with my other experiments to increase watch time.
From the get-go my main goals for Tik Tok over the semester was not to focus on trying to gain followers. This is because I knew how essential the For You Page was for Tik Tok, the FYP is Tik Tok’s homepage and therefore you do not need a ton of followers to be featured on it. When looking at my analytics my “video views by section” indicated that the large majority of my views come from the For You Page over a small portion coming from viewers’ following feed. This recognition is important as moving forward my content needs to be catered for the For You Page, which includes grabbing viewers attention in the first 0.5 seconds as they scroll through hundreds of other videos. Especially because I came to the discovery that my collated food videos reach more regions, I need to ensure that my videos are still accessible by non-Australians. This decision will effect small aspects such as ingredient choices, cultures and countries preferences.
My content goals moving foward is:
- Short form videos with “seamless loops”
- Include more food collated content
- Exciting first clip – not just a food preview
- More transitions between clips
All of which work towards the goal of increasing watch time, as performance rating heavily determines if the content gets pushed to more viewers.
At the end of the day Tik Tok’s algorithm means that if you get one successful video it will increase the views and engagement of all of your Tik Toks. So the more content I make the more likely it is that it will be pushed on multiple users For You Page.
Bees and Bells 
