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Cocomoco
I went to the TikTok summit this past week and I went into it with a really excited and open mind. I thought that they would tell us about upcoming features, what types of videos they'll be pushing in the algorithm, and more. While they did tell us a little bit about specific features that they'll be pushing in the feed, which I'm going to get to later in this podcast episode, the majority of the conference was one of my biggest pet peeves in marketing, which was them telling a room full of creators to just post high quality content. If you know me, you know, you know I hate that phrase just as much as I hate whenever marketing people give the advice of just be authentic. None of that makes any sense. There's no tangible way to measure that or to get to that outcome. Talk corralled a bunch of creators into a room. Some of them flew to be there so they'd have a general idea of how to make good content. They created a PowerPoint presentation about why you should be creating high quality content. They never told us how they measure high quality content because to me, one production's low quality content that could be a small creator's highest quality content that they made all year. So how are they measuring high quality content? They never told us. Is it based on watch time? Is it based on the camera that you use to film it? Is it based on are you using a mic or not? How do they measure high quality content? They gave us tons of statistics about how high quality videos lead to 30 plus percent faster growth for creators, but how did they measure that? What was the pool of creators that they picked from to measure this? What was the timeframe that they were measuring this? What are the videos that they pulled and how did they decide what videos are in the high quality bucket and what are in the low quality bucket? What was the measurement for the studies that they did? Because they did not tell us any of that. For example, Risa Tisa went super viral earlier this year by going on TikTok live to tell her audience about her ex husband. And then she cut those clips down into 10 minute parts and shared them retroactively on her smaller TikTok account count. These videos were by no means high quality. They were not filmed with a fancy camera. They were not in a studio. She didn't have a microphone on. At times she was filming in her car, at times she was in her bathroom. But her storytelling capabilities led to her being signed to CAA, growing to over 2 million followers in less than a month. Faster than Alex Earl grew to 2 million and she is now working on a show about her life alongside Natasha Rothwell, who played the masseuse in White Lotus Season 1 on HBO. So how do they consider what's low quality and high quality? Because technically, Risa Tisa was one of the biggest breakout stars of TikTok this entire year. And did they consider her videos high quality or low quality? They didn't tell us how they measure it. It's frustrating to me and a little bit condescending as a marketing professional when I hear other marketing professionals tell people just make good content. It's the same energy as when marketing Bros in the 2000 and tens would say content is king. What does that even mean? No one is posting videos online thinking that it's an inherently bad video or bad piece of content. I guarantee you, even the smallest of creator when they're filming and then refilming their video over and over and they're editing it multiple times, even if it only gets 100 views to them, they really put their best foot forward. They are putting out a high quality piece of content. To them, that content was king. So when people say content is king, what do you what advice is that? As a marketing professional or in this instance a platform hosting a summit, I believe that it is your job to give people the exact tips and advice to get there. And they did give us three specific things which again I'll get to the overall feeling of this conference. It gave the same energy to me as if you go to a doctor's office because you're sick and your insurance is paying them thousands of dollars for them to tell you how to get healthier. And all they say to you, right? They don't give you vitamins, they don't give you medicine, they don't give you a routine to do each day. The doctor just looks at you and they go, just get healthier. What do you mean? Like it's your job to tell them how to get healthier. Same with marketing. It is your job to tell them how to make high quality content. How are you measuring it? What can they do? So it was just a little condescending. The overall sentiment of creators that were there that I've been speaking to is that TikTok is no longer the cool kid on the block that everyone is desperate to impress. The last five years had become a rats race of people and brands desperately trying to be the next Britney Broski or Duolingo on TikTok. There is so much that I love about this app and I always will love again. TikTok gave me a career multiple times when I was the first one to work on it in 2019 at famous birthdays and that blew up and then I got hired at Buzzfeed to be the first ever person running their TikTok strategy which then turned into short form strategy building out a team there. And now my full time career is because of TikTok, so I'm very grateful to it. For the first time in a long time I really feel very disenchanted with the app and it seems that other creators are feeling this way too. In today's episode of Ahead of the Curve with Cocomoco, we are going to be discussing the weird crossroad that TikTok is sitting at right now. So as you plan out your content strategy for 2025, should TikTok be a priority for you or has that ship sailed? There's no right or wrong answer and I'm going to get into my thoughts. I also want to let you know that next week there is not going to be an episode since it is going to be Thanksgiving break, but I will be back to regularly posting on Monday, December 9th. So that is just a heads up. So in the free portion of this episode I'm going to talk about one where did TikTok algorithms go wrong? When did they go from creating the culture to annoying the culture? And what could have been the outside influences that set all of this in motion? Number two, are big creators relying on TikTok for relevance anymore? Or does it seem like the big creators are planting seeds outside of the app that made them famous? And number three how can TikTok correct their course? What types of creators and brands should they uplift in 2025 if they want to become the trailblazing innovator that they were once known for being? And then in the extended version of this episode, for the paying coconuts on Substack, I will talk about what other platform should you prioritize and why, if you want to grow as a creator or brand in 2025, what specific features did TikTok tell us that they'll be pushing in 2025? Because they did mention some in the summit, so I'll give them credit for that. Whether or not they actually do push these features is to be determined, since it's not uncommon for platforms to be excited about a feature and then not lean into it. And it reminds me of earlier this year TikTok would send out these notifications being like, hey, upload 30 and 60 minute videos now and then they never push those videos in the feed or gave us the tools to film and edit 10 minute or longer videos on their platform. And then lastly, I want to tell you as a creator how you can think about your content as much bigger than one platform or trend. Because I have like kind of an analogy that I always tell myself. Thank you all so much for making me a best seller on Substac. It is because of the paying coconuts who want to listen to the extended episodes every week and read the Friday Trend Report that I have become one of Substack's bestseller in just a few months. I've not ran an ad on this podcast in the two years that I've had it, and I don't want to say that it will never happen since it is possible if I find a brand I love. But launching this sub stack and the support that I've received from you guys is why I'm able to do these 30 sometimes up to 60 minute episodes every week completely ad free. I hate when I'm listening to like a true crime podcast and then they're discovering describing like the worst crime ever, like someone's worst day and then they're like and now for hello Fresh. If I if anything, God forbid, tragic happens to me, you guys and I become the subject of a true crime podcast and they run a hello Fresh or better help ad in between describing the door. Gory, gory details, please haunt them forever. I or if they're doing their makeup while telling the story, please haunt them. Thank you. Okay, let's get into it. When I asked the paying coconuts on Substack what their opinion is of TikTok, here is what some of you guys said and if you guys want to be a part of the conversation, it's kind of like what my discord used to be. It's just a group chat of people who are obsessed with the Internet and pop culture as much as I am my favorite thing ever. And so I'm gonna be giving shout outs and like giving people's opinions as they come in on Substack. So it's only for paying members that they get to be a part of this chat. I want to say it's pronounced Sarai. I'm sorry if it's wrong. It's S A R A I. Thank you for contributing. Sarai said that there's no individuality anymore on TikTok, which I totally agree with because now on TikTok they only push people who are covering the same few topics or Drama or TikTok shop. I never learn anything new on the app like I used to. Right now all I'm seeing is think pieces about Cynthia and Ariana on the press tour, which I myself contributed to because I posted a video about how I think they're leaning into the Emotions so they can grab an Oscar nomination. And that's my only video this entire month that has gotten over a million views. So it's all that TikTok is pushing then. Hot Tomboy hi. I love you so much. You're always so involved and I really appreciate you and I see all your messages and comments. Hot Tomboy said that TikTok has become complicated and I agree. There are so many buttons on top, from Live to the following tab to the for you page to the Shop tab that now says like the Black Friday tab. They also at one point had a STEM tab and I don't think anyone ever used it again. If you want to suck the fun out of something, call it stem. Maybe I'm just biased because I was bad at science and math, but I think even people who are into science math are not. They're going on their phone on TikTok to escape like the chemistry lab that they're doing, not because they want to hit a button that says STEM and then see more videos about what they're already doing. Just my opinion. Cafecito Diaries said that they cannot grow on TikTok anymore, and I agree. On top of the influx of ads on the feed, I think users know that they don't have to follow creators anymore because of the nature of the platform, which I'll get into later on this podcast. People don't follow creators like they did in 2021-2023 because the nature of the algorithm on TikTok does not reward you for being in someone's community. There's been times where I will follow a creator on TikTok and I'll never see one of their videos ever again. And then Chaotic Good made a great point about audience retention. You can be introduced to a ton of new viewers on TikTok, which I will say that is their strong point. But even if that person follows you, they might not see your video ever again. But an app like YouTube, it might be harder to discover new creators. However, if you subscribe to them, you'll get notifications whenever they post and their videos are prioritized in your feed, unlike TikTok. So today's episode, we are diving into my thoughts on all of this and again, thank you guys for making me a bestseller on substack if you are listening to the podcast on Spotify or Apple and you're not on Substack, that is so okay as well. Thank you so much. For those of you that have been leaving reviews, we're so close to 500 reviews on Spotify. I think we're at like 497. Whoop whoop. And it really helps the podcast just grow and get in front of more marketing girls and guys like us. So now for the episode, let's dive on In where did TikTok's algorithm go wrong? TikTok used to be the place to find dozens of new creators every single day. The for you page was the first of its kind. No other platform showed you that many new faces and videos in one sitting. Not only that, TikTok revolutionized the creator industry by getting rid of so many gatekeepers. In the past, if you wanted to be a professional creator on YouTube or Instagram, you had to know how to edit, you had to get a fancy camera, you had to have a laptop with plenty of storage space. You had to have tons of free time to make the videos. Being a full time employee or student and creating enough content to get the attention of the algorithm that only rewarded creators for a ton of output, it could take months if not years. So it really was not inducive for the general person to become a creator. TikTok's editing software deserves just as much praise as their revolutionary for you page, because for the first time ever, I don't care what other platforms say about how they made being a creator easy, they didn't. TikTok was the first app that made being a creator easy in the history of the Internet. People could easily film and post a video on their lunch break or in their car. As long as they had something interesting to say, there was a good chance that one of their videos was going to go viral. TikTok scaled by turning every user into a creator and it was a win win because audiences never had a shortage of new faces to follow thanks to the for you page and people found out about creators and topics that they would have never thought to search on Google or YouTube or Instagram. But the magic of the for your page is also what has now led to its pain point. Because of the for your page, TikTok completely got rid of the need of the follower. And if you guys want a great TED Talk on this, you should listen to the guy who created Patreon. He did a TED Talk called the Death of the Follower and it's so interesting. So it really is like followers don't really matter anymore in the Internet age. And yes, you can follow people on TikTok, and that metric is something that a lot of creators flaunt to get. Brand deals, et cetera, myself included. But out of all of the platforms, I would say that TikTok is probably the biggest one where followers do not matter. No one watches videos on their following feed. They watch them on the for your page. The for you page became somewhat of a trusted friend by users. If the for you page is showing you a video or a new creator, the audience trusted that their for your page, like a good friend, sifted through thousands of videos uploaded every hour and sourced them, the best ones for them. But as the years went on, creators grew increasingly frustrated with the for your page. The same tool that put them in front of millions of new eyeballs who would have never thought to search them in the first place is now the same tool that might refuse to show their videos to their hard earned followers. You're only as good as your last video on TikTok, and while I agree with that, and I don't think I'm ever entitled to any views or virality, I also think that that mindset and algorithm can be tricky when it comes to building a genuine community. Because if you're constantly aiming to go viral and make money, it means that you become dependent on chasing shallow trends but not really contributing anything new or valuable to the audience or overall conversation. Creators become frustrated with TikTok. The nature of an algorithm that prioritizes showing new faces to the audience every day means that they do not prioritize people building community or diving deep. Even with monetization, creators could create playlists or story times that encourage followers to check their profile each day. But you only make money in the creator program if your video is being viewed on the for you page. So there's a financial incentive for creators to not encourage people to go to their profile and instead cross their fingers and hope they get lucky enough to land on the for you page each day. What made TikTok special is what ended up making it impossible for creators to build community. Hence why they are all detracting from the app. Now I see so many big creators that take off on TikTok end up taking their core audience elsewhere. For the first time ever, Substack got a shout out in the Forbes Top Creator list on Nara Smith's profile. She goes viral for her meals from scratch on TikTok, and Forbes mentioned in her profile this year that she has a substack with 42,000 followers. That was a huge moneymaker for her. Although I will add that I did some research when the article came out and Nara Smith has not posted an article to her substack since February. So I'm not sure if those 42,000 people are still paying for a subscription and they just don't care that there's no additional content. I'm not sure the financials there, but it is important to add now Another big creator that blew up on TikTok but doesn't really seem to want to be known as a TikToker anymore, I would say is Brittany Broski. She was one of the first TikTok comedians to break big in 2020 after she went viral for the Kombucha meme. Shortly after, she launched a podcast with TikTok that only lasted a few episodes and then it just stopped. I remember I used to listen to it. She interviewed like Michaela no Guerra, Sienna May Gomez, those kind of people. She then launched a solo YouTube channel and podcast, now that she updates weekly. Her YouTube series Royal Court has had guests like Charlie X and Daisy Edgar Jones, and she has only posted a handful of TikToks to her multiple TikTok accounts this year. Her last TikTok video on her main Verified account was posted in early May, which she kind of seemingly reluctantly posted because her audience was encouraging her to raise money for a family in Palestine after she posted on her close friend story about how she doesn't think she should be the voi. Anyways, it's I'm not going to get into that. But yeah, she reluctantly posted and that was in May. So to consider Brittany Broski a TikToker I think is false because she hasn't posted in almost half a year now on the platform, but she's actively posting on almost every other platform. It is my opinion that she doesn't want to be seen as a TikToker anymore, but is okay with leaning into the image of a YouTuber or podcaster. I will get more into the reasons for this later in the episode. There are more tiktokers who jump platforms once taking off, but back to again. Like where TikTok's algorithm went wrong. I personally believe that TikTok took some unfair hits this past few years with the potential bans. After so many hits, they went from being a brave innovator in the American space to really just going into survival mode. It is my humble opinion that TikTok knows that their time might be ticking even if they don't get banned the constant hint of a potential ban by the American government, at least from conversations I've had, has scared away some creators and big brands from leaning into the platform and running ad money on it, since they don't want to put, you know, $1 million of their marketing budget on TikTok if it could be gone in a few months to a year. America is not TikTok's main audience either. It only makes up about 15% of their daily user base. While the American audience is important financially and with them attaining soft world power, it is not the end of the world if they do lose this audience. I believe TikTok has begun leaning aggressively into TikTok Live and shopping as a way to milk the American audience for all of the money that they can. As a creator, it feels like they're no longer investing in creativity or organic videos on their feed. Instead, the for your page has become an echo chamber of TikTok shop links, TikTok Live videos, and then hyper fixated conversations about random drama that will have no relevance in a week. It's as if TikTok is no longer investing in the long term vision of the platform and is instead like how do we just make as much money as we can if it's going to be gone in a few months? Again, my opinion? I don't know. For the first time in years I realized that TikTok had become boring to me, not just as a creator, but as a user. I find myself less and less opening up the TikTok app to pass the time. When I do open it, I'll scroll and I'll see the same few videos about the same few topics and close the app because I'm bored. As a creator, the platform constantly tells us to post live streams, but the live audience genuinely scares me. The creators that become famous from Live, such as Ashodibay or elfalba Orion, they seem to be made fun of by their audience more than revered. The TikTok Live feature has become a real life gesture of creators as thousands of them laugh as they tap dance for $10 galaxies. And when it comes to their TikTok shop, it's so hokey. I really wanted to love TikTok shop, but the brands and products that they promote are like the dark web. I saw a product on there when I was doing research for this episode called Scrub stepsis for example and it is literally the pornhub logo. And then it's so it's ripping off that, but then it's also ripping off the Scrub Daddy brand. And I don't even know the point of calling it Scrub Stepsis like it's like two eyes and then the mouth is like an O and then it's like again, like the Pornhub logo that was featured on TikTok Shop's homepage. So TikTok will give people community violations. They will one, in my opinion, be much harder on POC creators when it comes to the content that they can post. And yet they'll let a TikTok shop sell over 400. I think 483 of these steps products were sold. It's on the homepage of the TikTok shop and it's clearly sexual, it's clearly odd. So that's not a community guidelines violation because they're making money from it. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, TikTok cannot pride themselves on being a safe platform and then be almost as bad as Snapchat when it comes to like the products that they're pushing and promoting to children. As a creator now, it feels like unless you're battling for galaxies on TikTok Live or linking out some three dollar clip on bangs from TikTok Shop, there's a really big chance that your video is not going to go viral in the for your page anymore. I have literally sent examples to TikTok of my videos that I natively filmed on TikTok. So I'm using their platform and they'll cap around 10,000 views. But then I'll just download it and repost it to Instagram or YouTube shorts and they'll get millions of views on those platforms. Even though I have 1/10 of the following on those platforms. This happens consistently. Look at my views compared to TikTok to Instagram Reels for the same exact videos and you'll literally see it. I know my videos aren't always high quality and I'm not entitled to always go viral. Like, I get that. I don't think everything has to be a great video. I think sometimes it's just me talking to the camera to connect with my core audience. But when I'm consistently getting millions of views on Instagram reels and those same videos that I posted to TikTok are capping at 10,000 views, that makes no sense. And it proves to me that my content is good. TikTok is just no longer pushing out videos that are not an ad, that are not a TikTok shop link, or they're not promoting a live stream, in my opinion. Another problem with TikTok which I've said time and time again, is their reliance on short form videos. You need to have long form videos on platforms and encourage the creators who are making long form thought out, researched good videos. If you want to monetize your platform because they cannot monetize short form videos, that is why they are so reliant on pushing sketchy TikTok live and shop videos to offset the fact that you can't run a 30 second ad on a 10 second Apple Dance video. Short form and discovery was obviously TikTok's magic touch, but now it's become their potential downfall as they struggle to monetize and creators who got big on TikTok are desperately branching out to connect with the audience that they work so hard to build. Since TikTok is no longer pushing them out now, the next segment will be about big creators and why they might not be dependent on TikTok anymore once they go viral. When I was at the TikTok summit I thought there would be a lot bigger creators there. Not that it matters. I love smaller creators being there and getting the opportunity to talk face to face with TikTok employees who can help grow their accounts. And like I love meeting with the people that were there that had watched my videos. But I was also just shocked at how lacking it was with big creators. Maybe I was spoiled at the Spotify seminar last week where like you're brushing shoulders with Don Lennon and Emma Chamberlain and mythical morning as you're getting coffee, but at TikTok there were almost no big creators in the audience at all or on stage doing panels. It made me wonder if creators are becoming less and less reliant on TikTok. Because I would argue that two or three years ago at a summit like this, big creators would have been clawing at the chance to be in a room with TikTok, to be on that stage and to be positioned as a TikToker in a big creator on their platform. I believe a lot of creators use TikTok as a jumping off point, but more and more now they are abandoning the app once they find their following because they know that the app does not prioritize your following, it prioritizes giving users new creators every single day. Another example, similar to Brittany Broski, of someone who got big on TikTok but is no longer seen as a tick Tocker would be drew a follow. She got big a few years ago for her stitches on TikTok and then shortly after that she used that momentum to launch her show. The comment section And I believe she hosted a season on this production company called Brat YouTube. It's not the dolls, but it's called Brat. It's for like 12 year olds and they have this podcast channel called Past your bedtime, so Drew's comment section was on there first and now they upload some of the videos still to pass your bedtime. But she was signed to Spotify. No one knows the detail of her Spotify signing and how much money she made, but she's really been leaning into that podcast instead of her TikTok stitches that made her famous. She also released a bestselling book a few months ago called Loud and she still actively posts to her TikTok, but oftentimes it is clips from her long form podcast or she's just posting things that are also on her Instagram reels. So it's not like exclusive native content to TikTok anymore. I would argue that she does not call herself a TikToker. So many creators use TikTok as a launching pad and the ease of posting is what makes it so great for so many new creators. But I'm working on a free article for my substack that will go out next week titled Creators want gatekeepers. It sounds counterintuitive, but I almost think creators, once they reach a certain size, they try to find ways to get recognized by outlets or brands outside of the platform that made them famous as a way to prove that they are elevated more than their peers. The easier it becomes for people to get famous on TikTok, the more that the established creators try to distance themselves from it. I'll be honest, the reason I launched my show Middle Row is because my New Year's resolution was to stop talking about the cool people via green screen in my bedroom and instead just sit in the room with them and let them tell their stories themselves. I realized that the harder that it is to produce a show like that, there are times where I spent over $1,000 booking the camera crew and the movie theater and the producers and the artist just won't show up. So it happens. But I realized that the harder that it is for me to pull off, the harder it might be one day for someone to copy me. I've had my fair share of creators taking my videos word for word, and those are really the moments that I realized that the ease of TikTok in the green screen and the filming is almost becoming a weapon for lazy creators to just easily copy the other creators that are actually doing the hard work of finding new formats that Audiences will be interested in the easy nature of editing on TikTok makes it easy for bad actors to copy others with a quicker turnaround than ever. One genre of creators who still thrive on TikTok even after they get big. So I will defend TikTok with this is beauty creators and food creators. I think that it's because of TikTok shop. It's interesting that the creators that are still growing and relying on TikTok aggressively are the ones that can link out TikTok shop products. It is much easier for a creator like Michaela Noguera to film a 30 second video about how much they love a lipstick versus filming an hour long podcast or YouTube video about a product that's pretty quick to make or to show. Plus she'll get a percentage of the sales from TikTok shop links. So again, there are creators who are leaning into TikTok even after they've made it. But I think that that metric directly aligns with how well their genre coincides with if they can push products on TikTok shop. So how can TikTok course correct? Because I have some unsolicited advice if anyone at TikTok is listening. TikTok, you need to lean into long form content, not live streams. I'm not saying live streams thought out, high quality, sometimes scripted or researched long form content. If TikTok leaned into long form content it would allow them to monetize with mid roll ads. TikTok has the best discovery engine with the for you page and I would love if they could suggest me new podcasts or long form videos because right now I desperately search for new podcasts on Spotify and I can't find any good ones. In fact, TikTok should launch their own podcast network. Why not? People have launched entire careers and podcasts have gained millions of new fans specifically because of TikTok. Yet TikTok saw none of that money. Why didn't TikTok lean into podcasting? They could use their algorithm to see what topics are being searched or watched and help curate podcasts to those topics and then press their magic button to promote those episodes even more aggressively in the feed. When people are scrolling on their for your page they are more open minded to new content than any other platform. People would 100% be open to a long form video on the for you page and I bet my life savings that if you are consistently showing people 30 minute or longer videos on the for you page they would be okay with an occasional mid roll ad over them constantly being pushed. TikTok shop and TikTok lives and two, I think that if they do want to be taken seriously with TikTok shop and like compete with an Amazon, they need to clean up the TikTok Shop homepage. Because right now TikTok Shop is like the dark web with some of the items they're selling. And it's funny because this app is notoriously known for being the most censored and again, I would say sometimes unfairly, more strict on PoC creators who might not even be talking about topics that violate community guidelines. And yet the platform that says that they're strict to protect users and children, they are the ones that are allowing really inappropriate things to be sold on the TikTok shop. It is a brand misalignment that needs fixing. I know big brands that I've consulted for and I was really enchanted. You guys can tell it's my word of the week. I was really enchanted with TikTok shop when it first came out and I thought it was a great idea. I personally sold out a microphone on accident doing it. And I would go into these meetings with these really, you know, pretty established but like more luxury brands in LA and I'd be like, all right, like get on TikTok shop. And they were like, absolutely fucking not. We're not doing that. Like, it is so hokey. It would make the brand seem too accessible and easy. And so I think that TikTok needs to clean up their shop page if they do want bigger brands to take them seriously. So if TikTok wants to monetize outside of shopping live, they need to reward creators who lean into long form content. You can't put a 20 second ad on a 10 second Apple Dance, but you can put a 20 second ad on a ten minute plus video. This year more than ever, it seems TikTok punishes creators who are using new features or thinking outside the box. And right now, what I would describe what TikTok's going through is instead of death by a thousand cuts, it's death by a thousand trends. So that was my free portion of this podcast. Um, I hope that this was interesting to you. I'd love to know your thoughts in the reviews if you're not a paying member and then if you are a pink coconut. We're going to get into the extended episode now where we're going to talk about what platform you should be prioritizing and then what feature TikTok said they'll be pushing. And as a creator, how can you be bigger so that you don't rely on one platform or true trend to have a career again. You want a career, not a year. So if you are not already a paying member, but you want to unlock this and all other extended episodes of the podcast, you can do that@cocomoco.substack.com for $9 a month. Thank you guys for making me a bestseller. And for the pain. Coconuts. I'll see you on the other side. All right.