8 Top Tips to Succeed on TikTok as a Creative

Two official TikTok creators tell us how to promote art on the fastest-growing online platform

With 800 million users worldwide, TikTok is the undisputed platform to publicize your projects. However, not everyone dares to venture into the network.

Associated with teen dances, jokes, and acting, TikTok can intimidate those who do not have or aspire to have histrionic qualities and prefer to keep a lower profile. The good news for them is that the network continues to seek to expand the quality of its content and is also rewarding other types of videos with greater visibility. Two official experts tell us about it with strategies tested by themselves.

Official TikTok Creators

Cristina Luengo and Micaela Folgan are expert TikTok creators. This means that they have made their relationship with the network official and that, due to the quality and visualization of their videos, TikTok has promoted them to TikTok Creators. This category gives them access to some preferential features, such as immediate technical support, filter previews, and participation in content monetization, among other things.

Cristina Luengo is a Spanish illustrator who has more than two million followers on @cluengoart. And Micaela Folgar is an Argentine illustrator with 673 thousand followers on her @micafolgar account.

They are both authors of many viral videos and have formed a close community, always attentive to what they do. For this reason, we asked them to share their best tips to help you succeed in spreading your art on TikTok even if you are a bit shy:

1. You don't have to appear in your videos. At least in the beginning

According to Cristina, you don’t need to be entertaining, humorous, or very outgoing to promote your art on the web. You don't even need to appear on camera. You heard it right: gaining popularity without showing your face is possible. "When I started showing my work, it took me a long time to start appearing in the videos. Little by little I was encouraged to do so, and lost my shyness when I understood there was a connection with my followers and that they wanted to know more."

Micaela agrees and adds that when thinking about showing up on TikTok you have to consider it as an adaptation process. You may not like showing yourself at all to beging with, but things could change as you explore the social media and discover people you admire, ways of doing things and even discover your own online personality. "Some creators start by sharing videos only with their friends and then take the leap," she explains.

2. Think about how to give originality to the formats that work the most

Being creative and effective is much easier if we know in advance what things work best in the realm of art on TikTok. What are the formats? For these two creators they are:

- Super short videos: Although TikTok allows you to upload videos of up to one minute, all those consulted agree that this is a bit long. A few seconds, but not more than 15, could be the best option in this dynamic and fast-changing platform.

- Original presentations: Showing what you have done in an unexpected way usually works. This means making videos in which your illustrations or your art magically appear, showing a surprising before and after, timelapses and great contrasts. For example, starting with a messy, even ugly draft and showing its immediate transformation is something that is often celebrated by the community. Don't know how to do it? Don’t forget that one of the attractive features of TikTok is that it gives you the tools within the same platform. Just explore it.

- Short educational content: Tips, secrets, and examples add value to your audience as you provide them with a fun, surprise factor while learning.

- Calls to interact: Asking questions, issuing slogans, and asking for advice and suggestions works.

3. Use popular songs, but not just any

TikTok was born as Musical.ly, a platform aimed at creating music videos in all sorts of formats, and its community remains especially sensitive to music. For this reason, using popular songs to set your creations to music is a clever strategy that significantly increases the chances for your video to circulate. As many people "browse" between videos set to their favorite song, especially a popular one, the more opportunities your video will have to be seen.

This, however, is not always effective. Cristina explains why. “Even if the song is popular, it must fit with the video. For example, I always look to see if there is a transition that can fit in with the music and I check that it sounds good in the background if I add my voice ”, she says. Ideally, the sound and the theme are compatible. Do not choose the latest reaggeton hit if what you are showing is a manga illustration.

4. Narrow down your universe

"I would never upload content that is not related to art," says Micaela convincingly. She distinguishes two types of creators: those who focus on a specific topic, drawing in her case, and others who are known to the viewer themselves, "like Charli D'Amelio", she exemplifies.

"Any content that Charli uploads will be accepted and shared within her community because they follow her as a public figure. On the other hand, if I suddenly started uploading cookery videos, I would lose a large amount of my audience," she observes. Knowing what your strength is or in which area you want to promote your material will make you more confident, and help you better direct your energy. You won’t end up wasting your time or confusing your audience.

6. Take into account the elements that get the most likes

Although taking risks is what makes an artist most interesting, in order to get some attention, you should initially look at the elements that work best for creators. Our experts list them:

- Animals: People love animals in all their shapes, they say, from real videos to portraits. "For a while, I was making short videos showing the process of drawing different breeds of dogs and people lloved it. I suppose it’s due to the fact that most followers had or wanted to have a dog and be able to draw it," Cristina believes.

- Cartoon characters:"Disney or Cartoon Network characters work very well," Micaela specifies. “It is something I do with my drawing. In fact, I think that many of my followers appreciate my art because they are also fans of these cartoons,” she reflects.

- Celebrities: If you draw Lady Gaga it is likely you will gain a legion of fans ready to give you their likes. "Famous people tend to get many likes, in general," says Cristina.

- Your own followers: Micaela reveals that while drawing famous people works, non-celebs are also an even more popular choice. "Throughout this year and a half on TikTok, I discovered that the videos with the best interaction are those that portray the profile photos of my followers. It makes them share, request, and interact," she observes.

- Anything that is trendy: How do you identify what is a trend on Tiktok? Simply check the trends hashtag, and start exploring. Trends are captions that millions of people are responding to at the same time.

Some trends are random. That is, they exist for no particular reason and are driven by the creative team of TikTok. “Perfect breakfast,” for example. Others have to do with specific times, like Pride week. Others are popular and reappear again and again, like Skin Care or MadresEnTikTok. You can check them daily as a simple creative exercise to see what comes up.

Following these trends multiplies your chances of achieving maximum success as a TikTok creator and go viral. "Some of my videos that went viral were quite simple to make. They had a lot of impact because they followed a trend," Micaela observes.

7. Follow people who can inspire you

Cristina recommends dailymarjan, winteralar, gustavo.a.benito, araguzmxn, cardibuja, carlosmood, ruthazulart, aitanaart, art.cres, drawquel, and marcllivina to users.

Micaela suggests Thelandofboggs, Rabbert, and Mycanimations. She also follows visual artists like Vanevart, Gaffreyartmaterial, Cluengoart, Fredziownik_art, who are her favorites.

8. Persevere, and you will succeed

Experts agree that perseverance might be the essential quality in making your way on the TikTokers circuit right now. The platform rewards those who are consistent by giving them more exposure and opportunities to gain followers. This is because TikTok is especially interested in diversifying its content and not implying that it is only aimed at teenage dancers and amateur comedians.

Reviewing your most successful videos

Cristina has been especially successful with her mini tutorial videos. "From the feedback I have received, I can say this format works especially well," she observes. "They are short and dynamic videos, so you get the feeling that they are easy exercises and people are encouraged to try them," she considers. These videos also have other elements in their favor: "If people are seen trying to follow the tutorial more than once, TikTok interprets it as interesting content and shows it to more people."

Micaela has also identified her most popular videos. "The video with the most likes is currently a fast-motion painting of SpongeBob SquarePants that received 795k likes. I understand that it reached so many people not only because of the painting itself but also because of the audio that I put on it, which is a sample of a video by Germán Garmendia," she notes. The video with the most views she has to date is from July 2020 and has 6.1 M views. "This video is of me drawing a llama dancings to a song that in those days went viral worldwide," she observes.

If you want to learn more secrets for showing your creativity on TikTok, sign up for the Introduction to TikTok for Creatives course in which you will discover tips and tricks to grow your account, even if you don't have any followers yet.

English version by @acesarato

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