Hey Reader,

Happy Tuesday to you! Two weeks in a row of sending my Monday newsletter on Tuesday. Crazy times we live in. I hope you also got to enjoy an extended weekend!

Today we're getting back to the basics. It's time for some old-fashioned, straightforward, social media analysis. If you read last week's newsletter, you know that I was one of ~200,000 people at the Sonic Temple music festival a few weeks ago. Well, I made a video about it and that video has gone on to become the best performing TikTok I've ever posted. As this newsletter is meant to show you the way I see marketing, I wanted to break down this occurrence for you.

But first, a video!

Matt | Bahnfyre PR 🔥

If you're flying a sky banner around Sonic Temple, you best make sure it's memorable. 😹 . @Magnolia @Sonic Temple Festival . . #marketingtiktok #smallbusinessmarketing #sonictemple

♬ original sound - Matt | Bahnfyre PR 🔥

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The Analytics

The Sonic Temple video is actually not my most viewed TikTok. It's not even my most viewed recent TikTok. Currently, the video above sits around 11.4k views. That's nothing to scoff at, but this video is at 14.2k and this video is at 15.5k. So how can I call this my "best performing video" if it doesn't even crack my top 3 most viewed videos? Well, and if you're a long time reader this shouldn't be a surprise, views don't tell the whole story.

I wrote a lengthy blog a while ago about what a "view" really is. I'm not going to rehash that here, but I do want to talk about the value of a view compared to the value of engagement. The key to social media success is spread. If you want your presence to grow, you need more people to see your stuff. One person watching your video 100 times is not the same as 100 people watching your video once. So how do you get more people to watch your stuff? Engagement.

Social media algorithms have a difficult time quantifying your interest in a video. When you view a video, the algorithm doesn't know if you actually paid attention to it. Because of this, social sites use engagement to determine a users investment into a piece of content. If you "like" a video, TikTok knows you enjoyed it. If you "comment" on a video, TikTok knows that video appealed to you strongly enough for you to engage with the platform. If you "save" a video, TikTok knows that you'll likely revisit the platform to watch it again. If you "share" a video, TikTok knows you, a real-life human being, wants other real-life human beings to see it. So let's look at the engagement stats for a few videos.

See how all the numbers are bigger on the Sonic Temple video? That's why I call it my top performing video.

Why did this video work so well?

That question is difficult to answer. First and foremost, it's impossible to determine what exactly the algorithm likes at any given moment. That said, I've identified three features of this video that I think really helped elevate its success. Again, this isn't an exact science, but if you consider these things while creating content, I believe you'll see the impact.

• Recent and Relevant: This video is about a large event that already had a significant social media footprint. I posted this video within 48hrs of the end of the festival. That gave me the opportunity to ride the SEO waves of folks searching for festival videos in the week of its conclusion. The most consistent path to success on social media is to ride the coattails of trending events and topics.
• A Lot to Look At: The first 5 seconds of this video show upwards of 100 people and features constant movement. Within the first 10 seconds, the video moves on to a time lapse and shows a lot more people. Not only that, but there's on screen text and a voice over. In a world of abbreviated attention spans, these things go a long way. People love to say that the first 5 seconds of a video needs to contain a perfect hook to convince a viewer to stay. I find that you can achieve the same effect if you give folks a lot to look at. If they can potentially identify themselves in the video, that's a huge bonus.
• Third Act Reveal: The thing that this video is actually about doesn't appear until the halfway point. Now it's not always wise to bury your lede, but if you're constructing a Shyamalanian reveal, it can be effective. As stated above, social algorithms use your engagement to quantify your interest in a video, but they also use watch percentages. Put simply, when you watch a video from start to finish, TikTok will value it above a video you swiped away from early. By treating your lede like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, you give viewers a jolt of focus that may compel theme to watch till the end.

So How Did I Do It?

There's lots of strategy above, but there aren't many tactics. As I continue to create marketing content, my goal is to teach you not just theory, but also a practical method of replicating these results. So, without further ado, here's how I made the Sonic Temple video in a way that I knew would be successful.

I started with the punchline.

On day 1 of Sonic Temple, I was blessed by a plane carrying a banner that read "THUNDERPUSSY.COM THUNDERPUSSY.COM." I thought to myself, "dang, that would be funny in a TikTok," so I filmed a clip of it. I spent the rest of the weekend determining what B-roll was needed and making sure I had all the pieces and parts to create the final product. After I recovered from the rock show, I put it together like a puzzle and boom, successful video.

Perfect social media moments present themselves all the time, but its rarely when we're prepared to make the content. When you see something that inspires you, grab a picture or video of it. Then, when you're sitting down to create content, you're not starting from scratch while trying to manufacture content. You already have the good stuff, you just need to fill it out.

-MC

p.s.

• I'm not planning on taking next Monday off, so we're getting off this Tuesday kick.
• The newsletter yearns for more subscribers. Send this to your plug and tell them to subscribe.
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This newsletter, but in video form! I was stuck in a parking lot this week and decided to breakdown why my Sonic Temple video was doing so well. Watch the video

And a word about that THUNDERPUSSY banner Why it's sometimes good to withhold some information. Watch the video

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Let's celebrate your wins next. Ask me how!

$5.00 Bahnfyre Tip Jar This is so incredibly cool of you. Thank you!! -MC Send a tip

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