From Scratch: CP Media Shares Its Experience in Launching Web3 TikTok Accounts

Cryptocurrencies and other segments of the Web3 industry are extremely popular on TikTok. Moreover, one of the main requests from Web3 projects is marketing and community building. In this context, TikTok is one of the crucial platforms for communicating with an active young audience. But how can it best be used as a marketing tool to promote Web3 projects? This question at some point must arise both for project managers and marketers mastering the Web3 market. 

CP Media’s educational course “TikTok for Crypto, FinTech, and Web3” is designed to answer this question. The Media team prepared it based on their own experience, thorough analysis, and opinions of third-party experts. It turned out pretty well, but what’s interesting is how the information presented in the course is perceived and helps in practice. We needed an experiment, and it was arranged. Most of the Media team had never run a TikTok account before, and they’re consumers of content on social networks, not creators. They were invited to take the course and try to put the knowledge outlined there into practice. The initiative turned into an internal challenge in which three brave people volunteered to participate. After a month, they shared their observations and impressions. 

Nataly Antonenko: “Funny Videos Get More Views” 

— TikTok never caught my eye, but after registering, it didn’t take long to figure out the app’s interface. Our course helped me understand where to look at statistics and how to use analytics in general. Eventually, I realized that everything on TikTok is already intuitive. But thanks to the course, I knew how to use it once I registered.

Regarding the course, I liked most of all the part about the content plan, although it seemed to me that there were not enough details. I wanted more concrete examples. Still, I found this part the most informative. 

As for how I chose the content and created videos: 

1. I based my posts on already existing videos so that I didn’t have to shoot anything since there was no time for that.
2. I chose music depending on trends on TikTok. If I came across a particular sound very often while watching other people’s videos, I saved it to my favorites. From there, it could be quickly added to the video.
3. I didn’t have a specific text or content plan as almost all of my content was generated on the fly. I spent half an hour selecting cat coins only once.

As for my observations, it was unclear why the videos weren’t getting enough views. I tried to post at different times of the day and in different languages, given the fact that the platform showed my videos to a mostly local audience. But it didn’t bring much in terms of results. 

Darya Antipenkova: “Seeking Inspiration Everywhere Is Important”

— During the whole month of the challenge, I experimented with different styles of videos: simple, philosophical, funny, and trendy. After taking the course, I already knew what tools were available on TikTok and what I needed to begin with, so there were no questions about the technical part. I tried to make my videos more complex and colorful, and over time, it got better and faster.

One of the first lessons I learned in practice was that monotonous videos were demotivating. Where to look for inspiration for new videos? After taking the course, I had a content plan with video scripts for each week. I wanted to put idea generation on a stream, because the more videos you post, the more chances you have to get on top of trends. To do this, I subscribed to major TikTok accounts on Web3 and it turned out to be a real treasure trove of ideas. Their content became the inspiration for my videos. I also watched popular trends on general topics and adapted them to Web3 themes. 

Posting videos regularly was a challenge. My videos didn’t get a lot of views, and one time a totally innocuous video got banned and received only five views. This demotivated me, but I didn’t give up and kept trying. Patience is the key factor in this process. Gradually, I started to see my progress in the quality and speed of preparing videos. This was shown in the comments to my videos and an increase in subscribers, albeit insignificant.

In the process, I realized that using popular songs for videos gives them extra TikTok magic. If the track is popular, the algorithms will show the video to more users. It’s crucial that a particular sound is popular specifically on TikTok. 

Although my videos haven’t gotten millions of views, my content creation skills on TikTok have grown a lot. Yes, it’s painstaking work, and at the end of the month, I learned to quickly launch and test hypotheses with videos, though I could spend more than an hour on one video in the beginning. I concluded that it took more than a month for me to promote my TikTok account. 

Julia Baimysheva: “Videos on Making Money Are Most Frequently Viewed” 

— I chose cryptocurrencies in the broadest sense as a topic. The feature of the account was AI — materials, faces, and pictures were mostly generated via various services. I didn’t make my videos too “spectacular” and tried to minimize time and labor costs for creation, as I specialize in motion design and can spend whole days working on one video. However, if you get too involved and do super cool editing, add effects, and generate videos using top AI services, you can increase engagement and attract a larger audience.

How I tried to promote my account:

1. At first, I published trending crypto videos, and they got 370-600 views. But subscribers didn’t grow much.
2. I started publishing educational videos about the crypto sphere. For the most part, I generated everything to save time, but I guess I made a couple of mistakes here: I didn’t actively engage the audience in communication and comments, videos weren’t that catchy in the beginning, so not everyone watched until the end. Besides, I should have used one person as a speaker, but I still had a professional interest in testing neural networks to create videos, so I tried different techniques.
3. Then, I made my biggest mistake. I accidentally uploaded an unfinished video and deleted it in order to reupload it. It was a failure. The video gained few views, and then the account received fewer views in general.
4. Next, I alternated between funny memes and educational content — educational videos even gathered more likes.
5. I tried videos with a list of Web3 games and airdrops — I got views but no engagement. Something was amiss. 
6. I returned to trends and memes, started searching more actively for trending hashtags and music, and a Barbie trend video miraculously got recognition. I received a couple of subscribers and a lot of profile views.
7. During the challenge, I tried to promote the account, leaving comments under other videos and liking them. It also brought some views. The fastest way to get subscribers and profile views was to become more active in subscribing to similar profiles.

My overall observations:

1. Videos on how to make money are the most likely to get views in the crypto sphere (charts, forecasts, etc.). I found a couple of accounts with crypto memes that are popular. 
2. It’s better to post videos with the same character (it was mentioned in our course), and it’s better to publish them with a real person.
3. The first three to five videos will get recognition, as TikTok is apparently testing your videos on the audience. Then, the numbers drop, and the motivation to post disappears.
4. You need to invest a lot of time and effort to make an interesting video that will get noticed, but you can also use memes and challenges to gain views. Creating such content is faster.
5. You need to find and collect hashtags and music that are trending and use them for your content. 

In my opinion, the main thing in working with TikTok is to never give up, experiment with formats, and keep posting videos on a regular basis, then any content will definitely find a viewer. Our educational course in this sense helps you understand the basics and make the first steps without missing anything important.