Mastering Video Content
Creating Compelling TikTok Videos for Your Business
Getting Started with My Redbubble Store
My Redbubble store is now live, and while it still needs some work, I'm committed to dedicating a certain amount of hours per week to setting it up properly. For now, I'll focus on generating as much traffic as possible.
Learning from Online Authority
I have spent quite a few hours online watching videos from various authorities. One notable figure I've found valuable in this regard is Greg Gottfried, whom I consider to be a credible YouTuber.
However, with so much contradictory information out there, even the best advice may not be perfectly suited to what you are doing.
So, I usually don’t linger too long in the theory department and get into action as soon as possible.
One thing is certain: learning how to get people’s attention by generating engaging content is a valuable skill, and I am spending more time on this.
Placeit
I registered for a premium account on the Placeit website, which allows me to use mockups for showcasing my designs. For around $4 a month, I can use one design and create multiple mockups featuring different people in different situation, which also adds a bit of story telling.
This requires no particular skills or effort, but it can be engaging since humans respond better to viewing other humans rather than seeing a t-shirt on its own, for example.
The data confirms this because, on a given social media platform, within the same amount of time, when my design reaches 10 accounts, a human mockup wearing that design would reach 100 accounts.
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Note that I neglected my Instagram for a while, but I am now firmly resolved to become more disciplined and post more regularly.
Putting my perfectionism aside, creating original designs takes a lot of time, but using different mockups to generate more content isn't too hard. That's how I plan to fulfill my promise to upload more regularly.
Another great aspect of posting multiple mockups with the same design is that it allows for more testing regarding engagement results.
On Placeit, I found some manga character mockups. I thought that would be a good idea to test as well, as it could fit the brand image. Slapping my design on them took only 5 minutes.
TikTok and AI image-to-video
I decided to create a TikTok account, and while trying to familiarize myself with the interface, I found it a bit difficult to upload an image; maybe it's not even possible.
I quickly realized that TikTok is probably all about videos. So, I took a quick pause and thought it would be a good time to learn about AI tools for generating videos from still images.
A small challenge: You have 4 or 5 hours to create a short anime with your design. I don’t care how you do it. That is the challenge I unconsciously set for myself this morning, and I successfully passed the self-assigned test.
I followed the same procedure described above, searching for a to-the-point video on that subject. I registered on a few AI image-to-video services and, after some quick testing, decided to invest more time in Pika.art.
The full-body animation turned out poorly because I didn't have the time or the skills to refine the prompt and the overall setup , so I decided to focus on the head only.
As you can see on the left side of the screenshot, a cropped version was uploaded for that purpose.
I then did a montage of the “acceptable” AI rendering from Place.it with the Pika.art rendering of the hair.
I abandoned the idea of creating something great, essentially lowering my quality expectations to favor speed of execution while maintaining a good balance between the two.
Knowing that my next video will probably be better as it will be build on top of his one.
Canva
Finally, I added a bit of dynamism by playing around with the animation in Canva. I don’t have much experience with Canva—maybe 50 hours since I first tried it a few months ago.
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The overall idea was to cheat a bit and give it a video feel, even though it is just a still image with moving hair.
Canva has great options to animate text and add some effects here and there to keep the viewer entertained.
The easy live-action mockup on the right has 571 views after 4 days which is the age of my newly created Tiktok account. The anime mockup was posted few hours ago, so we will wait a bit.
Instagram score
Maybe the data only updates every 24 hours on TikTok, but on Instagram, the anime video is reaching in a few hours what the previous video took four days to achieve.
However, at this point, it is not my intention to draw any conclusions because there are too many factors involved. Additionally, data should be studied based on average results over a longer period of time.
Besides, like any online endeavor, data is only part of the equation. The other part is real human interaction. By that, I mean that regardless of what you post online, the probability of establishing meaningful connections increases.
Speaking of human interaction, I found the music for this video on Pixabay and decided to link it to the creator's Instagram account. This decision wasn’t just about being nice; it was because I realize more and more that this is a good opportunity to apply some basic principles of building a solid network of like-minded individuals.
This is fundamental to genuine mutual engagement and is also part of the Wulirocks brand ideal.
awesome roundup of tools to use for tiktok videos. I'm also getting started with tiktok and yet to get a placeit account. Awesome recommendations!