Hello! I’m Ema Matsumoto and I am one of the new members working at Global Produce! This June my coworkers and I started “TikTok” to promote our company! Our TikTok content is mainly comical skits that show my reactions and thoughts on culture differences between the U.S. and Japan(“帰国子女ネタ”). When creating the videos, I place importance on five factors to make the videos go viral, hopefully.

①Timing

Our TikTok team is strict on the timing of posting videos. Viral TikTok videos are often timely and tap into current events, pop culture references, or trends. From my experience of posting personal TikTok videos, I discovered that the videos tend to go viral on Monday through Thursday around 6~7pm. Therefore, we decided to post videos at that specific time. In order to immediately increase the number of views and likes, timing is the key.

②Hashtags and Trending Topics

TikTok relies heavily on hashtags to categorize the content. By using popular and relevant hashtags, creators can increase the discoverability and reach of their videos. Recently I have been putting effort into this area. Even if the video is lacking entertainment, it will go viral if it’s linked with the trending hashtag. Thus, the hashtags become effective when it is contains the name of the artists, singers and song titles. Based on the TikTok algorithm, TikTok is a video platform based on music so the hashtags should be related to music to go viral.  For our TikTok video, we attach hashtags of trending artists and their popular songs. K-pop idols are popular around the globe so we focus on taping in hashtags with K-pop idol names and songs.

③Creative and Engaging Content

 Viral TikTok videos often feature unique and captivating moment. In our TikTok video, we focus on the differences of English pronunciations and Japanese pronunciations of certain terms. For example, “McDonalds” is very different in Japanese and English pronunciations, and this is one of the ideas for our future TikTok video. There are many TikTokers focusing on their content on differences between English and Japanese pronunciation, so we are trying to find the ways we could be different from them.

④Catchy Music and Sounds

TikTok offers varieties of music and sound effects that users can incorporate into their videos. Memorable songs and audio clips are often used as a foundation for viral dances, lip-syncs, or comedic skits. Instead of using music offered by TikTok, we incorporate songs by trending Artists. So far we discovered that K-pop idol songs make the video go viral easily.

⑤Relatability

TikTok users often resonate with content that feels relatable. Therefore, I intentionally created the TikTok account that looks like my own personal account so young viewers would not hesitate to watch my videos. Relatability is also a key component in situations other than social media. Japanese people highly value this relatability. When meeting someone at first time, most Japanese people get close by finding their similarities. Therefore, making a relatable video especially in a Japanese TikTok market is a key for our success.

Conclusion

These were the five factors I heavily place importance on when creating and posting TikTok videos for my company. Our goal is to make the videos go viral, but that is not the main goals. Our main goals for this TikTok project are building recognition of our company, sharing the joy of working in event production industry and mostly, increase the number of students who wish to become the new member of our company!