Tik-Tok is very “voracious” about content. On this social network, not only the quality but also the quantity of videos is important. As well as regular posting. To clearly understand when to shoot and post, we advise you to create a content plan.
This article tells you how to create a content plan for Tik Tok, what tools to use. What are the features and differences from creating a content plan for other social networks.
How to make a content plan for Tik Tok – instruction
It is assumed that you have already decided on a niche and registered an account. Before you create a content plan, you need to go through preparatory steps:
1. Define the goal
Why you need a Tik Tok. It is logical that the final goal of any promotion is monetization, growth of sales or recognition (which can also be monetized later). We start from the fact that we need content that will get a lot of views, will be included into recommendations, will bring subscribers, and all this will allow to reach the goal.
Setting goals determines how content is served. What happens if you don’t set a goal and include it in your content plan and focus only on views?
A simple example, you are a civil litigation lawyer. You go to Tik Tok for clients. Or, to increase your value as an expert and charge more money for consulting. You can follow trends and shoot viral content that gains a lot of views, but doesn’t bring in clients at all. What’s the point of you being on Tic Toc then?
The upshot is that content needs to be created with a purpose in mind. At least add a call to action in some videos (or descriptions). In the example with the lawyer – an offer to seek advice.
2. Choose a format (pitch)
In Tik Tok, it’s hard to decide on a pitch right away. There are few bloggers who can show their unique tricks from the first videos, and it shoots. For example, sculptor @salavat.fidai, who carves figures out of pencils.
Basically, one’s format is revealed by experience. At first, you can post several videos with different pitches and see the views + audience reaction. That is, watch and analyze the statistics, as well as user behavior – which videos get more views, which get into recommendations, which get commented and reposted more often. You can find out by experience what is better to shoot and how.
*Analyze statistics and behavioral factors not only at the beginning of work with Tik Tok, but all the time of promotion in the social network.
Tip: It is not necessary to try to do perfectly at once, both in terms of the plot and in terms of filming and editing. That way you can quickly burn out and abandon your account. In the beginning it is more important to have a quantity and at least some results, from which you can build upon later. The quality of content can be increased gradually, there is nothing wrong with it.
More often than not, tiktokers choose several formats for themselves, so that subscribers are more interesting. For example, stand-up videos + prank or educational + entertaining content. Then they spread them across playlists. Like Salavat Fiday, it is difficult to keep the audience’s attention on one format for a long time because they need really good content, unusual presentation and charisma.
Once you have decided on a pitch, you can proceed directly to the creation of a content plan for Tik Tok.
Why you should not ignore the above-mentioned steps? If you create a plan without relying on anything and shoot content according to it, you might find later that videos do not go and you have wasted your time.
Stages that relate directly to creating a content plan for Tik Tok:
3. Choose a period to create the plan
Tik Tok differs from other social networks in that trends change very quickly here. Therefore, the maximum timeframe for a content plan for Tik Tok is 3 weeks or a month. And that’s if you’ve already found your pitch that works. If you focus only on what’s trending, the term is even less – 2 weeks.
More than a month does not make sense to write out – ideas can lose relevance. Plus, during this month, new trends may emerge.
Conclusion: to always remain relevant in Tik Tok, you need to constantly monitor the social network.
4. Choose the time and frequency of posting
The tests will also help in this – you need to determine the best time to publish videos in Tik Tok, on what days and at what time your audience is most active. This is needed to get interaction in the first hours after publication and increase the chances of the video getting into recommendations.
5. Come up with topics
Briefly write what the video is about. The accuracy and wording is not important here – you should write the title for yourself. The idea is that later looking over the plan you might remember what you wanted to shoot a video about.
P.S. Separately, you can add a paragraph about the duration of the video, if it is important. But usually the main thing is to stay within the limits of Tik Tok. The duration can then be adjusted during editing – cut everything superfluous from the video and reshoot problematic moments.
6. Describe the approximate plot + details for filming and editing
You should be more specific about what the video will be about: who or what will be in the frame, how the characters move, what they should do. We write dialogues (or monologue).
For your convenience you can make a storyboard for each video, visual or textual. But it will take more time, plus you need to be able to draw at least at a basic level for the visual one. You can make a storyboard not for all videos, but for videos with a complex plot. There is no sense in it for lopsinks, of course. As an alternative to storyboarding, you can make a rough reel and then re-shoot it with higher quality.
Important: if we repeat someone else’s movie, use a fragment of it to realize your idea, or want to make a better version of the original – the plan can make a separate point, where there will be references to the original video.
7. Make a content plan for Tik Tok
The plan can be done in the form of a table. If you take the maximum plan, you should get a table with the following items:
- Number, Time;
- Subject;
- Plot;
- Reference to the storyboard;
- Source;
- Draft.
You can also make a separate column, where we will mark with text or color what has already been posted.
Once a content plan for Tik Tok created – you can move directly to shooting and editing videos.
Tools for creating a content plan for Tik Tok
What services and programs to use for convenience:
Excel. This is the easiest way to design a plan. Create a standard table, highlighting columns with color if necessary. You can create a separate sheet for each period in an Excel document. If we use the online version of Excel, you can give access to the tables to work together.
Trello. This is a canban board where you can create cards and move them to different columns. For example, we make a card with the title, and inside already describe the story and attach links. Inside the cards, it’s convenient to leave notes.
You can create several columns on a Trello board, for example: “Plan to October 20” and “Posted”. And as you publish, drag and drop cards from the first column to the second.
If more than one person is working on the content, it’s possible to assign them to specific cards and discuss progress in the comments.
*Don’t forget to make the board private, so it’s not indexed by Google and can’t be viewed by other users.
True, there is a small disadvantage of maintaining a content plan in Trello. Over time, there will be too many cards. There are bloggers who post five videos a day. Old cards will have to be deleted or hidden in the archive, so that the ones in the works are not lost among them. Or you will need to drag them into a separate column, such as “No longer relevant. If you have to remove cards altogether – this is not good. It’s better to save the whole plan so you can always go back to it.
You can use Trello in combination with other services.
Google Calendar. The convenience of calendars is that mentions at a set date and time arrive in the mail. Calendars are not very suitable for describing the plot of movies, but as a reminder – just right. There is also a collaborative feature in calendars.
Note-taking applications. If you need to draw up a content plan for Tik Tok in a hurry, you can use applications for notes. You can use the built-in phone or download them from Marketplaces. The keyword “Notes” brings up a lot of convenient applications.
Storyboarding service. If you want to visualize a video script. There are several services – in some you can draw frames, in others – to place photos with text, in others – to create animation (but this is already extra work).
List of services:
- Canva (posting photos with text);
- Storyboarder (rendering frames);
- StudioBinder (more complicated than Canva, but visually the storyboard is not much different, the service is in English);
- Storyboard That (has ready-made characters to create scenes, good for those who are bad at drawing or want to visualize a scene quickly).
For storing draft videos, a regular folder on your computer or in Google Drive will do. Add a link to the video (if it’s on Google Drive) or video number/title to the table with the content plan.
Conclusion
A content plan for Tik Tok helps to systematize your work in Tick-Tock and reduce the time to create content. A plan also helps to avoid downtime, because sometimes there is no inspiration and no opportunity to shoot a video here and now. And in Tic Toc, regularity is important. Of course, experienced bloggers have already learned to improvise and shoot videos as soon as ideas come. But not everyone knows how to do that, and not everyone has the time. Newcomers or professionals with several social media accounts will still find it more convenient to work with a content plan.