## Introduction I filmed a short-form video to promote my tech startup, Tintage. It took a couple of tries to get it right, and I'm going to share my process and what I learned. ## How to Get a Ton of Views on TikTok? To get views, your video must be promoted by the algorithm, which looks at: - Viewer retention - Engagement - Likes and shares TikTok provides these metrics, which can be used to improve your future videos. ## Filming the Video Sound quality > Lighting > Camera quality People won't continue to watch if they can't hear what you're saying. Being on a tight budget means I don't have fancy lighting equipment or a camera. So, I decided to film in my car with my iPhone 7. I chose my car as it provides a good acoustic environment and natural light. I also taped my microphone to the steering wheel for better audio. ## Version 1: The First Attempt I attempted to keep the video engaging. The first few seconds are the most important. Despite my efforts, the first version didn't perform well. I started it with a hook: "Do you want a rare username?" Looking at the statistics, this helped keep people watching, as the average view duration was **5.5** seconds. It seems like TikTok stops promoting it on the "For You Page" after 24 hours.

Tiktok results — Results for the first video

At the end of the day, it ended with around **67 views**, **2 likes**, and **0 shares** (the two likes were from myself :p). That's no good. ## Version 2: Re-editing the Video I re-edited the video to make it more interesting. I added B-roll footage, captions, and cut out the boring parts. I also added music (produced by myself) and a bunch of sound effects: swooshes, dings, and ca-chings to emphasize the points. Half-way through the video, I stopped the music and added reverb to emphasize the point that "It is more than just a link in bio site". I then looked at the analytics of the TikTok and discovered that the average view duration was **5.5 seconds**. At this timestamp, I was explaining what it was: "Tintage allows you to create your own page for yourself or for your business." The part must've been boring, so I cut out that entire segment. It's understandable; viewers probably thought, "Ugh, I've seen this before."

At the end of the day, it gained **320 views**, **8 likes**, and **0 shares** before the views finally stopped. **All Techniques I Used** * Use a hook to keep people watching. * Use text to engage the viewer. * Make sure something interesting is always happening on the screen to re-engage attention. ## Version 3: Final Attempt The next day, I reduced the video from **23.3 seconds** to **19.6 seconds** by cutting out the part at 6.7s, which is when people stopped watching. Now, before I share the final result, let's compare it to the previous videos: Video 1: **67 views**, **2 likes**, **0 shares**, **5.5 seconds** average watch time Video 2: **320 views**, **8 likes**, **0 shares**, **6.7 seconds** average watch time Video 3: **370 views**, **32 likes**, **2 shares**, **7.2 seconds** average watch time Here are the results after posting it:

It's an improvement as the average viewer duration increased, but it is still disappointing. ## Instagram Reels Instagram recently released a new feature called Reels. It's basically a TikTok clone. I decided to post it there and see what happens. I [posted](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd9sB7rFtrY/) it to Instagram Reels and gained **18.8k views** and **643 likes**.

Marketing

How I used TikTok Retention Stats to Increase Views