Have you wanted to make the leap to marketing your art on Tik Tok, but felt uncertain of how to get started? Here’s a beginner’s Tik Tok tutorial to get you going. This is just a very basic starter guide - Tik Tok has tons of features that are best learned about by playing with it!
For starters download the app and sign up for an account. Once you’ve done that and confirmed your account, you’ll be ready to get creative. You can edit your profile to add your website and make sure to upload a photo for your profile picture.
At the bottom of your screen you will see a plus sign in red and blue. Click that to begin making your first Tik Tok! It will bring you to a recording screen where you will see a red recording button with 15s, 60s and 3m above it. Toggle between those to choose how long your Tik Tok should be. (Hint - 15 - 60 seconds do best).
If you want the camera facing the other way, click the Flip button on the upper right corner. The next option is Speed - which allows you to change how fast the recording is. This means you can speed up or slow down your video. After that you will see Beauty - you can toggle this one on or off for a subtle smoothing filter. Under that are the Filters - much like Instagram you can give your Tik Tok videos a certain vibe with these. The last option on the right is Timer - this allows you to have a 3 or 10 second countdown for videos as well as a limit on the time for the recording duration (helpful if you are recording yourself painting or creating!).
At the bottom left of your screen you will see Effects. Similar to Filters - these are unique to Tik Tok and are EXTENSIVE. This is a section you will want to play around with as it is stuffed with all kinds of green screen effects as well as one of a kind filters and more. Check it out!
The red button in the middle allows you to record - if you are ready to give it a go, then click that button to begin recording. To the right you will see Upload, so if you have content you’ve already pre-recorded that you would like to use, you can upload it here. You can also upload photos to have a video slideshow. You can edit them with all kinds of transitions too…more on that at some point in the future though. Be adventurous and try them out for yourself in the meantime!
At the bottom to the right of Camera you will see Templates. This feature is to help you get used to the format of Tik Tok videos without doing much work. It is an easy way to choose a style of video, choose your photos and post - give it a try and see what you think.
It can be helpful to prepare by putting the pictures and videos you want to use in a separate folder on your phone, so when you are ready to upload them, you only have to toggle the options at the top to select the correct folder and there they are, ready to go. As you can see I uploaded some sample videos and pictures into a folder called “Desert” to make it easily accessible.
Once you’ve made a recording you can add more if it hasn’t filled the time you selected yet or you can add photos too. When you are satisfied with your creation click the red checkmark to move on to the next screen. This is where you can add options like music, effects, text or stickers. At the bottom of your screen you will see these - click Sounds to add your audio. You can search for any artist or song, and if you find one you like but not for this video, you can always save it for later with the bookmark. Pick the audio you like, then click the red check mark to select it. If you want the audio to begin at a different time, select the scissors in the upper right to trim it to where you want it to begin. You can also adjust the volume of both the video you uploaded and the audio track by clicking Volume at the bottom. Click on the video again to see how the recording is coming along. If you want to add Effects I suggest clicking into this and playing around, as I said before it is extensive. Personally I’ve only played around with it a bit…so this is another one I will come back to write a more thorough blog about in the future. The idea of this blog post is just to get you familiar with the app in general.
Once you have your video to your liking, click the red Next button. Oh this screen you will add your description and #hashtags as well as choose the cover for your Tik Tok (click the word Cover on the image to the right to change it). You also have the option to add a link. When you are all ready click the big red Post button at the bottom and voila! you are done. Congrats on getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new!
There are many styles of Tik Tok videos - browse around some of your favorite #hashtags to find ideas. Also be sure to check out our “Reels Ideas” Highlight on our @curiouskirby Instagram as many of these videos are easily recreated in Tik Tok. If you want to check out what I’ve made you can find me at @hippiehides and @awenalchemy on there - and Kirby has been rollin out the hits on hers @kirbyplessasart - go follow along with her fab creations!
You’re good to get your feet wet in a new app now - so go have fun! There is plenty more to go over with Tik Tok in the future, so stay tuned for a follow up series of blogs. Let us know if there's anything specific you’d like us to go over in-depth in one of these tiny Tik Tok tutorials!