Want the lowdown on all things social video and planning? We got you! Our latest virtual workshops series, PLANOLY Presents: Video Planner, dives deep into TikTok with the help of 3 video experts along with how to use our multi-channel workspace to plan video content for TikTok and more. 

We’ll break down the most valuable tips from our workshop speakers and how you can leverage them to make video content that grows your TikTok and Instagram presence, positively impacts your marketing and business goals, and empowers you to film and create content. Plus, you’ll get the inside scoop on how to use our multi-channel workspace to streamline your video planning and creation process, as well as a sneak peek of new features to come. 

Workshop #1: Building Community on TikTok 

For this workshop (you can check out the recording here), we sat down with three TikTok Tastemakers: TikTok’s Global Head of SMB Marketing Josh Hilliard, Brand Strategy & Marketing Consultant Shanika Hillocks, and Banana Brands Founder & CEO Hannah McGough. All three of these speakers share how to leverage TikTok and social video content to build an authentic presence and grow an online community for your or your clients’ brand or businesses. They also share insightful tips and inspiration to help creators overcome common hurdles to creating video content. 

Here are the top 3 takeaways: 

#1 Maximize Your Content Opportunities 

Posting consistently is key to success on TikTok. Hannah, Josh, and Shanika believe you can find content inspiration everywhere. Here’s how Hannah captures enough content for her clients’ TikTok. 

“You can always create... I always keep an eye out for cool content moments I can later use for a TikTok. Even if I don’t know what that video concept looks like yet, I have it in my archives.” 

In addition to finding inspiration, video allows brands and business owners to not be so curated or perfect.  

Josh shared, “Video allows for so much personality and is more authentic than what we are previously used to.”

Video content, especially on TikTok is more lofi and scrappily produced. It’s not so much about the “Instagram aesthetic”, but more about creating relevant and entertaining content. Letting go of perfection will help you get from idea to post quicker and create more content as trends arise. 

“A trick I learned to help me source content is to turn my photos into live images and then later turn them into videos.” - Shanika 

Here’s an example of turning your live images into vibey videos using popular audio. 

 #2 Plan Ahead

Planning video content seems intimidating, but it isn’t any different than regular static posts. For example, content batching is the same as batch filming and allows you to plan days, weeks, or even months ahead of time. Here are Hannah’s tips for getting your planning started, 

"Once you decide what holidays you want to promote and marketing goals to set, refer back to your brand pillars and make sure all these ideas make sense and align with your brand ethos and audience.” 

If you’re short of content for the month, you can always turn to trending content on TikTok through TikTok’s Discover Tab. Josh uses it to find the top 10 video trends, filters, and audios and also see how other accounts are using it and mimicking it in a way that works for your brand or business. Keeping track of video trends is important and is why Shanika always leaves space in her video content calendar for social listening. 

“You always want to incorporate content that’s culturally relevant. Whether it be a new Beyoncé album drop or a popular video trend or meme.” 

#3 Interact With Your Audience 

TikTok has a very community-oriented mindset. And so while it’s important to hop onto popular trends, it’s also important to hone in your niche and potential audience. In addition to paying attention to user interests, Josh recommends managing and responding to video comments. Not only do comments provide great insight, but it shows your followers there’s a real person behind the account. Another way to make sure you're interacting with your community in a positive way is crediting back to the original inspiration for the video. Shanika shares, 

“Make sure you’re always tagging the original creator whenever you’re using audio or taking tips from educational videos. Do your due diligence when creating.” 

This best practice will make sure you're a trustworthy and well-liked brand on TikTok. 

Workshop #2: From Plan to Post: Introducing PLANOLY’s Multi-Channel Workspace

The shift to video content on social media has brought up its own sets of challenges. For example, keeping track of the latest video trends, organizing and managing your video content for multiple platforms along with scheduling is a lot harder than it looks. These pain points are why we created PLANOLY’s multi channel workspace! In our second workshop, our Product Marketing Manager, Reilly Purl, and Social Media Coach and TikTok Creator, Sydney McDonald (@sydneyonsocials) walk through how to streamline your video planning and creation process and how to use PLANOLY to do it. Here’s more on how to access and link your TikTok account to our new planner. 

#1 Focus On Your Video Strategy 

Researching and finding video content ideas is a blocker for most brands and businesses, but also necessary for creating video content that stands out. Sydney shares, 

“The app is so saturated these days that you really want to create content that’s valuable. You’ll need to spend a little more time researching trends.”

Even though video content tends to be scrappier than the static post, it’s important to have a call-to-action or purpose for each video. So to help cut down the research time, PLANOLY provides users with expertly curated video trends on a weekly basis. That’s up to 12 video content ideas a month that you can make unique and specific to your brand or business. 

#2 Streamline Your Video Planning On PLANOLY 

Currently there’s no way to keep all your video content in one place.  

“I scroll through TikTok then save and add these ideas to my notes app. Overall it’s not very organized and leads to video content ideas falling through.” - Sydney 

Stay tuned for upcoming multi-channel planning releases, including an idea management feature that will allow users to send video ideas to PLANOLY while on the TikTok app, saving the link to the video and audio onto an ideas board. You’ll also be able to draft scripts complete with a hook, body, and call-to-action to use while filming. Sydney also shares why it’s important to have a strong hook to keep people watching and end with a call-to-action - whether that be following your other social accounts, purchasing a product, etc. 

We created PLANOLY’s Multi-Channel Workspace in partnership with social media managers to save time, simplify the process of getting from idea to post, and to organize and plan  your video content all in one place. Stay tuned for new features to come to ensure your video content’s success!