Getting 4 Million Organic Views On TikTok: 4 Questions With Louis Montemayor
August 1, 2020
Despite news to the contrary, TikTok isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s quickly becoming the short-form platform of choice for people and brands alike.
Louis Montemayor, co-founder and creative director of Bandolier Media, has spent the last few weeks in the TikTok trenches working on an influencer campaign for Lowe’s and @JustAConstructionGuy. The effort features a variety of videos, including multiple hits and 4M+ organic views.
Below, he answers four questions about what he’s learned so far and what he sees for the future of the emerging platform.
Click here to learn more about the origins of @JustAConstructionGuy.
What are your general impressions of the platform?
LM: TikTok has been an interesting platform to watch grow and become more mainstream. As someone who grew up in a generation that got to witness the evolution from chat rooms to social network platforms, I’m always curious about a new offering.
With TikTok, I saw the value immediately when I realized how consumable the content was. Not only is it entertaining and catered to you, but it seamlessly immerses you in an ocean of content for hours, until you snap out of the hypnosis. What I also appreciate is that the “For You” page (which is essentially your explore feed) will populate rising videos that haven’t yet reached virality.
That shows me that the algorithm gives a fighting chance to those with few followers who make great content. Every day creators are finding new ways to use the platform and it’s honestly quite fascinating to both watch and also integrate into Bandolier’s content creation. And with key features like unique/interactive effects and editing tools, TikTok is a creator’s dream.
@justaconstructionguy This is much harder than it looks. 😂🛠 @lowes ##tools ##powertools ##lowespartner ##kobalttools ##pickupthepower ##sponsored
How has Bandolier used the platform for the Lowe’s campaign?
LM: When you get sucked into the TikTok void, you come across plenty of trends and themes that naturally come to mind when working on client projects and concept building.
For the Omar/Lowe’s partnership, once we were briefed on the Kobalt power tools they wanted to showcase, I immediately remembered a trend I’d come across where people were unraveling painter’s tape with a power drill. As satisfying as that was, I knew there was much more that could be done in that format. You’d be surprised how many things you can unroll/unravel, if you’re brave enough (as Omar is).
5 million views and 100K followers later, users have poured in with comments and suggestions on what they want to see next. Combine that with weird/creative ideas we put together and we got some momentum going. We applied the same approach to concept experiments using the other power tools in the line, and it naturally led to more fun, untraditional content.
In the end, I personally believe what made the campaign successful was that we thought more about what would be fun, versus practical. There are hundreds of videos reviewing tools all over the internet, but wouldn’t you rather take a break and watch a power tool do something satisfyingly badass while it’s being tested? I sure would.
@justaconstructionguy I was a little concerned at the end. 🚧😂 ##tools ##powertools ##kobalttools ##caution
What have you learned about TikTok through the campaign?
LM: The TikTok algorithm isn’t shy about letting you know when one video is favored over another by viewers. In the case of the power tool experiments we did, the drill and impact driver videos have performed better than the others (as expected), so we doubled down and invested time coming up with new/unique ways to keep it going.
As I mentioned before, the mounting suggestions have been a huge motivation to keep producing this content, as it seems to be attracting more and more viewers. Overall it’s been great experiencing the amount of community interaction this has brought about.
Although none of these Lowe’s campaign videos have individually reached the 4.3M views we garnered from our original “5 Ways Not To Bowl” (non-branded) video, they’ve greatly exceeded our expectations, and we’re looking forward to what the future holds for both sponsored and non-sponsored @JustAConstructionGuy content.
What’s your plan for TikTok in the future?
LM: I’d be lying if I said TikTok wasn’t currently taking up a good chunk of my mental real estate for content creation and client concepting. Mainly because there’s so much opportunity to reach a larger audience if the content is solid and you learn the ins and outs.
Plus, in many cases all you need is that one video to take off.
That being said, I’m excited to play around with content creation and strategy for our more “traditional” clients versus one of our media properties. A lot of it is uncharted territory, which makes it really attractive. We’ll see where this TikTok journey takes us, but I have a pretty good feeling about it. Unless, of course, it gets banned in 42 days. We’ll see how this ages.