 Hello! How do the best performers keep going on TikTok? What's going to grab someone's attention in the first four seconds? Because that's your window that you've got. Sometimes it's shorter depending on what kind of video it is, but you've only only got your first few seconds to hit someone with what you need. Because if you've done it in the first few seconds they'll stay for 15 and if you're still good then they'll stay to 30. This is the Great British YouTubers podcast with me Neil Mosse. Hello, it's awesome to have you here. This is a place where we share advice, experience and tips with high-achieving creators and performers, just like you. And in this episode, Stephen McKell. Stephen has over 2.3 million followers on TikTok, clocking up over 500 million views. He also has a YouTube channel, so is absolutely the best person to talk about YouTube versus TikTok. Stephen McKell, what do you find are the hardest videos to make? Hardest, original comedy content is very hard to make because you have to be funny and you have to have a good sense of humour and you have to be quick. How do you make a funny TikTok video? What's your process? How do you go about it? It depends on what I'm making. If I'm making a video, like if I'm using like a sound underneath it and it's not me talking, I think what's going to grab someone's attention in the first four seconds because that's your window that you've got. Sometimes it's shorter depending on what kind of video it is, but you've only got your first few seconds to hit someone with what you need. So my thing is, if I make a comedy video that I want them to watch for 15 seconds or more, how can I get the punchline in there if it's non-verbal within the first few seconds? So I think of that, I think of how can I get that in there quickly? Then what's the story after that? Because people love watching a story telling and that's hard to do itself if you're doing a comedy video without you actually talking and you're just doing something that's funny, you're trying to have a story through your actions or through the writing on the screen. So you've got to have a plan and I think plan but don't plan too much. It's hard to do this but don't do this, you know, go to work, don't go to work. But anyway, so you've got a plan but don't plan too much. Plan like this is the beginning, middle and end and allow yourself to have a bit of leeway of spontaneity, have been spontaneous, put that in there as well and just do stuff that you think will be funny and watch it back. But yeah, I think that having a plan for that, making sure you're getting that real comedy punchline the very first few seconds to hit people in, could have hooked them into the first few seconds, they'll stay for 15 and if you're still good then they'll stay to 30. And people that are really intrigued, if you're getting intrigued on what you're doing then great, if it's stuff like, you know, you actually want to be a character and you want to do like an actual original comedy video where it's just you talking, plan your characters out, plan what you want to say out, film it and film it until it's good. You know, there are those kinds of ones where you pretend to be people and you try to be like, oh I'm going to, you know, you have to make sure, I make sure that my timing's quick. So if it's from speaking from people to people, which a lot of tech talks are, you've got to get that timing really quick between the characters, you've got to know what you're going to do, and you've got to think how is tech talk going to perceive this, what's my caption going to be, is it going to be a build up to the end where people know what's going to happen but are still going to watch. That's kind of stuff that my process is, if it's character wise, you've got to make sure it's character developed and but also be spontaneous throughout it because if it's too planned, tech talk will know, people that are watching will figure it out. That's what it's different to YouTube. YouTube, like people make sketches of actual like TV shows, right? You can do that on tech talk as well, but if it's not authentic and you really have planned it out to the point where it's like, my name's Stacy and I'm doing this, my name's bit, people are going to click right off and be like, that's not fun, the person's too much in their head. That's really interesting. When you're planning, do you literally write it out or do you keep notes for yourself? Sometimes I write it out, if I want to get a point of view across, if it's not, if it's a comedy video, but I want to get a point of view of what I want to see in the video, I'll write it out because then I'll put it in my head, but then my head gets jumbled, mumble jumble, we've got dyslexia, so sometimes it's like, well, did I just say, and that's why I always record if I'm doing takes of stuff because sometimes you forget what you said and you have to like watch it back, but I'll write some stuff down like this is what's going to be like a few of the lines, but not all of them because I think you have to have a way of just ad-libbing it and doing it, and not everyone can do that, and what you might not be good at doing comedy, you might be good at singing, if you're not good at singing, maybe dance, if it's not dance, maybe it's art stuff, maybe it's art and craft, maybe it's point of view content, some people do really really great acting on point of view content, which I'm not that great at, I'm not, because how they edit it and how they make the videos, if you go on TikTok and you just put in hashtag POV, you'll find a lot of these like dark videos and you think you're watching like a little episode of, and it's great, people do like 10-part series of stuff and I'm like, I'm watching the whole thing. What you're actually outlining is basically rehearsal on camera, do you tend to just rehearse record? See me, sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and be like, this is going to be such a great comedy stuff. Put my phone up and I'd film it there in the end because my mind was telling me, this is really going to get the best kind of content for this video now, so I'll be in the hallway and mum and dad will be asleep and I'll be like strutting down it, potentially be like a character, and I think that's really great because once you've started doing that, it's tough to start with, but it's like any content, whether it be comedy, singing, dancing, point of view, mean style, artsy craft, storytelling, you find a way of doing it that works for you, works for people to watch on your content and to do well. That's the way of things, when you work with brands, they're stuck with YouTube and Instagram in mind, you can't do that for TikTok. You really should, brands are watching this, brands should really open up to the creator and say, well, this is the idea that we have and it's great when a brand comes with an idea of being like, we think this because it shows that I understand enough TikTok and that's great because any company should look into the platform, they're looking to promote an artist or product on, that's just the tea. So they come up with a plan and I'll say, this is me just babbling on there, and I'll say that's great and we'll take stuff like that and say, but this would work on my account because of this. So having that between some brands have a fully realised campaign, fully realised brief and I'm like, that's great and I love the music of the product and that's great and that works for me and my fans or people that follow me, I don't really want to, I call them sassy squad because I think fans is like a weird thing, about telling them this will work, this will be on my account because we're all different and so sometimes you get a bit, sometimes and I'll be like, I'll do it, I'm happy to do it because what you've got is good but I know it won't work. So like sometimes I've had, I've done it and it's been alright and I've enjoyed what I've done but other times I've been like, if I can't do it that way then I'm not going to be part of it because it doesn't fit and what it's going to do is it's going to do an injustice to you as the artist or the brand, it's going to do an injustice to me and injustice to people watching whereas some people won't do that, some people like, give me the money and I'll do it and that's alright, that's people that will do that and they have that, me I'm not, I'll only do stuff that I feel that I'm really passionate about that, if it's a song, if I don't click with a song I won't do it, if it's a TV show whatever, if I don't like the idea that I won't do it because then that's essentially what every creator should be doing, you should be doing it in a way that, okay this is fun and I think my fans would love watching this or my fans would love listening to this or they're going to have fun watching me doing this, that's the issue that you have nowadays with brands with them and that's the other conversation you have with someone, that's the issue that you have as they're just, they're so like Instagram driven, Instagram story driven, no, they look like ads and that's fine. It's true. Stephen what would you say to your 1000 follower self? Oh that's hard, I would say you're stick to your guns on you know how you want to be perceived and how you want to be kind of looked at in the world I think and you're going to have ups and downs and that's alright, but it's alright just to say to people like you know, no get away, you don't have to be, you know and some people might be a bit social media wise, some people are going to be mean to you or some people are going to have opinions about you that you don't, they've never met you and they never are going to meet you and you have to just really take yourself out of that mindset and just focus on doing what makes you happy because I didn't do that to start with, okay and I was like oh the people and people didn't like me on music, I was you know, my name was Mr Trubby or something, it was so bad and we'll say fat isn't my comedy but I have my name as Mr Trubby but yeah I'd say to myself just stay authentic, have fun and just don't let what other people think of you like annoy you and I don't do that now but it took me a bit of a while to kind of get into that you know I got hate on the first, my first day on TikTok or social media in general I've had hate comments, I've had them now so it's just about perseverance and realising my mum taught me you've got two options you can really let it consume you and reply to them and kind of defend yourself and like think about it or like you know either argue with them or you can kind of take it and let it go over your head and just move on and so that's what I did as I said that's what I've got to do, just let it move on, if someone's got an issue that's them so 1000 following me, keep doing you and don't let anyone stop you Stephen what do you think TikTok will be like in 2021? Oh I think it'll be bigger than it is now, I don't think it's because I'm looking at the camera, I think it'll be bigger than it is now TikTok 2021, I think that the fight for the 4u page is going to be a lot tougher than what it is now, I do think it'll be bigger and it'll be better and I think that it's going to encompass a lot of stuff that this all generations can get involved in more and more because it's a platform for everyone, there's everyone of all kind of ages on it and there's never been another app or platform that's rose to this kind of fame in such a short time so for TikTok 2021 I do see it being bigger, I see, I hopefully see creators getting more monetisation for the work that they do but I think it'll be harder for creators though, I think it'll be a tougher game, it'll be like what YouTube was back in 2012, 2011 a lot of people just uploading content and it's survival of the fittest and all the strong survive when it comes to being a big creator on it but in terms of people making content I think there'll be more people of all ages that are on it hopefully, hopefully it's not shut down, these things are getting banned and stuff, it'll never be like that but yeah I do see it being twice the size as now and just taking over the world even more, should we just pause for thumbnails and please hit the subscribe button below if you want to see more great British YouTubers there's a playlist and a podcast all the links are in the description below I'm Neil Mossy and I'll see you on the very next great British YouTubers