Scroll your niche on TikTok for 15 minutes a day and save what's going viral

Jack Friks… my stop scrolling app was by consistently scrolling every morning. So, pretty awful how it worked out. Obviously, it's not what I wanted to do. But yeah, I would scroll on like my branded page or like a page in that niche and then I would just like see like what works, what goes viral, like get a sense for it, like really a taste, um, cuz like you're not going to figure it out just posting and not being on the platform. You have to be a user.

Jack FriksSo I was scrolling every day and I'd spend exactly like an hour on this marketing, which would be scrolling and making a video. And I tried different video every day. I think I did that for like 100, 200 days, and I didn't really see much. And then I found this, you know, video on Instagram that was doing crazy. Like it had a million views and it was four pictures and it just had a funny caption and it just showed like most attractive hobbies, right? It wasn't related to anything, it was just a fun TikTok. And then I changed it to like just, you know, hobbies in my app. I used pictures from my app, like the little widgets, so they can tell it's from my app.

Jack FriksUm, and I just changed the caption. I made that video like 400 times, but the first like 100 times I made it, um, I knew- I noticed it got like a ton of views. So, I just kept making, and I put the call to action to download the app right in the comments, and I pin it. You know, 5 million views later, you still get a lot of downloads, even though it's not directly about the app, because it's so many views. And as you can see, yeah, I've used this …

Joseph ChoiSo, what is what is that process? Because it sounds like the digging for gold process is actually just scrolling TikTok or scrolling Instagram, like you said, and then trying to find a format. So, do you have a process for that?

Jack FriksSet I set a timer for 15 minutes, and then I just like go on my phone. Really, that's like the whole process mostly. And I'd save things like use the save feature on TikTok and Instagram and save things. So then, when I set aside 30 minutes to an hour to make a video in the day, um, I have things to draw from. But some days, I don't. Like, some days, I will be like, "I'm just going to make a shitty video. I'm just going to try something." And sometimes, those shitty videos actually do really well. Even if I don't have like a super great feeling about some posting something, I usually would still try in the early days to like try something new every day and get it out there.

Joseph ChoiDo you feel like there's a lot of content out there that you can copy or get inspiration from? Like, in that 15-minute session where you're just scrolling and trying to find something to bookmark for later, are you finding like a gem every session?

Jack FriksI would say I think I find a gem every session, and then I realize it was 8 months ago, and no one wants to see that type of content anymore. But still, I can learn a lot in 15 minutes for like even if I see a video that's not in a related niche, my brain can kind of figure out like how this could be connected to my thing. It could be a video about some completely different thing, but it's the format that's there. There's like a listicle, or there's a certain 6-second background video with this overlay of caption. You'd have to stretch some existing It's something that's doing well, there's something to it. And if you can try to get some of what's working for an existing viral video rather than starting off from scratch, I think that's the best way to go.

Joseph ChoiYou said your brain just makes the association and sees how this gem that you just found could apply to the app that you're working on, how you could use it for marketing. I think that brain habit that you kind of unconsciously do is basically the core of marketing and like creativity in marketing. Did you have to train that? Like, do you think it's trainable to, as you're going about your day in your life, you just see a billboard or you see an …