My product, Shuffle Buddy, has gone viral on TikTok repeatedly, with many videos over 100k views, one video over 1M views, and another video that I believe is on track to do over 1M as well.

All this despite the fact that I have never once been a TikTok user. I haven’t scrolled my “for you page” a single time. I don’t really like social media, but I was able to use the algorithm to promote my product. Honestly, it was way simpler than I expected.

I am not a social media guru

I’m just a guy with a product trying to get the word out. This post is my attempt to document everything I’ve learned. It is not a synthesis of expert opinions. It is my own strategy based on my own experimentation.

Additionally, what worked for me has gone counter to the advice I see from influencers. I am not an influencer. I am selling a product. My videos do not participate in the daily trends and I am not following influencer strategies.

My formula: Product market fit + retention strategies

Before posting any videos, I already had an excellent product. I tested it with users, iterated based on their feedback, and I knew that it was well-loved by the people who used it. I just needed to get my product in front of an audience.

I started out by trying SEO strategies, but I struggled to get the ball rolling.

TikTok is unique because a video’s value is determined entirely on its own merits. The very first video I posted on my TikTok account got hundreds of thousands of views. I posted the video about 5 minutes after creating my account. I did not have any followers, I was not following anybody, and I did not scroll or use the app at all before posting. TikTok doesn’t care. Every video is shown to some users, and if your video retains eyeballs, it will be shown to more people.

My videos are not particularly entertaining nor are they high in production value. I don’t spend that much time on each one. All I do is share my product, which users love, and apply a few retention strategies to avoid shooting myself in the foot. This has repeatedly earned me major viral attention.

Part 1. Product Market Fit

So you have a great product. Your video needs to show that, and it needs to be succinct. My product’s unique feature is “random seating charts but with rules”. The only videos of mine that have gone viral are the ones that show a clear demonstration of the rules feature.

The product demonstration should happen in one sentence and show clearly visible value that the user can immediately understand. It should take less than 5 seconds to communicate the value of the product.

Don’t be afraid to cut major elements of the feature for the sake of time. For example, my app has many different rule types, but my most viral videos only demonstrate one rule type and let users infer the rest.

Part 2. Retention

I can predict whether a video will go viral or not within the first hour or so. The metric to watch is called “watched full video” and it’s the % of people who watched all the way until the end of your video (so that it loops back to the beginning).

When I fail to nail the elements of the formula (or the video is too long), my videos get about 10-15% who watched the full video. My 1M view video had 40% who watched it to the end. My newest video was posted yesterday and it has an astounding 57% currently.

Detailed Example

Let’s break down my most recent video. As I write this, it’s at 38k views, but the 57% “watched full video” metric indicates to me that it will pass 1M views soon. It is my best-performing video ever.

First, go watch the video. Here’s the transcript as well so you can analyze the structure:

Over 100 teachers flooded my inbox demanding the one feature I swore I’d never add. I already let you shuffle your seating charts including setting any rules so that you get a good result every time. Turns out that wasn’t good enough for you control freaks so now you can manually move your students on ShuffleBuddy.com

Here’s a list, in no particular order, of all the strategies I used while making this video:

• The video highlights the core feature of the product. The product itself is what drives the virality; the retention tricks are just the work required to let the product shine. Notice that although this video is announcing a new feature, the core content is still focused on the existing feature that makes my product unique.
• “Teachers” is one of the first three words, indicating who should watch the video. Retention drops off in two places: Once at the very beginning when people just swipe right past your video and again near the end when they’ve extracted all the value and are ready to move on. To maximize retention at the beginning, I wanted to indicate who the video was for. By including a word like “teacher” or “classroom” at the beginning, I indicate to teachers that they should give the video a chance. This intentionally excludes people who are not teachers. TikTok will learn who the video is for and promote it to that target audience automatically.
• The first sentence creates a curiosity gap. What feature did teachers demand? Why did they demand it? Why did you swear to never add it? These questions are purposely not resolved until the very end of the video, which requires people to watch all the way until the video loops. Once I knew what the curiosity gap should be, ChatGPT helped me punch up the phrasing. Here’s the full conversation.
• The product name is the very last thing I say. If you start to do any kind of “outro”, people will leave before the video is fully complete, dramatically reducing the % of people who watch all the way to the end. Since I’m trying to drive traffic to my website, saying the product name is a necessary evil, but I save it until the last two words. People should not know when the video is going to end, and it should happen before they are confident that the useful content is over. Every video should be an uncrustable. Don’t leave anything unsavory at the edges for viewers to skip.
• “Control freaks” adds a small touch of humor. It’s not a joke with a punchline, and I don’t lay it on thick, but a bit of careful phrasing makes the video more interesting than plainer language would be.
• I show my screen by moving the physical camera, not screen recording. I’m not sure why, but using my camera to record the screen has been more effective for me than screen capturing. I am not very confident about this advice, and I can’t explain the mechanism, so take it with a grain of salt. I’m just reading tea leaves here. (Pro tip: If you do this, record using the 0.5x zoom camera. It looks better.)
• My product demonstration is one sentence that explains what and why, with visuals that allow viewers to infer more than I said. The first part of the sentence, “I already let you shuffle your seating charts including setting any rules” explains the core feature that makes my product unique, with a visual aid on screen to make it make sense. The last part of the sentence, “so that you get a good result every time” explains why the feature is valuable.
• This video required 39 takes (but less than 30 minutes). It’s easier and less stressful than it sounds. After sketching out a rough idea of the points I want to make, I prefer recording and re-recording over writing a formal script. I have a difficult time writing the way I speak, so it’s easier for me to fine-tune the script by simply recording it many times and improving any little stumbles each time. I memorize the script mostly by accident as I go. Most takes are small revisions over each previous version. Many include stumbles, because I’m trying to speak quickly. There will typically be one time (although it could be 0-3) during the recording process when I realize that something isn’t working and small edits won’t fix it. I’ll make a revision if I need to, typically adding or removing a sentence or changing the order of something. Then I go back to refining.
• Speak fast (and clearly). I speak as quickly as I can while fully articulating each word and including whatever emotion I’m trying to convey. The video always sounds slower than it felt while I was recording it.
• Audio quality has not hindered me. I’ve been very surprised by this, but my iPhone mic has been fine. I find my own videos a bit difficult to listen to because of the audio quality, but it doesn’t seem to impact retention. Maybe I’ll get a real mic someday, but it’s very low on my priority list.