The TikTok Experiments, Vol. 3: Posting Only Slideshows for a Week
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I’ve embarked on a series of experiments to better understand TikTok’s algorithm. TikTok is known for serving users content that feels uniquely tailored to their interests. People feel seen by TikTok. So how do you create content that will get served to exactly the right people? I’m testing all kinds of different tactics to find out!
This winter, theories began swirling that TikTok was boosting their new slideshow feature in the algorithm. I saw tons of slideshow posts every day. I decided to try posting only slideshows for a week to see what would happen.
So what are TikTok slideshows?
As TikTok says, “there are some stories that can only be told in photos.” No wonder Instagram is scared! TikTok now offers users the ability to upload a series of photos with text captioning each slide. You can also add a trending audio. I’ve seen slideshows used for comically sharing memes or jokes, sharing a day in the life in photos, recommendations, and more. Slideshows are a very versatile tool for content creators.
What kinds of slideshows did you post during the experiment?
I shared 13 slideshows over a 7-day period. There were three main types:
Recommendations – Mostly book recommendations, such as “19 amazing books by Black authors” and “15 weird books I think you should read.” I also did a fun post rounding up 1-star Goodreads reviews of my favorite books.
Slice of life – These were a bit lower effort and were inspired by whatever was going on in my life. One was simply photos of our third dog when he met our first two dogs, paired with photos of him snuggling them more and more as they got to know each other better. Others were inspired by sorting through old family photos–for example, a slideshow of vintage photo envelopes and a slideshow of creepy mascots from the 90s.
Mental health – “10 lessons I learned in therapy” was one slideshow that performed particularly well.
Which slideshows did the best?
My best performing slideshow was about mental health. However, none of the slideshows went over 1,000 views during the week I posted them! About one week later, one slideshow hit 1,000 views and is now sitting at 1,300. Again, a good reminder that TikTik content often grows slowly and steadily.
My worst performing slideshow received only 262 views and was my lowest effort one. Often on TikTok, your lowest effort videos end up taking off and your highest effort ones end up flopping. It seems to be the opposite with slideshows! The ones I put more effort into tended to perform better.
A lot of my slideshows with recommendations received many saves (16 for ‘books by Black authors’ and 11 for ‘weird books to read’), but the view count remained relatively low (293 for the former and 280 for the latter). It’s reaching people who care about it, but it’s not reaching that many people. It made me wonder if some of this content was too niche, but it’s hard to say for sure. I can only find out with more experimentation!
Was it worth it? Should I post more slideshows?
I was perplexed by the results of this experiment! Despite what I heard about slideshows performing incredibly well on the app, none of mine really took off. A friend hypothesized that the feedback from users about not wanting TikTok to turn into Instagram had caused the platform to walk back how heavily they were weighting slideshows in the algorithm. Perhaps I jumped on this too late!
I’ve consistently gained about 40-50 followers/week for awhile now, and during this slideshow experiment, I only gained 19 followers. My views for the week were about 16,000, so holding relatively steady from usual.
I found that creating this many slideshows was way more effort than creating regular videos. Especially for slideshows of book recommendations! I had to dig up photos of the books from whenever I read them (often several years ago), reread my old Goodreads reviews, and write succinct copy about each book for the text on each slide. It was exhausting! The return was relatively low for all the effort I invested.
I noticed that my saves were particularly high for these types of slideshows! I had 63 saves during this experiment, so clearly people are finding my content useful and plan to reference it later. However, saves did not translate to more views or more followers.
If your goal is to create useful content for others, then slideshows could be an important piece of your content strategy. But if your goal is to grow quickly and gain followers, slideshows may require more effort than it’s worth.
Overall, I think slideshows are useful and can be fun to make sometimes. I won’t be investing time in them as heavily as I once thought I should. I’ll likely share one or two slideshows a week in the future, and the rest of my content will be regular videos.
Next, I’ll be doing an experiment where I only post 60 second videos for a week. Completion rate is an important factor in the TikTok algorithm; I’m hypothesizing that viewers will watch more of a 60 second video, boosting my completion rate. I’ll share the results here on the blog!
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