Throughout the planning and research stages, I looked forward to Week 4 the most, because it would be where I would bring every script to life. When I opened my project management plan in Asana I felt my excitement rise when I saw that it was finally time to complete my content creation task.
Continue Gathering Tok Inspirations
Following my process of starting with the task with the fewest subtasks, I began to continue to gather TikTok Inspirations. For one hour, I researched TikToks in order to gather hashtags or editing style tips and added relevant toks to my TikTok Inspirations artifact.
This week’s research provided tips on how to deliver dense information to audiences in a manner that they can receive it. A creator in one tok that I found had a cadence of a news reporter without having the commercial tone most reporters carry on broadcasts. This stood out to me because it solidfied that I need to memorize the information I will be discussing so that it flows out. Stumbling over dates, names, and historical facts will discredit my work as viewers will question whether I am confident about the information I am relaying to them.
I also found a creator who wrote the topic she would be discussing out as a text sticker and left it suspended above her video. For toks where having captions would be too hectic and distracting I can implement this trick so that the algorithm can identify what my tok is about and push it out to the correct audiences.
Another creator I discovered shared the moment she made the choice to abandon wigs to wear her natural hair out. Although a lot of what she discussed was serious, I recognized her information delivery pattern: serious statement, reasoning, humor. One example of this delivery method was a shot where she shared her realization of the anxiety she faced regarding how differently she would be perceived by others. She shared that she knows that is out of her control, and what she needed to fix was her perspective of wearing her hair instead of pursuing protective styling. She then zoomed in to deliver a light-hearted joke, zoomed out after the joke landed, then edited to her next shot.
Hair discrimination is a heavy topic that I want to give my audience breaks to breathe and process the information I am giving to them. This will be done with balance because too much humor will undermine the impact of my toks, while delivering statistics and facts only will make a viewer scroll to their next tok to view.
Content Creation
Creating 21 toks seems overwhelming when the execution of filming them is up in the air. Once I completed my TikTok research, I created my Post Creation Plan so that I can navigate what needs to be created on Canva and manage the footage that needed to be filmed.
I took each Week Post from my Script artifact and then organized them into these categories: interactive stories, carousel posts, story time green screen posts, and did you know posts.
Although I have all of my toks that I need to create listed as subtasks under my content creation list. I printed my Post Creation Plan because sometimes crossing off tasks on paper is more satisfying than digitally completing them.
After creating all of my post drafts in TikTok, I reviewed my marked-up Post Creation plan and accounted for each draft in TikTok by completing its electronic Asana task. This may seem as double work but when coming down from the adrenaline rush that recording film causes, I wanted to confirm I had everything I needed filmed to limit any surprises during Week 5.
Once I completed all of my TikTok Drafts I created my Content Draft artifact which features each draft’s thumbnail, whether or not it is located in my draft folder and what intended audio will be used. TikTok does not allow for stories to be saved as drafts so I did mock stories to see how everything would look visually and to decide what audio I would want to use and included their screenshots. Next week when I begin editing I will use my Content Draft and TikTok script artifacts to confirm I delivered the correct lines, captions, hashtags and audio sounds.
Create Production Journal
Something that I have learned throughout my social media campaign project is that repeative tasks help maintain the flow of the project. Completing my hour of TikTok research and its artifact came naturally because I’ve already done that last week. It was the same for completing this week’s production journal. I was able to keep my repetitive tasks from last week and then filled in work specific to Week 4’s needs.
Before filming, I re-read the articles that pertain to the subjects I would be discussing in my toks. I realized that because I am attempting to learn the lines of my script, instead of freestyling, the memorization of the lines was easier because I already reviewed all of the supporting information.
I knew that filming my content would have the greatest demand this week so just like my scripts, I dedicated the most time to film and I made sure to spread it out across the week to avoid burnout.
Due to this week’s heavier task demand it was no surprise that my production journal for Week 4 was much greater than last week’s.
Conclusion
Although Week 4 was my most demanding week, it was also my most fufilling week. All of my hardwork I’ve done before film was appreciated every step of the way. When it came time to film for the day, I already knew what I would wear for my toks. I was able to limit my stress during film because I was not blindsighted by any unplanned demands. Having an understanding of what needs to be done and in which order allowed me to allocate all of my attention and energy to the task at hand. After completing all my tasks in Asana for Week 4, I now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have cleared the hump of my project and now it is to complete editing and review.
