The Rise Of Short-Form Video: TikTok Is Changing The Game 

Imagine gaining 15,000 billion media impressions in the space of a month, without doing anything. No advertising campaigns, no marketing. Just suddenly having a surge of online activity without even lifting a finger. Add to this a rise in sales and you have a fantastic deal. Seems almost too good to be true. But for Ocean Breeze, that’s exactly what the company found late last year.

But how did this occur? What can create such an effect?

The Answer Is One TikTok Video.

That’s right, just one video. A perfect example of the power that the short-form video app has is documented in one person’s commute to work while enjoying cranberry juice and a ’70s tune. The user in question is Nathan Apodaca, who decided to film himself skateboarding to work while listening to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and drinking a bottle of Ocean Breeze’s cran-raspberry juice. The video exploded in popularity, spreading all around TikTok and across the internet. And with it, Ocean Breeze received a wave of positive light and a boost in sales. And it wasn’t just the company that benefited. “Dreams” was reportedly streamed over 8 million times in the U.S. following the TikTok video, climbing as high as 36 on the Streaming Songs chart. Not bad for a song from 1977. In fact, it was so popular that Fleetwood Mac drummer, Mick Fleetwood, filmed his own version of Apodaca’s video, merrily skating along with a bottle of juice.

These statistics pale in comparison to what the app has achieved since its global release in 2018. It has reached over 2 billion downloads and has more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. While it may have originally been released as an app to post lip-synching and dance videos, TikTok has expanded into something far larger, bringing a massive shake-up to the social media status quo. Users have flocked to the app’s short, “snackable” content, with the 15- to 60-second format offering great appeal, especially among those younger than 40. Looking to keep up with the trend, YouTube and Instagram have released their own versions, namely Shorts and Reels, respectively.

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WHEN IT COMES TO NETWORKING DON’T LISTEN TO YOUR MOM

Networking is a big part of any business event, if you know how to network you can get a lot benefit from it. The purpose of networking is to widen your network, but funny enough people usually stick with those who work in the same field, who kind of look like them and talk like them. This is the problem of networking, we listen to our mom: “do not talk to strangers”. You should meet people you don’t know, people who aren’t in your field, even people you hate, approach them as partners rather than resources. When planning our networking activities, we always re-watch this talk so we can learn the importance of networking and how we can create a good networking activities.

In the talk, Tanya shares a great point about our habitual daily activities, when going to school or workplace, we use the same staircase or elevator, go to the same bathroom, even the same stall in that bathroom? Want to broaden your network, do it a little bit ‘wrong’ is her advice. Go to a bathroom on the different floor, you would have a great opportunity to see everything in different perspectives, you would encounter a whole new network of people. We usually filter our friends automatically at the first sight, evaluate them like: “She’s interesting.” “She’s not interesting.” and then decide to create a network with them or not. It is not supposed to be your best solution if you are finding new ideas, experiences and inspiration.

Remember the time when you heard someone who was not in your field talking about his/her idea and all of a sudden you were like: “wait a minute, this is so true, the same thing happens in my work. That’s right! Debating is like Judo, in Judo, when somebody takes a punch at you, you don’t punch back. You use the energy of their punch to flip them on their back.” You would feel like you understand debate a lot more when you learn this from a Judo guy. This is actually a real conversation we heard from our attendees when they talked to each other. This is once again the “ah hah” moment same like when you listen to talks. 

Next time when you talk to a stranger, do listen to their situation, apply their principles that make them successful, that moment, you have a great opportunity to see things you’ve already known in a brand new light.

This also shows that you should be listening more when networking with other. And when reaching out to people, consider them as partners rather than resources. Through the words, we can eliminate the transaction and instead strengthen social tie. In Vietnamese, we say “Dung khach sao” after someone says thanks to you, it means “Don’t be formal, we’re family”. When you talk to people, it is not about you talking to them anymore, it is about you listening to them and hearing their stories. You job is to undertand them and they will do the same with you.