We got Colton Beasley music here, vocalizing and socializing.  People curious about you, so they'll actually listen here. But I will say if you're not going that route, I think that's a pretty strong one right there. No, I think that makes sense. I like the profile picture situation. Yeah, that's awesome. Probably should be a link tree and not a YouTube link, though. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, or Koji. Just anything people can actually type in, like if you don't have a thousand followers and you don't have a link, like literally, I would just have dropoutmedia.net, which is my company site, right? Because that's like a lot easier to like read and then go and plug in than like youtube.com slash yada, yada, yada. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's watch some tiktoks. The screen is way too busy. Really? I don't agree. I guess my issue is that everything is compressed into that little band and the stuff above and below, like all the text is just confusing. If it was moving, it would contribute, but otherwise it just feels like, oh, I'm watching this compressed thing with a lot of blurriness on either side. I think this is a very smart way when you've shot in a landscape of doing this, but what I will say too, like this is a cool frame. I think that that part is well done, but I do think it's a few. It's actually a little too much of the frame and you could have pulled in a little bit on the shot so we could have maybe gotten a little less because this is a lot. What I'll also say is like, I know we love a rip and guitar solo. Some people more than me, but it really is the thing is that everybody's addicted to text these days. And so having lyrics go by and things like that really, really helps watch time. We see it over and over and over again. Aside from that, we're working with what you've got here. It is a decent, decent thing. I just think it's a little too much. And like the fact is we're on this. I'm blind as hell. And I will tell you this, I would never be able to read those credits. They are anything like that. One thing I'll do when I have a vertical video is I'll do a triple. What do you have a, what's clarifying this? When you have a portrait video or a portrait in landscape, Matt. Jesus Christ. When I have, when I have a landscape video, this is what people came here for. I'll triple back in. You can see this on a few of the metal blade TikToks where it's just the same thing repeated three times. And that way it's like a little more engaging and it's all moving out of the same thing and it like, that just looks a little bit better. That's my suggestion too. That's all. Okay. So here's the next thing I want to discuss though. We have to discuss that these hashtags are, how do I say this nicely, are probably some of the worst ones we could do. People I know don't get trained in school how to do hashtags, but let's just get this out of the way while we're at the top. Hashtags teach TikTok the first people to show you to that would potentially like it. So you want it to be as niche as possible. So hashtag time, the idea that somebody who likes time is going to think this TikTok is good is very low. Same thing with hashtag love the ride. And then singers of TikTok is one of the broad, most broad TikToks there is. So that is not going to be likely to do it. Now I am not very good at this genre of music, but what I'd say is like, if you did more of like a hashtag Stevie Raven or hashtag John Mayer, whatever those genres are, not necessarily saying hashtag those artists, but like whatever their genre is, you would be good at it. I think I've been showing a lot of people lately is if you don't know good places to start, a good place to get clues is my favorite site music stacks. In fact, I think I have a TikTok about this coming out. And the next few days, what's that look today? Cause I was looking for your content to steal. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I show this that, um, so if you click on an artist here, it actually says what type of music they are.  You might look at that hashtag and you'll see that that actually has a lot of hits doing that with like 12 artists is a really good clue on some hashtags you can use if you don't know what to use. And you can find it. I mean, that takes like five, 10 minutes of work. Ooh, I like that. But bubble grunge is one of my old favorite genres back in the day. Shaila, I like that. That is like one of the first things is this is not going to get you to your first people. And a lot of the reason I normally see people who are really, really stalled on their TikTok growth is that they're doing these hashtags wrong and they're going to the wrong people. So as you can see on the screen here, I have this thing called vidIQ and that actually tells you your engagement percentage. And that's not a terrible engagement percentage, but it's definitely not good. And if you get better hashtags, you're probably going to do better. And then all of this in here, it's much better to try to do a caption that like gets a little bit of engagement. So like even a thing of like, is this guitar so, so ripping? Should I do my hair the way it is in this video again? Anything like that that gets people engaged in the comments and so that their videos repeating more often is more likely to do you good than something is one year old. We have to get out of the tech, the old Instagram mindset and into an engagement mindset when it comes to these algorithms these days. Yeah, that's, that's a big one.  Ode pizza. So editing, let's first talk about that. Having tights ends and beginnings on your video is super, super, super, super important. All that time at the end there is going to kill your watches. This video would probably have tripled the amount of watches if you'd just literally clipped off that end, which you can do in the Tik Tok app. But really, you should be editing everything in Cap Cutter to when she resolved both the watch or free. I think this was a great idea. There's an app called captions that is absolutely fantastic and cheap each month. That will really, really help you do good looking lyrics on the screen and that will get way more. The other thing that really gets more on these videos is like, if you put up a title, like this is how much I love pizza. Have you ever felt this way about pizza? Something like that? Instead of doing all this in the captions, yet again, hashtags addicted and lactose free get you probably nowhere. Hashtag pizza on this one might actually get you somewhere. I had a pretty similar take. Like I think it's like you saw me laugh. Like it's genuinely a funny video, right? It's like that millennial pause versus Gen Z shake thing, right? Where it's like, like explain that. So Gen X people and millennials are used to devices that like take a second before they start going so they pause and they wait for it to start recording. And then millennials will just start or sorry, Gen Z, like me, will just start talking because they just assume it's recording. And I actually get really thrown when there's a pause because I'm like, oh, I didn't realize that. But the other piece is that every generation gets smarter and better at understanding the context from content. And so when you're trying to target people under 25 with your music, like it doesn't matter if that first half second is cut off because people will just put it together. Right. It's like part of the Flynn effect thing where like people are getting smarter every 10 years. Every 20.  It doesn't matter if I miss the first three words. And that's what TikTok is built on. It's built around like if people are missing that context, they're going to watch longer to try to get it if the video is interesting to them. So if you started even like on the downbeat of your parody, right, people would immediately be like, oh, wait, what, you know, like, is he about to, what is he, why is he doing content melody? And then, oh, my God, it's about pizza, you know. And I almost think it's sometimes better to start on the downbeat because like, you know, an eighth note in because it's like you're immediately brought into it. You know, so I think there's a lot of value there. People are expecting it to immediately start if they have to wait. Now they're just already gone. Watch, if you want to understand this, watch an eight-year-old use TikTok. No, but like, I remember that called child protective services on there, the parent for what they're using at that age. No, but I like to remember watching my younger cousins use TikTok. And I just remember watching them just like, because I was talking to them, how do you know, like, what's good or not?  That's dramatically too long. Like it's got to start going before it even gets going. A fun fact we perceive around four milliseconds is where most people start perceiving and one of the things that they really train you in music. And if anybody's been through like intense music schools, they train you on microtiming and microtiming is getting down below with the four millisecond thing that most humans can perceive of getting that accurate with your timing. And we really do perceive. I go in and I really chop down to the millisecond on my videos.  And to Matt's point where he's talking about starts, one of the big things is not giving a clue that it's actually about to end. You all probably saw that cringe video last week. Is baby Grog the new Rizkig? I'm talking in the same thing. So you never get the fulfillment of a conversation ending. Because if I stay in this tone, you won't know when the video is going to end. And then it'll keep going. That's the lesson there is that like you almost want to end the video before people think you do. But what is interesting is as somebody who's done a lot of a B testing of do you put the hook in once or twice in a video is sometimes the double hook is what gets it into people's brains with music. We're dealing with another phenomenon of the earworm actually needs to seep into the brain to work. But so what could be really, really interesting is that like while you want to try to get a lack of resolution there and you want to have it almost be a hair abrupt, what you also want is enough of the earworm that it actually concludes. So somebody feels something emotional from the melody so that they want to keep listening to it. Since our goal is not only for that tick tock to spread, but for them to like it enough that they jump over to Spotify or YouTube and stream it. Yeah, well said. A lot of electronic show wave musician from New York. I like that because show wave is a thing that if you're into it, you will probably be curious about it. But I still think we could generate more curiosity there so that somebody would want to click through. I just feel like that's not quite there. And then you don't need to tell people you're on Spotify and YouTube. No, I think I think that makes sense. I maybe save some characters, say from NYC. Yeah. Yes, I agree. Agreed. You know, it's also helpful to be like new song out now or something. Or like that. I just agree. The new song out now is very ineffective. OK. I don't think that does anything. You want to create curiosity. That's where you see the most click throughs. Well, I guess that's right. So I guess what's better is like listen to song now. Right. So that. Don't agree. OK. No, I think that that's that's some Instagram 2016. OK, here's what I'm going to do. So I could see these engagement percentages, but I want to find one. So this one has an 11 percent engagement rate, but a very low amount of use. I think these are really teachable sometimes because it's interesting about those is like, why did the algorithm not spread and we could probably figure that out a lot of the time. So let's give it a whirl. Sorry, the framing is pretty rough, especially because there aren't like even waveforms to really look at, you know, it's just hard to compel someone with framing like that. And like, I don't think that you shouldn't film your screen ever, because I think there's a lot of those videos that do really well. Yeah. But I think that the framing has to be a little bit more. You can't split it between two things like that, especially if the angles weird and the glares and there, et cetera, et cetera. The song is actually really good. I didn't realize that's what Chillwave was. I think I thought Chillwave was low five. Maybe I mean, like the most perfect example of Chillwave, if you want it just the most generic definition, it's that washed up song that plays at the beginning of Portlandia. Oh, yeah. But what I'm trying to say is the framing is what immediately struck me. You know, I also think when you have sort of a multi colored background that you're on, the text on screen that you use should have the it should be like in my videos, like I have the black text on a white background, like the bars are behind it, the white bar behind it, because that way it's at. There's the contrast is immediately there rather than here. We're trying to pick out the words behind the tech. It just isn't very aesthetic. And that's also working against you. I think this would have worked a lot better if you would just cut that video, which looks cool vertically and just posted that. Yeah, I'm I'm with you. I actually think like one of the weird genres I've been seeing more and more and one of the things I've been talking to some consulting clients about is when you make really cinematic music, like rather than this, like kind of just stealing a scene and trying to get away with posting it by putting some filters on it or changing the speed a little. One of my other really good tricks that I've stolen from a lot of other YouTubers is I get those lens flares and I blend those into copyrighted material. And if you do that and you change the speed, most detection circuits can't figure out that you stole the video. That's how I do a lot of stealing on my channel. That I put a little bit of waviness in it with the Da Vinci Resolve. But so anyway, what I'm saying here is a lot of the time what a lot of people do is they like were like, wouldn't the scene have been better if it had this in it? And especially a movie like Blade Runner 2049, which I think literally was one of the most botched soundtracks, especially since Johan Johansson started it and he was the goat until he died. I think doing something like that can get you more plays. The reality is always something familiar plus something new.  And I think that's kind of a key piece to remember is like you can tap in to existing aesthetics and things people are already into. Yeah, I like that. OK, so here would be my thing yet again, we're in some niche stuff like cyberpunk music and retro wave could be cool, chill wave could be cool. But like Blade Runner 2024 edit, you're probably not going to get as much. Yet again, I recently had a TikTok that fully bombed to the point that it was like just over the threshold where normally I would delete it and redo it differently. But I talked to a lot about that in your descriptions and in like what you put on the screen, you don't always need to say what, but you should be saying why is sometimes a better question to do. And this is again, again, a little too much. What? So, yeah, I would be less Blade Runner 2049 like literally when you do your hashtags, say, who are the most niche nerds that would like this? Like even sometimes for synth music would say you're using a synth that's a little more obscure or something like that or a technique that's a little bit more dorky. That's a good hashtag sometimes. I just want to point out on that using a dorky hashtag like that. Realize that all of your early adopters in music are going to be musicians. Yeah.  Two, three, seven. Yeah. So if you have 237 followers, you're really trying to get musicians on board with you because there are people who's going to spread the word. There are the people you're connected to. So go, so cater your hashtags to them so that they'll see it because like those are the people who will like look in and try to understand these things and see what other people, because they're looking for co-labs or looking for friends, whatever. And that's, you know, or they're just already kind of organically consuming your recent content. So then you get recommended to them. Yeah, agreed. Okay, so let's do this one, since this one has a decent amount of plays for the account. Definitely Chow Wave and Cholcith are great hashtags for that because that is right. You got a good amount of the screen on there. That's showing what you're doing. It creates some curiosity, but instead of doing this like it's a status update, you should be like, I'm trying to get a little bit more vibe. What would you do? Things like that and create a conversation. Obviously hashtag Ableton is not doing you any good here. That's really what I'm seeing here. But I bet you the reason this one did a little bit better is this is a really, really good match for some of the more niche hashtags. That's what I was literally about to say. Also, that it's a really, really good match for the musician type people because they're the type of people who are going to look at this and say, oh, he was using this tool and he used these plugins and then that's exactly what you were trying to get. Right. It's like, if you have 237 followers, you're trying to find other people to know about this DAW and you know, like, hey, this is how it should be. You know, yes, but to echo Matt's thing. Yes, a really good early growth strategy is showing how you do things and what you do with your instrument. And I recently heard a really good one. It wasn't a music marketer saying it was what do you call it? Somebody was doing maker stuff in 3D printers and they said, show your nerd. And I really was like, oh, that's that's one I got to adopt. So Father Rapper Black Anarchist. I think I've beaten this point home about the curiosity. I like that there's a Koji in here. Matt, you seeing anything on the profile? I like I like the profile picture quite a bit, actually. Yeah, that's a good better, especially with the Black Anarchist. Well, because it's also just like, I feel like having a cartoon, if you almost imply, is that like someone cared enough to make art about you? Also, people, it's very attractive to not take everything so seriously. And a cartoon almost always has some sort of roast.  But it's like, you know, if you're not in black metal, if you're not taking it very seriously, everybody's like, well, I don't take this seriously. But like in most things, people like a little bit of humility. But, you know, some genres are for people with broken personalities. Let's do this. Let's look around. There's a lot of these that have pretty low percentages. OK, there's a duet with war. And actually, that's a good thing for us to discuss. Actually, this one looks like it's a great one to discuss, because there's very few plays, but a good engagement rate. Matt, one of the things I tend to find in, you're the duet king. So I want you to talk about this. One might say you are the music marketing dueter just the same way Rihanna was the feature queen for a while in pop music. I tend to see this thing that the duet, and tell me if I'm wrong here, is a lot more about how good the other person is. And if you can recontextualize it by putting in different hashtags or putting a title that gave it some context, that the initial thing they say didn't say. What I mean by that is, for example, I recently did a duet that did better than the original, but I put a title on it that said what it was about more than they did when their first sentence. What do you see there, Matt? I think that's entirely accurate. I think that there's a couple of things. One, and I've scaled back the duet significantly on your advice and also the advice that I'm trying to add a little bit. Basically, when I was really learning TikTok, one of the things that was really hammered on to me is TikTok. It's just stealing TikTok. If it sees a piece of content that looks like a piece of content that worked before, it'll just propel. And so if you do a duet of something that was popular, you're automatically going to get a better spot in the algorithm. And if you can add a little piece of content to that, you get the context to that. So like putting the title on, which is what I always usually do, usually how I differentiate it, or putting in a good caption or just getting it in front of a better group of people or a more relevant group of people. Because a lot of times what will happen is like when I do at H the State, which is one of my favorite TikToks, her followers are primarily folk punk people. They're not usually people trying to understand music marketing. Although it's kind of shifting because of the content it's creating. But like, so I've done duets of her because all of my followers are there for music marketing. They aren't there for folk punk at all, you know? So I'm able to kind of like steal that and augment it by putting my own flag, my own brand on it. Literally just the application of the Bacon Spitz brand to her thing means it got more views than the original, right? Because the Bacon Spitz brand is about education or whatever. And cigars and hair, you know? But I think so that's kind of my viewpoint of it. And I think that like, yeah, you can recontextualize so much stuff. And like, and just the spirit of collaboration is important. And that could definitely help if you could find, like, a cool way to collaborate. But like, I don't even know how to add volume on a duet. Like, literally, if you see my duets, I'm just pointing with a cigar and I've gotten like hundreds of thousands of views of eight, probably tens of thousands of dollars at this point, just from that. I actually intentionally turned my mic down when I do it. Can you have your mic on when you do it? I think you can. Because yeah, people do those open mic challenges. Bad man, open mic challenge where she can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's just something I want to hammer on real fast is like, I have extremely little knowledge of CapCut or the TikTok app in general or whatever. I'm just really good at creating content people actually want to see. And that actually brings them value, you know, and bringing the value can mean anything from being entertaining, to being educational, to being a hot girl, you know what I mean? That's all I'm doing. Like, I'm not like good at TikTok. I just create content that works on TikTok.  So there's a few selfie videos here. And I want to point out when you do selfie videos, one of the videos he's definitely holding the camera too close to his face. And that's a big one. The camera needs to be like at least 18 inches from your face. If you hold it too close and that's not like part of some sort of joke, it's not going to work, right? Like the only time I'll get like this close to the camera is when I'm trying to like, yeah, exactly. It's uncomfortable. That's like, that's like, if I get up here, I'm trying to like do a bit. You know what I mean? Like back here feels comfortable, right? Because it's like there's this virtual 18 inches from my nose to the camera. And then another virtual 18 inches from Jesse's camera to his nose. So it's like we're sitting three feet away from each other, right? Which is how you kind of should feel.  Sorry, let's watch this. Yeah, well, I was going to add to that there, that one of the things that has been pressed upon me by my hot girl neighbor who has 2.6 million things at just for the record for my girlfriend. I'm not calling her hot. She's like, that's her brand is like a hot girl thing. And just trying to save this relationship since we're moving it together. Anyway, a problem of like relationship and also being a massive content creator. Yeah, OK, but here I want to make the point. She always stresses this, that everybody has a certain angle and a certain distance that it works for. And she's pointed out to me before, like when I've done one, she's like, this isn't working for you. You're better looking than this. And it was very important to learn which one of those. And what I often say is, ask someone who's mildly attracted to you for help with that, and they usually will give you good advice. My girlfriend's really into makeup and like, like taking really good selfies. Been in the girl I dated before her was really in the makeup and taking really good selfies. The girl I dated before, like it's that's really helpful. Like I dated an influencer for a while and it was like, oh, wow, this is that you could see my content get better because I was dating an influencer. That is true. I did get a lot better when I did it in the influencer. I just was miserable. Okay, we're watching this video. I don't believe that this was probably the best earworm in this song. Yes, that is Alan Watts. Skate Alex, too, caught a fun fact about me. When I was a teenager, I worked at a radio station and one of the first responsibilities they gave me was to hit play on the Alan Watts lectures that we aired every week. So I would hear all those. That's a lot of why my brain is so broken is having to listen to those at 16. So here would be my first thing. This footage, every one of these apps has color correction. I know sometimes we're posting raw. I know sometimes we're saying in the works, but like, this really needs a lot of color correction and would pop way more if like you did literally before Matt and I got on. I played with our saturation and our things because honestly, I'm on a absolutely awful camera today because I'm basically not resetting up my place because I'm I'm literally have to start packing for moving when I'm done with this, but you can play with those dials and it'll get you such better footage. Matt, anything on the content? Few things. Hey, like you said, that was not the best hook, which makes it immediately weird. Um, you know, so I think that works against you. I think, yeah, like you said, it's just when the color correction is, when there's no color correction, it just looks bland. And if, again, if it's not immediately engaging, then like, you know, you can't have sort of like laid back content that works in that way, you know, like maybe this would have worked if it started like on the downbeat of the hook, but other than that, I just like, I was bored before it. Yeah. Like I'm on a live stream. It's supposed to comment about this and I was bored. Yeah. Okay. Here's another thing. Hashtag Jersey City, New Jersey. TikTok does not like hashtags for locations. There's a location button for every one of your things. I've played around with this a lot too. It tends to work better to do your location. If you are filming around an area, like obviously this person's filming in Jersey, say, I know this, actually that radio station I worked at where I did the Alan Watts stuff, that was in Jersey City about two blocks from where we are on the screen right now. The location thing will give it to people who are there and that can be helpful for your discovery because TikTok and all I should say TikTok and Instagram all do a thing where they actually also are weighing what people like in a certain location. So they do certain things. So you can juice an algorithm by let's say you're at Katz's famous Deli or Cantor's in LA and you're pretending to be when guns and roses would hang out in the dumpster there and you're doing that at Cantor's. That could actually juice you because you can get more views because they will show people who are around there who will get the joke. But you should not be using locations if there is no locational context. If you're just in your bedroom and you're in Green Point, Brooklyn, there's no reason to use Green Point, Brooklyn, unless it starts to work for you. I bet if you were like a Polish American influencer, Green Point, Brooklyn would work for you. For those not getting the joke, I live in a neighborhood called Little Warsaw named after a Poland city. Or if you were like in a hardcore or emo band 10 years ago and you used Green Point, Brooklyn, that would work too. Yeah. OK, I want to get to more people. So I'm only going to start doing one of each of these. Let me find more of them. I think there is an interesting thing, though, because just as Matt was talking about how early fans oftentimes are going to be the people who are musicians. Your early fans also can be the people who are close by you. And because of that, sometimes finding those location ones and enabling discovery, like I remember it was actually very funny back in the day is one of the bands I managed, his parents owned a local sandwich shop. Everybody really loved the Instagram hashtags from that of them playing his band. Actually, people would come up to us at the show and be like, you guys are always in the hoagie shops thing. Like, and they would find that because of the local thing. Like local stuff can do you good, but you have to make sure there's context to it that's going to make sense. OK, Dave, you single us to is out now. Link in my Insta bio. Link in my Insta bio is interesting for people who don't have. That is interesting. I don't think I've seen that before. I would see here would be my thing. I would put your at Koji tag. I think that that's good, right? Yeah, that's speak for the people who are just listening.  Jesus Christ. OK, let's look at which one of these is fun to do. Actually, this is interesting. So this has a very high so for everybody should know if you use vidIQ, if you're above 12% on engagement rate and you're above a couple hundred views, you're actually doing very, very, very well. And that oftentimes you'd be doing better if you just optimized a little. So let's look at this video. This is a 16% engagement rate is 547, which I think is well above the threshold where like sometimes you get to have like a 27% engagement rate because there's 70 people who watched it. It's all your friends. But like this is probably actually a good teachable one. Let's watch this.  This should have been zoomed in more. You can hear a ton of emotion coming out of it, but you can't see it as much. And if people can see it and hear it, they'll be powerful. I think the other thing that I'm really seeing here is that this is just way, way too long. That it should have just been that part where he really opened up or you could do the nirvana thing where you showed it was kind of chill for a second and then really opened up. Yeah. Uh, my other piece on this is lightning. Yeah. Oh yeah. Good point. Is it's a real dark and like I think that if the light had been better, it would be way more because like the hook is really good. And he, again, he was really good. He started right on the earworm, right? And it's a good earworm and it's an emotional song. So you're immediately like, what is this? Right. But I also think that it just, like it needs to be more concise, right? Like it's just needs to be better lit and it needs to be closer to him. Yeah. And then that would look have taken that from good to like really great and like gotten people stoked. Yeah. One of the things people always say is like, what do I do with my money? And I'm like, well, just the same way that you need to buy your like Focusrite Scarlet at first is like getting a light, a like cheap Godox light and with a dome on it, when you're making a lot of content, like that $180 of that with the stand is like it can do so much for you. It's incredible because it can make you look good. It can make your videos feel better. It can make people see the expression in your face. You know, you want to add another $100. I always tell everybody this one, the Aputure MC. So that way you can do cool color effects to yourself. This can do literally every color in the book. One of the best buys I know of. Use it all the time for my makeup tutorials, of course. OK, part two does almost nothing unless like you're telling a story about when you almost got kidnapped for a song. That's not a thing yet. Again, FYP and hashtag music are the literally like two hole in your head.   They just literally you save the keystroke so you don't get tendinitis like me. Yeah, I would not do that yet again. Like move past that. All right, let me find who I lost here. It's at which he must die unless, of course, she didn't post her thing before and she just lied and said I skipped her, which would actually be like really devious and then we should do her anyway. So I make music art. I mean, that really doesn't say anything. But 17,000 followers is doing pretty good 6% engagement rates. We could get that up. But your overall engagement rate when it's above eight, you're really killing the game. I just want to say I like that. Like there's actually a pretty clear set of aesthetics that define this one. You know, that's a great point. They're talking to the camera with this with a similar background, which is super helpful, you know, there's the anime theme, which is super helpful. Like when I'm looking at someone, I need to be able to scroll through and like if I'm just scrolling, I want to be able to get a taste of what they're about, you know? And so like Jesse and I basically achieved that through having titles on our TikToks, you know, you know, and I have the cigar to kind of give that like douchey music industry. Oh, it's also so that people remember who you are. Just the same way that I usually have that pink hat on in these same glasses. See, I don't wear that everywhere. Yeah, it's like I like have literally been asked about the cigar on like four continents now, like everywhere I go. That's what people want to know about.  I'm immediately different.  Although little, which he tells us that once that blew up, you'll never find they're super old. Yeah, OK, let's let's try this with this one. This one is 15 K, so I'm going to try it. So this is an interesting one because this is yet again, one of those ones that proves the thing that TikTok and Instagram also take in what's typed onto the screen as well as what you put in your thing, because I would argue that the FYP and underground music didn't do much. But what did do it is having all this very niche stuff on the left here in this video, and that probably really helped it know who to serve it to. So that is a very nice lesson right there. And I think that this style of video in general, especially if you find very niche artists is a very good style. I will say the cut at the end could have been quicker. I was actually surprised how long that cut after because usually the these sounds of videos are like if you like and it plays the hook, you should try me cut. So that surprised me a little bit. But whatever, it's still cool. Yeah, but somebody I remember I watched a really good TikTok a while back that showed like this guy showed the proof that the TikToks detecting certain things in the writing and everything. And like we all have seen it now that there when you cross out the thing, you don't get content banned and then when you do. So everybody, you know, there's so much witchcraft and false information, but that one has been very proven that TikTok uses that for both the algorithm and for content warning stuff. Since TikTok is literally one of the only platforms that actually does content moderation. OK, a gospel artist. I love making chill songs with a touch of rap. See, like you have a lot of good ingredients in there, but like if you'd gotten gospel in with like gospel chill songs with a touch of rap, that's curiosity. And do since you don't hear that every day. I hate also that desktop doesn't have pin videos. Let's do this most recent one. I'm going to steal Matt's one. I feel like the loop could have been a little tighter at the end. Definitely could have with this a little bit better.  We could see that a little bit better. I will also say this, that one of the weirdest things I've learned on TikTok, you need to go off about 10 percent more than you think you should to really have people feel it. And I feel like this is like a you're feeling the song a little bit.  Matt, I want to point out my personal pet peeve. It's like, I kind of hate. I just hate when I need content, right? And it's kind of windy to just be like, oh, waiting for the world to hear my song. Like, I don't know, that doesn't resonate for me. And I think that makes you seem just makes it just weird. You know what I mean? Like the song should be enticing of its own merit. It shouldn't be you begging the world to listen. Do you know what I mean?  Yeah, I actually think that this is one of those things that some people do appeal to that you do see sometimes that if it's a really strong appeal that like the police that that is the one that pops off. So there is a weird thing that there's some data that that's not always the case. But I think most people are like, Matt, and then there's some more charitable people are like, OK, sure, I'll do it. But there's the thing I think is always to be said here is it's much more fun to join a party than a sinking ship and trying to show that people could join a party is usually a bigger appeal. Yeah. So the thing I'll say is holiday content, if you can do it, that's it's always easy clicks. I bet you this was because this one has the most clicks on it. Holiday in comedy, always an unfair adventure. Let's try this one. I think yet again, the saying why like use the question in the description and then tell us why or give us some context to the song or laugh about how impossible it was to get you all in that frame. Something like that for the initial caption, I think, could have done you a little bit better here. Yes, I agree with that. I think lighting is not great when you have a voice that lets you hit some real highs, start on that because that's immediately this guy can clearly really sing, right?  If you have and there's so many just bad musicians on this app that if you're like skilled, we'll lean into it and show that to people. You know what I mean? I actually really like that when you get the whole band into the vertical frame, I think that's really cool. Yeah, you know, and especially when you're all jamming, very strong look. And I think that also engages people. There's like bands that get a lot of traction because they all just squeeze into the frame and they make it work. There's a lot of people doing really creative stuff around there. That band I highlighted in the earworm video, October Drift, they they consistently shock me how well they do that because they'll be in like a big wide shot and they figure out how to make it work in 69 and I'm like, damn. Also, having a picture that's not you or cartoon doesn't work. That's the right. Like it's the same way you don't want to have like your album art as your profile picture anymore, you know, same deal. Like you want it to be a picture of like you or you and your band or something like that, having it be a meme or something generally doesn't work to your favor. Everyone knows that isn't you. It doesn't matter. Let's watch this one since I want to be respectful and let you get to the gym or whatever you're doing.  This burger is better than sex.   Well, I liked it, but that's not music. Let's try something up here. OK, so I it felt like I don't know if it was there. Let me try this one. OK, so it wasn't actually the problem that the screen actually went black at first. It wasn't actually the thing. This format I see doing great for a lot of people. I'll tell you, I think this is probably a little long, but the other reason that this isn't doing well is like these hashtags yet again. Add me to your playlist might be worse than FYP. No, because who's looking and saying all of that my playlist that that is not a hashtag that is show you don't know how to do hashtags. And then you got a hashtag at the end that was with us like seriously people taking the time because the same thing is that like a thumbnail on YouTube that a lot of people are like, I take half the time I made the video to work on the thumbnail. It's the same thing is like taking five minutes to really make sure you got the best hashtags possible that are going to get you the first people and like making sure you didn't misspell a bunch of things is such a big deal because honestly, this video should be doing better because it's like a good thing. I mean, I think you played it a little long, but like this is definitely a decent thing, Matt. Yeah, genuinely funny. Like it has good self-awareness. You know, I think that's pretty valuable.  That works for engagement is even roast a good, you know, I saw one that had so many comments the other day that was, are you feeling my unibrow because the person had a wild unibrow? But I saw that they faked it. Yeah, but like, this is what it's about, dog. Artist, producer, indie music monthly, let's find our piece together. I think this bio could do a lot of work there, buddy. Artist, producer, you know, this is indie music monthly like this is it's not specific enough to give anybody anything enticing here. Like literally, if you just put the genre, we wouldn't already know. Yeah, let's do this. This one has a pretty high engagement rate. Let's look at it. OK, I'm going to hit stop because this is so, so long. It should not be this long at all. This is good and particularly this is something we didn't discuss last time at is using these effects that give like a color hue and a grain to it. The kids respond very well to that stuff. Downloading some five, ten dollar app that feels like the vibe and the waviness of your song is really, really good money spent. Same thing. If you're editing in Da Vinci, downloading some packs of effects and old school filters can really, really do a lot for your content. Yes, that's good. The other thing that I think is clever here is having a pet in the content. Yeah, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, that's like we didn't see any like that last week, but like having an animal in the content game changer. You know what I mean? Like it's truly the butt pick of the animal kingdom. I mean, it's but it's like I used to manage a band where like I got my cat kind of randomly by accident and the way I paid for that cat was I would just post pictures of the band's merch with the cat and then that would sell enough merch that I could just like afford to feed the cat. I like this. Lauren and I have decided that when we get our next dog in a month or two, that if they really have to be an influencer dog to pay their way through it. But actually, or I just saw not really. But actually, we're not doing content like the dog who goes on tour with them. There's a lot of bands to that.  Yeah, at the point being cute pets, pets in general, really good exploit. You know, it's another one. Plants, people love plants, man. Yes. I mean, as someone whose girlfriend keeps telling him that she has a plant budget for their new apartment that I'm apparently paying for, boy, do I know this. So the one thing I want to say is I'm not going to go off on the hashtags too much on this one since we really did that a lot last time. But absolutely none of these hashtags are doing you any good. They're way too broad and they're wrong. Yet again, hashtags should be for the people most likely to like your music and very niche, not huge, broad things and vibe check definitely does nothing. OK, let's should we watch one with a high engagement rate or a low one? Actually, let's do this. This one has a very high one. This has 17 percent. It has. OK, I totally get why this did well because one, most people know this song that would get at it. Two, there's a really interesting thing that I think that's one of the least exploited things on TikTok and things I constantly see do big numbers. Yet I never see it as a trend because I think it takes a little brain power. And let's be honest, musicians brainpower, not so much analyzing song lyrics, writing even what you interpret from a song lyric or writing like when death cab for cutie said the glove compartment is inaccurately named and everyone knows that I really felt that because you know what else is inaccurately named and you say me because my band name is this. Are you find something like that and you do a flip on it?  I see that boom up like every time I take note of that, I'm like, I can't believe more people don't do this because the numbers are huge whenever I get it in my feet.  But like, it's also just like any piece of nostalgia content always does well, which is like the big thing that's like why bands don't die after 40 years is because nostalgia content is just going to work and it's going to work and it's going to work. So you have that piece too. Dark side of the moon is the second best selling long running album of all time. Do you know what the first is, Matt? I honestly thought it was dark side of the moon. Is it? It got replaced when it fell off the charts. It fell off the charts before appetite for destruction stayed on longer. All right. This matches the avatar I just saw your everyday musicians. That's not so bad, right? I kind of like that, even though I think you should do curiosity, but that at least is strong. So we got a 6% engagement rate, which is kind of low. If I see that on an overall profile, I'm thinking you need to think about quality a little bit more than quantity. What's my engagement rate? Oh, this is a ripoff. Look at this.  Wait, really? No, I'm kidding. Did I do that? Is it on a Z? There. Dude, I am really out of it. You have a 10% engagement rate. That's good. It's not great. It's good, though. I mean, that makes sense, but it's also like the level of quantity, like kind of artificially deflates it. OK, I think this one's interesting. This one has 28,000 plays. Let's see what's up with it. Nice guitar, you got that. Thanks, man. It's a grudge Cadillac. It's actually built from the 80s, so it's quite vintage, that's pretty cool. I think that's pretty cool. Mine from the 60s. It's a Duesenberg TV custom. Oh, yeah, I did some customization on my guitar as well. That's pretty cool, yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Well, my guitar, John Lennon, actually changed the pickups himself. Oh, that's cool, yeah. Well, Jimmy Hendrix wrote a poem on the back of my guitar, so that's quite unique, I guess. Ah, yeah, OK. Well, my guitar was gifted to Herman Lee's mother when she was pregnant with him by John Lennon himself. And also, Paul McCartney signed on the back. You know, it's really interesting. Kurt Cobain learned playing on a grudge Cadillac himself. So, yeah, he signed the neck of the guitar. So I have like him and Jimmy Hendrix at one place, actually. Well, the bridge on my guitar was adjusted by Jesus himself when Michael Jackson went back to life in the 80s. You know, I like it when guitars are more on the technical side. So I had the tuning mechanics I have on my grudge. They are invented by Nikola Tesla. So that's pretty innovative, I think. Well, my guitar was materialized by God himself. May I try it out? All right, so would you mind? Sure. I think there's some problematic with the intonation. I think that E-string isn't something that's going on there. That's actually a custom adjustment that Duck Wing Duck made just before I got it. How much did you pay for the guitar? 200 bucks. Nice guitar, you got that. Thanks, man. So great. So I have to say that's very good, but that should have been three parts. Like, you could have just continued the bit from video to video. But like, that is a fantastic idea of content. Musician would love it. And it is actually a hard thing to do on TikTok. Genuinely funny. I laughed at it three times. This is the thing, right? It's like, I think everyone wants to make lowest common denominator jokes. And that is inherently that, right? Whereas when you make a very specific, because part of what makes stuff funny, especially on the internet, is when there's an inside joke aspect to it, right? Like, it's much funnier if I make a neutral milk hotel joke than if I make a Taylor Swift joke. Because the people who get a neutral milk hotel is, well, what's our friend's Instagram bio? A neutral milk hotel is a complicit milk hotel. Like, that's a way funnier thing to say than like, you know, Taylor Swift singing about Guy, she breaks up with joke. Like, just, and it's a lot harder to make a joke that is lowest common denominator, right? So when you do like specific pieces of humor, people connect a lot more. And that's exactly what this is. And because it's musicians who are 95% of your first 10,000 fans. Yeah. Okay, let's watch this one and then we'll see what happens after that.  We kind of wrote a soundtrack about that. I want to say. We're toast on, man. I've yet again, this is a video that should have been much, much, much shorter and it probably would have performed even better. It's pretty good. The one thing I would say to you, though, is if we were able to see when people swiped, I bet you it was when you were very out of focus. One of the things to remember with shots is having a lot of face keeps people engaged and keeps people from swiping. I mean, look at Matt's videos. His face is always just so up in it. But like, there we go. That's what the, that's what the people are looking for that pretty face. But like, truly, when you're out of focus, you're not having as much engagement. A lot of people respond to the eye contact thing. I mean, there's AI thing is to make eye contact now. World is getting crazy. But yeah, I would do that. The other thing I want to say is this song will be released on June 23rd, independent artist, all of that. Yet again, just like we said last week, this is your father's Instagram. This is TikTok. Ask something that's going to get engagement. Don't treat it like an announcement. One thing they did hear that I want to point out real fast is they leaned into the European-ness. So just hear me out, because that has two things. One, its authenticity is valuable and like, and there's, I think, I guess they're finished. I think they have a sense of humor about it, you know, like with his dance and like the whole way they portray it, like that's good. But two, nothing is cringier than being an artist pretending to be you're from somewhere else. And the most, the people who are most guilty of this are Europeans pretending to be American. And that's almost always very cringe and weird unless, and it just, it doesn't work, you know what I mean? Like, so don't, am I making sense, Jesse? Yeah, I think you were clear there. And I think authenticity. Being Europeans pretending to be American, you understand, like, well, real fast, Jesse, how do you get the engagement rate? People are asking about that. Oh, vidIQ. I talked about that last week. Uh, if I don't, I don't know what vidIQ's platforms are. I pay way too much money for analytic tools every month. But vidIQ is a, I would go as far as to say this, this is of the analytic tools. VidIQ is the best one. The problem is it doesn't have some things. So then you need to buddy as well. But yeah, uh, it's good. Okay. This one has 4,000, which looks to be one of their bigger ones. Let's watch this. That's awkward. The defend pop punk. Uh, for people who don't get it, I used to manage the bad whose slogan was that and I made a bajillion shirts of it. Here's the thing. That is not an earworm. That is a part of a song. You should be doing the best hook of your song and making that as little as you need as possible so that it repeats well and it seamlessly loops at some point. Having the end of your song ring out and having this, people are just going to scroll and it's going to drive down the rate. It's actually shocking to me that this got as many plays, but also I'll tell you why it got as many plays. The song is good. But if you optimized that same exact footage, I guarantee you, if you put this video up and just did the best part of the hook here and as minimum as possible, it'll probably do way better. And if you get rid of all these ridiculously bad hashtags. Here's my two cents on it. The text on screen hook is really good, right? That, you know, local band plays to thousands of people that immediately makes you go, oh, wow, what's happening here? Okay.  Like I find this like running the metal blade TikTok, a lot of our stuff that does best is the stuff weirdly that like the band is playing their song, but it focuses on the crowd mashing or having a good time or whatever that tends to have like the bigger impact is like the crowd.  Because I think especially if you get like someone crowd surfing, like that doesn't say numbers, honest. I think something that you're making a great point here, but something a lot of people miss is that a lot of marketing is showing these could be your friends if you're doing this thing. And this is what you could be doing with your friends.  But what they did in the video is they showed that other punk kids liked it or so that it made it feel more acceptable.   Why don't you come to the freak party? And that is powerful marketing. Like this is literally why hardcore got exponentially more popular over the pandemic is people watched our friend Sonny post videos to eight, five, six of people going to shows and having fun. Yeah. Explain hate five, six. Most people don't know this. It's very hate five, six is a website where this guy's completely independent. The guy who runs it is a little bit crazy, but like in an impressive way, he just has been filming thousands of hardcore sets and, or, but it's mostly hardcore punk, but it's also rock and metal. And mostly hardcore. Yeah. But it's, it's well captured, you know, usually I'm a couple, a couple cameras throughout the set, not even always the highest quality cameras. He's standing on stage filming. Yeah. High quality cameras. No, that's not, no, no, it's not always the highest. I believe he was using iPhones at first. Oh yeah. But it's, it's gotten really good and it's also like it feels very personal as well edited. He gives everything away for free. Like you can tip him. Like usually if my bands are going to use this footage, I make them tip him, but that's what it is, is people see those videos and they can see that are people having fun at the show, right? And you can tell which videos pop off or which don't. But if you look at the crowds, it's often because those crowds are having fun. And if those people are having fun, then people go, oh, I should go see that.  The other thing, speech to text at the top of the video, especially if the speech reads wrong. If you're just doing your hook, don't have it read it. Don't ruin the hook. So former sad boy, currently less sad boy. I think that that's actually one of the better bios we've gotten here.  Like, so yet again, people, the reason we're saying this is good is if you know these vocabulary terms, you're going to be like, oh, this is for me. Like this is a thing. And with the broad thing and you can see he's got 4.2 million likes. He's doing damn well. I remember some of these like a good amount of followers, but not like, but I see he's doing the smart thing here. Like all the videos are the same set, same dress, very important stuff that really helps you get followers. I wonder if we know anyone who does something similar. Gee, who could they be? Okay, let's do this one with a quarter of a million. Completely ignored. There's an amount to take reasons to take more times. I've completely ignored. There's an amount to take reasons to take more. Well, that's very good. So this is interesting what he's doing on the things he's tag tagging a lot of bands that are somewhat similar to this, you know, Matt, do you have a feeling on this? Like, uh, I think like the funny thing about the dynamic of hashtagging other bands is like, I think it's worth trying, but if it's not working, you're delivering you numbers. I think a lot of the time that's because people are disappointed it's not that artist. Yes, but it's a good joke about that artist. So, so here's my view on it, right? It's like, I assume based on his, his bio that he makes music like the front bottoms.   So you can go make that joke. You know, apes to the state is another good example. Well, they don't like make a joke about real yard ghosts or about whatever other folk like Johnny Hobo. They make so many Johnny Hobo and Pat and the Bunny jokes all the time because everyone who likes folk punk likes those artists. And so content about that is going to make you go, oh, like this is someone who like knows what's up in my genre. I should go see what else they do. And then you find their music, which is directly inspired by Pat and the Bunny, Johnny Hobo, real yard ghosts and then bam, same thing here. If he's making music directly inspired by front bottoms and he's making good front bottoms type music, you know, having those jokes about those influences is going to draw those people in and tagging those similar bands is going to draw those people in. Yeah. All right. Let's watch one more. Is this one actually has close to half a million, which is impressive. Yes. This is a very good joke and it has a popular song in it. But good work, Joel. I think that this is our first one that really is like you're on track and even, you know, the 9% average engagement rate, I would say that usually is the hint that you're like, you're obviously capable of quality. That would be my hint that you would probably want to think about quality about five to 10% more. And you can probably get a little bit more mileage out of things. For people not getting what I'm saying, nearly everything in life is a trade off between quantity and quality when we have time. And sometimes you need to say, I'm going to spend more time developing and less time making. And, yeah, I'd say a hair more time developing, a little less time making to try to get better quality. It's about the only critique I could give because you're good at this. OK, let's do some. Well, while Jesse pulls that up real fast, Stahlge played a huge role in that again. And Stahlge, yes. Yes. Stahlge content doesn't need to be from the 70s. It can be from, I think that front button song came out 10 years ago. Now we have Wormser, DJ X producer, way too broad. Doesn't tell you anything about genre, dopest geek you'll ever meet. While I like that, also yet again, doesn't really tell you much about what we're going to think doesn't niche down enough. Let's try 318. I just realized what I did. I had to go to Target to get some diapers. And I realized I'm wearing this extra large shirt and some shorts. And I'm not wearing a hat, which is kind of the same thing as not having any makeup on. And I ended up going to Starbucks and like actually shopping around and looking at stuff and ladies, I get it. So this is fun, but I think like the syntax got a little lost. Like the point could have been made a little bit more clear. Matt, you have anything or should I try another one that's more music based? No, I mean, I think that's basically it. You know, but I do think this is 80. Go ahead. Being comfortable with talking to a camera is always a good skill. Yeah. OK, let's try this one since it looks more music based. About this show, I like something they've never seen. Oh, got your girl one leg up like a flamingo. I'm feeling lucky. I'm winning. Me. You can see this blue like they mean go. I think compositionally, this is good. But yet again, these hashtags are taking into very bad places. You didn't need this much text on screen. And especially when it's like that sort of editing, you're kind of good with a little less like you could have just put gnarly or nah. And then and then the caption could have been who's bumping that song. And that would have done the same thing and it would have been less cluttered. Yeah, I'm with you there. Now we got rank of music. It's one point two million likes.  More than me. You know what I've never seen? Have you ever seen that map with that much space down? Putting the lines between that's I've seen people do that. Yes, it's never seen that in profile view. All right. This one is 80,000. That might be a good candidate. Let's watch that. Nice. I mean, there's an interesting one on Tiktok as much as I'm not like, I don't think it should be a strategy, but there is something about celebrating something cool happening to you that doesn't happen. Everybody kind of does get the algorithm going off a little sometimes that like it's almost like it's almost like people want to support you for something good happening because they want that too. I think if you showed genuine excitement to it's hard to like be mad at people, you know, like I think that's a great point, actually, you know, like if you show up and you're just like, Jenny, like, oh my God, like I posted a Tiktok about like hanging out with Greg Ginn and how like Greg Ginn bought me a beer. And that's like the reason Jesse and I have jobs is that guy. And for people who don't know, there's an amazing book called Get in the Van by Henry Rawls. And it's all about how Black Flag basically invented DIY touring. I wouldn't invent it might be a strong word. Black Flag kind of made it feel maybe the right thing is really perfected that era of touring. And Greg Ginn was a lot of the mind behind that and the mind behind SST records. Yeah, and DIY music in general comes from this guy. No matter what, yeah, interesting guy. Interesting guy. Also, I pioneered not paying bands royalties. That's a different story, though. OK, this one has 352,000. Let's see what's happening here. Not only have you been tagging me in this way too many times, one of the comments actually has over 2,000 likes. What? But yeah, I have so much work to do. At least two songs I need to finish as soon as possible. So if you think that I'm going to be doing this instead, you're totally correct. See, the easy way out would be just make a funk thing, like one of the comments stated. But funk is not really my thing. But if it was my thing, it would probably sound something like. But it's not my thing. A more of a boots and cats kind of guy. Or like we say it in Finland.  So yeah, we're doing house. I'm going to sample this. We arrange it a bit and use it among other elements in the drop. I think I'm done. To be honest, I don't even know anymore. OK, what's interesting with this one is you probably could have gotten three to four tiktoks out of this that all would have done well. This is a great idea. But yet again, kind of similar to what we were talking about before, is chopping this down more. But it got pretty tough at least, right? Yeah, no, I mean, that's that's really impressive. The long that he does that, I've never actually seen. I don't think I've seen a tiktok that was like that long and felt that long that did that well. Like you see tiktok well for sure. But that just with the way the edits were and having multiple subjects in it was what I thought was interesting. Like usually longer tiktoks have one subject. And here he kind of did a couple. Yeah, and also yet again, like we said before, the dog, that was God tier. Like I'd watch that again just to see the dog rocking out to the song. Yeah, and also the mask is like cleverly done. And isn't like, I feel like if you're going to have the mask, you kind of need to have like the voice for it. Yeah, but like, you know what I mean? Because there's people wearing it backwards. No, and you know, to even having your branding on the shirt there also really good because it's like just reinforcing some people's say corny. But like honestly, I think that that's pretty good. It looks stylish, looks good, feels right with everything. I have to say it's pretty good. Artist, singer, songwriter, filmmaker, storyteller. OK, this is not your dating profile. We're trying to get people curious about you and show them what type of community you're in. Not pick up somebody unhinted. Is that how people put their hands? Technically, hinge is a little different. Fun fact, I met my girlfriend on the hedge. Let's do this one. I was nine thirty. OK, this is actually a good interesting discussion. So one of the things I think is really bad advice is chasing trends on TikTok. But I would like to say this is not what I like to call a trend. This is a trope.  And we're all doing the same format from CapCut in the templates. Those can be great to do. And yeah, I think this is like a good, funny one. Tying it back to music is good. Yeah, I think what I like about it is that it's like a personality building one. Right. Like I think anything that helps build your persona and helps tell the story of you as a creator is really valuable because I think it's like at least we see that a few times now, right? Like where people are flipping through and they can quickly get a taste of like, oh, this person has this sense of humor and this whatever. That's really impactful. Yeah, I like that. OK, let's look at one more of theirs and move on to see if there's anything. OK, three thousand. Let's see what happens. Can you show me? So here's why you need scales. Scales tell you which notes are in a key, basically. So if you know the scales, then you can basically play any song in that key. If you can memorize where the note positions are and you can memorize what notes make up those chords.  So as of now, I'm going back through and learning scales as if I just picked up the guitar right now. So site that I'm using to learn started us with a minor pentatonic scale. So I can just show you that today. So I just do one, four, one, three, one, three, one, four, one, four. And then back down four, one, four, one, three, one, three, one, three, one, four, one. So the reason this is good is if I was to play along with a song in a minor right now, you can kind of figure the melodies out by ear just using those scales. But anyway, that's the a minor pentatonic scale. This is good content to make. Because as Matt was saying, and that Matt and I harp on all the time and clap back at some of the bigger morons in our field about talking to musicians is some of the best ways to get early fans because musicians investigate stuff and they see like if you're talking about the a minor pentatonic scale, they'll often check out your music. This is a great early growth strategy. But this video had, I'm going to say, not the best pacing I've ever felt. And then the other thing to remember when we talked about this a little last week is you don't want momentum to die. You don't want to do a final saying thing. You don't want to reiterate at the end. You want to just flip unexpectedly so that it replays and then tiktok sees it as better in the algorithm. But I will say a lot of good hashtags in here, but hashtag I know I'm bad. Not not good, not good. Yeah, my main complaint was the pacing. Probably could have turned this into a couple of videos. And also, don't be afraid to reshoot stuff because I feel like the way he was explaining scales wasn't necessarily the best. So just keep keep that in mind, I think is like you can like I definitely will like reshoot a chunk of a bacon's bits like two, three times. If I feel like I didn't say something the right way. And I feel like he could have gotten his point across more clearly, more concisely if he had just tried saying that a few times. And like, sometimes I'll just run it by a friend, you know, where I'll be like, Hey, did this make sense? Or should I say this way? You know, so just I want to answer a question in the comments real fast. Can you elaborate on why chasing trends on tiktok is not a good idea. You can start.  Yeah. Okay. So here's a perfect one. Trending sounds, for example. So let's say this week, the Kim Petrus throat goat sound is treading and then you do a video about your music to it or something like that. That's going to bring you to not niche audiences and to broad an audience and doesn't really do anything. There's a girl recently who talked about this, about like how doing all the trends shirt got her flowers, but it never translates to the music thing. You want to find the right people. And yet again, algorithms are all about having the right people. Hence why there's a lot of angry people about my video I put up today about the Facebook ads thing, which that's a story for another time. And Matt and I debated Facebook ads like a year ago or two on this channel. If you want to watch that too, that's there. And Matt took the defend.  Anyway, here's my point. When you do niche things around your music, you form algorithmic things with people who are similar. And then the algorithms look at people who like similar things and serve it to them when you're doing big, long trends, you're polluting the pool by being around a lot of things that are not connected to your music. Yeah, basically that. I also think it's just very rarely does a trend actually help tell your story as an artist. And usually when I see people doing sometimes there's a trend that's like right on where people find a way to make a trend really fit into their thing, which is cool. And then it makes sense and then it draws in people. But usually if you're just doing a trend to do a trend or using a sound to use the sound, which is the vast majority of videos like this I see, it's like, oh, okay. So now we'll break from our normal brand to go do this thing to show myself for views to go put a pancake on my grandmother's head. Yeah, or whatever. I was a trend I saw a few weeks ago.  Okay, let's try this one. I was 10,000. Hell yeah, brother. You know, not the most important thing is present moment, right? Because there you can set your intention. That is our best gift. And that's why. Portion of your song. An earworm is a short hook that gives people a sample. Since you're more likely to get your TikTok recommended. If it flips over finding as little of it as you can, that's infectious to spread will do you better. This is fantastically produced. I could have been a little more fast paced at times, but truly this would do so much better if you got that trimmed down to just an earworm and probably played the song from the very beginning of it, even in the setup and then faded it up. Yeah, I just want to point out using the cat. I think the only reason this guy has many uses it did was especially with the song not starting right at the beginning. Was that the cat kept people hooked? Yeah, though, I have to say that. And then you know, it's another really good TikTok trick is when you transition scenes and like that was like a very cool scene transition. So like, I feel like a lot of times I feel like you take place. Like there's that saying that I may have said this on stream last week, but like the worst writing is and then and then and the best writing is, but then this happened, but then, but then, because if you're just going on and then and then, you know, like as the saying goes, uh, and, uh, it was a good burger, no, and then you wanted, but then as much as possible. Right. I think the always studies writers were talking about using it using because of this rather than that, which is kind of similar.  Oh yeah. Great point. Literally, Jesse is finding people because they have the same profile picture here as they do on TikTok, and it makes it a lot easier to kind of cross platform, trying to have the same handle everywhere else too is really just FYI. So having a date six months from now for a song, five months, whatever it is, uh, that is while it's nice for you, no one's marking their calendar for that and you're wasting space. Matt, how do you feel? I don't know if it's just me, but writing official account feels like my space, not like the modern day. It's one thing when people do something funny, like they know they're not famous and it's like a thing, but like it just doesn't feel right to me. Like, uh, when people do that, how do you feel? I feel the same way. I feel like, yeah, obviously, like even like weirdly small people are getting not, you know, getting mimicked on socials and that's obviously scary and weird, but they can also just put official account. You know, uh, I don't think that really helps you get anywhere. It's, it's really only matters if you're like a pop star, even then most pop stars don't. You know, the comments actually have an interesting one of what you feel about sponsored posts on TikTok. What do you call it? Uh, and I will tell you this, I obviously don't do sponsored posts on TikTok myself, but I sh, you know, I do all these consulting calls and a lot of people have told me the second they do a sponsored post and they advertise on TikTok, that unless they do that again, they do not get any engagement. And that is a page from the old Facebook handbook. If there ever was one. Yeah. I mean, there's ways to do it properly.   Right. Because you're trying to market a niche product. If you're like able to get it in front of like the exact right set of people, then it's going to work out. Right. But, and you're actually going to see, you know, get relevant people following you and sending you DMs and being like, well, I discovered a thing that was really cool. And that's what you want out of an ad, ideally. But you're not getting that when you just go big picture and it just ruins. Word. Okay. Let's do this one with 1820. We went in and we got the critique from the judges. And I mean, we look up to all these people so much. So when I saw that first napkin go up and he's like mirror, like when I saw that, I was like, Oh my God, I think we got this. I think we got this. And then the next napkin mirror, like the next napkin mirror, like just one after another. And it was just like, it was the craziest feeling. And it was just such a rush. We were the first band on any episode to sweep all five judges. And that just makes my heart beat fast when I talk about it because it's so cool. Like that was like the sickest moment was just knowing that like, yo, we went in there and we did it. Like we made it happen. I remember walking out of there. I was just like, Yes, we've got this.  Let's do this. I was taken back by it for sure. I think with all the hard work that we put in, it shows. That was so sick.  So just to see that sweep is just like, we still have our little napkins. We're going to get those up. I have an idea of how I'm going to frame them with the troubadour bracelets or whatever. OK, am I getting this right? There's a thing by Ash Sumerian records that he does a talent show. That's right, Matt. Yeah. So here's the thing about this. This would be fine in a documentary, but I will even be honest. I think that so for people who don't know in my day job, I produce podcast documentaries and podcasts a lot. And that's what I do to keep myself entertained. So one of the things about a documentary is it's not interesting to hear five people go, yo, that was crazy. It's one, if you're not adding color and telling stories, you're basically wasting time. So this content, since it was all just, whoa, that was crazy. This thing you need to show, not tell. I just put out a short on this the other day of like, why is more important than what and showing rather than telling is a big thing. This could have been better if like you were cutting between scenes of this thing that happened. It's also just like cropped really weird. And you can tell that a lot of it was cropped from wider shot. Like the end of the world. But it has to feel formatted for the platform. And if it's not formatted for the platform, then people just are going to tap them right away. Yeah. There's definitely, I've been seeing some really interesting AI stuff. That's good about that, but I don't know if it's ready for prime time yet, but that's going to be a big thing soon. This one looks like it's actually about the music. While we watch this one, this one looks pretty teachable. Biggest no-no in this, fading the song at the end. The song should loop, not fade down. I think that that like really, really like you could be doing so much better with this. I also feel like the hook could have been a little bit more concise. I kind of on this one, I could hear where I think the loop should have been, which was about at the halfway part. I do like the putting band song thing there, because one of the more interesting things, Medea, who's one of the only worthy data companies in the music business, actually put up a really interesting thing that about how many people don't know what song is playing. I can't remember the number, but it was absurd. Don't know what song is playing in a TikTok. So doing that band mirror like song somber is very smart, but the big note I have here is yet again, going off 10% more than you're comfortable with. This POV is like a really powerful emotion that a lot of people have felt and we all know it's really intense, but the emotion you're doing on the camera, it's feeling like you're holding back a little. Yes, I don't even know if they're holding back that much as much as just the lighting and the background, it makes it a little bit tricky to see. You know, I think the best at this is Cheney from Entheos, who like gets millions of views on her singing videos, just into her condenser mic of like her death metal music, but there's like very clear contrast.  Right? It's just too murky. So yet again, in this caption to you got all the lyrics, like that doesn't, that's not a thing. Yet again, how did you feel when this happened to you? Getting the audience to participate in an emotion most people have felt that are above a certain age. You got a lot of potential here and it's totally wasted by that and by doing, I know a lot of these hashtags are very bad. The interesting thing you have with your hashtag though, that I should say is that what sometimes can be interesting is so obviously fans of Sumerian records watch this show. So having hashtag no covered hashtag Sumerian records can help you get into some of those niches, but a lot of these like rock and old rock and FYP are probably some of the most useless hashtags you could possibly do. Yes, I agree.


Hi everybody, Joe for jazby's casebrace.com doing a random number block randomizer for Ranger scored another goal right when I think they're up 5-2 now Yeah, 5-2 in the beginning of the third 2020 this unlocks this break right here. That's coming up in the next video And I think most of you know the instructions for the number block by now big thanks to this group for making it happen Appreciate it and there are the numbers right there members zero gets any and all redemptions But I don't think there's redemptions in some top story right four and a one five times for names and numbers one two three four And a one fifth and final time Carl down to Carl four and a one five times for the numbers one two three four and a one fifth and final time We got seven down to two Yeah, a lot of goals in these playoffs David. You're right So that's why even with this three goal lead the whole period left I Mean, I feel like Tampa Bay could still crawl back into this will make this on exciting Carl with seven nine five one three Justin with four and Ryan with eight Andrew with six and zero and Carl with two So let's alphabetize this by number Alphabetized by number or numerically and coming up in the next video will be the break itself. She asked these case rates on calm. Bye


So my name is Mike Parham. I'm here today to talk to you about a new feature in Rails 2.3, which is Rails Engines. I am a local Austin Ruby developer. I've been doing Ruby professionally for about two years now. And I discovered Rails a few years ago, probably like some of you, after doing Java for a number of years. And like I said, two years ago, I just decided that I had to do the Ruby thing. And so I'm currently working at a company called OneSpot here in town. Before that, I worked at a company called Five Runs. I'm the author of the Data Fabric Gym, which adds database sharding to ActiveRecord. And I'm also the maintainer of the Memcache Client Gym, which ships in Rails and is used to talk to the Memcache server. So let's step back in time a little bit and travel back a couple of years. Who here remembers the year 2004? I assume most of us were here. Ruby developers have a reputation for being very young, so. So 2004, Lord of the Rings was tearing up the Oscars and the Indonesian tsunami struck. So those are two big events in 2004, but the big event for us was, of course, Rails. DHH and 37 Signals Crew released Rails about five years ago. And at the time when you built a Rails app, that was it. It was just a Rails app. It was, you know, a directory with some Ruby code in it. And this is fine. This Ruby code initializes the Rails gyms, the Rails subsystem, and just conforms to some MVC conventions. It was light years ahead of most other systems people were using at the time. But people wrote their first app and they got really excited about it. Then they wrote their second app and their third app and their fourth app. And they started realizing there's a problem here. Flash forward two years later, 2006. Who remembers 2006?  Your home's worth at all time high. Unfortunately, LOL Cats had a death grip on websites at the time. So this is my homage to LOL Cat presentations. But in 2006, Rails introduced the concept of plugins. Now the problem was when you built all these applications, you had to copy code between all of them. So now with plugins, we have a way of sharing Ruby code and Ruby functionality easily, of encapsulating functionality. So Rails introduced this plugin script which added concepts of plugin sources that allowed you to discover new plugins, to list available plugins, and install plugins. What does this sound like? It's RubyGems. They essentially reinvented RubyGems for the first pass at plugins. So now Rails plugins are gems. They're special gems though. They have a Rails init file which Rails will run to bootstrap the code in that plugin. You simply add the gem to your config gem, your list of gems in your configuration, and Rails will add the lib directory for that plugin to its autoload path so that code can be autoloaded. And that's all fine and well, except people started noticing further issues, some functionality that couldn't be encapsulated. That is plugins can do Ruby stuff. They're very good at adding classes, changing existing classes, adding redefining methods, monkey patching in general. But they can't do anything with the MVC stack. They can't add views. They can't add controllers. They can't add routes. That sort of thing. So flash forward... And the reason why they can't do all this is because Rails has all this infrastructure that's completely separate from Ruby's load path, which is they have concept of controller paths. They have the concept of view paths. They have the concept of routing configuration that plugins have no idea what this is. So who here remembers 2009? We elected a president. We held a really cool Ruby conference in Austin, Texas. And we released Rails 2.3. And that's all a Rails engine is. It's a plugin which has the necessary hooks to encapsulate MVC-type functionality into something that is distributable, i.e., a gem. Really what it becomes is an engine is a Rails application. It's a Rails application that's running within your Rails application. That's one way of thinking about it. So to get down to the nitty-gritty, engines, just like a normal Rails application, have an app directory. And this app directory has the standard directories that you would expect any normal Rails application, i.e., views, controllers, models, and helpers. And Rails will auto-add those paths to the various subsystems, to the various paths that it knows about internally, so that it can find your code. Note that when you have two directories, which are competing to... which Rails is trying to find code in, it will always put the applications path last, or code in the applications directories will always be found, always be used in preference to the engines code. So going deeper down into models specifically, Rails will find any models that the engine provides in the app models directory. There is a limitation, though, that migrations don't work with engines. You can't have a DB migrate directory and have the database auto-built for that. Another thing to be aware of is just something to be aware of in general with Ruby code and plugins, and that is be aware of name collisions. That might be a good idea for your engine to create a user class, for instance. It's quite a popular name for a class. So instead, you use modules to namespace any classes that you need. That's very standard. All the engines I've seen in the wild these days are using namespaces to... or modules to namespace their code. So I don't know if people can read this. It doesn't look like it's very readable. But this is effectively how Rails... This is the code Rails actually uses to set up the v and the c part. Basically, it says if there's any engines, then we add the routing configuration, we add the controllers, and we add the views. And in each one, it's just... it's collecting the routing files, collecting the controller paths, and it's collecting the view paths. The only thing of interest there is at the bottom, which is it not only adds the view paths to ActionView, but also adds it to ActionMailer. Engines can also send email. So if you're using ActionMailer to send email, you can stick your view templates in the app views just like normal. And the engine can provide those views, and they'll be found. So controllers, Rails will look in your engine's app controllers directory. It will install routes from config routes, as you'd expect. One small cap, one small... I'm not sure if it's a bug or a by design, but one small limitation I found is that if you use helpers all, if you load all helpers into all of your controllers, Rails will not load any engine helpers. So you'll need to load that helper by hand in whichever controller of yours needs it. View templates will be found as normal, as you might expect. One limitation of the view layer is that a Rails application has a concept of a public directory where it's static assets go. Your engine, because it's running as a gem somewhere else, because EngineX and Apache look at that public directory and they don't know about your engine, any static assets you need that you would like to put in a public directory, you can't just put it in a public directory in your engine. You would need to copy those files to the application itself so that they can be served by the web server. Some miscellaneous notes, engines and plugins actually also can add rake tasks to the application just by adding .rake files to lib tasks. Like I said, about migrations and static assets, you can copy those files to the application's directories. That'll work fine. There's two ways I can think of to do that is by putting code in Rails init to do the file copy. That is when the engine is initialized, when the application starts up, it would do the copy.  Which does it. But that, of course, has the limitation that the user would need to invoke the rake task to ensure that it's done. Plugins used to have this install.rb hook which would run when the plugin was installed. Unfortunately, because we've moved to gyms we don't have that hook anymore. So you can't use that install.rb hook to copy those files. Here's some code that I wrote to solve the problem in my own engine. It's pretty straightforward. It's just doing a file copy from the engine's directory to the Rails application to the corresponding Rails applications directory. So one limitation in this is because we're copying files by hand is change management. If the Rails application's in get or subversion, obviously now that you're copying files to it the user would need to add those files to their source repository. And then they would need to manage it. If they upgrade your engine or downgrade a version they would correspondingly need to upgrade or downgrade those files that were copied over. Thoughtbot has an engine called clearance which I'll talk about in a second but they go to great lengths to deal with this problem. It can be some hairy code but unfortunately it's a limitation of engines. So like I said, there's a limitation that I'm aware of which is Thoughtbot's clearance which is user authentication for Rails applications. One big limitation in Rails in my opinion is the fact that we've never really settled on a way of doing user authentication by convention. Everybody seems to reinvent the wheel here and you've got plugins like RESTful authentication and whatnot but that's effectively copying a lot of code into your application. So we've never really settled on a way of doing this. Clearance is an attempt to push it forward one more level so that you have even less and less code in your own Rails application. But it is a full blown engine in that it provides controllers and views to do things like sign in, sign up forgot password it'll email the user when they sign up so it does a lot of the conventional stuff that you'd expect user authentication to do. For this talk I wrote my own engine called CASO and CASO is a dynamic search engine for a database model. You mark a database model as searchable and CASO will provide a user interface to construct a query for that model and find rows that match that query. So here's what CASO looks like in TextMate. It looks like any other normal Rails application that is you've got controllers, helpers, models and views. Here's how it integrates into your application. I simply I have a user model which I want to search on. I mark the user as CASO searchable and I give it some options to configure some of the features of CASO. In the controller I just include the helper because the helper provides some methods that are used in the view itself. In the view we just render the filter area and we render the results area for that particular model. This is what it looks like. You can see up top we've got a form to build a filter or a query whatever you want to call it. You add constraints, you can add sort expressions and you got a search button and then down below obviously this is not production ready it's not something I would consider. It's more of a toy for this talk but there's a kernel of functionality here that could be useful if myself and other people want to spend some time fleshing it out. As you can see this is a plugin and the only code in my application is really these four lines of code. So we're providing full MVC stack functionality in a reasonable set of code. So that's really just a quick sort of meander through engines itself as I've explained by trying to explain the history of it. It's really engines is really just the next step in making plugins more and more functional. First you had the monolithic app with no ability to share code then you had this concept of plugins where you could share Ruby code now you've got a concept of engines which not only allow you to share Ruby code but share full stack MVC functionality and that's all. Any questions? Yeah. Do you have any trouble testing any of these things? That's a good question. Obviously you need to have a framework and I wrote an example app which was the user model and other stuff and I tested that by hand for the most part. I don't pretend to be an expert in engine testing. Thoughtbot has that clearance engine they are very good at testing and I would guess that they've probably got a lot of infrastructure that you could look at in clearance to see some best practices for yourself. I don't necessarily know how to change a controller. Obviously you can monkey patch stuff but I'm not positive if you can do something like that. I'm not even... Can you just reopen it? That's what I meant by monkey patching. You can reopen the class and redefine an action but again you're copying code and making a fix or something like that. In terms of view templates applications view templates will always win so if you provide a file at that exact path where the engines view template would be found Rails will prefer the applications template so if you have a template you don't like or you need to style differently you can just copy it from the engine into your own application. So engines are not a new idea necessarily. They have been around for a couple of years now. There was a of what you'd call it a meta plugin or something that added an engine feature to Rails in the 1.x time frame. You could certainly use something like that if you needed to add engine type functionality but I'm not so sure that it would be I'm not so sure that it would be compatible in terms of having a source base that could act as an engine in 2.3 and an engine in 2.2 and 2.1 so I'm not so sure that something I would tackle it may be something you might want to examine but I don't know how that would work. Any other questions? I'm not sure I understand your question so your question is can you run an engine as an app by itself? It is probably a Rails application what it's probably not going to have would be things like the script directory to have the scripts to start server and console and stuff like that because technically it is a plugin it does have I like to think of it as 95% of a Rails application but there's still some infrastructure that an engine would not have but like I said with regard to the testing question too you have some sort of framework in which the engine runs so that you can test it so I don't see any reason why an engine couldn't ship an application which is just a really lightweight layer to expose its own functionality that you can use for testing for demos that sort of thing but I don't know how to do that by making it a gem and you'd have to go into the gem and type script server there right I don't know I guess that's the problem waiting to be solved anything else yeah interesting anything else I was actually just thought of that last night I was like I wonder if an engine can depend on a plugin in vendor plugins I don't think it's possible but it's an interesting Russian nesting dolls turtles all the way down I don't think that kind of recursion would work but might be interesting if it did ask him who is in the back he asked if Rails 3 is going to support engines or how it's going to change okay I'm sorry cool alright well I guess that's all thank you