Forget a YouTube Special. What about a TikTok Special?
Emily Wilson becomes the first comedian to post their full special on TikTok.
Hello and welcome to the 3 new subscribers since my last email, where I reviewed the new Meta AI app. Today, we’re back with some regularly scheduled comedy insights.
Ever since TikTok expanded its maximum upload length to an hour last year, I have been begging any comedian who will listen to post their full comedy special on there.
Well, the time has come, as NYC-based comedian Emily Wilson uploaded her full-length show Fixed on both TikTok and YouTube last week.
If Netflix or Hulu or whoever ultimately pass on a project, most comics are content to upload on YouTube as a backup option, as YouTube is unanimously regarded as the platform with the highest “prestige”, after the traditional streamers.
Everywhere else (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc.), is relegated to “short-form clips”, with the goal being to funnel these users to the YouTube special.
But as every social media platform continues to become the same app, your output on each of them should be virtually undifferentiated at this point.
And look no further than Emily Wilson posting her full-length special on TikTok as all the evidence you need to prove this.
Here are the numbers, at the time of writing this:
TikTok:
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Quick Stats (at time of writing):
176.5K Views, 13.8K Likes, 1,028 Comments, 1,816 Shares, 3,395 Saves
Like PCT: 7.9% | Comment PCT: 0.58% | Share PCT: 1.0% | Save PCT: 1.9%
Video Length: 49 min, 30 seconds
Text Hook: my x factor humiliation story
Hashtags: #comedy #standupcomedy #comedyspecial #xfactor #xfactorglobal #onedirection #realitytv #funny #musicalcomedy #audition #inspired #inspiring #hopecore #cringe #cringetok #embarrassing #emilywilsonxfactor #ausemxfactor #emilywilsoncomedyspecial #emilywilsonnicolescherzinger #intensityxfactor
These are remarkably high Comment and Share PCT’s. As a reminder, good targets for Like, Comment, Share, and Save Rates are 8.0%, 0.02%, 0.8%, and 0.8%, respectively.
The massive Save Rate of 2% makes sense, as this is the kind of video many people watch 5-10 minutes of, and bookmark the rest for when they have more spare time. Or, they did watch the full thing, but they intend to rewatch certain songs, key moments, or the special in its entirety at a later point.
I think the only thing negatively impacting the Like PCT is some of the catch-all hashtags that aren’t super relevant to the show (e.g., #storytime, #inspiring, #hopecore, #cringe). If you removed some of these, you’d see the percentages tick up, even if it means sacrificing short-term increased total perceived reach.
A newish feature on TikTok is the built-in button that seamlessly rotates “horizontal” videos 90 degrees, so that they take up the full screen of your phone, hot dog style. This saves a ton of time previously wasted on re-cropping a video for the 9:16 aspect ratio. The file uploaded to both YouTube and TikTok can be the exact same.
YouTube:
Quick Stats (at time of writing):
25.6K Views, 1.8K Likes, 426 Comments
Impressions Click-Through Rate: 5.3%
Video Length: 49 min, 31 seconds
Average View Duration: 13 min 12 sec
Average Percentage Viewed: 26.7%
Hashtags: #standupcomedy #xfactor #emilywilson
Whether you’re hosting a video podcast on Spotify, or a ticketed event on EventBrite, it is of paramount importance to optimize for native platform discovery.
In the long run, this will always be your largest traffic source, far over external links, user sharing, paid spend, and so on.
On YouTube, the key metrics to achieve this are Average Percentage Viewed and Impressions Click-through Rate. Good targets are 50% and 2.0%, respectively.
The ways to increase these are fairly straightforward.
Impressions CTR:
How It’s Calculated: If 2 in every 100 people see your thumbnail on their homepage and click on it, you have an Impressions CTR of 2.0%.
The Path: Craft a compelling thumbnail and title that gets people in the door.
Emily’s Thumbnail:
Title: Emily Wilson - FIXED: How I Got REJECTED by Reality TV (Full Comedy Special)
The goal with the title and thumbnail for a video like this is to compel a complete stranger who doesn’t know who Emily is – nor has ever watched a comedy special – to press play.
With an Impressions CTR of 5.3% (!!), mission accomplished.
Average Percentage Viewed
How It’s Calculated: if people watch your 60 minute video for an average of 30 minutes, then the APV is 50%.
The Path: Deceptively simple. Create a video that people want to watch the entirety of.
For instance, perform and perfect an incredibly dynamic, engaging, heartfelt, powerhouse comedy show 20+ times at the Edinburgh Fringe, and dozens of other times around the US until you effectively capture it with a high-quality recording.
This last part is crucial.
Emily isn’t experiencing this success because she used some creative text hook on the promo videos (although her “My X Factor Humiliation Story” clips have already racked up 2+ million views on both Instagram and TikTok in the past four days.)
She’s achieving all this because the show rocks.
She’s performed the show so many times that there’s no need to add any cheap retention tactics in the post-production. No need to rattle some jewelry at the screen, or shake the camera, or whatever other garbage is being peddled by “social media marketers” as the “strategies” to increase views on a video.
Take a look at the comment section for further evidence. These people are so used to living off junk food that they literally cannot believe what they are watching:
This is not one of those extemporaneous, 10 minute “Story Time” videos where some girlie is spilling coworker tea in between iced latte sips in the Starbucks parking lot.
This is a show in which each verse has been rewritten no fewer than five times, and each line has been punched up and reworked at every step of its live journey.
In fact, Fixed was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, something only earned by seven of the thousands of shows that year.
But just as she adjusted certain jokes for a Scottish audience that likely landed differently in New York City, Emily is meeting each digital theater on its own terms.
It helps that the show feels uniquely relatable to a stereotypical “TikTok audience”, in that the majority of users on this platform are small-scale “creators”.
Even if they only ever posted a few embarrassing videos with their siblings during the pandemic, nearly everyone watching on TikTok can directly relate to Emily’s cringiest moments as a teenager on the internet.
I’m reminded of Eighth Grade during those parts. And if you’re a fan of that movie (or any of Bo Burnham’s solo projects), you’ll likely find Fixed just as funny and cathartic.
It’s genuinely inspiring to watch a self-edited, self-funded solo show look so polished, and rival the quality of those released by the major distributors and streamers.
And it’s a real-time case study for comics and creators everywhere: the platforms you think of as “just for clips” are fully capable of hosting your biggest, boldest work.
Best of all? If you participate in the TikTok Creator Rewards Program, you can more than make your money back on the costs of production.
We’re entering an era where every platform is a primary distribution platform, if you treat it as such.
Emily’s release strategy proves the playbook is changing.
The only question left is: who’s next?
Should comics be posting all their full length pods on tik tok?
dear david,
very cool to learn about this, thank you for sharing!
love
myq