Guys, I am so excited to introduce you to our next guest!
I met him thanks to @wulfsliv, who nominated our next interviewee to be in our community blog, and he really took our interview to the next level by sharing screenshots of his TikTok insights– the things that only the owner of the account has access to, and he opened up about the truth of being a famous TikToker, so apart from sharing the positive things, he also shared the downside of being a renowned TikToker, like for example the day the police knocked on his door, which you can read more about below.
Our next guest, is someone I am personally very grateful to, because he is one of Sweden's top TikTokers and has given me a completely different perspective on TikTok. I come from the Instagram world, and have been to many events with instagram influencers, but thanks to him, I now think that TikTok is a way more genuine platform than I thought, full of creators who despite the comedy sketches, they are are people with whom you can talk about really profound and serious topics like love, religion, burnout or even politics. On TikTok you tend to find more creators who share more of the reality of what being an influencer is like, so if you don't have TikTok yet, I recommend you to download it now so you can get to know the great Tim, the man behind @memetix.
When platforms like TikTok are launched, a huge part of their success relies on the quality of the content that its early adopters produce, and how long they can make other people stay in the app watching videos. In my opinion, after spending some time in Stockholm with Tim, I quickly understood that he, himself, has been one of the reasons why TikTok succeeded in Sweden. His content is dope! and he understands content creation like very few people do these days. During our interview he even told me how he still remembers how back in the day, there were only 20 TikTokers in Stockholm and how companies didn't have a budget for TikTokers, whereas now, it seems like companies are spending more money on TikTok than on Instagram, so he has seen the platform evolve to what it is nowadays, making him an expert on TikTok.
Some of his videos have more than 30M views, he has been featured by PewDiePie, and you have probably seen his "Sweden Never Gets Dark" videos go viral in whatsapp (that is how I first found him). To us at Gigapay, this interview is special because out of all the influencers we have interviewed for the community, him, being the biggest influencer we have teamed up with, he gave us the most detailed interview we have ever featured, so get ready to meet Memetix like you've never met him before:
A. Who are you and what do people know you for on social media
T: The name is Memetix. I'm a Swedish TikToker who makes short videos of all sorts and hopefully makes you smile.
A: Tiktok or Instagram?... or Youtube? :P
T: TikTok over Instagram anyday. Make TikToks and repost them on IG Reels. Every viral Reel is a formerly viral TikTok anyway.
When it comes to YouTube it's a whole different story. I strongly advocate creating YouTube Shorts in 2023. Not just because I'm currently working with them but because it is a new platform with an algorithm which currently gives you good shots at success. I visited a YouTube event recently and heard of someone making 4M YouTube followers off YouTube Shorts alone in 2022. That is a deal almost anyone would love. If you're interested in making money off ad-revenue then YouTube is also the only platform which currently supports that (in Sweden).
A: What video or picture made you go viral and why do you think it went viral?
T: In my opinion, it would be quite naive to label one single video as the reason for my overall success on TikTok. I have consistently been making videos on TikTok since December 2018, or to be more specific, I've posted 2337 TikTok videos on my two main accounts over the course of 4 years. Consequently, I prefer to perceive my overall success as a result of all the small success which are individual viral videos.
My first experience with virality was with this video made in October 2019.
Managing to rack up over 2M views in a few days, this was quite the viral TikTok at the time. Though not my first video with a large view and like count, this one had something special about it. Tens of thousands of people shared the video and many even recreated the video. In fact, I even had a follower approach me at ComicCon in Stockholm last November showing me them doing the exact same challenge three years later.
My second experience with virality would occur the year after in March 2020. This is where I at least in terms of numbers would "blow up" you can watch here.
In this video, I perform a list of impressions of characters from the famous video game Minecraft. Breaching the language barrier, the video went viral around the world and eventually reached over 30M views. At this time, I was gaining 100k followers per day for a short while.
After this video, I turned the video game impression concept into a series, but also kept on posting my new ideas. The most important lesson here was to take advantage of the large audience who had their eyes on you. Learn as much as possible about retaining your massive audience.
Memetix Tiktok Video
At this point I said to myself: "There is no way I am ever going to make a more viral video than this!".
Little did I know, that would actually happen a year later with this video.
Despite having a few million less views, the amount of interaction on this TikTok was going wild. This is my most liked, commented and shared TikTok to this day. Personally, my favorite accomplishment relating to this video was that PewDiePie featured it in one of his YouTube videos, which I posted about here:
(1) PEWDIEPIE noticed me!
Nevertheless, each year I would post a new "most viral video" each just as important as the one before. As to answering the question "why do you think it went viral?", I do not really know. To be honest it would be a combination of good timing, luck and persistence on the platform. It is not so odd that three of my 2337 videos have had notable success, given that I put significant work into said videos.
A: What is the best part of being an influencer and what is the worst part of it?
T: My favourite thing about being an influencer is work hours. Definitely work hours. Throughout my years in school, I always had to wake up at 06:40 and take the train to school 30 minutes later at 07:10. This was the absolute biggest pain and source of stress in my life. At university studies I made a promise to myself that I would never accept a job that starts before 10:00, no matter how well paid it was. Whether it was waiting for late trains, getting onto cram-packed subways or running to an exam hall to make it in time, I refused to waste the first hour of every living day stressing out.
Nowadays, as an independent influencer I run my own company, and work whenever I want as long as the work gets done at the end of the day. Do I struggle with procrastination? Yes. Do I get a week to do work and end up doing it ten minutes before the deadline? Yeah sometimes. However, being self-employed for a while has taught me quite the bit regarding self-discipline. Freedom reigns!
The worst thing about being an influencer is definitely the overwhelming aspect of fame. Since becoming TikTok-famous I have developed anxiety, had my first panic-attack and even during a period had agoraphobia. Allow me to describe one of the situations I found myself in a few years ago:
At one time, I lived in an apartment on the ground floor. One of my windows was facing the playground area for the entire apartment complex. Every summer night, when I came home and unlocked my door, the kids from the playground would come up to me and greet me after seeing me on TikTok. Carelessly, I reciprocated and made small talk with the local youth while entering my home. After a few weeks, the children started knocking on my door asking if I was home, sometimes even running away after ringing the bell. At this point I felt the need to put my foot down and make a stop to this nonsensical behavior. So one day, when kids were outside my door, I was standing, ready to confront, peeping through the keyhole already minutes before they knocked. When the children knocked, I busted the door open and said: "Hey, you can't be doing this. Other people live here. You can say hi to me if I walk past you, but please do NOT knock on my door.". The kids nodded and walked away. I went back into my apartment and thought not much more of it. Ten minutes later, I hear a loud knock on the door. I begin my walk back to the door thinking it would be the children pranking me again. No, in fact it is the police. Apparently some parent had called the police saying a drunk old man is trying to lure kids into his apartment. As sober as the day, I calmly explained the situation to the police and told them how I wanted to get rid of the kids, not lure them in. Fully understanding, the policemen left and all was well. However, I lived in quite the dodgy suburb and now some parent thinks I am plotting against the local children? Surely this situation made me feel extremely unsafe and uneasy. I would after this event be unable to leave the house when there were any kids outside my door, so I ended up always coming home extremely late. Every day before leaving the house I would peek through the blinds to make sure nobody was outside. If there were children outside and I had to go out, they would still attempt to shout my name, but I would have to ignore them coldly for my own safety.
As a result of this scenario, I ended up moving to a different city for a while. Not so much for safety but mostly for my own mental health. Being an influencer isn't so easy if you're developing symptoms of social anxiety! After maybe two years I was doing a lot better, but some of the scars still remain. Keep in mind, this is just one scenario of fame being overwhelming. You'd be shocked to find out what stalkers have done to some of your favorite people on social media.
A: When a brand or an agency approaches you, what things will make you say YES to the job? And also, do you prefer to work with agencies or with brands directly?
T: Working directly with brands is ALWAYS more profitable in my opinion, given you have the skills to negotiate. You will have an easier time negotiating the details of the campaign without the middleman which is the agency. There is no-one that will take a 30% cut out of your profit. You will also grow closer with the brand since you are in direct contact with them. Perks aside, you will have to do all the work that an agency would do for you including, planning a campaign from scratch, writing contracts if necessary, managing a consistent dialogue during the campaign.
Some brands however only work through agencies, and if large enough some brands even have their own agencies. So one must not be too picky and bound by principle. When it comes to working with agencies, I always ask my friends who either have worked with or worked at the agency what their experience was like. If there are too many red-flags, perhaps shy away. If not, then go ahead.
Generally, things that influencers appreciate from brands/agencies are:
- Good Pay (dealbreaker)
- Creative Freedom (dealbreaker for many, might depend on the pay)
- Content Rights (will the content be reused, reposted? will the brand own rights for a set time?)
- Contract Competition Clauses (are you allowed to work with competitors, for how long must you not? who are you allowed to work for within the next year?)
A: What do you hate brands and agencies do when they approach you?
T: Hate is a strong word, and business is just business so I personally try to not get too emotionally distraught by poor offers. Although, something that brands and agencies will do that will lead to me not replying at all would be one of two things:
The first is the campaign being severely underpaid. If the initial offer for a campaign is ridiculously low compared to what the brand requests you to perform in terms of work, then I will not bother negotiating or even answering the e-mail at times.
The latter would be unprofessional e-mails. It is always important to be understanding of a small typo or grammatical error. However, many brands and agencies have written to me extremely informally, with several typos and nonsensical grammar. This is an instant turn-off for any influencer. Always proof-read your message, at least once. The amount of times you do so says something about how important you think your e-mail to me is!
A: Many of your followers admire you and for sure many want to grow their social media like you did, what top 3 tips can you give them to grow their social media?
T: 1. Just do it! Listen to the Nike slogan. Unless you are spending excessive time and money on a project (which you shouldn't be anyway if you're getting started) then just keep posting videos. Do not ever question yourself in terms of quality or anything alike. If your video isn't good, then nobody will see it anyway, plus you will walk away from the situation knowing exactly what not to do. For most creators, the only thing holding them back from further success is themselves. Time spent answering questions like: "Do I post too much?", "Should I post this now or tomorrow?", "Should I delete this video? It didn't perform too well", is time that could be spent making four MORE TikToks. Believe in yourself!
2. Be consistent. I was lucky enough to start posting before most people even downloaded TikTok. In early 2023, you are bound to be forgotten if you do not remind people of your existence constantly. If you want to grow your follower base and build a solid fanbase then be consistent, be there for your fans. See it almost like a friendship. Nobody wants a best friend who is unavailable most of the time and just pops up every three weeks haphazardly. Sure you might be a good friend, but if you're not there for me how are you supposed to be my best friend?
3. Be yourself. One of the few things that make me different than many TikTok creators is that I don't have a niche. I do whatever I want, whenever I want. Whether it be interviews with celebrities, skateboarding edits, comedy sketches or meme edits. More importantly I am being myself, because if not, then I wouldn't be passionate about it. Dare to make what you really want to make. If you don't know what you want to make, then try everything, you have nothing to lose. Worst case scenario you spent 10 minutes making a TikTok you didn't enjoy making. People go to the bathroom in more time than the time you have wasted. Best case scenario, you found a passionate creative outlet!
A: What have been your top 3 paid collaborations? What brands were they and why did you enjoy them so much? (Where they through an agency or brand directly)
T: 1. I've thoroughly enjoyed working with music labels such as Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music. They have provided me with some unique opportunities to interview famous artists that I would have a real hard time getting my hands on without their help:
2. As a big Marvel nerd, working with Sony Pictures on promoting Spider-Man: No Way Home was great since me and my friends got to see the movie the day before the premiere. We also got to see the movie Morbius the day before the premiere:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXewK_vM_Dq/
3. Modelling for the local second-hand shopping app Plick was really fun. This was a cross platform campaign across IG and TikTok. Our pictures ended up being used on posters on all buses, subways and trains across Stockholm which was a small milestone of mine. At this event I also met one of my best friends:
In hindsight, none of the campaigns above were my most paid campaigns. In fact none of them come even close to it. The top paid of the three isn't even half of what I've been paid at most. What does this tells us? Well two things:
The less you get paid, the less work a customer can force out of you. The less work you have, the more fun you (probably) have. If we look at the whole thing in reverse, the more you get paid the more work you probably have to do. Which is why the larger your campaign, the more careful you have to be when reading through your contract. Mo money, mo problems.
A: A lot of influencers complain that many brands and agencies try to make them work in exchange of "gifts" what are your thoughts about the topic?
T: If you wouldn't buy the product beforehand, then you shouldn't be paid in product.
For some niche influencers, being paid in product is practical for example:
1. Fashion influencers receiving access to an extremely valuable, signed limited handbag from their favorite brand.
2. Gamers receiving custom PC builds and components from their sponsors.
3. Professional athletes being brought on private tournament trips and receiving top-of-the-line unreleased equipment from top sports companies.
In all of these cases, the product would probably be bought by the influencer regardless of the campaign and they would save not only time, money but also benefit from the products received. However, in most other cases influencers would be better off being paid in cash.
I have had several influencers approach me asking: "X brand wants to send me product for Y value in exchange for one video".
To which I always reply: "Why don't you work with another brand that pays you money. You'll afford to buy all those products and have money left to spare."
I think a lot of micro influencers succumb to the "free products" game since there is a sense of importance felt when being personally contacted by a company. A lot of influencers also perhaps think they need the product in debate when they actually don't. People in marketing are ruthless.
A: What interesting influencer (they have to have a good follower base) would you like to nominate for him to tell us his story?
T: Instagram @ eleonorasvanberg (lnk.bio)
Thank you so much Tim for being so open about the reality of being a creator. Not only do you work hard to put a smile in our faces and you actually achieve it every time you post, but with your content you are also providing us with a new perspective on how to grow on TikTok, which is really valued by our community members... Please never change! We love you!
We are looking forward to seeing you again soon!
Ps: Memetix can deadlift 110KG.
If you are a creator and would love to be featured in our creator blog, you can contact me on TikTok or Instagram at @thereelgiga
XX
Andrea Neira
Head Of Community
