Is Keith Lee a content genius? In only one month he managed to gain 4.5 million followers becoming one of the most recognisable faces on TikTok. His secret? He brought YouTube to TikTok.
For those unfamiliar, he started by sharing cooking videos and clips centred around his wife and two children. His relatable family content earned him a large following, but it was his extremely honest food reviews that made him the 13th most followed account on TikTok for December.
Lee began using his growing platform to highlight food from small restaurants in his area that struggled to attract business after a viewer contacted him asking if he’d review their parents’ restaurant, he said in a TikTok video. His positive review of the food garnered over 20 million views and tens of thousands of comments.
One of TikTok’s largest issues is follower count in that a large follower count rarely means a consistently large number of views. For example, on Instagram I have almost 14,000 followers and my Reels bring in about 6,000-10,000 views on average. Whereas on TikTok I have double the amount of followers at 31,000 but my TikToks on average receive between 1,000 and 5,000 views. Keith Lee has managed to crack this code.
He has cracked this in two major ways. Firstly, his content is fairly long for a short form platform ranging between 1 and 5 minute long videos. This enables Lee to develop a closer relationship with his audience and create these ‘popcorn moments’.
Lee’s editing is also fairly casual and very TikTok native. It feels comfortable, well paced and authentic. Most importantly, Lee is also smart in ending the video once users get what they want.
