This week, I wanted to share an experience I had going viral on TikTok. The app TikTok has blown up since the beginning of the pandemic. People post everything from cleaning hacks, to wellness advice, to funny skits. We all know that social media has its positives and negatives, and I had an experience with this particular app that shaped how I think about TikTok and my online business. Social media, TikTok included, can be great for sales and reaching your desired audiences, helping to shape your brand! But, it’s important to be aware of the negatives that can go along with it, and how we can best handle it.

My Experience Going Viral on TikTok

A little back story to me going viral on TikTok: I downloaded the app and was posting here and there. It wasn’t something I was taking seriously, just a way to step out of my comfort zone and find a new way to promote myself.

 One night, I decided to record the sex reveal of my baby. Adam (my husband) and I already knew the sex, but we wanted to gather some close friends and reveal it in a fun way. We had access to an app where you can change one of the needles’ colors in the NYC skyline, and we were able to do this by donating to one of the construction companies. We lit up the needle blue, surprising our friends that our baby would be a boy. I thought it would just be a fun video to post, and I didn’t take it too seriously. 

Eight hours later, I woke up to not only 80k views, but more engagement without much strategy, and 200 new followers! 

Going viral on TikTok seemed like an easy, fun way to promote my business, and engage with people! There wasn’t a lot of strategy I used, I just got really lucky with the algorithm. 

Managing The Dark Side of Going Viral on TikTok

Of course, with every positive aspect of a social media app, comes about three more negatives. 

While I did wake up to a viral video- it ended up getting over a million views!- I also woke up to terribly vicious comments.

The two kinds of comments that stuck out to me the most were those commenting on how we were flashing how rich we were, and those saying how unexcited we looked about the sex of out baby. 

The comments regarding us changing the color of the skyline didn’t get to me as much because we had done it through donation, and anyone can do it by downloading the app! But, those talking about my reaction were a bit hurtful, because it involves my baby. People were placing assumptions about a situation they were not even present for, and judging me and my husband’s character. 

It was a quick awakening for me how quickly going viral on TikTok can turn into something so negative. 

It was pretty obvious by looking at the pages of the accounts judging me that they weren’t on social media for any other purpose than to spread their own negativity. A lot of them didn’t have profile pictures, any followers, and they weren’t active on their own pages. The internet is the best place for bullies, because there’s no consequence, especially with anonymity. 

Getting unsolicited opinions from people is hard to deal with. While I do get positive comments supporting me and congratulating me on my baby, I had to learn to handle the negative comments when going viral on TikTok. The people who are taking that time to publicly judge you aren’t people you should be taking advice from in the first place. We have to let it roll off of our shoulders, because we wouldn’t want to listen to those people in real life anyways.