It’s easy for the older generations to associate TikTok with silly dance videos and dramatic lip syncs. However, the pandemic has paved a way for tons of creators—of all ages—to share tips, experiences, and best practices with the world.

Today, I am excited to share the TikTok journey of Mike Tholfsen, Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft, and how he grew his TikTok @mtholfsen to 1M+ followers through daily Microsoft tips!

Mike’s Background

Mike joined Microsoft fresh out of college and has seen it evolve over the past 26 years. He started in the engineering space, where he worked on the V1 of what we know as Microsoft Outlook today. Throughout his career, Mike took on many project leadership roles and discovered a passion for the education space.

7 years ago, Mike switched disciplines from engineering into the world of product and program management. Today, he pursues his passion of empowering educators and making Microsoft technologies inclusive and accessible in the classroom.

Pre-TikTok Days

As someone who was always passionate about the education space, Mike built his Twitter presence with the teacher community over the years. When the pandemic hit in 2020, millions of teachers were scrambling to figure out how to conduct their classroom curriculums online. When many of them turned to Mike on how to use Microsoft Teams, Mike created a video on how to use Microsoft PowerPoint to record a video and posted it on Twitter. Overnight, he got 60K+ views, and he started getting more questions!

As he started doing this more, Mike decided to create his own YouTube channel despite not knowing much about the creator side of the platform. As he did his own research, he continued posting more videos on how to use Microsoft technologies in the eduction space.

Experimenting with TikTok

By Fall 2020, TikTok had become quite popular and Mike decided to try it out and posted some videos on TikTok. However, he didn’t get much traction so he reverted his focus back to YouTube and didn’t think much about the Gen Z platform…

A few months later in 2021, a few of Mike’s friends in the teaching community asked if he would join them on a TikTok experiment. Although he didn’t think it would be much different this time around, he decided to try it out again. This time, he did more research on the platform and focused on creating micro-learning content. His short form videos focus on cool tips and tricks from Microsoft Excel to Outlook. Check out one of his most popular TikToks here!

TikTok Tips & Learnings

When it comes to growing your following, Mike has a few tips for aspiring TikTokers out there:

Find a niche that you’re passionate about

First, you need to find a specific topic to focus on. You can’t have 5 different niches at once because people will get lost and confused when they land on your TikTok page.

Second, you should find a topic that genuinely interests you. If you don’t do this, you may end up feeling trapped just because one of your videos on a random topic went viral and now you need to stay on that particular topic which you may not be that interested in.

Be consistent with posting around the same time

Yes, posting at least once a day is essential to feeding the algorithm. However, you should also strive to post around the same window of time each day (e.g. mornings only). It also doesn’t help when you choose to post 1 video on 1 day and then wait another 2 weeks to post 20 videos. Just be focused and persistent on building a predictable habit when it comes to posting your content.

Humour and relevance matters

The world of TikTok can be very fascinating, and viewers can become very engaged with your content in the comments section. Embrace this quirkiness and try to find ways to make your content relatable! Leave that curated glamorous lifestyle content for Instagram, and focus on being yourself and relating to others. For example, Mike likes to make subtle references to the Office Space (movie) or the Office (TV show) in his TikToks.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Mike believes that micro-learning is going to become even more popular in 2022. There are a lot of new features being added to the platform (e.g. Playlists) that make TikTok a worthy rival to YouTube, so pay attention! Remember that impact doesn’t happen overnight. Having amazing ideas does not lead to results because the hard part is turning these amazing ideas into reality—and you need to do the work to make this happen. If that means you need to improve your presentation skills, then go invest in yourself and check out a Toastmasters club in your area!

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Thank you so much to Mike for taking the time to share his journey and tips with us. Please check out his TikTok and YouTube channel to see the great work he is doing in the education space!