One Study a Day: a fact-check channel on TikTok

what I built

Four versions of the story format, from a plain explainer to a quiz with a plot twist, plain language rules checked by a script, and a scheduler that posted the same videos to three platforms.

the video machine · Buffer API · TypeScript

what happened

• The first two videos got 262 and 268 views, with about 4.5 seconds of average watch time and about 1 percent full watches. TikTok said most viewers stopped at 0:01.
• Every later video also stopped at about 250 to 290 views.
• On one video 87 percent of viewers were in Iceland. Over 60 days the share was 42 percent, so the tests ran on the wrong audience.
• YouTube Shorts: 401 views in 28 days. Instagram: 448 views in 30 days.

what broke

• The first versions put the twist after second 2, when most viewers had already left.

decision

The format failed the first test. The channel stopped. The machine behind it is kept.

• The first sentence must be fully on screen at frame 0 and must not give away the answer.
• About 2.9 spoken words a second, so 110 words make a 40 second video.