You may recognize Justin Awad from his viral TikTok and Instagram videos where he quizzes people with basic questions. To learn more about Awad’s background, Pulse 2.0 did an interview with him.
Justin Awad’s Background
Awad is a 20-year-old pre-med student who lives in New Jersey (25 minutes away from NYC). Both of his parents were born in Egypt and came here as immigrants in hopes of giving him and his little sister a chance at a bright future.
Awad has always loved entertaining as well as video creation and production but instead of this hindering or altering his dream of becoming a doctor, it only enhanced it more after he realized that he could maximize both to really reach and impact a large number of people.
Getting Started On TikTok
When I asked Awad about how he get started on TikTok, he said that he won class clown as a senior in high school, which was at the same time the COVID pandemic hit so he used social media as a medium to help make his friends and family laugh and to help their mental health while being locked down due to the pandemic.
Challenges Faced Building A Social Media Following
What were some of the challenges Awad faced in building a following on social media?
“TikTok is the more difficult platform to post on in my opinion simply due to the sheer volatility of it. You can never predict what videos will do well or what videos won’t,” said Awad. “Still until this day, I do not understand the algorithm and how they control views. On the other hand, YouTube and Instagram are much more stable platforms that are predictable and steady in a sense where I can have a rough estimate within a couple of thousand views of how a video will do.”
Video Success Story
When I asked Awad if he could share any video success stories, he said that one major success he had was when he was just in New York City with some friends hanging out not planning to make any videos or anything. While they were walking, his friends suggested he should do some interviews with people because they wanted to see what it was like behind the scenes in real time.
“So I said ‘Hey why not’ and so I filmed 3 different clips with 3 different people, completely unprepared with questions and didn’t even have a mic with me, yet when I got home I edited the video and still didn’t like how it came out but I said ‘whatever ‘and posted it and that ‘mistake’ or unintended video got over 10 million views,” Awad noted.
Most Significant Milestones
What were some of Awad’s most significant milestones?
Awad said that the two biggest milestones have to be hitting 1 million followers, which was always a huge goal of his. And secondly, having one video get more than 30 million views, which “was absolutely insane.”
Potential Banning Of TikTok
TikTok – which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance – claims that they do not share data with the Chinese government. However, several governments have banned TikTok from devices issued to staff members due to cybersecurity concerns. TikTok has been banned from government-issued devices in Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, India, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Taiwan, the UK, and the U.S.
“I have a hard time trusting politicians and news sources because I feel like there is always an agenda behind the things that they do so I’ll leave it at this: If everything (that’s a big if) they claim in true and China is really stealing our data and using it to harm us and benefit themselves, then I have no problem sacrificing my largest platform because I believe the safety and privacy of the American citizens should always come first,” Awad explained. “However, I would prefer there to be a civil and productive agreement that where we get to keep TikTok and are guaranteed our data is not being stolen or used.”
TikTok Vs. YouTube Monetization
When I asked Awad about monetization on TikTok vs. YouTube, he said that monetization on YouTube is on a whole different level compared to TikTok.
“I know a good handful of pretty large creators on TikTok who pull in millions upon millions of views but are unable to solely use their income from TikTok to support everyday life,” Awad pointed out. “The cost per thousand (CPM) paid out on TikTok is astronomically low compared to YouTube. I make around $0.003 for every thousand views on TikTok. On long YouTube posts, I get paid $2-$4 every thousand views – which is much more reasonable and can be a main source of income.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Awad’s channels from the competition?
“My channel is different in that it is so raw and real and there aren’t any fast cuts or bright colors or lights or popular music in the back to try to boost views,” Awad replied. “I keep it short, sweet, simple, and to the point, which I believe is fairly unique compared to many other channels.”
Future Goals
What are Awad’s future goals? “A near-future goal I have is to hit 100k subscribers on YouTube,” Awad concluded. “It has been a dream of mine to get a plaque from YouTube saying I hit that milestone. A more broad and distant goal is to go into med school and be able to continue to grow my audience and provide meaningful, helpful, practical, medical/health advice and to impact the world in a positive way, help those in need, and inspire everyone to not be afraid to just say ‘Yes’ and chase their dreams.”
