New jobs for young people on TikTok

The job is to eat and talk.

Starting from her hobby of taking film photos and videos, Ms. Tran Ngoc Trang (born in 1993, in Hai Duong City) got into the food review job in the summer of 2021. Initially, she shared clips about food she made on food review groups in Hai Duong. Her first video received 2,000 likes, seeing that the interaction was quite good, she switched to the TikTok platform with the channel "Hai Duong Holic". Her TikTok channel not only shares about cuisine but also expands to places and traditional specialties of Hai Duong for many people to know. Currently, the channel "Hai Duong Holic" has more than 22,000 followers and nearly 600,000 likes. Some videos with high interaction such as videos about egg cream and the process of making green bean cakes have both reached 1.5 million views and more than 100,000 likes. These numbers are the motivation for Ms. Trang to continue trying to build the channel.

Ms. Tran Ngoc Trang comes up with ideas and films clips on her channel "Hai Duong Holic"

To make the above clips, Trang's indispensable "companions" are a phone, gimbal (anti-shake device for phones), microphone, and lights. Trang's videos focus on delicious shooting angles, helping viewers experience the images. There are some angles that she has to do over and over again to get right.

Unlike having to arrange, set up beautifully, invest in elaborate props to film like Ms. Trang, Ms. Vu Thi Khanh Huyen (born in 1999, in Hai Duong City) films very simple eating clips. With a phone, Ms. Huyen's clip filming process is only limited to one meal. Because she studied photography, Ms. Huyen's thinking about shooting angles is also sharp, filming and editing is also simpler.

Ms. Vu Thi Khanh Huyen is the owner of the TikTok channel "Thi Bo review" with more than 27,000 followers.

Since her first year of university, Ms. Huyen has started taking photos and reviewing food on Facebook groups. In October 2021, she switched to the TikTok platform with the channel "Thi Bo review" and started making money from here. Having been famous from the Facebook platform, after switching to TikTok, Ms. Huyen quickly had high interaction. Ms. Huyen's first million-view clip was also about the egg ice cream shop in Hai Duong city that she ate from childhood to adulthood. To date, her TikTok channel has reached more than 27,000 followers and nearly 800,000 likes.

Having tasted food in both Hanoi and Hai Duong, Ms. Huyen believes that Hai Duong has many delicious restaurants but not many people know about them. Therefore, her TikTok channel is a bridge to spread Hai Duong's cuisine to more people. Some young people who don't know what to eat message Ms. Huyen for suggestions on where to eat.

Get "packaged" to take home

Food review has been considered a job, bringing income to reviewers. Therefore, when doing this job, reviewers not only satisfy their passion for eating but also have income after each meal.

Currently, Ms. Huyen is a freelancer, her main income comes from taking photos and reviewing food. Every week, she will make 3-4 clips at restaurants in Hanoi and Hai Duong. The cost for each clip on the "Thi Bo review" channel is 500,000 VND. Her income from reviewing food on TikTok is 5-7 million VND/month. Before cooperating with restaurants, she will discuss her way of doing things, and put comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the restaurants into the clip after the experience. Therefore, if any restaurant is confident in the quality of the food and agrees with the above method, they will cooperate. Up to now, Ms. Huyen can't remember how many restaurants have asked her to make clips.

As for Ms. Trang, at first she did this job out of passion, but after her channel became better, some restaurants asked her to advertise. However, not every restaurant that asked her accepted. "I have to consider the quality of the restaurant before cooperating to make a clip, because reviewing low-quality restaurants will affect my image and channel," Ms. Trang said. Currently, any restaurant that wants to advertise on Ms. Trang's channel has to spend from 2 to 2.8 million VND/clip of 1 to 2 minutes. All of these clips are conceived, filmed, edited and recorded by her. The filming time and food arrangement is about 4 hours and the clip will be completed after 2 days.

“Last year, Trang Chu of Hai Duong Holic channel came to my shop to review two dishes: strawberry black tea and cheese cream lychee tea. The effect after that clip was very good, the number of customers increased 3 times and many people came to the shop to order the two dishes above,” said Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Thao, owner of Rosemary coffee shop.

LINH LINH