Amelia Gething: How social media can help launch your career

If you've gone from watching fun videos on TikTok to trying to make some yourself, you may be wondering how some of the bigger stars on the app do what they do so well.

So, who better than Amelia Gething to tell you how you can do it? Not only does she have over seven million followers on TikTok, she also has a successful acting career (including her own show with the BBC) that was launched from the platform.

But none of that happened overnight. In fact, Amelia says she tried and failed to kickstart a social media career three times!

She always loved making friends and family laugh, and so would create sketches as a teen to perform to them. This led to her posting these videos on YouTube and Musical.ly (TikTok’s predecessor), and she came to the conclusion that she wanted to make a career out of the platforms, but she couldn't seem to get it off the ground. Eventually, she decided to just start posting for fun, and she realised her videos were starting to do really well:

“It kind of happened accidentally, and my audience grew quite naturally because I was just posting whatever I felt like and what I enjoyed posting. If people liked it, they liked it, and if they didn't, they didn't, and it grew from there. Once I got a decent sized audience I thought to myself, oh, maybe I could actually make a career out of this.”

As her videos started to gain popularity, she was able to earn money from them in different ways, such as partnering with brands to promote their products and monetising YouTube videos. At this point, she invested in a better camera, and, as and when she could afford it, a team to help her produce and edit her sketches. Eventually, this led to the BBC noticing her work and asking her to front a comedy sketch show – The Amelia Gething Complex.

While comedy’s been a huge part of Amelia’s career to date, Amelia says she’s loving trying her hand at more serious roles, such as in the period drama The Spanish Princess. She’s always loved making people laugh, but she says “I would never pigeon-hole myself to only do comedy”.

On top of that, Amelia is passionate about supporting those who work in the media and creative industries, and is an ambassador for the Get It Right from a Genuine Site campaign, whose goal is to raise awareness of the impact illegal streams and downloads can have on content creators and the creative industry. Amelia stresses it’s not just the people you see in front of the camera that are working hard to make the things you enjoy watching: “The people that work behind the scenes on the production, like the lighting guy for example, or the editor, these people rely on the income that comes from buying films or music or whatever it may be.”

Top TikTok tips

So what are her top tips for making successful content on TikTok?

• Good lighting is a must, and a good camera is a plus
• Trends on TikTok can be a good way to inspire content to begin with, as you can take the idea and “put your own twist on it”
• Avoiding offensive comedy and content is something Amelia would strongly advise
• Do things you’re genuinely interested in: “Because if you're interested in it, it’s guaranteed that lots of other people will be interested too. You just have to find your audience.”

But success on TikTok doesn’t have to stop there. As Amelia has proved, it can be the springboard to launch you into your dream career. To do that, she says you should make content that reflects the career you want to have: “If you want to do acting, do sketches. If you want to be singing, do singing videos. Do you want to work in documentaries? Maybe do talking videos about whatever it is you want to talk about, whether that's creatures of the ocean or space or whatever it might be.”

Make sure when using social media platforms you always adhere to the age limits and community guidelines.

Head to our campaign Fact or Fake for more information about how to navigate your online life safely.