Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Welcome back to another episode of The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today, we're joined by Penny Walker, founder of Barbrusa Social, who helps businesses who are established on other platforms to make more money on TikTok. Welcome, Penny.
Penny
Thank you. Good morning, nice talk to you.
Esther
Morning. We were just saying we love TikTok, but spend maybe too long on the platform. Melanie has a first question.
Melanie
I can lose hours, genuinely lose hours on TikTok, especially Sundays.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
Who is the current audience on TikTok, Penelope?
Penny
There's an audience for every, I'd say, industry and niche. I think like all of these platforms, it started with the teens with the singing and dancing, which is part of the reputation it still has, and a lot of what you might see if you need TikTok before the algorithm understands what you're there for. But then obviously older businesses start picking up on it. They started a lot in lockdown, when people had a bit more time on their hands. Now the fastest growing demographic on TikTok is actually Gen X, so it's just getting an older, older audience. As younger audience perhaps discover other platforms, we just take over what they were doing.
Esther
Yeah, we have a tendency to do that, don't we? I am Gen X, I promise. Just on the very edge of it. Some would say, Xenial. But definitely Gen X in my heart anyway. So TikTok, like Melanie was saying, we can lose ours by just watching videos and watching. How long would it take to make a three-minute video on TikTok? Because there's different lengths of videos too, isn't there? There's the really short ones that it started out with, and now you can do up to 10 minutes.
Penny
Yeah. There's a few things there. Firstly, the length of the video, TikTok is always trying to compete with Netflix, it wants to be an entertainment platform. Now you can see episodes of TV shows in three-minute clips, for example, and you can actually upload up to 10, and in some cases, 20-minute videos. So it does like this episode version. You don't see an awful lot of it. However, it is really pushing videos over one minute, so I'd say one to three minutes is definitely a range worth experimenting with. How long does it take to make? It depends on your editing. I think that if you're talking about your niche, you don't have to worry about too much editing. It's quite a forgiving platform. I think it's more about you coming across and sharing yourself without trying to be too much of anything else. Actually, that's one of the easiest videos to make, is just sit and talk about your expertise. You asked me another question in there about the algorithm. I just wanted to touch on that because when you first go on TikTok, or if you're not sending signals to the algorithm about what your niche is, it will send you generic information. If you're looking at dogs and babies and things like that, it would just send you more of them because it thinks that's what you like. So if you're actually on it for business, maybe just be aware of that and you'll start getting more of what you would find inspiring or people you'd like to connect with.
Esther
Okay.
Melanie
My question is about those part twos, part threes, part fours. They were all the rage a while ago, and now I don't see them as often. Is it because people aren't invested enough to go into the next parts, or has our attention span just got even shorter?
Penny
Gosh, I don't know. I think our attention spans in a certain demographic are actually getting longer, just because we have been fed all these short-form videos in lockdown and up till now, and I just think it's just quick bites of information that might be delivered in under 20 seconds. Actually, I think a lot of us are ready just to hear the whole thing in one go and are happy to sit and listen to that. The theories, you're right, I have noticed that as well. It's something I still recommend that clients do just because it's a good way to feed out information that you already have on a different platform. If you're not good at making short-form video or not used to it yet, it's quite a nice way just to do tip by tip or item by item. Are they not there? I don't know. Maybe not. I think maybe the mood just shifts sometimes and people try other things, but I think at the core of all of that, you just need to experiment a lot with different formats and see what works for you.
Esther
Speaking of formats and stuff, because I've noticed a lot more people are putting up images and more like a carousel theme rather than a video. Obviously, that's throwback to Instagram and stuff like that. Are they working well or are people still preferring to watch it as a video or have it as they don't have to move the screen to get the carousel?
Penny
That's annoying, actually, because they're a carousel, they call it photo-mode on TikTok, and it's originally just auto-played. You just have a little bit of text, which was quite nice. How you got to get your finger out and everything. It's annoying. I personally love them. I don't think they perform as amazingly as some videos, as consistently well, but I think in terms of talking to your audience specifically, your videos won't always have a mass people-pleasing appeal, but you are talking to the right people, so I don't worry too much about that. I think they're really nice for storytelling. I love carousels. I love how people might unravel their business, show befores and afters, show things by seasonal trends. They're really flexible way, and it's a really nice way of making videos if you don't have time, don't want to be on camera, you can just whip it up while you're on the train or something like that. Also you can use that big bank of images that you already have in your phone reel. So it's nice and easy. I like them a lot and encourage people to make them.
Esther
Yeah, you mentioned something there about not showing your face on video. A certain person in the room, me for those that don't know, doesn't like being on video and doesn't like being shown there. So apart from the photo carousels, what other ways could I potentially do TikToks without my face being out there?
Penny
Yeah. Another format which is really popular is voiceovers. I see them performing really well for my clients. You might be taking people along to events that you went to doing a recap of the day or just talking about your business, or talking about your services, products, whatever it is, but by doing a voice-over, perhaps over some edited multi-clips where you're showing close-ups far away, even photos of yourself, but not you actually talking to camera, just to introduce yourself gently onto camera are all really good ways. And then there's also text-to-speech on TikTok. I don't know if you've seen that when you hear those funny voices, but they're very popular, and they're good hooks for grabbing attention. So there are lots of ways, but it is good to show your face if you can. And it can be incredibly liberating to get over that barrier of how much it doesn't matter, just do it. A little bit sometimes.
Esther
You're not the first person to say that, Penny. You're not, I mean-.
Penny
Sorry.
Esther
Not quite-.
Penny
It's the same. It works that's why.
Esther
I'm not quite there, but I'm getting the feeling that I really should be.
Melanie
I wanted to ask, is there a formula that works to doing a TikTok? I'm sure it's different for TikTok stories and TikTok posts because you can do the short one in your profile picture and then you can do the longer one or shorter ones within the post as well. Is there a formula that you could suggest to people or is there a download that you can suggest to people that they can grab a hold of?
Penny
Yeah. In terms of downloads, I have 22 video ideas, which I think is good because I think that what people tend to struggle with is all the different formulas you can try and even ideas for that. I think you probably put it in your show notes or something. Then in terms of formula, I think you just want to bear in mind your hooks and your calls to action. Now, just because of the nature of the platform, people are just scrolling through quite quickly. You've got to grab with a hook. The hooks can be very successfully movement rather than just words. It can be movement. It could be you sitting down, it could be something moving. It doesn't have to be words, but that's really going to help your video to be watched. Then obviously you're delivering the value, whether that's entertainment or educational or whatever it is. Then the call to action is fundamental. No matter how long your video is, write it in text, say it out loud, do what you have to do because people will not follow you, which is your primary objective when you start on TikTok is to get those initial followers unless you prompt them to. Even if they love what you're doing, they'll just scroll on to the next video because the next video is there and maybe someone's like dancing or doing something funny. Just remember to ask for followers, and it's probably you need to overdo the cringe a bit more on that front than you would generally feel comfortable doing, but it's so worth it.
Melanie
I've seen that myself, actually. I've been seeing some videos, some TikToks, and I've realised after seeing them again three or four times that week that I haven't actually followed them. I can actually believe that. They've obviously not asked me to follow them, so I haven't followed them and then realised, Oh, crap, I'm not following them. I really should. So it's down to calls to action and giving the hook at the beginning, isn't it? Giving them the end result of if you listen to this, this is what you'll hear.
Penny
Yeah, absolutely.
Melanie
We're going live as well. That comes later though, doesn't it?
Penny
Just quickly back to the hook, yeah. I think you need to use really basic language because it's read by bots as well. It's just like the how-tos, things like that work really, really well, simple language. Also within that, you'd add your SEO keywords, et cetera. Now, in terms of going live, you have to genuinely have 1,000 followers, which is why the initial strategy of getting followers is important, because it then gives you access to more parts of the platform. Some people get it a lot earlier, so keep an eye on that. But going live is a brilliant strategy for getting to know your community, so to be able to answer questions, perhaps, to show what you do if you're a product-based business. Maybe you could make that thing on camera and just answer questions, talk about your business. I've quite often, I do lives with just another business owner on TikTok so they can talk about their story, how they're approaching TikTok, and what's working for them. You can advertise that in advance so that you can invite questions, et cetera. Tiktok loves you doing lives, so it will actually push it out to more people. And then beyond the live itself, there's also the corridor watching. I don't know if when you scroll through TikTok, you'd actually have to press on the live to go in it, so that the person doing the live can see on it. A lot of people would just watch in that corridor as well. So you never really know how many people are seeing it. It can feel a bit lonely at first, but it's actually a brilliant strategy, and a lot of people might use it to promote a sale or something on a different platform and just have, perhaps, a voucher code that works in that hour live, and then that's it. I've seen that work really nicely for businesses.
Melanie
Never heard that expression before, corridor watching. That's a new... It's a great word. Just staying on the live there. When you first get the opportunity to go live, there's this practise mode. What exactly does that involve?
Penny
Oh, gosh, I don't know if you have that on TikTok. You have that on Instagram. Do you have that on TikTok, a practise mode? Oh, it's new. Maybe that's new, is it? I think that you can just... It's just a way of perhaps either getting used to the camera or getting your setup right. A lot of people might use that front-back camera so they can show what they're doing, but show their face while they're talking. Then also sometimes it can be a little bit of a faff if you're inviting other people on because there's different ways you can do that. I haven't seen that though, so thank you for telling me, but I think it's just to avoid those appalling first few seconds when it goes wrong and you wonder Who's that?.
Melanie
I'd be interested to see if this is still there after the first one. I would love... Because what I recommend to people when they're going live for the first time on Facebook is that they practise in their Facebook personal profile first because you can make it only me.
Penny
Oh, right.
Melanie
And you can check the sound and the settings and the lighting and the power quality and all that. So I am going to go live on TikTok over the next few weeks just to see... Because I didn't know that was there. I didn't think I was allowed it.
Penny
Well, I mean, the way to tell is when you go on your plus on your record button, and if it says live along there and the options, it means you can.
Melanie
But it was far across the side, so you had to keep scrolling across. So you don't see live as an immediate option.
Penny
No, I think they keep increasing all the things you can do. Oh, you see it very differently to me.
Melanie
You see, I saw a template.
Penny
I think you might need to upload. Have you updated your TikTok app lately?
Melanie
I update my apps every single day.
Penny
You're just seeing it very differently to me. That's so strange.
Melanie
The next time.. I is live, but I update my apps every single day.
Esther
It could be that she's... I don't know, your iPhone.
Melanie
Look, these are all the options I got underneath.
Penny
Yeah, I see that as well.
Melanie
And then it's practise.
Penny
Practise, yes. I don't have that, but maybe it's exactly because, as you say, you haven't done it before. And the other nice one to look at in there is the dual camera, so that if you wanted to show something and your face at the same time or teach something, it's quite nice. That's quite handy.
Melanie
But there was another app that was doing that, wasn't there? All the kids were raving about it, and it wasn't TikTok.
Penny
Clapper, maybe? Was it Clapper?
Melanie
That's it, yeah. I had that for about five minutes. That was hilarious.
Penny
My followers are growing like crazy on Clapper. I never do anything there. But I think when TikTok was threatened with a ban in the States, that's where everyone seemed to go. So it had a big flurry of followers, and then I'm not quite sure what it's doing now.
Melanie
Anyway, I've taken a lot of the questions here.
Esther
I was just thinking about a lot of people who go live, like you said, are selling stuff. So there is the option to sell directly inside TikTok, even if you have, say, an Etsy shop or a web shop somewhere else. But can you mention your other platforms freely on TikTok and say, come follow me over on Instagram where you'll get the free download, or come follow me on my MetaSuite or business page? Or do they censor that? Not censor, but you know what I mean? Do they frown upon those things?
Penny
Yeah, I think platforms generally don't like you promoting other platforms. However, when you go on TikTok profiles, you'll see that you can link up on your profile page, on your bio, your Instagram and your YouTube. So it's already giving access to that. So in terms of calls to action, it would be easier to send people to Instagram, for example, if that's where you're established because the button's already there, so it's a click away. I say generally in terms of video, say what you have to say in the video. Don't write it in the caption video description or in the comments. Just leave it in the video itself. So use text overlay or say it out loud. That's the best thing to do. In lives, I have seen people with placards that they just put up that might say Instagram or whatever else. Yeah, it's tricky, but I think generally I just say do it until someone stops you. Well, the thing is, because there are no clear rules, are there? You live and learn a little bit, but those are the things that I've learnt so far, so that's what I stick to.
Esther
You mentioned there about the potential TikTok ban. Is all of that sorted, settled? Are they still…
Penny
I don't know. I know that TikTok shopping has been banned perhaps in Indonesia. So there is clearly a lot of resistance to TikTok. But I think when you're in your business owner lane, it's a very different experience and it's incredibly powerful tool. I do think a lot of policy-makers perhaps don't always understand the value, they just see the dark side. But I think there's a dark side to every platform, and in terms of the benefits to your business, it's amazing. We all have to bear in mind that we may lose access to it. That's why it's important to push people to your email list, etcetera, so that you have that off-platform audience as well.
Esther
Yeah. What about monetisation?
Penny
Right on TikTok, there's lots of ways you can monetise. When you get to 10,000 followers, you can join the creator marketplace and you can be connected with businesses that might want you to make videos for them, or there's ways that you can be paid to... If you have over 100,000 views a month, you can be paid for that, but it is peanuts. Some people are doing well being TikTok shop affiliates, so they have a TikTok affiliate shop so that they can sell other people's products and videos and bring the link up and lives on their videos, and then they'll make maybe up to 10% per product. That can be really good. If you're the right person for the right audience, you can do very well with that. There's other ways you can make money. You could have a series. Maybe you're a gym instructor, PT, or an artist, or anything really. You can sell a series, say people can buy the series for like 4.99. There's some price brackets that go up to about 30 pounds or maybe possibly more. I wouldn't say I've seen that particularly take off, but it's all stuff that's worth experimenting with, but I would... From what I see, the way to make money on TikTok is to get people onto your email list so that you can sell them your offers. I think that is the strongest way of doing it. The rest is a bit of money here and there, which is nice to have unless you're a very good creator and you're working with brands and then you're taking a different direction because you're more of a creator than a business owner at that point. But there is money to be made there, if that's something you feel good at.
Melanie
Going into the creative aspect of things, I find I'm attracted to more really useful nuggets, how to best use this tool or understand AI or that thing, or when it's vulnerable stories. Do you think the educate and the vulnerable stories are the best way, or is it humour that's still working best, or does it really depend?
Penny
Yeah, it does depend. You're absolutely right. I've seen that as well. The vulnerable stories do well. There's a lot of menopause talk, there is a lot of grief talk. I know a lot of people just... Or even business stories that have not been easy. I started here and maybe it's a celebration now, but I think what does work really well on TikTok is rather sharing the story as you go. That seems to be a very popular way. It's not, I'm the expert, but it's like, What am I learning as I go that you can learn from me who might be a step ahead of you here. That's great. Educational stuff. I think when you see really niche accounts that are just like... Someone I know has a CanvaTips account and it's just... She's brilliant at making videos, but it just did incredibly well straight from the start because it was just one niche thing that people would like to know, business owners would like to know. It's really helpful. You know exactly what you're getting. It doesn't deviate at all. That does do really well. Just good, solid, how can my work-life be easier? What tools could I be using? How can I simplify it? They do well.
Melanie
Yeah, that's one thing that myself and Esther have never really mastered, the old niching lark.
Penny
You don't have to. You don't have to. It's just one approach. It's one approach that works.
Melanie
Now, what I wanted to ask is, I know that TikTok doesn't like you sharing their videos onto other platforms. So when it comes to, because obviously they brand the video, so you try and move it over to Instagram Reels, you can see it's obviously a TikTok. So is it best to create everything individually in each platform? Or would you ideally, if you're going to pre-record a video, record it on your phone and then upload it as a fresh video to each platform?
Penny
Yeah, I think there's a few ways that, firstly, I'd say that TikTok does like you sharing its videos to other platforms. It's the other platforms that don't like the incoming videos from TikTok, but you can actually share directly to Instagram stories. But if you... I know when you have a video with a watermark on Instagram reels, for example, with the ending, it's like you could have just chopped that bit off when you uploaded it. There's ways to make it a bit better. It's not great to have the watermark there. As of recently in the UK—I don't know how many regions it's gone out to now, you can just download a copy of your video as you create it in TikTok before you publish it, so you have a clean copy on your phone without the watermarks. That's quite handy. However, I do think it takes a bit of metadata with it. Instagram does know it was made on TikTok, and it's a bit like I don't think Meta loves that too much. Some are like YouTube I don't think has. I think there's different videos you'll make. There'll be videos you put a lot more effort into your evergreen videos that you hope are going to work well for a long time and always be relevant. Consider making them an in-shot or just off-platform. You could make one cat cut, but again, cat cut is owned by TikTok, so I think in short, it seems like quite a neutral territory for video making. Just keep a nice clean copy on your phone and you can put it wherever you want. On TikTok, you do things like the photo mode, the carousels we spoke, but you're only ever going to do them on TikTok. You're not going to do those somewhere else. If you have the images, you could take them off and upload them somewhere else, but it's never the same feel. The same with trends, the things on TikTok that would make no sense on any other platform, that you're just joining in for a bit of fun. That's where the humour you're asking about before I think comes in because it's opportunities to show off your business personality or relatable funny things that happen in your business. Sometimes trends are a great way just to talk about that without it being a big video. You might make those quickly, but anything you've put time and effort into editing, I would say try. I'd probably do it off-platform unless you're very quick.
Esther
Yeah, no, I'm not quick at editing these things, but you mentioned trends. Obviously, not all trends would suit all businesses, and not all businesses would suit all trends. But are there any that you would think everyone should jump on X, Y, Z trend?
Penny
I mean, not really. I think it's in the timing. So trends are trends, broadly speaking, when they're between 8,000 and 12,000 views, otherwise they're a pre-trend or a post-trend and not a trend anymore, just because either no one knows it yet, so it doesn't have the traction, or it's a bit old and everyone's seen it a lot, so it's not that interesting anymore. However, sorry, trends, there are heritage trends as well, things like... Do you remember? Money don't jiggle, jiggle, that one. You can get the one, I mean. You could do that tomorrow, and it would still have the appeal it had in the first place because everyone feeling tired of that trend has passed, but still the love of it in the first place is still there. So you can use old trends again, and in fact, I do sometimes. I think that's quite nice because it's just a TikTok essence. Friends that come round, you don't have to do them. I think I try, and I've got an Instagram broadcast channel where I try and just put in trends as I spot them that I think would work well for businesses. There was one of just typing and making comments that was around this week. It wasn't a huge trend, but quite a nice one to jump on. Something that you can definitely adapt. It would be like writing to people who book meetings after 5:00 PM or something like that, rants. I recommend that people just... As funny things happen in your business or people, family members or friends say things to you like misconceptions about what you do that can be quite funny or even client say things to you, just write them down in your phone somewhere so that when the trend comes round, you can actually look through the list and see if you can adapt some of those things to it, because otherwise it's not always easy to jump on it quickly with a marvellous idea.
Melanie
We've talked trends, we've talked different types of posts, we've talked how to engage people through those posts, and I do know that it depends again, but is there a rule of thumb that you must do one TikTok a day as a minimum or one TikTok a week or one TikTok a month, or just to keep the platform going?
Penny
I think the problem I see with businesses is that they add on TikTok to what they're doing already and don't actually create space to take it seriously and really have a good crack at it. That tends to make you fizzle out quite quickly because it's like, I'm not seeing the results, so I'm not going to keep doing it. But actually, you do need a little bit of momentum to get eyes on in the first place. And if you've set yourself objectives, for example, to reach 1,000 followers, then you need to do what you can to get there. You need a sustainable rhythm in your business. But as we touched on before, you can have some very brief posts. You can do a text post, you can do a photo post, you can do those cat cut photo selections. None of them take too much time. I would say try and post three to four times a week if you can, of which one of the videos is really good, evergreen value. The others might be short tips, and one of them might be a trend, for example. If you really want to grow, I think you need to post 2-3 times a day for a period of time. Say, like for two weeks, you go, Okay, I've got two weeks in my business. I'm going to post as much as I can. It doesn't have to be big videos. I'm not saying really big, edited videos. It could just be you on a green screen in front of a headline and you're just making a couple of comments about something that's happening in your industry, for example. But that's like you're then going to flood the algorithm with you and you keep front of mind for businesses and people will start recognising you quite quickly when you're commenting, engaging, and posting a lot. So it does give your business a thudge towards that objective. Or if you had a launch coming up or something that was happening that was quite big for your business, you might want to try that approach, just make some space in your business to be able to do that here and there just to get a bit of extra momentum.
Melanie
Okay.
Esther
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Penny, for joining us today and with answering all our questions, I can't guarantee I'll be making TikToks, but I'll certainly be looking out for all of yours now. So where can we go on to TikTok and find you?
Penny
Yeah, so you can find me on TikTok at Barbrusa Social that you might need to write in the show notes because it's not very straightforward, barbrusa_social. And anyone who's listening, who has questions about TikTok, you can just ask me in a video and then I can make a video reply to your questions, or you can jump into my Instagram DMs. It's the same handle on Instagram as well. But I'm always happy to chat TikTok a favourite subject.
Esther
Brilliant. Thanks again for joining us today. And if you do have any questions for Penny, do reach out to her. And we'll be back next week with more Monday Morning Marketing. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye.
Penny
Bye. Thank you so much.
Melanie
So this is another platform you're not going to do, right?
Esther
Yeah, I like consuming it. Just, don't not make me-.
Penny
Can I take your photo, ladies? Is it all right to take a photo to put on my story?
Melanie
I'm at last.
Esther
Should I move the mic?
