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Demistifying TikTok · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Thanks to today's podcast sponsor, Amazon.
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  Amazon knows small businesses have many options when deciding how and where to sell their
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  products.
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  Amazon works hard to be the best partner to help drive their success, like investing over
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  $30,000,000,000 in logistics tools, and programs to foster their growth.
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  Because when small businesses thrive, customers benefit from the products and services they
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  offer.
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  Everybody's goal on TikTok is to go viral.
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  But, listen, if you go viral, for doing something stupid, that's not going to grow your
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  business.
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  So you really have to figure out how you can engage people and get them off a TikTok onto an
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  email list.
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  Cause that's at the end of the day, social media is great, but if I don't have your
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  contact information, I don't have anything.
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  Oops off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Everson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, America's number one small business expert, and
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  I'm excited to welcome you to another episode of the small biz chat podcast.
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  Today's podcast, we're gonna talk about demystifying TikTok.
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  Now I have to admit to you guys Back in the middle of the pandemic, I was one of those
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  people rolling my eyes thinking that TikTok was stupid.
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  But I thought it was just people dancing with the music with their kids and couple of people
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  I saw, you know, twerking for business, and I thought, yeah, no.
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  But what I have realized in, the last 6 months or so is that TikTok is a thing, and that
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  honestly, short form video is the future of marketing.
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  And it really does need to be taken seriously I know it seems like, you know, teaching people
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  something in 15 seconds.
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  It seems like, how could you even do that?
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  But, actually, you can do it.
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  Because think about how people sell us things, you know, TV commercials are 30 seconds.
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  They've been selling us things in 30 second increments for years and on TikTok and on other
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  social media channels.
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  It's 5 seconds.
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  It's 10 seconds.
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  So you can share quality information in 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds.
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  And so I want you all to think about, are there some micro lessons that you could create that
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  would be of value to a target audience that you could find on TikTok because I know that we all
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  that it was just people, you know, kind of 24 and under on TikTok, but that's not true.
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  There's a whole thing called TikTok University out here.
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  And I have recently dived in there.
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  My handle on TikTok is the small business lady for all of you who might wanna go out there and
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  follow me, I would very much appreciate it.
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  But I really want you to know that I feel like my business has taken on a whole new generation
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  of of potential customers since I started using TikTok.
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  In fact, we looked at our analytics the other day is we did our sort of like end of the year
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  roundup and realized that my audience on my blog succeed as your own boss.
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  Right now, 75% of that audience is 18 to 44.
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  And that is much younger than my audience used to be.
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  And I know that has to do with how much video content we've been putting out there on
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  Instagram rails and TikTok, but it really started was trying to build a platform with for
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  video.
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  And I, obviously, I came out of video.
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  I'm a former television producer, but I gotta be honest with you guys.
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  I was a little bit intimidated when I first saw TikTok, when I first saw how people were using
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  TikTok, And I thought, oh my gosh, do I have to dance?
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  And what I now know is no.
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  You don't have to dance every now and then you could do something fun to show your
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  personality, but you don't have to torque for a business.
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  But if you are going to dive into using TikTok, I did wanna give you some little tips that were
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  really helpful to me.
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  And, number 1, on TikTok, you wanna use hashtags that are how your target customers
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  describe themselves.
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  So instead of describing, you know, like, I realized on, like, on Instagram, for example, I
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  was put small biz lady, women in business.
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  You know, those are some of the hashtags that I use.
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  But on TikTok, you might look for girl boss, micro influencer, entrepreneurs, single mom,
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  you want to use hashtags that how people are already describing themselves rather than,
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  like, inventing a new TikTok hashtag or something like that.
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  You also wanna think about how you can create a TikTok marketing ecosystem.
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  And well, some people that I have seen be really, really successful in TikTok They start
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  with a 10 things list.
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  What are the 10 things that people need to know about your industry that you could share in 15
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  to 30 seconds?
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  And make a list of those.
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  And then maybe you make longer form videos on another platform like YouTube and link it back.
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  Now the thing about TikTok is really interesting is that you can put your link in
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  your bio until you get a 1000 followers.
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  And let me tell you something.
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  That is not easy to do.
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  You definitely I mean, it's funny.
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  It reminded me of the early days of Twitter, how hard it was to get a 1000 followers on
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  TikTok.
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  But you have to do TikTok every day, one post a day, and do it in a very concentrated way so
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  that you the algorithm learns about you and and people see you and love on your content and
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  follow you.
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  So that is really what it takes.
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  You gotta post every day.
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  The other thing you gotta do on TikTok, if you're gonna use TikTok, is you have to pay
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  attention to trending sounds.
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  You really can get a lot of traction if you do a video based on a trending sound because
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  everybody's listening to that sound or everybody's listening to that song, So you can
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  get in the herd of people doing that, and that's somehow sometimes how your stuff can go
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  viral.
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  But let's just talk about going viral for a second because I realized that everybody's goal
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  on TikTok is to go viral.
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  But, listen, if you go viral for doing something stupid, that's not going to grow your
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  business.
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  Right?
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  So if you go viral for being half naked or a twerk it or something like that, That's cool,
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  but that's not really going to grow your business.
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  So you really have to figure out how you can engage people and get them off a TikTok onto an
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  email list.
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  Cause that's at the end of the day, social media is great, but if I don't have your
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  contact information, I don't have anything.
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  So you want to make sure that you're driving people to your landing pages, to your offers,
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  to your lead magnets so that you can get their email address.
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  So every video that you shoot that you record should have a call to action, and it should be
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  follow for more.
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  Like, that's a super easy you know, you don't necessarily wanna be direct pitching on TTEC
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  because I don't sometimes that works, but not often.
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  So you might wanna be, like, follow for more build that rapport, and then do an offer video.
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  But you really wanna spend some time building that trust, being authentic, getting people to
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  know you, and then you can build offers that are specific inside TikTok.
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  But you definitely wanna make sure that you understand the culture.
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  One of the things I love about TikTok is that you can share TikTok on other platforms.
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  Now some platforms frown upon the watermark with the TikTok watermark being on your video,
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  but I see plenty of TikTok videos trending on other platforms.
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  From Facebook to Instagram and other places.
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  So one of the things that I do for my TikTok videos is I actually record them in my phone,
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  native to my phone, and then I upload them to TikTok.
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  I upload them to Instagram.
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  I upload them to YouTube shorts.
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  I don't record anything inside their their specific platforms because it just doesn't give
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  us the flexibility to move the content around and Certainly, if you're recording TikTok
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  videos, I would absolutely post some other places, whether it was LinkedIn, Instagram
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  Reels, or, YouTube shorts or even on Twitter.
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  So make sure that you are repurposing your content.
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  I might not post everything the same day, but I definitely would repurpose the video on
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  different platforms because at the end of the day, You don't need to make offers directly on
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  social.
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  You just need to drop hints so that you can drive people to your email list with a freebie.
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  And that is really how things work over on TikTok.
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  I really was dragged kicking and screaming to TikTok by my team.
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  But I'm so glad I did it.
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  I actually enjoy it.
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  So here is somebody who is a generation expert telling you that TikTok is cool and you might
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  wanna check it out because you probably can grow your business.
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  Right?
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lane, and you have been listening to the small bizchef
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  podcast.
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  Till next time.
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  God bless.
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  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcast and join us next Wednesday.