Episode 103: Samantha E Cutler
Sam’s Thought On Why Creators & Brands Need To Be Building Up Their TikTok
This week Sam is celebrating her fifth year as a creator and how in one short month of focusing on TikTok, it has now surpassed her Instagram community that she’s been building for the past 7 years! Sam goes deep into the details from a creator perspective and brand perspective of how to get your content shown to the right people and how to increase your following on Tik Tok.
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Podcast Script
[00:00:00] Monetize your passion for wellbeing like a job you love every single day. Find a happy life from a healthy lifestyle. What's up guys. This is Spin, Skin and Other Addictions, a podcast by me, Samantha E Cutler of The Fit Fatale. Each week I'm going to take you deeper into the world of wellness with entrepreneurs who are building brands designed to better your life.
[00:00:27] So you'll be hearing from fitness gurus, medical specialists, and influencers in the world of fitness, health, beauty, and nutrition. I hope you guys love it. Let's get down.
Sam: Quantity over quality actually is what's succeeding right now. So creators are seeing a rapid growth that are not just from one viral video, but putting out like three to five pieces of content a day, which is insane. And you hear that. You're probably thinking, holy crap, that's overwhelming. And I did too when I first started, but there is like a way to get into a rhythm
Sam: Hey guys what's up. Um, this episode is a little different than what I normally do. It is a solo episode, which I've been doing more and more of, but what's pretty cool. Is that, um, This episode is actually like about business and my business in particular, I interview so many different founders, but this [00:01:00] week we've had some crazy milestones and I've been thinking about what I want to talk to you guys about, and this just sort of flew out of me.
[00:01:07] So this episode is all about Tik Tok marketing and Tik Tok versus Instagram. It's also celebrating the fact that it has officially been five years this week that I have been self-employed, which is crazy. If you guys know, I started The Fit Fatale seven years ago, for two of those years, I was working full-time at a corporate job. 60 to 80 hour work weeks, um, doing events and marketing, working with some of the largest brands globally, which was really freaking cool. I did love my job, but I got really burnt out and ultimately it wasn't serving me for what I needed my body. And I was working for someone else and not making a lot of money, which I explained on this video that I posted on Tik Tok and Instagram.
[00:01:52] Kind of celebrating those five years. So it's been a crazy week celebrating that. And then what else happened this week? [00:02:00] Was that my Tik Tok following and community, you guys surpassed my community on Instagram, which to me is just wild because I started Instagram seven years ago. It wasn't really a thing to be an influencer.
[00:02:15] It just sort of organically happened. Um, I read this article this morning about the like unhinged days of Instagram that was on refinery 29. I thought it was pretty cool. It was like when we used to post photos of, you know, our half consumed latte or something silly with a stupid caption and we just really didn't care and we had our sepia filters thriving.
[00:02:37] Um, but yeah, I started back then and then it turned into what it is now, but it took seven years to build my community to where it is now at about 36,000 followers on Instagram, which is not huge. Obviously I'm a micro creator. Um, but a lot of those people have been with me and that community has been with me for the past, you know, at least like three years [00:03:00] or and so forth. Because growth on Instagram has been so limited and has become less about organic growth and more about sponsor growth and boosting your content, et cetera. And that's obviously been like a major shift in the past few years, but today we surpassed our following on Tik Tok in a few short months, which is kind of crazy.
[00:03:23] So this episode is all about Tik Tok versus Instagram and it's not that one or the other is bad, but it's mostly about the difference between the two. And this episode is particularly for brands or creators. Um, from a creator's perspective, I have a lot of insight. I have coached a lot of creators through the process of building their Instagrams.
[00:03:46] And of course you guys know I'm also the co-founder of Cloutdesk with Trevor, which is a platform for creators and brands also to manage their contracts and invoicing with creators. So, um, you know, if you're a creator, a brand, check it out. Definitely. But I [00:04:00] have a lot of insight from both perspectives. So I'm really excited to share this with you guys.
[00:04:04] And I hope it's helpful if you have questions, DM me, if you want to follow up episode on like growth tools or different things, I'd be happy to share that, but yeah, huge week over here. And I'm so excited to share this episode.
[00:04:17] Since I started The Fit Fatale, and I just can't believe it's officially been five years that I have been doing this full time. I left my corporate job and I've actually been able to survive. Um, I keep saying that because I think it's crazy when I left, I remember thinking, how will I pay rent? How will I buy food? And I had some savings, but I just really didn't know because it's the unknown. When you quit your job and try to build your own thing, no matter what industry you're in, especially in such a volatile industry at the time as a creator space five years ago.
[00:04:50] Um, so yeah, I like just kind of pat myself on the back for that, but one of the biggest learning pieces that I want to talk about today and [00:05:00] pretty much why I'm doing this podcast is that. There's so much, you learn as being an early adapter to a platform like I was with Instagram. So obviously as an early adopter, you take on a lot of risks, investing a lot of time and effort into a platform that ultimately might not succeed.
[00:05:17] You don't know how the founders or of that platform will continue and how they'll choose to build their algorithm or sell the platform, et cetera. But you take a lot of risk investing a lot of time. Cause we all sort of remember what happened with clubhouse in the phase of winter 2021. I feel like a lot of people jumped on board invested so much time into it.
[00:05:38] And now I couldn't tell you what's going on with the platform. I don't hear anyone really on it much. Um, I personally left the platform because I felt that it was creating a lot of anxiety for me because you'd jump into these conversations where you didn't really necessarily know, like who was sharing what, anyway, we remember things like that and people that invested tons of time and growth into it, but then [00:06:00] ultimately you don't really reap the reward, but then after a few years with a platform, you usually kind of see how it's going to evolve and grow and mature on the resources.
[00:06:09] Just like to simply they can't be just to entertain. They really have to evolve into education. And that's what we've seen with Tik Tok over the past few. Of course during the pandemic, we've just seen this exponential growth and evolution of the platform. So I'm just excited to talk about it more today.
[00:06:27] Um, and Tik Tok started as what was once like a fun singing and dancing platform. This app that we could kind of find entertainment on. And I think a lot of creators that were creating educational content didn't know where they fell into. But ultimately the platform evolved into this educational tool, which I love because now we're seeing, you know, information and entrepreneurs and, brands and people really push educational, helpful tools.
[00:06:58] And if we think about it, I mean, [00:07:00] this is why we turned to Instagram. It was, it was because we wanted to learn how to live someone else's life, ultimately. Right, in what way? So seven years ago, it was really hard for me to get brands, to understand why they need to have a presence on Instagram. It felt like it was just a platform where people were sharing their personal lives.
[00:07:19] They didn't get it. They were just photos. There was no relevance or reason for like why investing in a creator and why their product needed to be featured by creators. And what value did it really being right? And then back in 2015, Instagram was no longer a new platform. Like that's when I started and in my eyes like 2012, it was pretty early, but 2015, it was when we saw growth happening.
[00:07:43] And some of the bigger creators were starting to, you know, build a foundation on their and move off of their blogs at the time. And I really think there's a parallel with where tech talk is right now. Um, I think, you know, In the early days, two years ago, [00:08:00] three years ago, it was a little bit different, but now we're seeing it starting to get more established, but it still means that the creators on the platform are still early adopters.
[00:08:08] So it wasn't really a new platform anymore. When I started to build my community on there, right? Like it had been three years since Facebook had purchased it. And we were really seeing like brands and creators starting to make a lot of money off the platform from the brands that were early adopters and we're investing in it so fast forward three years, every single brand was starting to scramble to try to build an Instagram presence.
[00:08:32] Some of which it took a few years to adopt. Um, to the influencer concept and actually started to pay creators, which we still see as a big issue, obviously, for making the content, but it would otherwise cost them thousands of dollars to make it. And for some reason that like light bulb took a really long time to go off.
[00:08:49] So as a tech founder with a creator platform, I saw the same thing happened with creators, right. Those established early. We're able to thrive and make money as their community and voice was already established and had a [00:09:00] foundation. And over the past two years during the pandemic, anyone and everyone has all of a sudden decided they want to be on social media and have a social media following.
[00:09:09] And so in short it's probably because of Instagram's limit on organic reach that has created the success of other platforms. Like Tik Tok because newer creators over the past two years that have been reaching and trying to get on social platforms, really haven't been able to grow on Instagram.
[00:09:28] You know, we've seen some, maybe 5,000, maybe 10,000. You know, a few creators that have, have built, but it's not what it was five years ago. You don't have that ability to have exponential growth overnight because of a viral video or a post that everyone sees our brand repost it and that's what it used for.
[00:09:46] Um, but I honestly think because of Instagram kind of shooting themselves in the foot a bit, Tik Tok has been able to, to thrive. And that's, you know, that's the natural evolution of business and of platforms. And because of [00:10:00] it, they've been limiting new brands and creators to build their audience.
[00:10:03] So they have to find somewhere that they can, you know, establish themselves. And we know that an online presence is pretty much inevitable now. It's something that we have to have. So if we look at that same pattern and reflect back on how Tik Tok is evolving, we can literally clearly see the parallels. We know that like early adapters, who are creators, who get on a platform early, whether it was just dancing or creating funny videos, they're going to lead the way for how that platform evolves. But then these established creators of course, came on the platform and said, well, I'm just going to start sharing value. Like what, what will happen if I do that? And I think Tik Tok is really took advantage of that and started promoting educational Tik Tok. I've talked about this with so many of the creators that I speak to the hashtag learn on Tik Tok was started by Tik Tok.
[00:10:55] So it was about promoting creators that, teaching [00:11:00] five ways to do this, or here's how to do that. It doesn't need to be health stuff. Of course, that's what I share. But it doesn't have to be health, you know, renovating your home, becoming an entrepreneur, how to invest your money, like really everything. And Tik Tok's been promoting that.
[00:11:14] And that's really, what's allowing the platform to mature. However, here's the catch like Instagram seven years ago, we were still seeing creators and brands have a lot of resistance to a new platform. Right? So as a creator spending most of my day right now, to be honest, focused on this platform, I still continue to make most of my money off of Instagram.
[00:11:35] And look, I completely understand. And I see the overriding value, two pieces of content, like photo, because it can be used in out of home, email or, you know, on websites, social ads on platform. So brands still need that photo content. Don't get me wrong. There's so much value to it. Like short-term video, although it's so efficient and digestible, of course it's less versatile to a brand. [00:12:00] So I get that. But I also see that as an early adopter to a platform, you have the ability to grow early, but you also have to take the risk that comes with that. So like an early platform, and I know this in the tech space, you're going to have way more bugs and issues that pop up.
[00:12:15] And you also have the issue that you have to convince the brands and community a little bit, and you have to be a leader in that space. Not everyone wants to be, but it becomes part of your role as an early adopter, but you reap the benefits long-term. So the past two weeks you guys may have seen on my Instagram stories, I've been talking about my content getting flagged for like illegal content. If I'm wearing anything, even remotely close to my skin tone, their AI that's built in within Tik Tok that obviously, you know, limits reach of actual illegal content or nudity or violence or, you know, um, illegal substance, et cetera, was sort of flagging some of my content.
[00:12:55] Cause I wear it a lot colors like in active wear, bikinis or et [00:13:00] cetera, that are very similar to my skin tone and I find that often gets flagged. That's just an example of like an early bug. Their AI system will get better. Right? I have to live with that annoying thing that happens every so often. But at the end of the day, I'm still going read the rewards of being an early adopter because I'm taking that risk and I'm going to build my community. So in five years from now, when everyone's going, "Hey, I want to be on Tik Tok" or hopefully in three years from now and every brand and everyone's sort of reaching and scrambling for this I'll already have built that like foundation of my community on there.
[00:13:35] So that's sort of some of the pain you got as being an early adopter, but of course there's so much reward. And what I'm trying to say is that looking at platforms like there's not so much risk investing your time and Tik Tok anymore.
[00:13:47] Very little risk. Um, but two years ago, I understand why it was potentially risky. Like we've seen these other platforms not succeed. I totally get that. But you have to take those risks to see the reward, [00:14:00] think of it like your investment portfolio, right? Like if you have more time or more money or more resources, obviously it becomes less risky.
[00:14:09] But I think that there's importance to figuring out what feels right to me and what can I adopt early on. So what does that look like?
[00:14:18] Okay. I would just want to talk about this a bit from a creator's perspective, as well as from a brands, but I want to start with what it looks like as a creator, obviously, because that's what I know best and what I've, you know, heavily experimented in.
[00:14:29] But it's also what I coach a lot of our users on clout desk and a lot of my friends in the space on daily. So I think I'll just start with. As a creator on tech talk right now, there's a few key things that you need to know. And I want to share these nuggets of information with you because I want to help brands and creators continue to get on Tik Tok and continue to build their presence there and mature the platform because we're seeing it right now happen.
[00:14:56] And I'm just so riled up and excited about this. So [00:15:00] hopefully this is helpful to you as a creator. Um, so there's a few key things that I think you should know. The first is that quantity over quality actually is what's succeeding right now. So creators are seeing a rapid growth that are not just from one viral video, but putting out like three to five pieces of content a day, which is insane. And you hear that. You're probably thinking, holy crap, that's overwhelming. And I did too when I first started, but there is like a way to get into a rhythm that you actually can find how to post and put things up that often. We also sort of in that process, what we fear about that is what we've learned from Instagram, which is curated content, you know, posting once every day or two don't post too much, you'll lose your audience.
[00:15:50] It's a very different approach because the more you post as a creator on Tik Tok the more eyeballs you get, because that content goes in the, for you page. And I'm going to talk about [00:16:00] the, for you page a little later when we talk about brands, but the, for you page is like people who aren't following you. So the more you post videos, the more it's showing up for people and the more it's showing up for people, the more that can discover your page.
[00:16:16] And so I think that's like a really important in understanding the growth. Obviously, after you grow a little bit, you can kind of ease down post a little bit with. And I think you also have to figure out what works with your lifestyle. I don't want to be the person here promoting extreme, like, you know, non-sustainable hustle culture.
[00:16:34] I think it's important for us to remember the 80, 20 rule in everything. I talk about this a lot in health, but I apply the 80 20 rule to pretty much everything in my life. So if you think about it, for me, that means like 80% of the time you're doing everything. That's right. And 20% of the time you're doing what feels right for you, that's sort of how I explain it.
[00:16:53] So, if you apply this to Tik Tok business, I try to post two to four times a day, Monday to Friday. Cause those [00:17:00] are my work days and that's what I do for a living. And then on weekends, if I post once or twice, I'm happy. And if I post not at all, I don't care because you know, that's just being sustainable for me.
[00:17:13] Long-term I can focus okay it's a weekday. I know. Need to be putting out quite a bit of. Um, I will say that on the weekends, I see way less growth, unless my videos are growing from throughout the week. I usually see very few followers because I'm not promoting, um, and pushing out new content. So I know that that works. Like if we just look at that as a test to it.
[00:17:36] The other thing that I think is so important to remember as a creator on Tik Tok is that unlike Instagram one video will not carry you. So when you begin, it's super important to be pumping out a lot of content, as I said, because if you have one viral video and a bunch of people fall on your page, but then when they get there, you only have two videos in total. Why would anyone really follow your account? Because you barely post. And so they [00:18:00] don't expect to get a lot of content like that. They might like that video. They might save it.
[00:18:05] They might, um, consume it again, but they might not necessarily come back to your page.
[00:18:11] The same also goes for finding your niche. So here's an example. If you have a viral video, this has happened to me early on when I was starting on the platform. And if you have a viral video, that's about dogs, let's just say, okay, so a funny video about your dog that comes out and you know, it gets a million eyeballs and you're like, great, amazing.
[00:18:33] I'm going to wake up. I'm going to be famous on Tik Tok tomorrow. This is great. Those people go to your page and your videos are not about dogs. Like chances are it. Tik Tok has been showing this to people who love dogs or find dog videos funny, or have dog accounts. And that's part of their interest.
[00:18:51] They could be from anywhere in the world. They could be any sex or race, et cetera. And then they fall onto your page. And your page is [00:19:00] only about, um, you know, hair tools and hair products. Well, someone who doesn't enjoy that type of content or doesn't meet that, or doesn't want to consume that is not going to follow you.
[00:19:12] So I think it's really important to have all of your content fall under one type of niche so that when your videos do get eyeballs and do go viral, you're going to be collecting the audience that actually likes to consume the type of content you have. Um, when I first started, I was posting general lifestyle because I thought that was would work because I was doing that on Instagram and people on Instagram were following me. They wanted to see my house. They want to see my relationship with Trevor. They want to see what I eat, how I work out, but also what I'm wearing out to dinner. What, you know, I bought at the store that week, all those different things and components of my lifestyle, but the people on Tik Tok that are discovering your videos don't know you.
[00:19:56] So keep that in mind, right? You're building more of a [00:20:00] brand positioning versus a lifestyle creator. You want to get really niche. And I saw that shift when I refocused and I will talk about that a little bit later as well. Um, but basically over the past month, I focused my content to be only niche in the health space.
[00:20:20] So talking about nutrition, fitness mindset, et cetera, but only that not sharing what I'm wearing that night, not sharing, you know, beyond that scope. And my following has doubled and has now surpassed what took seven years to build on Instagram in literally two months. So two months of really hard work posting multiple times a day, obviously dealing with the growing pains of a new platform, getting flagged for illegal content, like silly things, because their AI hasn't evolved enough.
[00:20:49] Sure. But that's part of the investment that I've made and being a leader in the health space on this new platform now. In years from now that we'll be paying off. So I hope this [00:21:00] encourages you to kind of get there. So if you're a creator listening, my advice is to start today. So choose a niche, pump out multiple pieces of content and like anything else, find your hacks, right?
[00:21:12] You don't need to be spending all day making those two to three videos, but you should be figuring out a way that makes it easier for you like a recipe that works for you. Should get the amount of content that you need out. So for me, sometimes that's what I eat in a day. I always sort of film what I eat in a day.
[00:21:28] If I didn't put out enough videos, I know I have that. I can go back to it and share like, Hey guys, here's what I ate because people love to see it. And then also have a variety of all these different days. It's not just like the healthy day or, or the best day or the worst day. Um, so that's sort of a recipe that works for me.
[00:21:43] So think about what could work for you in your niche. Okay.
[00:21:49] There's so much more to talk about as a creator on the platform and tools and growth tools and hacks, but that might need to be for another episode. Now, I want to talk a bit about [00:22:00] the platform from a brand's perspective, but if you are a creator, I would encourage you to still listen, because this is extremely important in the evolution of the platform and ultimately how your clients are going to respond to you, reaching out about it, but also how they're going to respond to this new platform that you're growing on.
[00:22:17] So today we're seeing a lot of younger, less established brands find their presence on Tik Tok, which is pretty cool. And I think the reason for this is because, well in part because the brands are created by gen Z and gen Z loves Tik Tok.. We know that they're created by younger founders, but in part, I also think that it's been so hard for a newer brand to get established, like something that's been created over the pandemic to have the ability to get established and get eyeballs and grow on platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
[00:22:51] Without investing thousands and thousands of dollars, which if you're a newer brand and you're just starting, you probably don't necessarily have. Um, so every day I'm getting like [00:23:00] 10 to 20 emails from brands. Some of which don't have any budget, or were really smaller wanting to gift or whatever.
[00:23:05] You'll always have that as a creator, but they're looking to get into Tik Tok. And I think a lot of those brands, like I said, are younger or newer. They just started, they're created by younger people. And they, they know that there's very little, they can do or invest into Instagram right now to grow.
[00:23:25] Now, if any of the partners or brands that I work with agencies, et cetera, or listening to this, I honestly would encourage listening to this next part, or even sending it to the brands that you work with because they think it's extremely important with this exponential growth. I of course, have gone to my clients and said, Hey.
[00:23:42] You know, this is a new platform I'm working on, we're investing a lot of time in it. We've seen so much growth. It's an incredible opportunity for you to take advantage of this marketplace before it becomes too saturated. And to actually be a leader in that space rather than two to three years from now scrambling to find and, [00:24:00] and build a presence on this platform.
[00:24:02] But what's interesting about Tik Tok, in my opinion, is that brands actually don't necessarily need to be having their own crazy strong presence. So if they have the time and ability to do so, I think that there's a way that brands can do that really well if they have the resources. But I want to just talk about that after, and first I want to talk about if they don't necessarily have the ability to, um, so if you're a brand and you're not ready to do this, What is it Tik Tok presence or a Tik Tok account.
[00:24:32] You should still be having creators posting and sharing about your product on the platform to begin building that awareness. And what I love about Tik Tok is it's way more focused on the hashtags and how they drive community to, um, similarities versus the way Instagram does. So Tik Tok really is like focused on showing if you're hashtagging, like gluten-free [00:25:00] pasta and your a gluten-free pasta, and you want people to discover, like we made the best gluten-free pasta. We use, you know, chick pea flour. You need to try it, et cetera. You can find your exact audience. And there's just so much benefit to getting on there, regardless of your presence.
[00:25:15] And creators can be using those hashtags and really getting the right audience to your videos that they're making. But the other reason is that unlike Instagram, it's less focused on tags, right? So on Instagram, it's all about, uh, mentioned in the caption, which has the brand like tag to get to it and then a tag on the photo and you see it right away.
[00:25:37] We usually look at like, what's on the, what's tagged in the photo, what's in the caption, et cetera, to get more follows. And then people end up on their page. Right? But then on Tik Tok, What's different is that the captions are super small. They're really short, often focused on like the hashtags.
[00:25:54] It's more about the audio and the visual that you're seeing and consuming from that short form video. [00:26:00] And so as a creator, if I'm showing you the pasta and I'm making the pasta, like it's super digestible, it's easy to find. I would say it's also a negative to the creator because I can't put as many links.
[00:26:11] Um, and I can't drive people to purchase as much, and I don't have those links, but you're getting so many eyeballs and exactly to your audience. A lot of brands may say like, okay, they can't track the success as well. I think we've all learned over the past few years that obviously affiliates and codes.
[00:26:32] Uh, nice to have for tracking, but there's so many other people that purchase products beyond that, um, and brand awareness and that go to the grocery store and then find that product and walk away with it beyond just like going to, like, I'm probably not going to go to the website and purchase it. Um, if it's like a gluten-free pasta that also is available at whole foods, I'm going to buy it when I go to whole foods and do my groceries.
[00:26:56] So I think that's the difference, but it's also on the creator [00:27:00] too. Like it's their responsibility to integrate the product organically into their lifestyle and even just give, like, they can give like a straight up review talking to the camera, like we would do on stories and sharing why they love this product.
[00:27:12] And that's so easy for them to actually do, obviously having your own account is a benefit. Um, and probably the first, like ideal, but it doesn't mean you need to do that. So I think if you're a brand and you're not ready yet to actually build your own Tik Tok, I would say you still should be looking at investing in the right creators on the platform a hundred percent. You need to get presence on there early on.
[00:27:37] What I also think is pretty cool about Tik Tok is that in the next three years, we're probably going to see a lot of companies popping up with full-time roles for Tik Tok creators. So people in-house, whether they're part-time or full-time literally making Tik Tok content for those accounts.
[00:27:57] What's fun about that is like, you really just need one person to [00:28:00] be doing it versus hiring an entire creative team. So I do think we're going to be seeing that coming up from brands.
[00:28:06] The other interesting part about Tik Tok for brand is brands should be looking at creators of all sizes, um, to be making content for their pages. So if you do want to start a page as a brand, you can look to creators that have very little following that can be making you content for you to share on your pages.
[00:28:29] The biggest piece of resistance that I hear from brands that I'm reaching out to today. And these are brands that invest heavily in Instagram. You know, they're established and working with creators, but they're still resistant to the platform because they don't have their presence set up. They haven't had the time.
[00:28:43] They haven't been able to allocate resources within their team to build out on Tik Tok. But in reality, you can go find like 5, 10, 15, 20 different creators and source five to 50 videos from each of them. And you can [00:29:00] contract them to build that content and use that within your own channel. So in short, you'd only be paying the creators for that content creation fee versus the distribution fee. And then obviously if they're a bigger creator, they might have like a clout fee based off of the fact that they're like known et cetera and charging more. Um, but it's a lot less expensive to buy content.
[00:29:23] And so I think that's also where as a creator, you can make a lot of money on the platform. There's tons of resources and people speaking about how to do this within Tik Tok.
[00:29:32] Basically, What I'm saying is that you have three options. If you're a brand, you can have someone in house and build a strategy around it, or you can find creators that you like and think you're aligned with, and they can just create you a bunch of content that you can share.
[00:29:45] Or you can just not have your page set up yet and just have creators that are getting your name out there.
[00:29:51] Basically, if you're not looking at Tik Tok leaving tons of customers and money on the table from a [00:30:00] creator or a brand's perspective, the younger generation they're on Tik Tok, they're building their spending power. They're getting into the marketplace, they're building their careers and they're consuming on Tik Tok.
[00:30:10] And they're purchasing because of Tik Tok. I mean, Hey, this is not just a gen Z thing anymore. I'm a millennial and everyone in our area. And, in my wheelhouse is on Tik Tok. I think if you're going to be awaiting to get on Tik Tok, you're going to be pretty far behind. And it's the same as what we've seen on Instagram.
[00:30:31] It's going to be almost impossible to penetrate with that level of saturation and a few years from now. So throwing a couple hundred thousand dollars is going to be the only way to get eyeballs in a few years with really big creators or a ton of ad spend.
[00:30:44] So if you can, now, now is the time to get in. And the last thing that I want to touch on, just because I mentioned ads is ads in the space, so there's a lot of business happens for creators. That's how they make a lot of money is obviously [00:31:00] licensing to brands for white listing or boosting, et cetera.
[00:31:03] And on Instagram, we have like an aversion to ads now because it's of course become this thing that is popping up everywhere. It's on our feeds. If the ad doesn't look like it's from a creator and it looks like it's staged and you know, professionally shot, we immediately want to just scroll by.
[00:31:20] The difference with ads on Tik Tok is that everything shows up in a for you page, which I kind of touched on at the beginning. So this for you page is the content that you otherwise wouldn't have seen, but you're seeing it just based off of who you follow and what type of content you engage with. And this is why hashtags are really important as well.
[00:31:38] It helps them show the right content to the right people within the platform. So if you're liking and following a bunch of fitness accounts, for example, you're going to see a lot of fitness content in your for you page. And that's the default on Tik Tok. You also have your following page, but your, for you page is going to be a mix of who you follow plus other content.
[00:31:56] And that's why growth is so exponential within the platform. So [00:32:00] that means that if a brand wants to boost their own content or the content that a creator makes, they boost it within the platform and it's going to get more eyeballs to the right audience in the, for you page. So it doesn't look like an ad typically would, or it stands out it's something so different.
[00:32:18] I don't follow this account. This is so staged. It's going to show up as a boosted post. Um, but in your, for you page, basically just getting you more eyeballs. So the moral story is for like a couple hundred thousand dollars, you can ensure that your video gets a million views. Applies for creators to, Hey, if you have that much money and you want to put towards it, go for it.
[00:32:40] Um, and that's probably going to increase in price based off of how many people are on the platform and the saturation. But now specifically you can ensure that you're getting a million people who are your target customer are going to be seeing your product from a creator's video, which is ultimately the goal.
[00:32:58] If I was brand that's, that's [00:33:00] all I'd want. So in all honesty, I don't really know why anyone wouldn't do this, especially at the stage where ads and eyeballs are like a lot less expensive, but when there's still a possibility for growth, you know, at this stage before things become oversaturated. And when, whether you're a brand or creator or a consumer of the product, you still have the ability to stand out and have a strong voice right now.
[00:33:22] So I'm hyped about this platform, guys. I just find it so interesting because everything is about like, Cycle, right. The cycles of our lives. And seven years ago, I started dabbling in the Instagram space for fun, five years ago, I left to do a full time as I was talking about the beginning and really seriously.
[00:33:40] And just to talk about that a little bit, like the first two years were hell, they were pretty painful. I was also working a full-time job. It was extremely demanding. You know, it was so tough. I didn't know how I was keeping up both and I can honestly say it can be done, not long-term, but if you area creator and it's your side hustle right [00:34:00] now and you're working full-time you don't know how you could do both. Like it can be done. Probably wouldn't suggest it longterm, but I did it so that I could build myself up to a place so I could focus on a hundred percent. Um, but needless to say, I just think that investing your time in a platform where you can grow is definitely of more value.
[00:34:19] You have limited time. You need to make sure that where you're investing your time is going to reap the rewards. And I can say that because of how hard it was to work a full-time job and create content for those first two years. But it was even harder the first two years to convince brands why they should be investing in Instagram.
[00:34:39] We all have this mindset that we don't want to force anyone or convince them and okay, if you're not on the platform and you don't want to work with me, it's your loss, et cetera. But for every one of those platforms, there has to be thought leaders who continue to push the market forward. I really do believe in the early days of Instagram creators, I was, I [00:35:00] believe I was one of those in the Canadian market and I was up there, you know, emailing brands, meeting with them in person, convincing them why it was so important to be on Instagram and I feel myself emerging that same role as I see Tik Tok evolve. Because I can just see the benefit of why now is the time.
[00:35:19] I still think there's so much benefit for brands on Instagram. Don't get me wrong. I just don't think that's where you're going to grow as a new brand or as a new creator. There's very little growth possibly. Again, as I said earlier, there's so much value in a piece of photo content, right? Like get the creator to share it with their community and then you can use it and license it only if it's done legally and hopefully through a contract from Cloutdesk, shameless plug.
[00:35:46] But if it is licensed properly, you can use that content. And so there's of course so much value, but as a creator spending your time trying to grow on Instagram is extremely frustrating right now. I [00:36:00] will say that Tik Tok has helped with a lot of growth on my Instagram. So by growing rapidly on Tik Tok, a lot of people are coming over to follow me on Instagram and DM me there in particular because DM's work very differently on Tik Tok.
[00:36:13] They can only happen if both parties are following each other. So of course, creators don't really get DM's much on Tik Tok, unless they're following that account as well. So a lot of people come over, they follow me on instagram and they, um, messaged me and DM me questions there. So if you're so set on Instagram, maybe that's the only reason why at least grow your Tik Tok to drive people over there.
[00:36:37] Um, and yeah, you can make tons of money off of licensing on Instagram. It is a great, great, great platform, but it's just impossible right now to grow. Um, and I think that brands who aren't investing in the Tik Tok space are going to be super upset. You know, in the future, and I think creators as well, like I can count on my hand, probably the creators in [00:37:00] my network within Canada, at least that I know that have been established creators for years, like myself that are investing in Tik Tok and the ones that are kudos to them, because it takes a lot of time while you're still running another platform full time.
[00:37:16] But I just think like there should be more and more people that are doing. If I could go back and change one thing. So at the beginning of the pandemic, basically campaigns froze for creators and everything's sort of paused. They didn't know what they were going to spend on and because of this, I was getting super discouraged by Instagram.
[00:37:36] So I went onto Tik Tok and started focusing on that to distract myself, to inspire myself and Trevor was a big part of that. He was like, get on Tik Tok. If you don't do this, I'm going to be so upset at you. You're going to be upset at yourself. Like you need to get on. Um, and that was two years ago and I too felt like the dancing and entertainment app and I was kind of lost on it, but I started still [00:38:00] like, you know, dancing while telling people like how to find names for sugar in their labels or whatever.
[00:38:06] Um, and then I made the mistake where like I was posting one to two times a day and my account grew pretty rapidly, nonetheless. But after everyone realized during the pandemic, like there was nowhere to advertise besides on social platforms and everyone and their dog needed to focus on influence or sales.
[00:38:24] It became so busy on Instagram that obviously my time was pulled back there and was focused on my clients there, which I'm so grateful for, you know, everything that went on. In that, um, Instagram growth in space, but obviously it pulled me away from focusing. And then this year, again, a lot because of Trevor's reminders and, you know, refocusing for the new year, we decided to invest heavily in Tik Tok and Tik Tok content.
[00:38:51] And I've been back creating, like I said, for about a month and a half. And now our following has gone from 18,000 [00:39:00] to 40,000 followers in about a month, literally a month, month and a half. Um, and has surpassed my Instagram following that took seven years, seven years, like one month guys. This is, this is not a joke.
[00:39:14] If you invest in it, you see rewards. And I would say, get on there and get on there now. Um, I don't have any plans of stopping to post content on Tik Tok. So whether brands follow suit or not, there's going to be a huge shift in social platforms in the next five to 10 years. Um, you know, don't get me wrong.
[00:39:36] I love my Instagram. I love my community, but I established it five years ago. And a lot of you guys have been there for me with me, you know, for three to five years. And you know that, you know, the process that I've gone through there, but the growth is just not the same. So, you know, everyone's actively engaged on Instagram.
[00:39:58] You know, you build a community, [00:40:00] but it didn't have stories, we didn't have videos, we didn't have reels. We didn't have any of this at the beginning. So don't give up on a platform because they maybe don't have all the tools you feel like to build your community to a certain level because they will come, they will evolve.
[00:40:14] Your investment starts now it doesn't start later.
[00:40:18] I guess the moral of the story is that I'm pretty proud that I made it five years surviving as an entrepreneur. And I'm also proud that so many incredible creators in my network, who've gone through this process of me as well, that I've met along the way, many of which I've coached on how to build their online brands, um, get deals, you know, build a strong presence, but I'm also proud that I have a partner who believes in me, who believes in what I do so much so that we built Cloutdesk. We built a tool to solve a lot of these problems going on. Um, if you're a brand or creator, it allows you to run your invoicing and contracts for campaigns through the platform, get paid, immediately protect yourself from hitting contracts, all of which this [00:41:00] applies to both sides like Trevor has just pushed me so much out of my comfort zone. And like I said, to get onto Tik Tok early and to go back to it when I just did this past year, and sometimes it really takes someone that pushes you a little bit out of that space that opens your mind and kind of has a different long-term vision than the immediate reward that we can constantly, thanks social media, seek to receive.
[00:41:24] So if anything, hopefully you learned something today. And if you know, I'm lucky or you're lucky, this has pushed you to get started investing as a creator or a brand on Tik Tok and start building your presence on a platform.
[00:41:36] So you don't get left behind again. This is not 2012 guys, we've got to keep thriving. We've got to keep innovating. We have to be early adopters. We have to get on these platforms and test them out. See what works for you find your group, find your individuality.
[00:41:51] If you are a brand, invest in creators on Tik Tok continue to invest in your content on Instagram. Use that for [00:42:00] licensing and get your eyeballs from Tik Tok trust me. Creators. You heard me? I love you guys. You can do it. It's been a wild, wild, wild, few years, five years doing this full-time I love you guys.
[00:42:16] That is my thoughts on Tik Tok versus Instagram.