366: How To Use TikTok To Blow Up Your Business With Keenya Kelly

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You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today I have Kenya Kelly on the show and Kenya is a TikTok and branding expert and she was actually one of the people who helped me get started on the TikTok platform. We actually recorded this episode about three months ago and since then my TikTok account has grown to about 47,000 subscribers. And today we’re gonna talk about how to use TikTok to market your business. But before I begin, I wanna thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode.

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Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider and I use them for e-commerce and it is crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce and you can segment your audience just like email. It’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve.

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I also want to thank Klavia, who is also a sponsor of show. Now, are you working around the clock to build the business you’ve always imagined? And do you want to communicate with your fast growing list of customers in a personalized way, but in a way that gives you time to work on the rest of your business? And do you ever wonder how the companies you admire, the ones that redefine their categories do it? Companies like Living Proof and Chubbies. Well, they do it by building relationships with their customers from the very beginning, while also evolving in real time as their customers needs change.

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And then finally, I wanted to mention a brand new podcast that I recently released with my partner, Tony. And unlike this podcast where I interview successful entrepreneurs in e-commerce, the Profitable Audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell it like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the Profitable Audience podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

02:25
Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have Kinya Kelly on the show. And Kinya is the CEO of If You Brand It, a branding and consulting firm where she helps business owners develop multimillion dollar brands. And she came highly recommended to me by my friend Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner to give you all a lesson on TikTok. TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform on the planet right now. And more and more businesses are using TikTok to drive massive growth for their businesses.

02:53
So today, is going to teach us how to get started on TikTok and how to use it to market your business. And with that, welcome to show, Kenya. Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here. I’m so happy to have you too, especially since I’m going to be on TikTok in just a couple of weeks. Yes, come on. So first off, Kenya, what is your background and how did you get into TikTok in the first place? Yeah, so my background is my business. I started out in network marketing many, many, years ago.

03:21
But I ended up having like this eye for design. Like I didn’t know I had it until I had like this corporate job that required it. And years and years later, like when live stream got started, I decided that I was gonna leave my corporate job and I was gonna build my own brand design company. I didn’t know all the details that was gonna take, but I had faith.

03:41
And so I launched my own branding and consulting business live on Periscope when everybody was doing the whole Periscope thing. Yes. Yeah. And it did really well our first year in business. And I think it was because I had so much like experience at my corporate job. But eventually, like over the last seven or eight years, design has been amazing, but it can be very tedious and exhausting at times. And so at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, I’m always praying for strategies for my business.

04:11
And I felt like I heard God tell me to get onto TikTok, which I thought was the craziest thing, because I was like, what does he know about TikTok? But I did it anyway. I felt like a grandma, didn’t know what was going on, but I did it. Can we just talk about the demographics of TikTok? Because everyone has this misconception that it’s only teenagers on the platform. For sure. And so, you know, I think when TikTok first started out, when it was musically,

04:36
and then changed the TikTok, it was something that was for the younger generation because like they weren’t, didn’t want to play on Facebook because grandma was there and or Instagram. And so for the majority, for the years, it has been young people on the platform. Now you will notice that there are way more people that are younger, like let’s just say 20s and under posting, but like everybody 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s are there mostly consuming content and not posting.

05:04
Yes, so I just want to say that I had that misconception as well. But all you have to do is when you first go on TikTok, you just start telling TikTok that you don’t want to see certain content, like teenage girls dancing or whatever. And then you start getting the content that you want. And the algorithm is really good. And it’s very addictive, more addictive than any other social media platform that I’ve ever used before. Yeah, absolutely. I know when I first got on, I was like, I was blown away by all the kids or whatever.

05:29
But I realized as I started learning the algorithm that if I interacted with this piece of content, then it was saying, hey, I want more of that. Like I can get caught down a rabbit hole about cats, cause I’m obsessed with cats. like, you know, my TikTok, see a lot of cat videos, soldiers coming home videos, proposals, because I’ve told TikTok what I want. So I noticed that you dance in a lot of your TikToks. Is that a prerequisite?

05:55
No, I am a big time dancer, like, I just found on Facebook or Instagram because it wasn’t part of it. And so, but I have a lot of my clients who never ever, ever dance and they are killing it. Well, cause they don’t know how to dance, right? They don’t want to, you know, so it’s not, you don’t have to. Okay. I just want to get all those misconceptions out of the way. So you don’t need to dance. You don’t need to act like a goofball either. Right? No, no.

06:21
So let’s say I’m a business and I wanna get my brand out there. And I know you do a lot of consulting for TikTok and you have some TikTok courses. How does one even get started? Like from scratch, if you can walk me through the process. For sure. So one of the first things of course, obviously is to download the app. And then you start telling TikTok what you want. I believe that now you get to select like your top three or six choices or something like that when you come onto the app.

06:47
If that’s not there when you download it, then your number one thing you want to do is start consuming content on the For You page, which is basically the content of people that you don’t know. Once you go there and you see something you don’t like, you hold your finger down and click on not interested. And you just keep scrolling. Once you start to do that, then you’re going to tell TikTok what you want. In addition to that, I recommend that a brand and business owner go to the Discover tab.

07:15
Now, what is that? That’s basically where you click on the magnifying glass at the bottom of the screen, and it’s going to take you to another page. At the top of the screen, you’re going to see the word search. And what I would tell someone, no matter what your business is, is to search your type of business. So if you have beauty products or real estate or a podcaster, search that term and then start consuming the content that comes up on that page. Because the average person who comes over to TikTok

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wants to behave like they’re on Facebook or Instagram. But you have to learn that TikTok has a totally different culture than all of those other platforms. And so that’s why I want you to go to Discover Taps. You can see what people just like you with the same businesses that you have, what they’re doing and how well their videos are performing. And once you do that, then it’s important for you to learn how to create actual TikToks.

08:12
And I tell people that it will feel a little bit overwhelming with all the different buttons that are on the app. But eventually it gets, it’s like super, super, super easy once you get it. But it’s important for you to then start playing around with all the different buttons, because once you see how to create, how to use a timer feature, how to use these different things, then it’s going to be easy for you to create 10 videos in 30 minutes or in an hour.

08:38
for you to be able to use not only on the TikTok platform, but multiple different social medias. So if I already have like an Instagram presence and Facebook presence, what would you say is the primary difference between the types of content that work on one platform versus the other? For sure. So with TikTok, it’s like as a business, I say edutainment is what works on TikTok because TikTok is an entertainment platform.

09:01
And so if you’re going to come over there and you’re going to sell Chipotle, you have to, can’t do the same type of ad that you would on Facebook as you would on, on TikTok. So you’ve got to use maybe some of the trending sounds or some of the ways people advertise their whatever food on, on TikTok. And so I would say you have to allow your creativity to come out like.

09:25
I look at TikTok as like Superbowl Sunday. The same way Doritos acts on Superbowl Sunday is not how they act on a regular day. We all know that Doritos is pulling out all stops on Superbowl Sunday and we wait to see how many commercials that they deliver on. That is what you want to give on TikTok every day, but it doesn’t cost you millions of dollars. It just costs you 15 minutes.

09:51
If you were to just take the same content you’re posting on Facebook and Instagram and translate that over to TikTok, that’s just not gonna work, right? It depends on the actual content. Like if you’re just sitting in front of like a mic, like kind of like we are with podcasts, no, that’s not gonna work. TikTok wants, they want something different. I mean, you can do podcast content for sure, but it’s important for you to have your hottest clips, your hottest moments.

10:15
in a seven to 15 second clip that causes a person to go what and makes them want to go and listen to your podcast or go find your YouTube channel. Can you walk me through one of like your content creation process for your brand? mean, you have a very strong personal brand. Just walk us through what goes on in your head when you’re ready to hit that record button. For sure. So one of the first things that I’m always doing is asking myself, what is my goal of creating on TikTok this week or this month? Right. So I’m trying to sell like a coaching program for TikTok.

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then I’m not just creating content that’s just funny. I’m not just dancing the dance. I’m asking myself, what is it that I can do that could catch someone’s attention in the first one, two, three seconds? What’s trending on TikTok right now? And how can I take this trend to match what’s going on in my business? And so, for example, there is a challenge that was out late last year called the Busted Challenge. And it was basically where a woman looked like she fresh out of bed.

11:14
And then the sound would play. And in the middle of that sound, it would change to a whole different sound. And when the different sound changed, she changed. She changed into an entirely different outfit as if she was like glammed up for a photo shoot. And then she kind of started twerking. Now, I don’t do that. That’s not what I do. But I was like, hmm, how can I flip this? And so I was fresh out of bed. I had on a Christmas onesie in my bathroom.

11:43
And when the sound changed, I was super cute, but then I changed again, like within a second. And I said on stream, instead of me twerking, how about I help you get to $10,000 per month? The video went viral because it was within the trend. People were looking to see what I was going to do and I used it for my business. And so I’m always going, how can I take this to actually get clients or get people on my email list? So you keep mentioning trends and for people who aren’t familiar with TikTok, how, what is a trend?

12:13
that you’re talking about and how important is it to follow one of these in your videos as opposed to just putting out something completely original? For sure. So a trend is basically where, okay, because TikTok culture is again different than everything else. So if you’re on Instagram and Facebook, you cannot copy what anyone’s doing. Like if you copy, people are tearing you apart. On TikTok, it’s copycat. So one person can do something in front of a computer and scream, right? And people go, oh, I like that sound. I’m gonna take that sound.

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and I’m going to use it for this, or I’m going to take that sound and do it the exact same way the original person did it. And as you’re on the For You page, you start seeing that same thing happening over and over again with different people who don’t know each other. That’s a trend, right? And you find the trends on the For You page. Now, do you have to use trends to be successful on TikTok? No, you don’t. Because like my first guy started, I didn’t know how to even use the features, you know.

13:10
So you don’t necessarily have to follow the trends. However, if you see a trend that actually could be good for your business, then I encourage a person to do it because if that sound is trending and you do it in a good way, because you’re doing the trend with a trending sound that’s viral on TikTok, it really gives your video a boost. For example, Cardi B has that song, Up, right? I don’t know a lot of the lyrics.

13:37
but like that sound was trending like crazy. And so I added that sound to a video of mine that had nothing to do with her, but because the sound was trending, my video got a crazy boost and then it went viral. So you can do what’s actually happening on screen. You can use a sound and give your video a boost and you actually don’t even have to use the sounds or do the trends like you were asking. You can literally create your own direct to camera content of you teaching

14:07
you cooking or whatever, and it’s still performed really well because like, I mean, as long as it’s entertaining, it’s going to do great. So what you’re saying is you, you, you used to mention TikTok will give you a boost. So if you do use a trending sound, do you believe that TikTok takes that into account in terms of visibility of your post? I think so. I feel like that that sound is already like, it’s something’s happening with it with the algorithm anyway, right?

14:35
But outside of what TikTok is doing, if we all know that this sound means that this person is going to do something different at the end of this video, because that’s the trend. If you start out doing this and then at the end it’s something crazy, then because we know that sound because of the culture, we end up watching your video to see what are you going to do at the end of this. Like I just saw, I don’t know what brand it was. Oh, Dr. Pepper just did something today. They ran an ad.

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And I’m watching this video like, did they just do the, no, no, no trend? I was in shock. I was like, go ahead, Dr. Pepper. They did what they do, but they use the sound for TikTok culture. Okay. Actually, you know what? We should take a step back because I know there’s a lot of skeptics listening to this going, what are the effects that TikTok could possibly have on my business? Can you just give a brief background of how TikTok has affected your business in particular? For sure. your clients? Yeah.

15:32
Yeah, so I would say on the non-positive side is that, you know, when I first got onto TikTok, people were like, it’s going to get banned and God isn’t on TikTok. And I’m like, what is wrong with y’all? And so people were looking at it as I was playing with my business and I was not like, I couldn’t be taken seriously or whatever, but I just kept going. And the positive side of it has been, you know, I have had 5,000 followers on Instagram for a few years.

16:01
Now, fast forward, now we’re at 17,000 because we’ve gained a lot of people from TikTok that wanted to learn more about business following us on Instagram. We’ve now had 450,000 followers on the platform. We’ve gotten paid and worked with some of the biggest brands that I ever thought that I would work with. And we’ve just generated well over $100,000 this year alone, all because of what we shifted with TikTok. So that’s directly attributed to TikTok.

16:30
Absolutely. So in terms of making money on TikTok, is it just because people will find you through TikTok or is it on the platform itself? Does it kind of work like Instagram in that way? So it’s a couple of different things. So one, like you can make money a lot of different ways on TikTok, like as business owners, obviously you can bring your business to TikTok, market it, and then you’ll reach people that you probably couldn’t have reached on Instagram, especially because of the for you page, the organic reach and things of that nature.

16:59
Um, but in addition to that, like you can make money through TikToks creator fund, uh, where as long as you’re 18 years old and you get like, I think it’s 10,000 followers and you’ve had at least a hundred thousand views in 30 days, you can apply to be a part of TikToks creator fund. And the creator fund is just like YouTube, um, AdSense where they pay you as people watch your content. So you’ll get paid cents, dollars, or whatever a day as people watch your videos through TikToks creator fund.

17:27
Another way you get paid on TikTok is through the TikTok marketplace. And that’s once you hit 100,000 followers, then you get into this portal where brands will start reaching out to you. They’ll find your information either through TikTok or they’ll come and search you on other social medias. And then they begin to send you messages like wanting to partner with you of like paying you to propose videos and things of that nature on TikTok.

17:52
I think that’s oh and then when you’re doing live streams on TikTok, people can actually give you money. They can like they can donate to you and you look you look up and now you’ve got $300 or whatever in your balance of people that have given you money while you were live streaming. is TikTok work well for you to drive traffic off of TikTok onto your own site to get their email? Absolutely. Like I have like a TikTok freebie inside of my TikTok bio and people go there every single day.

18:19
to learn how to use TikTok because you’ve got way more people that are going there, you know, in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. And they’re like, well, somebody teach me how to do this. And so I created something that drives people there. But oftentimes I know that people are listening to me in these quick TikTok videos and or in my live streams and they’re like, I want more from her. So oftentimes every day I will either post it in my videos or I will say it in my video or I’ll say it on live stream.

18:47
come and follow me on Instagram for more and people come and follow me there every single day. So all these questions that I’ve been giving to Kenya are actually rhetorical. know the value of TikTok now. And in fact, I think Mike gave me a whole bunch of examples. There’s this dentist, his account is called the bentis and he’s like expanded his dental practice through TikTok of all things. I was gonna ask you about this Kenya, but Mike has told me like unlike Instagram,

19:14
TikTok is really good at exposure for you. Can you kind of talk about how that works? Like you grew to something thousand followers on TikTok very quickly. And you mentioned you were stuck on Instagram at like 5K for a long time. Yeah, for sure. mean, it’s like, again, it’s like something I’ve never experienced before in my life. Like I go viral at least five times a month or that’s downplaying it like 10 times a month.

19:41
I’ll go viral creating content on TikTok. Can you just get these thousands of people following you now that never could have seen you? Like I’ve posted hundreds of videos on Facebook and Instagram and none of them have gone viral. I love those other platforms, but this is just something like the algorithm, the organic reach is just beyond, it’s beyond me. I’ll tell you a couple of things happened like over the summer I turned whatever, I can remember I turned over the summer, last summer.

20:08
And a friend of mine was like, you should do a dating campaign. And I was like, cause I’m single. She was like, you should do a seven day dating campaign on TikTok and see what happens. And I was like, okay, sure. So I did seven days of videos just talking about being single and like some of my attributes and like qualities, what I’m looking for, what are my deal breakers, yada, yada, yada. And I didn’t meet anybody, but three weeks later, I got contacted by Netflix and they were like, Hey, we saw you on TikTok and we want to have you on our show. Yada, yada, yada.

20:34
And the only reason why I didn’t move forward with Netflix is because they wanted me to be a divorce, but also have a teenage child that with a child can go on the show with me and I don’t have any kids. But then BET reached out about a dating show. And it’s like all this exposure because I am just on this app doing what it is that I do. I also got contacted by a TV network in Europe and said, we were on your live stream and we want to have you on our network.

21:02
But outside of me, like one of the people I’ve loved watching blow up is the girl named Tabitha Brown. She’s an African American actress slash like vegan personality, and she teaches people how to eat, you know, good food vegan. And she was doing well with 300,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook. Her daughter starts taking her Instagrams and put them on TikTok.

21:25
Well, she gained 2 million followers in four months. Now she’s got 4 million. She’s got a deal with Ellen, a deal with Oprah. She’s now acting in Chicago. All this stuff has happened all because she brought her personality of what she was doing on those other pages to the TikTok platform. So it makes stars out of people. Wow. So you mentioned you go viral five times a month or even more than that. Do you see any patterns on what causes those particular videos to go viral?

21:54
For sure, well, I will say that tick tock definitely likes petty you know if you’re going to do something that’s like a hashtag petty then people like yeah you know. But also anytime you do something that causes a person to grab their attention immediately like soon as the video uploads you give them some type of hook in the middle and then an unexpected end and it causes them to rewatch that video over and over and over again that causes an effect.

22:22
with the TikTok algorithm. And so I’ve had like my business videos that have gone viral. Those are the ones that are like super short. And I’m talking about, I was broken after my divorce. And after I left him, I made $400,000 in 18 months. And people are always like, what? And they rewatch it. Or I said, I’m the lady that helps people get the $10,000 a month. And I just walked off screen. And so it’s just hooky. It’s like hooky type thing. They’re real, they’re not fake or.

22:51
or manipulate it, but they have to be hooky type things that make people watch it over and over again and make them share it with their friends. So what is the mix of those types of videos? I guess you can’t really just post those every time, right? Right, no, uh-uh. So I would say in a week, if I’m gonna do hooky type things like that, I may do it once a week. I will do lots of fun, funny things on TikTok.

23:18
But even if it’s a fun, funny thing, I will make my business be a part of it, right? So there’s this trend right now that’s like, there’s this guy, he’s like, okay, repeat after me. And the person’s like, okay, repeat after me. I can do this, I can do, or whatever. And I did the trend of it yesterday talking about when I’m teaching my clients how to use TikTok. And I’m like, repeat after me. And they’re like, okay, repeat after me. And they start repeating. And then at the end I say,

23:44
Even if this doesn’t go well, it’s fine. It’s a learning experience. But then the person goes, I’m trash. I’m trash. This is garbage. And I’m like, right. And it’s the real feeling that people get when I’m teaching them how to use TikTok for business. And I’ve taken that and it’s doing well on TikTok, but I’ve also taken it and put it on Instagram and it’s doing extremely well and getting leads into my inbox because people can relate to it. And they’re like, I want you to help me.

24:13
So when you did that dating segment, that kind of detracted from your business, right? So can you just go off on tangents like that with your TikTok account and still be okay? Absolutely. If I’m going to do something like the dating campaign, I will do one video for the dating campaign. Like, okay, for example, I will typically do three or four TikTok videos a day, seven seconds, maybe 15 seconds, right? Really, really short. And of the four videos a day, one of them will be something…

24:41
goofy, which is my personality to be goofy. The other ones won’t be as won’t be as like that. If I’m doing more videos a day, then there’s a lot more goofy or sometimes dancing or whatever. But I always have that mix. Now, I will say one of my biggest strategies is that I will find something to things. One, a video that I think will go viral with my own content. It sometimes is not business related, but I will do that piece of content.

25:10
But before I do it, I will do a business video first, then that potentially viral content. Once I post that video, I’ll then post another business video right after it. And the reason why I do that is because if that fun video goes viral, it’s going to bring hundreds and thousands of people to my page. And I want them to land on my page and go, hey, I came here for that funny video, but this lady teaches.

25:37
how to build a business, I wanna follow her and engage with her more for this stuff. Because I’m like, the business stuff isn’t going as, isn’t doing as well as the funny stuff. But I’m like, I’m not gonna be funny all day long, I’m gonna do this strategically. So it’s like a business sandwich, a business TikTok sandwich. So you get people in with the funnier videos, and then they wanna learn more about you, and then that’s when you talk about the business stuff. So the business stuff in itself, it sounds like is not as likely to go viral.

26:05
Right. It’s not as likely, but even like, you know, even if we don’t go viral, like you can 5,000 views on a video in the Facebook world. You’re killing it. Oh yeah. And on TikTok, I’m like, I can get 5,000 easy in a week off of a video, you know? So I’m like, even if I don’t go viral, I’m like, I’m still winning. It’s 5,000 views, you know?

26:29
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26:58
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27:27
And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a hundred dollar discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show. I mean, if you’re listening to this, think about that. 5,000 views on a video. That’s a lot of people right there being exposed to your brand. Okay. So if you’re a total beginner, so you mentioned a couple of things now, which might be intimidating to people listening. You mentioned you post three to four times a day. Is that required?

27:56
It’s not required. However, however, when you’re first getting onto TikTok, you have to think about TikTok as you would other people. For example, if you were on Instagram and a person posts a video and you see it and they only have one video on their page, how likely are you to follow them? Not very likely because you don’t know what the content is going to be about. You want to be able to scroll and see if you want to follow this account.

28:23
And so I teach people that when you first come on to take that, it’s really important that you’re posting one to three times a day, especially to have content on your page so that when people land on you, they can see what you’re, what you’re about to determine if they want to constantly see more of your content. It’s not required, but we just have to think in the minds of how do we behave when we choose the following account. So would you recommend just posting like 10 times right off the bat, just so there’s 10 pieces of content in the beginning?

28:53
right off the bat? No, I wouldn’t do that. I would probably do I would be consistent for at least 10 days, posting two or three videos a day every single day consistently. What if it was a part of a series, let’s say you wanted to just kind of introduce yourself, you know, to your audience since you’re brand new. And let’s see have a whole bunch of things pre recorded, but they’re in like a series, would you still post those piecemeal? Yes, I still would because like,

29:21
you could post video one and it do three views, right? And then video two does 10,000, right? And people will then come back to find video one. Cause like, aren’t going to see your content the way in the order that you want them to see it in. see. I see. Okay. So you want to do, you want to do at least three pieces of content for a while until you’ve kind of built up this backlog, so to speak. For sure. When you’re creating that piece of content,

29:50
Can you just describe what’s involved in it? So let’s say I’ve already just recorded something on my phone. What are some of the edits that you do, hashtags, talk about the entire process. So when I’m looking at, for example, like let’s just say you’re teaching people how to grow a podcast. Then what I would do is I would take that first video and I would upload it to TikTok. Then I would add text on screen. That’s one of the features. I would add

30:19
Maybe even if you’re using that on Instagram where it’s like giving you the captions or whatever, like you might be able to do that first. Otherwise, you can just add text on screen and use the text duration feature. And that feature basically is where you have where like I’m saying, my name is Kenya Kelly, and then it disappears. And then I’m like, I’m a branding and marketing consultant, and then it disappears. using the features, because sometimes people

30:47
can watch your video, but they can’t listen to it based upon wherever they are. And if there’s some type of text on screen, that’s gonna help your video perform better, right? Actually, I was just gonna ask you about that. I know that whenever I’m on TikTok, my volume’s on, whereas when I’m on Instagram, my volume’s always off. Would you say that the majority of people on TikTok have their volume on? I wouldn’t say majority. I would say that like, it just depends on where, what’s going on with the person. Like for me, like I’m in my office by myself, so.

31:16
My volume’s always on, but if I’m in a random place, you know, that I’m like, I mean, I want people to know that I’m listening to this. You never know what the sound is going to be when you open up that video, you know? Right. Um, so it just, it just kind of depends on what’s going on with the person, but I would say the people that have a job that run a business, their volume is probably pretty down because they’re at work. So text on screen is an absolute must is what I’m hearing.

31:44
Yes, I think so. for sure. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So you’re adding annotations to your video. Is there anything else that you do? I usually will add some type of sound to it. So if I’m uploading a video, then I am, I will add a trending sound to it just because like, or if it will, if it’s kind of applicable to the video, I may add a sound to it. Now, if I’m literally trying to give that video a boost and I will always add a sound to it, but that’s not, that’s not a requirement.

32:11
What else would I do? I would, if I want to do some type of voiceover, then I may use like a voiceover feature on TikTok. But after the text on screen, if that’s all that you do, then the next really important thing is going to be your caption. Because like, to give your video the best chance, you want to do lots of different things. One, catch them within the first one to two seconds, whatever you’re doing on your screen. So don’t say, hi, my name is, nobody cares.

32:40
Right? Like, no, the first one or two seconds, whatever you’re saying there. The next thing I would say, of course, is the text on screen. And then third is your caption, because sometimes people are on the for you page, which is the page where TikTok is pushing out content to you. And they only see your caption first. Like they may see you, but then they read the caption to see what it’s about. And so I would say use some type of really short, catchy thing that will cause a person to go, what? So sometimes I’ll write, they didn’t want me to succeed. They said I couldn’t read or.

33:10
They said, I couldn’t bounce back from divorce or something like that. And it causes someone to go either they want to watch it or they don’t. From there, then it’s all about the hashtags. Now you don’t have to use hashtags to do well on TikTok whatsoever, right? But when you’re using hashtags, you’re able to drive your content towards a certain group of people. For example, when I’m teaching TikTok tips,

33:37
and I want to reach people that are in their 30s, 40s and 50s that want to learn TikTok, I will use the hashtag over 30, over 30 crowd, over 30 club, adult TikTok, over 40, moms on TikTok, TikTok moms, right? And what TikTok does is it says that it says, I am trying to take this piece of content and send it to moms, send it to people over 30, over 40, right? And so when you are…

34:05
Using hashtags is very important to use hashtags that make sense for what’s going on in your video and who you’re trying to drive it to. One of the biggest mistakes people make on TikTok is they see these popular hashtags like FYP. FYP stands for For You Page. And people think that using the hashtag For You Page helps you get seen by more people, but it doesn’t. It drives your content to anybody that has used the hashtag FYP.

34:33
But what it also does is anytime you use a specific hashtag, it drives all of that content to you. Right. So for example, if you use the hashtag FYP, then anybody using FYP, you’re going to start seeing them on your for you page. So you have told Tiktok, Hey, I want to see this type of content, yada, yada, yada. And you’re enjoying it. But now that you’re using FYP, you start getting 13 year olds, 14 year olds.

35:01
crazy fight videos like twerking and you’re like, where did all this come from? It’s because you used FYP and the people twerking are using that hashtag too. Interesting. So the hashtags you use for your own post determine which type of posts that you get personally? Uh-huh. It tells the algorithm you want more of that. Yes. I see. Okay. So do you always use hashtags in your videos then? No, I’ve used them a lot less lately, but

35:27
I will use them. Like if I’m specifically talking about a new TikTok feature, then I’ll do TikTok updates, TikTok one-on-one, things like that. Can you walk me through the decision-making process, to use more or less? So one for me is time. Okay. Because sometimes I just don’t have time to like search through them because like one of the strategies that I was learning over the summer is that you don’t want to use hashtags that have billions of views on them. You want to try to catch one.

35:55
that is at like a hundred thousand and up to two million or whatever. Because sometimes you’d use a hashtag like moms of TikTok that has 1.3 billion views on it, which means that you’re just going to get kind of lost in the midst of billions of views. But if I’m using moms over 30 and it only has 249,000 views on it, then when people actually start viewing that content and all of my content is in there, they’re going to see more of mine. Whereas if there were billions of people, then I’m lost in the mix with everybody.

36:25
So is there a disadvantage to not using any hashtags at all? Will your content just not be seen if you don’t use any hashtags? So it will still be seen because like TikTok is going to like one, if you have followers, TikTok is going to allow your followers to see it. But like the disadvantage of not using hashtags is not actually directing your video to a certain group of people. But you don’t have to like I like lately I’ve done hashtags maybe once a day, but you know, I haven’t seen any downside of it at.

36:55
at this point. Okay. And then I’m trying to think. the caption you mentioned was very important. I actually never read the caption because it’s in this tiny little font in the lower left corner of my screen. Do they use, is there any keyword stuff involved in that? Or is it really just to get people to watch the video? I’m not sure if it’s keywords at this point. I’m sure it will let, no, you know, the algorithm is very smart. I do think it has, there’s something in it with the algorithm. Otherwise they wouldn’t.

37:23
they, no, I think that there’s something there. So I always put a caption. I don’t think you have to, but I always put one just because I just want to give my video the biggest chance in case somebody is looking to see what the caption, you know, what the video is about. Okay. So if you were to talk about these things in the order of priority, obviously your video and your content is the most important. Yeah. Then it sounds like captions and then sound is a big factor. Do you include like music in all of your TikToks?

37:49
I don’t, I used to in all of my videos, I would add a trending sound and sometimes I would just turn it all the way down and just have it connected to my TikTok. But one of the things that I’m learning about the new TikTok algorithm and what TikTok wants is TikTok is wanting more like original content. They’re wanting more of you talking without any sound attached to it. So I’m starting to do a lot more stuff without a trending sound attached to it than, than what I was before.

38:15
Okay. It sounds like a lot of this stuff is kind of like on a case by case basis. one hand, if you use a sound that’s trending, TikTok might give you a boost. On the other hand, they want more original content. So it sounds like you just kind of experiment. Like you’re posting three times a day. So you do one video with a trending sound and then the other two you might not. that kind of accurate? Yeah, exactly. Do you need something else going to tell you is that at the end of your at the end of your when you finish with your hatch, there’s another

38:42
another thing that you can do, there’s a thing called a cover, right? Very similar to Instagram Reels. And so you, that screen where you see where you can add your caption and hashtags, you can look at your video in the right-hand side and you’ll see the little word cover. And if you click on that, then you can tell TikTok one, what’s your, you want your gif to be. So when someone is trying to look at your video, what’s the first screen? And then you also can add text on screen. So I often on all of my videos will always have some sort of cover.

39:12
And it’s like a little half a second text on screen about what the video is about. Okay. And then that’s when people look at your profile, right? To convince them to actually click on something. people have told me, they’ve come to my page for one video, but they see all the titles and it allows them to scroll through and determine which video they want to watch next because they can see what the video is going to be about. So do you recommend making the caption on the thumbnail mostly text?

39:41
Or do you still keep it in? Cause it’s a lot smaller, right? When you’re seeing a whole array of videos. Yeah. Yeah. The cover is a lot smaller. So I usually will make my caption and cover differently. Or if my caption is eight words, my cover will be four words because it’s like, I just don’t want to make them the exact same thing. I just want to make it really like. Catchy or something. And then do you use extra large font on those thumbnails?

40:05
So you can’t determine the font size. What I do do is I just make the cover bigger. I make it cover the entire space versus just a small middle part of it. Okay. Can we just get an idea of the amount of time it takes to create content? Cause I can see for someone listening to this and wanting to get into this. So one, three to four times a day, do you have like a video editing team or do you literally just do everything in the app? I do absolutely everything in the app, right? I usually, when I get to the office,

40:34
I’ve already had videos saved in my favorites. I’ve been scrolling TikTok and I’m like, oh, I want to do this one tomorrow. And I’ll come into the office and I’ll just pull up the ones that I’ve saved. And then I’ll record three or four of them and I won’t edit them all there. I may put like some type of text on screen to remind me what this video is supposed to be about. No, but then once I sit down, I will edit one and then I’ll post it. And then throughout the day I’ll post another one. But like when I first got started with TikTok, I’m not kidding. It took me forever.

41:04
because there’s so many buttons. And so I want to be completely transparent that it’s going to take you some time to learn it, but it’s worth the investment because now I can edit a video in a minute. Oh, really? Okay. When you’re posting multiple times a day, can you just give us an idea of what times a day that is? For sure. So usually what I would do is I usually have a lot of videos in my drafts.

41:27
and I will wake up and when I’m getting dressed, I will just hit post on one early in the morning, just so something that’s going out there for me in the TikTok world. Then I typically will post one around noon lunchtime because I’m no longer working at that time. Maybe right around 5 p.m. when I get off because I know people just got off work. And then I know that people are like late night people. So then I will post the video right before I go to bed if I’m thinking about it and not always thinking about it. But I try to play.

41:56
pay emphasis on when I know people are the highest times on social and it’s early in the morning and then at night time. Can you schedule these or actually have someone else handle this for you? So someone else can handle it if they have on if they’re on the inside of your tick tock account, right? scheduling, you cannot schedule from your mobile phone, but you can schedule from your computer. The downside we’re experiencing right now is that if it’s in my drafts on my phone, it’s not in my drafts on my computer.

42:26
Oh, yes. Yeah. So it’s like, I think they’ll figure that out at some point. Right. Okay. So right now everything is pretty manual. Like you’re manually hitting the post button. Yes. Three times a day. And in terms any helpful tips for getting people off of TikTok onto your site? Or do you actually want people to just stay on TikTok for the most part to boost your exposure there? I want everybody to get off. Okay. All right. Okay. So are there any tricks?

42:52
Yeah, for sure. So number one, in your bio on TikTok, you can have access to your Instagram handle and your YouTube handle. And so when they click on the handle, it’ll take them directly to whatever social media you want them to go to. Also in your bio, you have the link in bio feature where you can put a link to whatever product, service, or whatever you want them to go to. But it’s important to note that in order to have a clickable link, you have to get to 1,000 followers first. Right.

43:20
So before I had to click a feature, I had my Instagram connected and I wrote in my bio, I wrote like my free tool or something like that. And then I wrote the website, a simple website and people, some people will go to it. They couldn’t click it. They would have to like type it in their browser and things of that nature. Um, and so that was one thing. Another thing inside of my videos, oftentimes I am teaching business tips or Tik TOK tips. And I’ll say for more tips like this, come follow me on Instagram. And then I will have at.

43:47
King of Kelly in the actual video, like the words that are actually there. But also I do live streams all the time. And when I’m live, saying, hey, on TikTok, I can only teach you so much. cannot, you you can’t see the recordings of my live, but if you want to see all the content I’ve recorded that’s already available, you can come and follow me on Instagram. And I have hundreds of videos on my IGTV. And on a daily basis, people go from TikTok to my email list and to my Instagram.

44:16
Can you talk about these live streams? Do they actually get saved in your feed or they’re just live presentations that kind of disappear? Yes. So they are live presentations that disappear at this point. They are saved in your backend where you can download them and use them. for right now, they’re not on your feed. I do think that because TikTok just came out with a new feature called Playlist. Not everybody has that yet. I don’t have it. I think at some point in time that they’re going to allow your live streams to appear in your playlist.

44:46
Okay, so for the most part, what is the point of going live then? So it’s a way to really, really connect with your community because like on on TikTok, like they only have access to whatever that video was, you know, like, and you can only engage so much. when I’m live on TikTok, I get to they get to hear me talk directly to them. They get to ask me questions and I answer all their questions. I mean, one of they want to give me gifts they can, but I don’t put the focus there.

45:13
I put most of my focus on like teaching and answering questions. And I’ve gotten a lot of clients from teaching on TikTok live because people are able to actually interact with me live and not just in the comment section. Also, one of the things that I know is that with live is that people buy from people that they like, and trust. And so when you’re teaching live and you’re answering all these really hard questions that they never would have thought that you knew the answer to, you’re stopped.

45:39
goes through the roof because people are like, wow, I didn’t know you knew this and I didn’t know you knew that because if your videos are only about X, Y, and Z, then they don’t really know the magnitude of what you’ve got going on. But in addition to that, you can be doing like a training, you know, or doing a podcast interview and be streaming live on TikTok, letting them listen in on your conversations. And when you have videos that are hitting the For You page,

46:07
and you’re live, some type of explosion happens with the algorithm. And so what do I mean by that was I did a video this summer and I went live and I was being interviewed for two hours. And by the time I got off that live stream, I had 10,000 new followers and that video hit 3 million views in eight days. And I gained a total of 67,000 views and the 67,000 followers.

46:32
And I was like, what happened? I’m like, oh, I had that video. I went, I went live for two hours. I wasn’t talking to them. I was talking to the person that was interviewing me on my computer and the algorithm just went kaboom. And so that’s another one of the benefits. see. So you’re saying that when you go live, that might give more exposure to your other videos, which will then find and know that you’re going live and they’ll follow you. Yeah. And because like when you go live, your live video hits the for you page.

47:01
So everybody that follows you, there’s a button at the top of the screen that says watch Kenya live, but it also, will show to people that are not following you, hey, you should come and watch this live video. And I have found hundreds of people coming into my lives and then follow me from the live because TikTok posted it on the for you page. I see. How often do you go live? Usually every day for about every day. Okay. All right. So you’re pretty unique in that you’re on all these different channels.

47:28
How would you prioritize the channels in terms of value? YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, just based on your experience? would say for me, Instagram has been the biggest moneymaker. Because that’s just kind of how I my business there. And so I spend most of my kind of time there. But I would say for anyone, it’s like wherever they are, their best self at. It’s not like TikTok is the best one for everybody.

47:57
But for me, the one that makes me the most money has been Instagram, because I’m able to do more with a person on Instagram and a DM and all that type of stuff. But I will say that YouTube is starting to increase for me even the more because I’m doing all these interviews with all these other people and they’re putting stuff out there. But from my direct attention, it is Instagram and Instagram, Facebook, and then TikTok.

48:25
All right. So if you were to start all over from scratch, which one would you start with? TikTok. TikTok. Yeah. By the way, can do DMs on TikTok as well. So couldn’t you in theory do everything that you do on Instagram on TikTok as well? Yes, you definitely can for sure. The reason why I like Instagram better is because TikTok DM, you’re going to get DM by people that are 30, 40, 50, and then those are 12.

48:55
Like when I’ve had videos go viral, I’ve had thousands of DMs from people 12, 13, and 14. It was like, wait, I love them, but business-wise, we can’t work together. So that’s one of the downsides of TikTok. I love them, but business-wise, it’s like, woo, what is going on? They could give you their lunch bunny, guess. Yeah, exactly. Do you use any special tools for TikTok, or is it literally just the app?

49:24
It’s just the app right now. I mean, I’ve started to learn how to use splice, but I’m like, oh, I need to hire somebody for that because I just don’t have the mental capacity to learn these tech tools. know one thing that I found is it’s really hard to hire someone to do videos for you or edit them on TikTok because the drafts only exist on your phone, right? Exactly. Yep. So, so a lot of people that those that want to hire, they’re creating content outside of the app.

49:49
and having them edit it and then uploading them to TikTok. And TikTok doesn’t mind that you’re having things edited and uploading at all. Is there any difference in exposure if you film using the TikTok app versus uploading your own video as far as you know? I haven’t seen the difference. I’ve watched people kill it with the app and kill it with like highly edited content. Like Jason Derulo and Will Smith, they kill it with these edited content. They’re also huge too. was just thinking about like the lay person. Yeah.

50:16
In terms of just last question here, in terms of selling physical products, do you know of any products that kind of work well or product tic tocs that you’ve seen well that are really well done? So one of my favorite accounts right now is definitely one called glow recipe, and they’re beauty products and they have learned how to use the tic toc trends, the the culture to sell to sell their products. Now, like, but everybody’s there now, like I was saying, I watched McDonald’s kill it.

50:46
I recently, today there’s an ad out from Dr. Pepper and they have chosen to use the culture for their ad. And like, I feel like all of these big brands now are now, they have now added TikTok to their strategy. So you can go to like Chipotle, they have one that’s incredible. Fashion Nova does a good job, but I would, there’s not a lot of brands that have come over there, over here yet. If I’m honest, some of them are there, but.

51:15
I don’t think they understand what is happening, but those that are using it are killing it. Yes. It’s the wild wild west right now. Yes. It reminds me of the early days even of Facebook, right? When you got tons of exposure, I think now’s the time to get started. Yeah, exactly. It’s like with us, we are in the process of learning all of this for brands because I’m like, okay, they’re going to come looking for somebody. I want them looking for me. Yes. And speaking of that, Kenya, where can people find you online?

51:44
For sure. So you guys can go to Kia Kelly.com. That’s my website. You want to spell that also? Yeah. So it’s K E E N Y A K E L L Y.com. It’s access to courses, consulting and all that. And then I do a lot of playing on Instagram at Kia Kelly. And then of course on Tik Tok. Yes. You guys should definitely go check out her Tik Tok channel. And I’m not, when I watch your videos, there isn’t anything like

52:11
It’s not like overproduced or anything. It’s literally just you being you and it works really well. Yes, tick tock, tick tock loves it. And the consumer loves it. They love to because we’re used to reality TV now. And now we’re like, I just want to see this person be themselves. They can teach me they can sell me but I want to get to know them and we get to do that on tick tock. Yeah. Well, Kenya, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. So much for having me.

52:38
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now the only thing I have to say is that if you are not on TikTok, you need to be on TikTok. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 366. And once again, I want to thank Clibio, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandon card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIIY.

53:06
Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform, and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog, and if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com.

53:35
and sign up for my free 16 mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.