Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: There's one social media platform that has completely transformed the entire social media landscape unlike any other in recent memory, and that's TikTok. So today we'll talk about how agents and advisors can get the most out of the platform, what role it should play in your overall marketing strategy and best practices to keep in mind. I'm David Belleville.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Jo Barker.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: And this is the Amerilife Marketing Mentors podcast.
Jo, thanks to TikTok, we now have short form video. It's entered the lexicon and it has now been integrated into every single social media platform, it seems. But TikTok hasn't been around that long relative to other platforms. So today, what role do you think TikTok plays for our agents and advisors out there in their marketing strategy?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I think depending on your target audience, it can play a, it can actually play a pretty critical role. So TikTok is all about being able to take educational information and put kind of an, a, like entertaining spin to it. And so it's an opportunity for people to get really creative in the way that they share information, the way that they present it and the way to be themselves. But at the same time they can, they can produce a lot of content because there's no overload that you can do on TikTok and you can put information out there to where you can really connect with people at a different level. I say it really depends on your target audience because not all of our target audiences as on TikTok, which is where you don't see us recommended a ton, even though we do have people who have seen a lot of success in, you know, demographics you wouldn't necessarily expect on that platform.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's a great point.
It's a platform, though, that you can kind of test the waters, get your feet wet, figure out how you can start posting regularly when it comes to short form video and then take that to platforms that might matter a little bit more to your target audience. And I bring that up because the TikTok algorithm won't punish you as severely as perhaps other social media platforms if your content doesn't necessarily take off. You could post 10 videos that don't get any engagement and then all of a sudden start finding your momentum. And Jo, we hear all the time that the hardest part is just getting started. So TikTok might be a great place to at least start learning about how to get short form video up and running for yourself.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I think TikTok is, is an easy to use platform for a lot of people. So once you get used to the platform and once you're on there creating video, it has such great tools built within it that make it very, very easy to produce video content very quickly, which is great. And I love every single TikTok that's made. It saves it directly to your phone, which is wonderful. And it does give you that chance to draft as many times as you need to, to make changes to things, to go back and you can delete just certain portions of it and it makes it's very user friendly. In my opinion. It really is just about getting used to creating the content and it's also a great opportunity to kind of mix together your business and your like you kind of mix together who you are as a person with your business side, but you can do it in a fun way. So it's okay where on LinkedIn it's not necessarily ideal to share a lot about your personal life and be sharing your weekend or whatever it might be. We're on TikTok. That's okay. You know, it's okay to show people a behind the scenes look. And actually that content does really, really, really well is because when people start feeling like they know you better and better and better, then they really start trusting you more and connecting with you more. So TikTok is a, it's a fun platform and I think it's okay for people to realize when you're on there, it's okay to have fun and it's okay to connect with people and you can still share education at the same time as having some fun on a platform.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Creativity really shines on TikTok. And just when you thought that you thought of every single way to present information, there's a new trend or a new editing style that comes out. And a lot of these things do originate on TikTok. It's kind of the trend setting platform these days. And speaking of which, it is because of TikTok that we now have Instagram and Facebook reels and we have YouTube shorts. So depending on your target audience, you could create one short form video that serves all of those platforms. And another best practice is if you're creating long form content like a podcast like this, you're then lending yourself up to derivative content where you can clip them into 3060 second clips and then that can inform your content strategy as well. So there's also a lot of different ways that you can collect content and publish.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah, one of the things that you mentioned is those trending posts. So sometimes there's a trending sound There's a trending, you know, or, or just a, a type of video that's trending. You can take those trends and morph them with your, you know, your area of expertise and you can create content that way, which is just a unique, fun way of doing it. Instead of just presenting the question and the answer, you take what's trending out there and you pull it in at the same time, which is just, it's just a different way of doing it. And it does make it a bit more fun of creating the content to where you're, you're experimenting and you're trying and you're seeing, you know, does this trending sound work with, you know, with this content that I'm putting out there?
[00:05:18] Speaker A: That, that's a great point. That's also a, a great way to get discovered. Often if you're utilizing those trending sounds or hopping on those trends, you could potentially be increasing the likelihood that your content gets discovered or distributed. And speaking of distribution, short form video and especially TikTok is one of the greatest ways to garner attention and exp. I mean TikTok has really changed the game in terms of getting discovered. Is there anything that you'd like to add to that?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, those 60 to 90 second, not reels, but videos and pieces of content that are out there are just gold. I mean the people, the amount of time that you spend on there, you are seeing longer ones start to, you know, be tested. But it really does seem like that 60 to 90 second window is kind of that prime, that prime time that you can capture that attention and people will continue, they'll click over to your page to go look at more.
And so I think the more that you just test and starting with those one minute videos and just get used to creating them just makes it easier and easier as you get going.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And you don't necessarily have to be jumping on those trends or, you know, being silly, but what we are talking about is utilizing TikTok to enhance your personal brand. And this is really where you, you can start to become playful, incorporate those trends. But you mentioned off the top, Jo, this is a great place to be educating and informing your audience as people continue to treat TikTok more and more like a search engine.
Just this past week a new study came out that said 49% of consumers are using TikTok as a way to search for specific information. So I mean, it's just another great way to get discovered that way.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you're starting to see more and more of the SEO within the video. So where in the beginning you didn't see it as much because, because I think at the beginning it was more about the music and so it's definitely morphed over those years into now. It is about what people are searching, making sure that it's relevant to what it is that they're looking for.
E commerce is just exploding on TikTok and that's just gonna continue. And you're seeing that more and more across all of the channels where that E commerce is coming into play and people are trusting the opinions, they're reading the comments and you're seeing just more trust come into these platforms of people getting used to utilizing them outside of just that social side of it.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: And as we've mentioned before, people trust people way more than they trust brands and this is the best opportunity for you to put your personal brand forward and be able to garner that connection that you might not otherwise be able to get.
Jo, also on TikTok are you mentioned this that we're starting to see a little bit of long form content creep into best practices and where consumer behavior is trending and there are opportunities for you to post longer form content on TikTok. Now I bring this up because consumer behaviors do change over time and often when platforms get saturated like with short form video, there becomes a demand for this alternative form of content and TikTok does allow certain creators to be able to produce long form content. In my opinion we're going to start seeing that more and more as well.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're, I think you're going to see a ton of things be test over, you know, tested over, continued across all the social media platforms. That's the main thing is people's experiences change, people's behaviors change. As that continues, you're going to see that your platforms adjust based off of that. So if you, if we're seeing to where people aren't getting enough of the information within those smaller videos and they start to notice that they're consuming longer so they're consuming some of that longer content. That's definitely a key that hey, more people need to be creating longer content. That's where you start to see those trends come out, over what's trending, what's not trending, what time of the day to post, how often to post. Like those type of things are always updated and they're always shared with everybody of like hey, here's best practices and I think you're going to see more and more across all the social platforms. I mean think back 10 years ago to Facebook, you didn't have all these short form videos and to, you know, what you mentioned earlier, TikTok kind of brought all of that, who knows with AI and with all the new abilities that everyone now has access to what it's going to look like 10 years from now.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, there's so much opportunity, there's so much unknown. We are starting to see, excuse me, AI integrated natively into the TikTok platform.
I want to say, don't quote me that his name is TikToktake O T A K O. There is an AI chatbot now built into the platform. It, it by the, at the time of this recording it's likely still in beta testing. But essentially like GROK on X, it's providing content on certain topics depending on the video. And so for health and wealth, where there's a lot of complex ideas that is just another layer of being able to as from the consumer's point of view, do research, in fact check.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the more people can get on there and check out the hashtags and see how much of an audience and how, how much certain hashtags are, are getting garnering attention. I know there was one I saw, I think it was called fintalk where it's all about the financial industry and it has a huge audience in there. So if you're a financial advisor, that, that is, you know, that's an area to, to start at and to look at and to start paying attention to what's out there and if the AI tools are able to, you know, help with that or, or be able to guide it a little bit more into, and provide content, it's going to be pretty incredible. And, and how much people trust it also as they, you know, start seeing
[00:11:13] Speaker A: it more and more. Yeah, and, and trust is everything.
So bringing it back to our audience, creating content, just get out there, you know, what objectives come out, come up the most, you know, what challenges your audience faces the most. Build content around that and to Jo's point, go look for those hashtags and what videos already exist out there and meet that demand and create content where your audience is. Because increasingly people are using TikTok more and more and that's not just Gen Z anymore. We're starting to see it adopted across all generations. And so Jo, as we wind down this conversation today, when it comes to TikTok, what is something that we haven't touched on today that you think that
[00:12:03] Speaker B: we should, I think we, we mentioned it in one of Our earlier podcasts about LinkedIn as as far as people aren't going to your LinkedIn page and they're not going to scroll through and watch all of your videos or all of your posts. So it's okay to repost content, it's okay to change a couple of things about it and repost it, especially if it's done well in the past. And that same thing applies to TikTok. So you're constantly, you know, when you're hitting that feed, you could have posted something two months ago. It doesn't mean any of the current viewers ever saw it. So it's okay to, to take those same content pieces, especially ones that do well, and, and it's okay to post them again. So that would be something that I would definitely say is pay attention to what you are garnering attention from and then utilize that moving forward, knowing, okay, this is a popular topic. Let me go ahead and find five other ways to answer this question.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: That's a great point. Also, the shelf life of TikToks also reels and other pieces of short form content across social media can often be weeks or sometimes months. So evergreen content becomes really important to your strategy. And I think that it came out of our LinkedIn conversation because we were talking about how posts can get circulated for weeks on LinkedIn. That same, the same thing is true for TikTok.
Also, to Jo's point, you can literally repost the same exact video. You don't even need to recreate it, although that is encouraged as a best practice. There are creators out there that do just that. X amount of months go by and they'll just repost the same exact video.
I also want to touch on metrics and measuring your success because again, this is a metric that matters across platforms, wherever you're sharing short form video content. And that's what at your average view duration, that's a metric you want to keep in mind because the longer people are watching your content, the more likelihood that the algorithm will distribute it. Is there anything else that you might want to add to that?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: I think that's critical on all the platforms, on anything that you're doing. If you're not measuring what you're doing, then you're kind of going at it blind and that's never going to be successful for anybody. So the more, the more that you can pay attention to those, you know, key indicators, it's critical. And so for TikTok, it's how long are they watching the videos? And TikTok's great too, because There's a creative area where it will tell you what's trending and what to pay attention to and kind of what's coming up. And so the more that you just get familiar with the platform, compare it, look at your own content, your past content, how successful it was, and then see what else is out there that's successful and how can you make it a part of yours.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: And as we mentioned when we were producing our Instagram podcast, saves is a very valuable metric that applies to TikTok as well. If you're producing content that people want to save and reference for later, that's a great signal that your content is resonating and you should potentially create more content around it. Of course, if you need help with any of this short form video content creation in general, the strategies, how you can incorporate AI, or you just need to talk about how to get started.
That's why the Amerilife marketing mentors are here. Jo, any final words today?
[00:15:10] Speaker B: No, that was it.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you guys for listening. We hope to see you on TikTok and of course, be sure to follow along with the Amerilife marketing mentors on all platforms, including TikTok. And we'll see you next time.
