How to Optimize Your TikTok for Business and Audience Growth with Wave Wyld

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 225. Today I'm sitting down with TikTok master Wave Wild, and we're talking about how to optimize your TikTok for business growth and audience growth. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super glad that you're here. Did you tune in to last Tuesday's episode with guest host Chris Little? He did such a great job. It was such a good episode regarding AI and how the Internet and the content creation world is changing. He did such a great job. Thank you so much. As you can probably hear, I'm almost getting better. My voice is almost coming back. So it was such a good job. Thank you so much, Chris. So continuing down this road of changes and incredible experiences that are just enhancing opportunities and ways for you to get introduced to your audience, I'm really excited for today, today's episode because I have TikTok expert wave wild on the show today and I you're going to hear when you listen to the end of, the end of this podcast, you're going to hear all the things that I myself learned as someone who consumes on the app, loves the app, and I haven't really started to like sink my teeth into, into using the power, the platform powerfully to really connect and draw in audiences. But as you, as you listen, she goes through some really important, powerful principles that we about all the time that are, that also exist on TikTok and how we can use the TikTok culture and the experience of tech talk because it is different than some of the other platforms you may or may not be using to grow your business, whether it's in person, brick and mortar based or online service business. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll this incredible episode with Wave. What's up, Wave? I am super pumped to have you on the show today. Welcome. How are you?

Thank you so much for having me I'm doing fabulous and I'm super excited to talk TikTok with your audience.

I know this is going to be so amazing. So if you're tuning in and you're listening, I just want you to know that Wave is an absolute legend. Okay. I actually, it's so funny is because when I first joined Tech Talk, when I was like, first discovering it, Wave's profile was actually one of the first profiles that I started following and learning about trends and learning about TikToks. Like, to me, Wave was like one of the first people that I've, I that even remotely were starting to use TikTok as an audience builder, lead generation person. And then it turns out I find her in the. In one of my. In my group programs. Like, we both work with James Wedlore to some capacity. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I know you. You're famous to me. So honestly, it is truly a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the show. I'm so excited.

That is so sweet. Thank you for boosting my ego. Totally true.

I'm not making up. So for those of you who are tuning in and you have not had the pleasure of being introduced to your work, can you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yeah. So I have been on the TikTok platform for a while. People do refer to me as one of the OGs, because when I started TikTok coaching, there was like less than five people, other people I had seen doing it. So pre Pandemic, I had a business doing content creation, photo and video specifically for business owners. And then the Pandemic changed everything. It changed my business. And I had an Instagram coach friend who was like, you should go join TikTok. Just explore it. It's a lot of fun. I think you would like it. That's. There's a lot of, like, a lot of people are not using it for business yet. So I got on it and I had a lot of fun because I was just pretty, like, tired of, of the culture on Instagram where everything's just so perfect and curated. And TikTok's an app that's really built on authenticity. So I started account playing around. I was doing all kinds of random content. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had a few videos that I thought were viral. Now I would say they're semi viral because they're like maybe a hundred thousand views. And I got hooked. And that's how it gets you Hooked. And I started talking about TikTok with my Instagram audience, and then I was getting a ton of questions, like, how do you use this for business? What are you doing there? All these things. And it was like, light bulb moment. There's lots of Instagram coaches, there's lots of other social media coaches. Like, I could totally help people, help business owners use TikTok as another social media marketing tool. And I felt really in alignment with it. I was super passionate about it. And I thought my background and personal branding and my digital marketing skills could really help people. And then that's. Yeah, that's how it all began. I just went super deep. I decided to go super niche. You know how James Webmore talks about that. Super, super niche. That's what I wanted to be known for. And, yeah, I've been very, very grateful. There's been a lot of demand for this knowledge, and it's just been. It's just been a blessing and it's. It's been amazing the past couple years.

So cool. So I cannot wait to dive in. So first, I want to talk a little bit about I cannot believe how fun TikTok was. Like, I cannot. My kids. My kids.

Oh, my gosh. Wait, I should show you these drawings.

That my kids draw of, like, me holding my phone and it says TikTok on it. I mean, because I can't. I had to, like, literally put a timer on where I was like, I am only going to be on the platform for this amount of time because it's just so fun. It sucks you in, and it's so entertaining. I'm dying. So for those of us who are maybe new to this platform, a little bit scared to dip our toes in, can you share with us a little bit about what are some of the biggest differences between TikTok and, say, Instagram or Facebook? And how would you recommend us starting to at least dive into the platform?

I love that question. I am. Oh, I have so much to say about this. This could be a really long answer. First, I just want to say I also thought that the platform was a lot of fun, too. And I do love music lover. I love to dance. So that is one of the things that appealed to me on TikTok. However, I never dance in my videos anymore. And you don't have to dance. I just want to say that you do not have to dance on TikTok. Not a lot of people do. That's a huge misconception because when you join the app, they show you a lot of dancing and Lip syncing, because the algorithm doesn't know who you are. So it's a recommendation algorithm. You need to start consuming the content that you like and it shows you more of that and then it curates the content towards you. You absolutely do not have to dance. And if you sell like a service, you're pretty much going to be making mostly educational content, so that doesn't require any dancing. Now, to get into your question about the differences between Instagram and TikTok, there are two main ones. One I already referred to and that is on Instagram, there is a more curated culture. Like, even the, like the stories and even the reels I see on Instagram are still a lot more curated. And like, everything's kind of got to look perfect on TikTok. It's an app built on authenticity. People don't want to see you all made up. You don't have to show up in like full makeup and pro lighting and camera equipment. This is why you see on the app so many people sitting in their cars, just making a video, talking. You see people making food or eating food while they're making a video. You see people like putting on makeup and talking while they're making a video. You see people lying in bed making videos. I've made videos lying in bed. People want to connect with like the real you. Now, you don't have to do that on purpose either. Just kind of be you just be authentic. But that is one main difference. The other one I would say is that when you are on Instagram, right, your content is primarily seen by your followers. So I consider that like a warm audience, like they are. You already have a relationship established. They. They know you. On TikTok, to build an audience, you have to appeal to complete strangers, right? Because your videos are shown on the for you page. That's that vertical feed people or content creators. So you have to appeal to complete strangers. That's a cold audience. They don't know you. So there are several techniques and things you have to think about and ways you have to change your content to appeal to strangers, to get them to stop scrolling, to get them to. To watch your video, to like you and convert to a follow or to a sale. So that's one thing I just think people don' realize, especially when they're coming from Instagram to TikTok.

So that's really powerful. And something I do want to ask you because I feel like, to your point right now, what I heard you say is that TikTok has like a just a really incredible ability right now to get your content in front of, become more visible and get in front of the people that you know need to see your stuff.

Right.

And so because of that, I find for me personally as a consumer, I don't really follow many people and I don't usually consume the content from my followers because I'm just on the for you page, you know what I'm saying? So like, what is that? Is there a huge drive to want to get followers? Do we want to be focusing on views? Like, is community building a thing? Like, I feel like the way people show up on TikTok is also different than Instagram.

Again, I love this question. Amazing. This is awesome. Oh gosh. I have a few things I want to say about it. So one thing is, yes, TikTok is a discoverability based app. Right. That's what makes it so unique. That's what, that's the main appeal, right, of the app. People want to go there because you can get a lot of eyeballs on your content as a business owner, that's really, really beneficial. And there's also this possibility to go viral, right? That is the appeal. Yes. Lots of people scroll the for you page for entertainment, entertainment and maybe they don't follow, but there are people who have other user habits. I do spend a lot of time on my following feed and we've seen that search. Using search now is a huge thing on TikTok. A lot of users are searching for specific content. So that's definitely something to, to think about as well. When it comes to community. Yes, you want to build a community on TikTok. This is something I teach. I actually call it the community over virality approach. So when I first came to TikTok and I saw this, I realized that even though there's so much focus on going viral and getting lots of followers, you don't need to go viral. You don't need to have hundreds of thousands of followers to use the app as a social media marketing tool. It's just like all the other apps. You just need to attract the right followers, the right people who like your content, who engage with it, who you can nurture, build that community and convert to a customer. So that's why I got super excited and that's why I teach that, because I've seen it hundreds and hundreds of times with my students. They are crushing it. I have one, one student who is just product based account, but she did half a million, half a million in sales last year just using TikTok. She sells dog tags and she has, well, she has grown to about 80,000 followers. But I've also have many other examples of students with less amount of followers who are absolutely crushing it in sales on TikTok. So you, you definitely want to focus on community first. And I've seen this especially for me, it has been the easiest app to build community on compared to the other social media platforms.

I'd love for you to break that down just a little bit more because like, so, for example, what causes me to say and listen, I'm only gonna speak from the context as someone who experiences as a consumer as opposed to necessarily a strategist in terms of TikTok's specifically. But the reason that I have this hesitation or resistance rather to community is because of a couple things. Sometimes I can't read all of the comments because it just plays the TikTok over and over and over and over and over again and I'm like, whoa. Like I'm okay, I'm. I'm tired. So. And then I'll, I'll leave it when I. Instead of like reading through the comments. And you also can't message people.

Okay, so here's the thing. There is a pause button. So, and I talk about this a lot, as in user habit. So when you're scrolling and I want to go into the comments section, I always hit pause, right. Because the video's looping and the sound can be annoying. However, if it's a creator I'm really supporting, I will just turn the volume down on my phone and let it loop because I know it helps them with watch time and go into the comment section. Comments are huge. I'm really, really big on engagement based call to actions and responding to comments and building those relationships because that is what social media is all about and that's one way to build community. Yes. So yeah, you just learned something you just learned today.

My mind is blown. I keep pausing video before I look at the comments.

Yeah, just tap on it to pods. That's okay. That's okay.

There's.

I mean TikTok is a beast of an app. There is so much to learn on how it works.

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I'm dying. I'm dying.

So you want to respond to your comments like that is the gold comment section are also like just a nut, like golden nugget of market research and what your followers want and what they like and what they don't like. So I'm always talking to them in the comment section. But yeah, that's a, that's a big part of TikTok. The other tip I have for building community and what the most powerful way is through live streaming. Now, you can't live stream on TikTok until you have 1,000 followers, but once you have that feature, you want to, you should be going on a regular basis, keep a consistent schedule. And that is really where your fan base happens. That's really where people get to know you, they see you in real time, they continue to, to get knowledge from you. You can continue to serve there. And that's where people really connect with you. And those people are like the people what I call are your fans. Right? You convert them to, from followers to fans. These are people you know who watch every single video, comment on all your videos, go to your live streams, follow you on other social media platforms, buy your stuff, talk to you, talk to their friends about you, all those things. So live streaming has helped me do that and that's something I definitely recommend for, for all my students. Oh my gosh.

Okay, so I have so many questions, follow up questions, I'm gonna answer them, I'm gonna ask them so I don't forget them and we'll come back to them in case. But number one is that I saw research recently that statistically your audience right now, 3% of your audience, including like podcast, listens, traditional social media, Instagram, Facebook, are more likely to purchase than TikTok right now. And right now TikTok is reflecting like a.005% yet you've got really profitable clients. So with the algorithm pushing things down, link in bio or pushing that, like they're not really serving the people who are wanting to build a business. How do you master the art of selling without selling on the TikTok platform?

Yeah, I would love to do that study because I see so many other results that contradict that and the power of short form video to make the purchase.

So that's question number one. Okay. The other thing I'm, I'm curious about too as well is the when with, with TikTok specifically, you said go live at 1,000 followers. How do you typically recommend people get to that 1000 the fastest way possible? And then lastly, the third question is that I know for me as a consumer, this is one of the most, most sophisticated algorithms that we, that are out like today.

Right.

And what I put out is not necessarily what I enjoy consuming. So how do you as a business owner recommend like, so for example, I love all the dancing TikTok videos. So TikTok's always like putting that at me. But I'm not necessarily posting TikTok videos. I'm posting the educational ones.

Yeah, okay, maybe we. I want to remember all these questions I'm going to try, but that one is like a really easy answer. And I really recommend when you're a business owner using the app to not use it for entertainment purposes or to create another blank account. I have several like empty blank accounts where I just consume content because I want to see a wider variety of what's going on on the app and what people are talking about because I am the queen of trend alerts and I need to know what is trending and what's hot on TikTok right now. So I do that from just an empty account. One of those looks, it's, there's no, no identifiable name or phone 534789. And I just put it that way. So because I've seen this with clients. They have, they've like, I see them what they're doing on the app and I'm like, okay, you're just following celebrities and, and watching like entertainment kind of videos. So let's use the app more strategically. Okay, so that's, that was sort of the quick answer for number three. Number one, talking about how to sell on TikTok, there are a lot of different ways to do it. It is, you gotta be creative in a way. The first one is live streaming. I'll go back to live streaming. Live stream is extremely powerful for selling whether you're service or product based. And I have an end funneling traffic right when you're live streaming, getting people to sign up for your lead magnet to a low ticket offer, all that kind of stuff is really good. Or to another community, really, really powerful. In live streaming, when it comes to videos, yes, there are, there are ways that you can sell. It is primarily seen as an entertainment app. So people don't really like to feel like they're being sold to. So you, you, you have to think more in TikTok culture perspective. Like you can't make a video and be like, hey, here's my course. Go buy it. Like it's really good and you're going to, you're going to kill your gut health or something. Right? Cares? No, but I do these videos and I'm like you, there are more creative ways. The number one way I like to teach people to sell is using the POV kind of perspective because it feels less healthy. And I see the, I see this all the time on the app. I saw, I saw fitness I saw my for you page. A fitness instructor use this format and the video had 1 million views. I don't know who she was. So you'd almost want to reach out and be like, hey, did you get sales from that or. Or what? Like, I'm just curious. Like, that video had 1 million views as she was using that perspective. Now I know if you're not. If you're new to TikTok, you don't have any idea what I'm talking about. POV, it's a really common format on TikTok. It means point of view. It's really just setting up a situation. So typically people will say either POV like at the beginning of video or they will say when you. Those two words. When you. When you want to heal your. I was going to use gut health. Gut health like a hot topic on TikTok. When. When you're tired of feeling bloated and feeling like crap and you want to heal your gut, come join me in this or. And you learn how to do it in this workshop or something like that. Do you know what I mean? A POV is like, can be anything, right? It could be like when I. When you go to the grocery store and forget your wallet. Like, it can be anything. It's just you're setting up like a situation from either your or someone else's point of view.

How often do you go live?

So very early on, as soon as I got to 1,000 followers, I went live. Now I'm a TikTok expert. So I did go live five days a week, Monday to Friday. Now I have not been live streaming as much, but I want to bring it back because TikTok's pushing it in 2023. They want more of their users to go live. And I think it's just so beneficial for your account as a business owner. And what I recommend doing is creating kind of more like a signature show, is what I call it, like a weekly show. And you, you have to. To make it successful, you have to like market it, you have to advertise it. You kind of gotta hype it up, give it a name so that you have people coming on a regular basis.

And now TikTok, I do wanna get to number two, which is how do we get to 1,000 followers? And I do wanna also dig deeper in number three. And I think it'll relate to two. That's why I'm bringing it back as well. Of creating two different accounts, one that you use to enjoy and then one that you strategically business because My question for you is for your business account, if you're trying to grow an audience and you're trying to get to that 1000, what is the type of content that you recommend us consuming and that you recommend, like how often should we be posting those kinds of things? And then I know in Instagram if you go live, the replay saves, that's. Is that true on TikTok?

Yeah. So a first thing it does save into your analytics folder and you can download it and repurpose it. It's not something that you can put like you could repost that as a video but nobody's gonna watch it. It's short form videos on TikTok, so it does save in a way and you could use it somewhere else or cut it out, cut out clips of it if you wanted. But it doesn't save like to your profile that other people could watch it unless you were to repost it. I've seen people repost them to like YouTube or hour long live and put it on YouTube. Yeah, okay, cool.

So how, what do you recommend? How do we get to that 1,000?

Well, yeah, if you're new on TikTok, one of the first things I do is do some research, use that search tool, start putting in words that are relevant to your niche or your industry and go consume content. That's the best way to like kind of understand how people are making videos and study videos, how notice how long are they, what's working, what's not working, what are they saying in the beginning to get attention? What are people saying in the comments, Are they using music? Are they. This is going to just help get the creative juices flowing and how you can make videos. But if you are new, I do recommend a minimum of two a day until you get to 1000. Now I know that seems like it like can be a lot for people who are not used to making videos. A couple things I have to say about that is these are very short videos, very short. They're not polished. A lot of the most, like almost all the videos I make are 12 seconds or less. They're not long. They should be. They are really fast to make. And I understand in the beginning that might take a little bit of practice and time, but once you get the hang of making the videos, like five minutes takes to make a video. And then the other thing that will help you make that much content is to have a content strategy and a content plan. Like I don't know how many people have come to me be like, yeah, I realize like you need a plan and a strategy. I'm like, yes, yes, you do. And I honestly, I teach with my students. I teach content pillars, also known as content buckets or content categories. It's like other social media, right? You do that on Instagram. You would do that on TikTok too, right? You do the same thing. So you're making a mix, but you will primarily, like I said before, make a lot of educational content. Because when you are new to the app, you need to build a lot of trust and credibility to. To convert people to a follower. Because they might see, like, oh, this person only has 30 followers.

Who are they?

Like, yeah, unfortunately, that's where that vanity metrics comes into play. But if they watched a couple of your videos and they're like, wow, this is interesting that this is. This is. This makes me think this is. They know their stuff, like, they will follow. And One thing about TikTok as well is like, some niches are, are harder to grow than others because kids follow easier than adults. I will notice, like adults like someone scrolling. I'll see my notification that they watch 10 videos before they hit follow. And I think to myself, man, that one was a hard conversion. They. I really had to. They really had to watch, like, a lot to be like, okay, like, I trust her, I'm gonna follow her.

I mean, follow people.

You don't follow people.

I don't.

And there are people who treat it like that. But generally this is why I have strategies for that is you create a type of content, I call it an original series that people want more of that makes them want to follow that. But because they have to, to get more of that content, they're going to follow you because they want to see more. Right. My trend alerts, that was. That's how I grew my account so fast and so big, was because I realized very quickly, like, oh, these are essentially content ideas and people want more content ideas and they want to know what the newest content ideas are. So they're going to follow me to get more of them because I want more of this content. So I was pumping out like three, four a week of those. I remember your crowd. Yeah, I know.

I still have it.

It's like right here, little dollar store.

Oh, my God.

I think it's actually for like a bachelorette party, something.

So when you say two a day, do you. Do you recommend, like. Cause there's some people out there that will say like seven?

Yeah, I do not recommend that. Okay. For a few reasons. Why I teach a quality over quantity approach. Now when you're a lot of the people who say post 10 a day, first of all, it's not sustainable for a business owner. You're only going to burn yourself out. Second thing is it's more of what I call like a lottery approach. If you're just, just want to be on the app making entertainment based content like funny skits, like sure, post 10 a day to kind of like try to find something that hits. Right. That's the whole strategy of playing the lottery. You're just like trying to find anything that hits and it's like jackpot and brings you like lots of followers. When your business, you want to, you care about the quality of those followers. You don't want just any followers. You want the, your ideal like right. Followers who could potentially become customers. So I teach more of a quality approach and it's, it doesn't intimidate people who are new as much who feel like pressure. I'm never gonna make force someone to post five, seven times a day. Like your mental health is way more important. You're just, you're gonna burn out. I don't want, you wanna have fun in what you're doing. Cause if you're not having fun on TikTok, you're not enjoying making videos, you're not gonna be able to stay consistent and really grow on the app. Yeah. So that's why I say yeah, two a day, quality over quantity. And yeah, be a little bit smarter about who you want to attract to your audit to your account.

Yes, I love that. Okay, so one of the things too you said earlier was you said the search.

Right.

So I do want to ask like when you're searching, are you searching for like your colleagues that might be considered competitors or are you wanting to search for like your ideal client? So like let's say fitness for example.

Right.

Or we could even say me fitness marketing. Do I want to go search fitness marketing? Because I'll also be honest with you, I have done that in the past, like earlier I think like way back. Honestly, they're, they're, they weren't there. None of the like, like the, the people there that my people that I would call, I didn't find them. They're probably there now, but they weren't then.

Yeah, well the reason why I say that is you can see right. What content is working for them on the app now. Yeah. If you want to call them your competitors, fine. But you know, I do not teach copying content. I have had people copy my videos word for word and I'M like, okay, you're calling yourself a marketer. You should know how to say at least the same thing in a different way. But yeah, I know. I don't recommend copying, but you can use it to study and see, like, what works on this app. Are they doing what I. There are so many different ways you can make videos. And this is one thing I think people don't realize when they join the app is they just go straight to talking heads. What I call a talking head. Video and talking heads are great. I do mostly talking head. That's where you just talk to the camera and deliver information. But there are other creative ways to make videos too. So you'll. You'll see more of this. More you kind of consume content and you don't have to do it that way. And you do kind of want to find what works. What works for you.

I guess what I meant too is that there's two options to search, right. You can search your colleagues or you can search for clients.

I would search your colleagues to see what type of content is working and to be like, that's how I know.

Okay, six.

So I've worked with a lot of people in the fitness industry and I see it. I don't know why on TikTok when you talk about magnesium, it does well. I see that across. So I see, like, man, like people want to know about magnesium. I don't know. There's videos about magnesium. Always do well. Gut health, like I said, is that other hot topic, like I see every time when people make a video on gut health. Also, intermittent fasting is another one. People love to talk about intermittent fasting. So just like to give you an idea of, like, what, what type of content is working? Is that something in alignment with you that you teach as well? How could you do it in your own way? What do you have to say about it? That type of thing. But you don't want to really search for your ideal client. That's not really going to give you a lot of information.

Yeah, I guess the reason why I thought that is because it's the idea of, well, if they. People tend to put out the content that they like to watch.

Yes.

So I have not. But you're right. Colleagues first. Right. So what would you say to your people who start to get imposter syndrome who are like, I can't look at my colleagues because why me?

Yeah, stay in your own lane. I had a, a business coach years ago tell me, like, you need to stay in your own lane. Put those blinders On. Yeah. And I even do this now because I don't want to be influenced by other people. Like, other people. What other people are saying. Right. Because I have my own ideas and theories and. Yeah. So you have to learn how to stay in your own lane. Or you also have to just be really good at recognizing when you start to compare yourself to others, because that usually leads to the imposter syndrome and thinking like, oh, they're so. They're so. Like, they have so many followers. People love them. Right. Like you. It's not the whole picture. Right. We know on social media it's not the whole picture. So you have to really recognize when you start comparing yourself to other people and stop it. So direct. I'm like, it's so true though.

Right?

Believe me, I've been through all this stuff and this is why. Yeah. The mindset stuff is just so important when you're running a business.

You're an entrepreneur, especially. Especially too. You were first to market in the sense of like one of the founders.

And then.

So I'm assuming you see tons of people copying your stuff all the time.

Yes, I've been through, through those emotions and, and those frustrations. Yeah. And you. You know what, you have to change your perspective on it. Otherwise I feel like it's just gonna bring me down and those, those feelings don't serve me. So if I want to keep moving forward in my business and keep being the innovator. Yeah, I have to. I just have to deal and work through those emotions and feelings.

Totally. Okay, so now switching gears, I do want to ask a little. I want to ask your opinion on. As I know we can't. No one really knows this.

Right.

So I, I'm just curious about your opinion specifically regarding the, the, the length of time do we have to really increase our visibility? So remember back in the day when Instagram, MySpace, Periscope, all those things. Right. Were really new and they didn't have a lot of ad revenue running yet. Like, it was very like organic marketing. You could really get seen there. And then it just got harder and harder and harder to grow as the paid advertising started to increase. So now we're really starting to fight for impression. I noticed now that TikTok's also now starting to add paid advertising. And this is not shade.

Right.

I'm not throwing shade, but I am curious your opinion on how long we have in terms of shelf life to grow organically at a quick. At a fast pace. Because I'm already hearing people say I'm too late I'm too late. Is that true?

Yeah. So you know me. I don't BS and I don't bluff talk. It's just not me. So I will tell you, yeah, it is not as easy to grow on TikTok as it was in 2019, 2020. I used to get a minimum of 50,000 views on my videos. Now it's a lot less. The organic reach is not the same. And I would say that TikTok is mainstream now and it's definitely more competition for attention, which is why it's so important to have a strategy and really know who your target audience is and how to talk to them and all those things, because it still can be done. I think there are definitely strategies and tactics that I teach to help with that because it is more, more competitive, but it can still be done because. And that's why people love TikTok, right? Is because of the discoverability. There's still people going viral every day. There's still people crushing it on the app. They've just gotten really smart about it.

So also, you know what is. Because I also hear this as well.

As people say, oh, I'm not on.

TikTok yet because my client's not on there. My ideal client doesn't hang out there. So if at Instagram have anywhere from, I think, what is it, 2 billion or 2 million, 2 billion users a day, what is the TikTok stats right now?

Yeah. So I would encourage them, like, are you really sure that your ideal client is not there? Because I feel like everyone's pretty much there. Millennials is. And when it comes to age demographics, millennials are the fastest growing demographics on TikTok. So I feel we, the communities are there. We know book talk is there. Right. We know fitness talk is there, food talk, like every combination, every major community is there. And then, I mean, I also continue to see like super, super specific niches on TikTok as well. So I feel like everyone is there and the age demographics are increasing. So I would encourage you to really, really investigate and see, like if you are missing out on something. But if you feel like you know what they are more on, on reels or, or YouTube or Facebook, then, you know, that's, that's, that's fine too. Right? I'm not gonna try to massively, like convince someone you have to be on TikTok. I, I see the power in it. I think all audiences are there. I see the different user base.

I love it. And so to that point, do you repurpose or reuse your TikTok content and put it in other places.

All right, this is a good question. Because people, like, hate. This is my honest opinion. Okay, so here goes. I have found, and it's funny, I just wrote an Instagram post about this this morning. It's not published yet. I have found, like, and people come to me and they say the stuff I post on TikTok doesn't work on reels. And then people say the paper stuff I've. And it's because there's a different culture. There's a different culture on these apps. So majority of people do repurpose their TikToks to shorts and to reels and to Facebook reels and to Pinterest and LinkedIn or where. And I would say if your video performance across all of the apps is doing well, like, it's working for you. Like some people, it does work for them. I have a pediatrician. Her stuff does really well on TikTok and it does really well on reels. And she's just repurposing. So awesome. Like, you are lucky for myself and some other people, I have found that it doesn't like my talk. I do a lot of talking head. They just don't work on reels. I find talking heads don't work there. The different aesthetic and style. But if you can make it work for you, great. So I do make more original content on for shorts and for reels. However, I do have a workflow. I have, I have the ability in my business to do that as an experienced content creator. I have the strategy in the workflow. So it's, it's not too overwhelming or, or causing burnout for me. Partially why I also do that is because I'm also in a YouTube shorts creator community. I'm also in the TikTok creator community and they really, really encourage you to post original content. And on shorts specifically, right now, they're pushing original content because they are majorly competing with TikTok and they want creators, like, to make original content, not just repost videos. So they're pushing original content over there. So my original content does better like that I make in shorts, does better on shorts than just reposting. That's what I have found. So I, I'm one of those unlucky people where, yes, I, I don't, I don't repost videos.

I cannot get concise girl. Okay, Shorts only lets you be 60 seconds and TikTok and Reels at least give you 90. And I'm like, I cannot. I for some reason I'm like 90 seconds on the dot.

I never make videos more than 15 seconds. Attention spins are so short on these apps and I, it's short, short form content, it's bite sized nuggets. Like if you have something longer to say like make that into long form or make a break up, make a few videos about it. You need more videos anyway, so yeah.

So I do want to talk about this. Can we talk about the short form versus the long form? Because TikTok also introduced 10 minute videos. I've never posted a 10 minute video on TikTok. So what was the point of that? Are they still doing that? Is long form still a thing on TikTok?

I would say that they did it as a way to compete with YouTube. However I, I don't see many creators making. Well for one thing you can't make 10 minute videos in the app, you'd have to upload them. You can only upload 10 minute videos. But because watch time is the number one factor in video performance, it's just, it's, it seems like a waste. I don't see many people doing it. And why would I put like all this effort into making the 10 minute video? Even if people only watch 3 minutes of it, it's like 7 minutes of content they're not getting. It's a short form video app, three minutes max. And there are certain niches that do better with longer videos. Like people who do recipes. Right. They can make one minute video minute videos and get lots of views because people are watching the whole thing. Or you just like true crime stories. Oh my God, that's so big on TikTok people love watching that stuff. Instead of watching the hour long episode, you can watch everything in three minutes, get the full story. But yeah, generally no, no, I don't, I haven't seen, I don't think I've ever seen a 10 minute video.

I haven't either. For me it's the lives. Like if you're going to get someone to stay longer than 10 minutes then you're going live.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it just doesn't make sense. So it's, it's an effort to compete with, with YouTube that seems to be failing.

So now when you say educational content, right, and you do talking head, you're doing 15 second talking heads. Mm, yeah. Well, hard, that's hard to do.

Concise. This is why I teach scripting. Write down what you're going to say and then you can look at it and take out unnecessary information or make, make additional Videos with it. Yeah. So I teach you that we're planning out what you're going to say and keeping it short and to the point. It's bite sized nugget. You don't know. I often refer to the five W's. Right. When you think about the five W's, I'll watch a video and I'm like, they gave me the what, the why, when, how to use it, where to use it, who should be using it. I'm like, that's just too much information in one video. Just give me maybe like the what and the why. That's what I usually stick to. If you want to go into more details, I can make another, another video.

Got it, got it, got it. Okay, so now how does the content creator use the TikTok story? Do you recommend that we use story? Is it used, do we use it the same way we use Instagram?

Yeah, absolutely. So another thing I think people don't realize on TikTok is there are, there's actually four features on the app. But you know, I recommend it using at least three of them. Just like Instagram, right. You, you don't only just post on the grid. You're posting stories and reels and on the grid. TikTok's the same. You really want to be maximizing all features. You have the videos that you're posting, you have stories, you have live streaming and you have TikTok now. But it's kind of useless, so I don't recommend it. But the stories, yeah, so you can use them quite similar to Instagram. What? One thing I love about the stories is it's a warm audience. So it's primarily your followers who see your stories. Strangers don't see your stories. So this, this is, it's a warm audience, right? So this is where I will do more on my stories. I do more behind the scenes and connection. Right. In my educational videos I am just like straight up educating. But on my stories I might be sharing a thought or an opinion or cute video of my cat. This kind of more connection content. And then you can also do promotional content. I will do like the funny filters and like goof off on stories, but I would never put that on my, my, my video grids that are dependent on the algorithm and video performance because I know that stuff will not perform. People don't care about me goofing off like with these silly filters that I just save for stories. My followers love that stuff.

Got it. Now, now, just out of curiosity, like when you're like me and you're just on the for you page. I get served, but only my follower stories.

Yes. Yeah. So it's primarily your followers that see your stories. I have done a few stories that kind of went viral and when they go kind of get a lot of engagement, I made a story like, kind of commenting on the advertisers. This like, ad I saw from a sexist ad that I reposted from the 50s and what it was like marketing was like in the 50s or 60s and that kind of went viral on stories. So then, yes, I got strangers, saw my stories. But for the most part, yeah, it's just your followers, your stories. So it's a warm audience. So you can always be promoting like you, just like you would on Instagram.

Ah, I see. So what would you. Or what would you say is one of the most underutilized features on TikTok.

Both stories and live streaming? Because people are probably already consumed with just making videos and keeping up with that. Or don't have a strategy for it and. Or don't know how to use it. Or afraid, afraid. Like afraid to live stream if they've never done it before. Don't know what to say on stories, don't know what to post.

Yeah, strategy always win Principle. So good. Okay, so Wave, I want to be very mindful of your time. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for, for pouring into me. I mean, I learned something today. I love, I love my podcast just for this reason. I learned so much when I do these things. So thank you so much. And for those of you who are interested and they want to learn more about you, about what it is that you do and how they can work with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them for sure.

So, of course, on TikTok and Instagram are my most active profiles. It's just my name@wavewild, my website, wavewild.com is where you can find more information about my products and services.

Okay, cool. We'll be sure that we link all this up in the show notes.

Thank you for having me as a guest. A lot of fun.

So fun.

Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team@info simpsonfitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you. And you go from wanting clients to a waitlist of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode.