Optimizing and Monetizing Facebook

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 17. Today we're talking with Desiree Martinez all about how to optimize and monetize your Facebook. So stay tuned. 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 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. Hello and welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and today I'm super excited to share with you the interview I did with Desiree Martinez. I love the Internet because if it for the Internet, I wouldn't have the opportunity to connect with people from all over the world. Some of my closest friends became my friends before I actually met them in person. And so today I'm bringing to you social media expert Desiree Martinez. And we talked all about how to optimize and how to monetize the Facebook platform. We went deep into ways, even if you are starting from the beginning, ways that you could get started with your Facebook page. We talked about the different strategies to use with different platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and we even started to talk about TikTok and how we can use TikTok and if TikTok is a platform that we should put our attention to. So Desiree Martinez is is a longtime award winning social media creative content creator. She has worked with hundreds of businesses and brands to help them grow their business with better content marketing. As a YouTuber, podcaster, speaker and business owner, Desiree knows what it takes to help your business grow, build a community and get leads through a very noisy newsfeed. She is the author of Innovation from Desperation, the Unfiltered Failures and Successes of an OG Social Media Marketer. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. Hi.

Hi.

Hi, Desiree. Thanks so much for joining me here on the show today. How are you?

I'm super excited to be here. Nothing like starting your day off with a good conversation to pump people up about how they can grow their business.

I love it, I love it, I love it. So let's just dive right in. Can you please share with my audience a little bit about who you are and who you serve and how you got there?

Yeah. So I've been a social media marketer for over 10 years. I started back in 2010, very much so on accident, I actually had big dreams of being an animator for Pixar and Disney. And I graduated college into a tanking economy, and so I had to, like, quickly pivot and figure out, like, what could I do different? And I started to network with people to look for graphic design opportunities. And people kept asking, am I people? I'm a psych adult. And, like, air quotes. At the time, I was like, 24. They're like, what's this Facebook thing? And I was like, what you doing? My Facebook bubble, people. And what had happened was Facebook had become available for everybody that did not have, like, it used to be you had to have a college email ticket on. And then they pivoted into, like, everyone. Anyone can have a Facebook. And so all these people were like, how do I use this? What's the deal? How do I. My kids are talking about it, like, is there a business opportunity here? And so I started networking with people to teach them how to use Facebook. And one day, this guy I was talking with, like, desiree, you should do this as a job. I looked him deadpan in the face, and I was like, no one's gonna pay me to be on Facebook. And I quite literally eat those words every single day, because that's exactly what I do for a job now. I help businesses grow on social media with better content marketing, while also putting military spouses to work anywhere that they're stationed around the world as social media managers. And a lot of how I get my leads and how I have established myself as an expert in my industry is with video marketing. And I know that we're gonna be talking a lot about different kinds of ways that we can use video marketing. So I'm not gonna go into many details, but that's how I got started, and that's my serve.

That's amazing. I love that. And I know that right before we hit record, we were talking. I was just sharing a little bit with you about people in my audience. And what I have found is that people tend to navigate towards one platform, right? They get really good at something like Instagram, and then this is where they start networking and connecting. And then they start developing, like, a dogmatic bias against the other platforms, like, oh, Facebook is not fun. It's super negative. Which is ironic, because when it comes to Facebook advertising, you can't say one negative thing at all, right? And Facebook really works hard to keep that platform very positive. Anyway, that was a side note, but what happens to a lot of personal trainers and physical therapists is that they start Thinking that Facebook's old, Facebook's 2005, 2008, I need to focus my attention onto newer, better not recognizing the power that Facebook specifically has. And especially now with all these, with the video watch opportunities, I think that.

People decided somewhere along the line that Facebook didn't work because they were doing it wrong. And I think that that's what happened. And don't get me wrong, we live in, our news feeds, are super polarizing and everyone has an opinion. Everyone's a Facebook and Google doctor these days or a politician. And it's super annoying. It is. There's no denying that. But there's also still a lot of really great business being done on Facebook. And it's just a matter of like, how are you doing it different and like, how are you standing out and what value are you offering that allows your message to get seen through the junk? And I think that that is one of the things that people like get frustrated about because like, you can't game it. Like, I'm sorry, Facebook is harder than Instagram. Facebook is harder than Twitter. Facebook is harder than LinkedIn. Facebook takes work. Facebook's the OG, right? Like, Facebook is also the most complex. You know, between having personal accounts and pages and groups and you have Facebook Watch and you have Marketplace, like, there's just a lot of different things going on. And so I think it just can kind of be overwhelming for people. And so therefore they say, no, I'm not going to do it.

Mm, it's right. It's true. It's so true.

Especially now.

I hear a lot, oh, Facebook pages are dead.

No, you're just doing it wrong. Yeah.

Exactly. So if you wouldn't mind, can you just share with us, like if you were a brand new trainer or a brand new person coming to Facebook, where would you start?

So I would start with a two part approach. I would be using my. I would be using the crap out of my Facebook page. Because there are so many advantages to Facebook pages where you can, like, by building your page, you can target a specific area, especially if you do in person stuff or like you're like the San Diego expert or the middle of nowhere, ID expert or like whatever, like wherever you guys are, you can like really narrow in on that and like Facebook allows that like geographical help of where you are. I would also post a lot. A lot of people don't realize that you should actually be posting multiple times a day on Facebook. And the reason I'm saying that is because once you start posting, once you start building a following you're going to be able to go into your Facebook insights and really see, okay, where are, when are people going to be on Facebook? And it's going to tell you your peak times. And oftentimes people are on, especially nowadays people are on a lot more than usual. So if you're just posting once a day, that's a really big missed opportunity to reach people when they're choosing to be on. Because even throughout Covid and all that stuff that we're doing we have going on right now that's interfering with our sort of our rhythms, people will still have patterns of like first thing in the morning, later at night, lunchtime, and those kinds of things. That's three missed opportunities if you're only posting once a day. So I think that people get really like, oh, Facebook's gonna penalize me. And this, this is like, no, you need to be posting more so that you can get the data to figure out what piece of content are you making that are actually the kind of piece of content that your audience wants. And so my next strategy would be a combination of pre recorded video and live video. I would be using live video because the Facebook algorithm really likes that Live video is an opportunity for people staying on the platform longer and it gives them opportunity to like, they can use their push notifications to let people know that you're there. And when you're live, you can go to like your Facebook group or your personal profile and do like a watch party or share it so that more people can get on board with what you're doing and share. And so I would do, would be like a workout of the day kind of a thing or like a stretch of the day or, or like something that would, that really relates to like what my niches and who I serve and dive into that like very specifically for like five to 10 minutes. And then with the pre recorded video, that's when I would be focusing on things that are search engine optimization specific because I believe all marketing strategies are multi pronged. But I would start with something that's like what's something people search for and that I can solve for them with this video. And I would build up because ultimately what we're trying to get you to do besides grow your Facebook page is one, make Facebook happy. Because the Facebook algorithm wants long form videos. They want people to have reasons to stay on the platforms longer. People stay on the platforms longer by watching more content. So the more time they're watching your video, they're gonna then go to the next thing or the next thing, after watching your video, after being on for like you know, three minutes, five minutes, however long your is and then go to the next person versus just being this like thumb scrolling pattern. And then the second reason that it's important is because this is a long term goal for your Facebook page is to monetize your Facebook page. Yes.

I can't wait to get into that because I'm, I'm actually most excited about that because I know it's, you know, you hear people out in the marketing industry, they're all talking about monetize your YouTube channel, monetize your YouTube channel. Not recognizing that you can actually monetize your Facebook Facebook page as well. It's a huge missed opportunity. And so I definitely want to get that especially as you start getting because like some one of the things that I talk about is you're either going to get paid traffic or organic traffic. That's how we're going to lead it. That's how you're going to start to grow your audience or at the top of your funnel. And Facebook has a ton of really affordable paid opportunities which is then going to help you grow that audience and lead it to that watch or lead to the monetizing your Facebook page. So I definitely want to get into that. But before I move on, just real quick, based on what you said, how many times a day do you typically recommend someone post on their Facebook page? And do you think there's a difference between whether you're starting versus having a seasoned Facebook page?

I think when you're starting, post more. But it should not be just like the Me Me Me show. It should be a lot of sharing of content. And by sharing of content, I don't mean going to Google and finding links because links are actually the lowest performing pieces of content on Facebook. It's going and finding other brands and businesses that align with your mission objective vision that you can share things. So if you're focusing on like being a local expert, share other local things that are going on, like maybe your favorite healthy food restaurant or maybe your favorite place to get gear or like this is my favorite smoothie spot, like that kind of stuff, like sharing content from those places will help with your reach. Giving tips, inspirational quotes, spending just that time on the platform being valuable and relatable. And it's like I know that it's a little cliche of like the 8020 rule, but when you're sharing 80% of informational, value driven content and then promoting yourself 20% of the time, you are still 100% positioning yourself as an expert. And so it's one of those things, like not everything is about sales. A lot of times things are about expertise. That way when someone is triggered to need you or want you, there's no one else that they could think of needing. Or maybe it's like, it's like the idea too. Like if you're searching for something or you're watching a lot of something, Facebook is more likely to serve that other content to support it. And that applies to business pages, not just like news. So like, if like you start watching, you know, chiropractic videos or smoothie videos or like DIY fitness videos or something, your content will get fed to those people in addition to it. So that's a lot of like what you want to be, you know, thinking about for when you're doing it. And then once you have a base of followers, then I would go into the analytics and see, okay, what that. And that is when you should determine what your strategy should be. Usually the bigger your audience is, the more you should be posting. That's what how I kind of look at it. Because if I have a thousand or ten thousand people that follow my page, I really cannot expect all 1,000 to 10,000 of them to be on Facebook at 9:30am to watch see my post. It's unrealistic. That's not how people, people's patterns work. Additionally, everyone's 9:30 is different around the country if you're doing a national brand or even, even harder international brand. So that's how I kind of think about it. And that's what I find that works best for businesses.

That's great. And just so I know this is kind of like a sidestep question, but I know that they're kind of related. But would you say the same thing about Instagram, that you need to be posting multiple times a day on Instagram?

Instagram is a totally different thing. Like I said, no one strategy works for all of the platforms. Okay, I stand corrected. No one like posting strategy or message layout or hashtags or link strategy is the same for every platform. However, you can take one piece of content and post it to every platform within the confines of the platform's successful. Like layout. Like Instagram, what works best for squares and like the little bit taller, the four by five images, right? You want to do hashtags, longer posts, the dots in between your paragraphs, adding emojis. The first hundred and fifteen characters are the important parts. Like those kinds of things. But Facebook, Facebook, it's longer posts put a link at the bottom, you know, bullet point as it's some of the similar Instagram now that they have hashtags to you, you can add hashtags at the bottom of your post as well. Just not the whole like 30 using a really powerful image, but mainly a video that can support it. That's gonna do better. It's just adapting your content each platform. So to say you should post more on Instagram versus posting more on Facebook. I find that it's just for my brand. It has been just as effective to post once a day on Instagram. Yes. But to very frequently post stories. And so like that's, that's how I do that. And I know a lot of Instagram experts and I know a lot of my fellow social media marketers and fellow creators. Once a day is plenty. But where the magic is in stories.

Yeah, I love that you said that. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to ask because I teach, you know, first of all, the bear marketing principle is guess, test and assess. Right. At the end of the day all we're doing is trying on this strategy and then we have to go back and look at the numbers and the analytics because they will tell you how successful it is. And I found that every time I would double post on Instagram and reset the algorithm, I was losing, I was potentially losing traction on a very powerful post that I had posted earlier that morning where when if I had just let it season, I might have gotten a little bit more traction on it.

Yeah, I don't. I feel like it goes into different kinds of brands. Like I think if you're like a merchant, if you have a product that end like the posts are designed to like sell the product, maybe there's value in posting like two or three times a day if you're a news outlet of some kind. Like if you like you're resource for things like your local news or you're a very active blog or you're blogging multiple times a day, you're like you're this skim or a scary mommy. Like those kinds of brands. Yeah, totally. Post multiple times a day. But if you're a local chiropractor or you know, PT person, like just one stays plenty. Totally plenty. But use those stories. Please use stories.

Yes, I know. But one of the things that you did say and we are kind. We are talking about today which is that we want to be, we want to post in integrity to the platform. So while that Instagram toggle is There for you. It's much better to just copy and paste the same post with maybe a different photo and post integrity in integrity to the Facebook platform.

Yeah, I even say like, so what my strategy is for multi posting the same content and is I take an image that I've done and I resize it for every platform. So I usually end up creating three versions of every of one image. So I'll do a newsfeed, a square and a story for those images. And then I make sure to adjust my messaging appropriately and I always make sure that my posts have a call to action that makes sense for the platform. So if I'm. My call to action is like to comment or like if you feel me hit that heart button or whatever, that's what I'm putting on Instagram. When I'm doing Facebook, usually my call to action is to like ask them a question to get them to comment. You know, when I'm on Twitter the call to action is usually just kind of like implied of. It's just such a simple message usually just to click a link or comment or share, let me know kind of a thing. It's just a lot of statements I think do really well on Twitter more than like other kinds of content. And then LinkedIn, it's really just about like connecting and building those relationships. The most time people are doing on LinkedIn is hitting like those like buttons and those views are kind of like what do it. But the more you engage with the post, like if that like button gets hit or someone comments on Your post on LinkedIn, what happens is that not only does your network of people get to see your post, but that person who liked that activity shows up on their newsfeed for LinkedIn and all of their LinkedIn network sees it. So it's incredibly powerful to when you're doing like B2B business use LinkedIn in that way. So again, it's really just about respecting the platform but keeping. I think you can still keep the core message and the core image.

That's good. That's really good. Alright, so let's dive into monetizing our Facebook.

Yes.

Can you talk, can you talk a little bit about where would you start? How powerful is that?

And so in order to monetize on Facebook, it's very. There are some similar limitations to YouTube about how you have to have a certain number of followers and you have to have a certain number of watch time. The watch time though is based on the length of your video. So this is what I talk about when you're starting off on Facebook or wherever you are, it's you have to be having your strategy focused on the long term gain of trying to get Facebook monetization. And so the long term gain is okay, all of your videos are going to be three minutes long. Like they can't be under three minutes. If you make shorter form videos, know that that could hurt your reach. I have a lot of data that supports that. Those little short social clips are great, but if you're also pairing it with long form content, Facebook doesn't want to see that short form content. They want the long stuff. So your videos need to be at least three minutes long for them to run ads on. Because what's going to happen is that one minute you're as when the Facebook ad happens. So Facebook measures the success of your videos in three parts. 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 60 seconds. So unlike with the YouTube video where you're trying to give your most value packed stuff like at the end of the video and calling out be like, make sure you stay tuned in the video for my super top secret workout tip or physical activity tip or whatever it is to get them to stay longer in Facebook, that first three to 10 seconds is when you should be giving them most value. Because that's what Facebook is measuring for your success on the video platform. On the platform because they want to see to you to be pulled in. It needs to be captivating and action packed enough to get someone to stop their thumb scroll. Because when people on YouTube they're not really thumb scrolling, right? It's totally different activities. So that's what I would do to start out. That's the foundation pieces. So to kind of recap that videos at least three minutes long and you need to give your most action packed pieces of content in the first 3, 10, 60 seconds because that's the measurement that Facebook has for watching your videos. Usually long videos on Facebook do not perform well. It's such a big difference too between like a video and a live. And so really know that those are very distinct differences. So really pay attention to that. And so then when you're trying to grow your page, so then you have to have a minimum I believe of 10,000 likes on your page and then you have to have 30,000 minutes watched on your Facebook account on your Facebook page and they have to be four to three plus minute videos before faith before you can qualify for monetization. And so once you qualify then you just have to apply. And unlike YouTube monetization, which is really easy, Facebook monetization is kind of like a bear. Like, you have to, like, go through a lot of steps to get into it, unfortunately. And I'm gonna be actually doing a video about it soon. Great. But it's just one of those things. It's just kind of unnecessarily complicated. Like, Facebook is trying to say that they want creators, they want to give you money for it, but for some reason, they're not making it easy. I cannot explain that.

It might be because they're just new at figuring it out themselves.

Yeah, I mean, you gotta think it makes complete sense. I'm making something on your platform and you're financially benefiting. Maybe you should pay the people that are making the content that you're financially benefiting from. That's what YouTube totally gets. And, like, you can play with it, but it's so just one of those things. It's like, I don't understand why. They just don't understand. Like, with Facebook, YouTube is really cut and dry. Thousand subscribers, 4,000 hours of watch time, and I get like 30, 35% of every sale. And you get 75. You get 65% of it. Like, I don't know. It's complicated. No reason for no reason. That's the story of Facebook, though. I will say that. I guess I really get why people stay away from it. It's a beast.

It is, but it is. Once you master it, though, you almost can.

Once you get caught up to it, it's easy to maintain the course. I'm in a super unfair position, guys. I've been doing this for over 10, 11 years. I've been on Facebook since 2006. You know, like, kind of done it all on Facebook. So I get it. I watch a change. I watched things crumble and change and fall. And like, I remember when I started off my Facebook journey of, like, running it for businesses, we did these things called Facebook landing pages. And it would be. When you would go to a Facebook page for the first time, you would be greeted with this landing page. And it was a, like, gate, like this page to get this cool offer kind of a thing. And it worked great. And then Facebook switched to the timeline layout and it completely devalued. It was. They. They became the apps. You completely devalued it?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, welcome. That's. That's the.

That's Facebook.

Yes. And. But that's the fun of it. This is. You know, every time I look in Ads Manager, it looks different.

Yeah.

And so I think that that's, you know, that becomes part of the puzzle that becomes, that becomes, you know, part of the fun.

And like, I have to say, like, kudos to you because I loathe ads. Like, let me create all day for you. I don't do ad life.

I think for me, the re. I know, I just love a puzzle. I love, you know, trying to, you know, solve something and figure it out. Like, I just kind of live my life by that. Like, once I figure it out, I'm like, great, what's the next puzzle? You know?

Yes, I hear you. So.

Now one of the things that you said that I didn't know, which is exciting to hear and I do, I definitely want to learn more about it, is that you said you want to have that Sweet spot of 3 minutes but not too long, because if it's too long, then you're not going to get. No one's going to watch all the way through. But that if you're combining it with that short 60 second one minute, that that's a no go. But I think that the reason why people do that is because Facebook owns Instagram and on the FE, you could only have a 60 second clip. So do you suggest then that we don't put any one short one minute clips on Facebook and leave that only for Instagram?

I think that this is gonna be where you do what you say, where you guess, test and assess. I have found. And this is. You guys are gonna laugh when you hear this. So one of the brands I work with is Braille Skateboarding. Braille Skateboarding is the largest skateboarding brand on YouTube. They are literally days away at the point at the time of this recording of hitting 5 million subscribers. But they had like a dead Facebook page with like over 130,000 followers at the time. And I'm like, why aren't you doing anything with this? Especially because you are monetized. And so I did a bunch of testing and so what they would create for Instagram were these 15 to 20 second promo clips. So whenever you go to Braille's videos at the very beginning, it's like a montage and then it goes bing. And it's the title of the video. And that was their teaser clip. And they would post that teaser clip on Instagram and they would. And then they would also share it on Stories with Swipe Up. All makes sense, right? Until you get to Facebook. So people would, they would share this little short clip and of course the link to the YouTube video and it would just get like shit reach. Like it was just really bad, really short Ways to, like, do it. And I was like, this is a reason that this isn't working. These little short clips. Like, people don't want to be teased on Facebook. They don't. We don't live in a world anymore where we're like, we hype things up in that way. And so especially because Braille's audience knows they make a video every day on YouTube. And so I decided to cut that from the plan after seeing that it was tanking. And so I tested it with something different. I started creating a gif from the video. And ironically enough, it also tanked. And you want to know why? Because Facebook reads GIFs as short form video. It's not considered an image. It's not considered a post or something special. It's. There's three categories of content on Facebook. Links, images, and videos. And a gif is considered a video. And so when I was posting these gifs, it was still tanking the reach and the engagement. And I was like, man, this is crazy. That, like, this thing people love and the comments is tanking our engagement and our reach on the newsfeed. So then what I ended up doing to promote the video is I would take a photo. And the photos promoting the video did fantastic. And so that's when I really started to realize. And then I would also try sharing, like, other short form videos every now and again. One short form video would just be amazing in performance. But it was usually some, like, crazy trick or something someone really was doing. Like, I remember one of them was like, this guy was skating this path, and it was this really long, like, bumpy, windy path. And if you were watching me, I'm making the motion with my hand, and it just performed like, unexpectedly well. Other ones are like, someone was skating down like a highway with like this beautiful, like, mountain scene. And it was just beautiful to watch. It was like, who wants to skate here, right? And it just did really well. But the constant that did well was posting two long form videos every single day on their Facebook page because they have a gigantic backlog of videos because they've been. They have over 4,000 videos on their YouTube channel. So I was in a total. But that's with one. They have like two different YouTube channels. So I was like, I was in a position where I could post old content to their Facebook page that performed quadruple what those short form videos were doing. It got them to the point where they were making over $10,000 a month in Facebook ads because they're sharing old content. The old long form Content that their audience already loved. So the story, I guess the moral of this is like, you again, I love your little. Your little anagram of like guest test and assess, because it's very true. But I can tell you, the moment you start posting long form content, Facebook is gonna start devaluing your short form content because they want to. They're essentially like penalizing you for making bad choices because they want to monetize your content. They're like, no, the long stuff, you know, it's like, give me the goods.

Oh, that's so good. I'm laughing so hard.

I know, I know that was a lot, guys, but it's good. This is what, this is what I do is like, if Facebook knows there is an opportunity to monetize your content, and they'll realize that the moment you start kind of steadily posting longer form content, they're gonna. That's all they're gonna want from you.

Mm, that's good. I am. I'm also gonna ask you this question because I'm curious now if you. Because there's two. In terms of advertising on Facebook, there's two things that you can do. You can post it organically and then boost the post from Ads Manager. Not from that boost button. That boost button's not your friend. But the other thing you can do is you can just go straight into Ads Manager and upload piece of video, like a 60 second clip essentially, specifically for advertising. Does Facebook count that towards your watch time?

No, it does not. Because if you are uploading directly to Ad Manager, it goes into like the different section of Facebook. Right? What you're essentially. So you have to think of it Facebook in different chunks. Like I said in the beginning, there's so many different parts of Facebook. There's pages, there's groups, there's marketplaces. But where your videos live is in the watch feature and everyone is in Watch. Once you post a video, personal page or business page, your videos go into the watch platform. It used to be a separate thing just for pages, but they murdered. They got rid of that. When you're posting a video for advertising, it goes into the advertising bucket. I think that the only. I'm not 100% sure and I think this something that you would probably know more about is if you boost the post, the video, that might help increase your watch time.

Okay, that's. That's super helpful. The reason why I'm so anti that boost post is because you can't. You can't manage the targeting. You're basically saying to Facebook like, hey, you just decide who is going to see this. And that can be powerful, but you want to be able to have just a little bit more control or insight into doing that. And I think what Facebook is doing, and I can appreciate this about them, but they're trying to help. And it's actually one of the things that I love about Facebook is that I know it seems really overwhelming at first, but it is one of the most user friendly. You know, anybody can do it, type it.

It's a really good way to broadcast.

Correct.

It's not a really great way to target. And even in my limited ad knowledge, I even know that. So if you're just like, most people are just growing or like, you're just like, I need all of the eyeballs, the boost button might have a place.

So, but that's why they, I think that's why they use that boost button is so that anybody can use it. But you can still boost a post to just. And do it from the ads manager side. You'll be able to get in front of the eyeballs that you want as opposed to just trusting that Facebook's gonna do it. Okay, so I love that. That's super awesome. I know this is like a, kind of a sidestep too, but I'm, I'm just curious since you are like very powerful and knowledgeable in all of the platforms. You know, we've seen a huge move now into TikTok. And I'm just a little bit curious because I look, I think about, you know, you're spending your energy on, you know, specific platforms where your people are hanging out and, and you kind of saw, you know, you kind of saw Snapchat come and then Snapchat kind of goes. So I'm curious what your, you know, thoughts are on TikTok specifically. Is this something that we should be putting our attention to?

Okay, so before you go to TikTok, before you invest in the time and energy that another social platform, another video social platform requires, make sure you have a way or call to action to direct them to a better platform. I love TikTok. I, I got, I get sucked in like everybody else. Like I said, there's a stat that was at like an average, the average amount of time someone spends on TikTok when they open it is 53 minutes. 53 minutes of consuming 15 to 30 second clips. Like, that's a lot of time. Never do it before bed. Never. Guys. It's awesome. It is so awesome. And it is so user driven and it is so Fun. And I know the Instagram is making a competitive exposure extension to TikTok, especially in the light of all of the potential like banning talk that we have from our admin, our American administration. But TikTok is a way to drive traffic to your other places. Like that's how I would really use TikTok. TikTok is where you can drive traffic to your YouTube channel, drive traffic to your Facebook channel, drive traffic to platform or a place where you can continue to engage with them and then that's where you can sell and prove your expertise. I feel like if you're on TikTok, there's this combination expectation of like, yes, do fun videos where you're like being quirky in your niche. Right. Like, we see that a lot with like nurses and I see a bunch of social media manager people where you like you the yep, nope challenge and you're like doing the like yep, nope with the, with the fingers and stuff and all that kind of stuff. But it's first and foremost entertainment focused. And secondly it's. That's when like the other things around, like people like hacks are really popular on TikTok. Entertainment, though, is the number one objective that people go to TikTok for. So if you're going to be on TikTok, you have to find a way to be entertaining while also maintaining your brand. And then again, the objective needs to be to drive traffic to your other platforms or you can have like funnels and ways to connect and engage with them in like a different way.

That's good. I mean, I'll be, I'll be honest. I have not yet. I've opened up TikTok.

That's about the extent I've made one video on TikTok and it was for a video for my YouTube channel about how to create videos for you guys. As someone who's a video creator, yeah, there's a lot of work because it's like have to practice, which I don't usually do with my YouTube videos because I'm like, I'm talking about stuff I know, right? And I don't script. So this is how I work. And then it was like, then I had to like practice and I had to do it. And I probably did it a couple times to make sure that it was right. And I had to go in and edit that video with the text, with the places I needed it to be. And it's just like it's this whole extra thing. It's like a YouTube. It's like a concentrated mini YouTube and I am just like, I don't have time for this ish. And I'm just like, I'm too. I love the platform because it's fun. I don't have time to create on it in that way. And I put such a high value on my time and what I'm doing that. And so TikTok is not a priority to me in that sense.

Yeah. Okay. I love that. I love that. And I'm glad you said that, because one of the things that I teach is like, listen, you got to go where your people are hanging out. Yeah.

And I think that if you are in this specific space, test it. But I honestly don't think that people are probably because it's such a younger demographic. Like you're talking to under 35, really under 25 demo for TikTok. And you have to ask those people is people. Also, are those people your customers? Are those people that pay you in some way, shape or form? Because I do believe there are different ways of payment. Like watching my YouTube videos is a way of payment for me. Right. That's why I have my email list. It's on my email, my. All my YouTube videos to my list. And they come out once a week because when they watch those videos, I get ad money. The other things are like, okay, are they buying my book? Are they paying for. Are they gonna. I. These people that would pay for a course? Are these people that would pay. Are these people that are going to sign up for an affiliate I'm doing. Are they going to pay for my expensive program? Are these who paying for coaching? If you're a demo on. If your demo on TikTok would do that, do it then that time there. If not, put your efforts where you can make money.

I think too, what happens to a lot of people, especially a lot of people that are at the beginning of growing an online presence, is that they get that squirrel factor or like, oh, look, new fun shiny toy syndrome. I'm gonna go take a look at that. And they. They think, you know, it's almost like the brain is just looking for shortcuts. And so they think, oh, this is new. This is where everybody is not recognizing that there is a lot of money that is sitting on the table just with Facebook and Instagram. And once you can really just use the platform correctly enough to actually monetize and grow your business, then you can start having fun with things like, whoa, what's happening over on TikTok?

Let's be honest. TikTok is fun. Yeah, it's super fun. Facebook. Facebook is work. Like, I'm sorry, like, it's. YouTube is work. Yeah. Online marketing is work. TikTok is fun.

Yes.

And so if you can hide behind. Oh, I'm marketing my brand, doing this fun thing. Yeah, of course we would all do that. But when you call a spade a spade, like, Facebook is a work. It's strategic, it's doing. That's why you got to spend time finding a platform that's right for you for starting out on your online journey, because it's the foundation. Because if you have a bad experience at the start, you'll just automatically think, okay, online marketing didn't work for me. When, in fact, you just kind of did it wrong or you just picked the wrong horse. One of my closest friends, we've been friends for, like, nine years. She's one of my business besties. She has tried and spent so much time on so many different platforms and money and resources. Facebook, Facebook pages, Facebook groups, Twitter, Instagram. And it literally years, years of this. She got on LinkedIn and she started doing these things called convos in her Camry. And it was where she would sit in her car, like, when she was, like, waiting to pick up her kids, and she would just give, like, business advice and tell stories, and they were amazingly well received on LinkedIn. And so she was like, oh. Huh. And so she started doing a little bit more and digging a little bit more, and LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn is where she spends her time on the Internet because she knows that's where she can build business relationships for her coaching business. So. But took her years to get there, and I was literally there along with her through that, through that path. So it's. It's not always easy or straightforward to know, like, where your people is. That's why you kind of have to test and you have to test for significant amounts of time.

Yes, for sure. I think that online, you know, the online space is a blessing and a curse in the sense that it looks, you know, it can oftentimes seem like, oh, this person had overnight success. But you're just looking at the tip of the iceberg. You're not looking at all the work that they had put in it one step at a time before that iceberg came through.

We joke as YouTube educators and am I in my little YouTube educator sphere or, like, it took me 10 years to become an overnight success?

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and it's kind of the same idea. Like, there are two ways to online marketing. Like, when you have to have a really Good, solid foundation with a website and a funnel and a lead capture, all that stuff. Right. But once you're past that point, you're looking like a. What I promote. You have to look at social networking and advertising very differently. Advertising is for immediate results. Right. And I say immediate a little loosely, but it's much more direct and targeted and immediate than building a long term relationship and a brand and extra expertise in your industry on social. And I think that that's what people get really, they don't really know the difference and that's why they, they get frustrated when it doesn't work quicker. It's a long game. Social media marketing is a long game and it's fun. Oh, it's long.

Yeah. You know, and I also tell my people too that, that you want to enjoy the process and not always be going for the outcome because you're going to spend more time in the process than you are on the outcome. So the faster you can start really thinking about, you know, looking at this social networking and marketing and advertising, and the faster you can look at that and say, how can I figure this out? This is fun. This is where I'm spending my time. Like creating content is my favorite part of my business because that's where I, that's where I'm going to be spending all my time. I'm not necessarily, you know, but if I'm thinking about like, how do I get more likes, how do I get more engagement, how do I blah, blah, blah, blah, and it starts to become unfun, then why go get a job? It's easier. So this has been amazing and I wanted to say thank you so much for your time because I want to be very mindful of it because like you said, we can't get time back, but we can always make more money. So where, if my people want to learn more about you, where can I send them?

Best place to go to connect with me and find out all about my stuff is mrsdesireose.com that's M R s D E S I R E E R O S e Com.

Okay, awesome. So of course we're gonna link all that stuff up in the show notes. So Desiree, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me. And guys, remember, I know it's hard and I know it can seem like a pain in the butt and it's always changing. But I promise when you put the time in, you pay attention. It's totally worth it. Facebook is a great place for you to grow your business.

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