179: TikTok: Waste or Worth Your Time?

Do you love spending time on TikTok learning about everything and anything and a whole lot of nothing? Because it can be a complete time suck.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. No, no, no, no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

TikTok is one powerful app. It can steal hours of your life. Oh no. And perhaps your reputation if you get it wrong. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Say the wrong thing or make a post that comes back to haunt you, it can be bad. But TikTok can also be a brand maker. Welcome to the indestructible PR podcast where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a cris destructible reputation. In this episode, TikTok complete waste or worth your time? TikTok is having a moment. Did you know that TikTok actually overtook Google as the most visited domain in 2021? Shocked? If you're on the platform, you probably aren't because people use TikTok on average more than 50 minutes per day. So in case I get you sucked into the TikTok hole, I'm sorry, but I'm going to give you this TikTok primer in less than 10 minutes. TikTok is the seventh most popular app. It has nearly 1 billion users, nearly 80 million users in the U.S. user growth right now is at 85%. That is a lot of people. That's already way more than Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat combined. Many people know about it and if you are not on the site, that's okay. You should at least know about it. If you're a communicator, work in PR or if you're a leader, you should be aware of this powerful app. Now, like many of you out there, I suppose you lurk on TikTok. I was a lurker for, I'm gonna say give or take six months. I was on CleanTalk, Boston Talk, blind Item Talk, News Talk, Alec Baldwin Talk, Cris. And honestly, I just loved it. I did lose a lot of minutes of my life but I really, I learned so much as well, which is the reason why I liked it. Now I've been mentioning in previous episodes that I have crept onto the platform in more of a public facing role. Now I didn't spill the beans too soon that I was on it because I needed to test it, needed to kick the tires a bit because I'm not a Digital Native and TikTok is not an easy app to post on, you know, Twitter is. Click 280 characters, you're done. TikTok is videos, it's photos, it's green screens. And the entire time you're on there, especially if you're over the age of 40, you don't want to look like an old idiot. Or at least I don't know. That's mean. So I dove in and when I started, it was awful. I was filming videos, I thought I looked good until I look back and I looked absolutely awful because I'm wearing clothes that I'm just sitting in, you know, I'm not walking around in. And it was also freezing out. So I'm wearing a lot of sweaters. I could. I could start sweater talk, but a quick little background. So when I started it, I started as a lurker and then I started posting items. And part of the allure of TikTok is that people specialize in areas. So I naturally I it to be an offshoot of the podcast. So I was talking about the events that I talk about on this podcast, but more of a lean towards pop culture. So I'll be honest, it is primarily a pop culture TikTok account. I posted a couple. Some had minimum success, like 16,000 views, which my 17 year olds tell me, like, oh, mom, that's a big number. And then some of them just kind of flailed a bit, you know, whatever. I was just trying it. But then one day I decided to do a TikTok about the topic from previous weeks about the Hollis, Rachel and her ex husband Dave. As you know, I have a bit of a fixation not on the brand as a follower, but on a follower of a PR crisis again, because they just do it in real time like real people, and they do it really poorly. So I did a couple Hollis videos, but the first one that I did, I thought this is gonna be the deciding factor if I stay on TikTok or not. So I spent, oh, I don't know, it felt like hours. It was probably an hour to do this one TikTok. I posted it and it just sat at zero for a long time. When I woke up the next morning, I checked it and it said it only had six views. So by the time I got in my car after the I got the kids off to school, bringing my dog on a walk with my morning coffee. I said, that's it. When I get home, I'm getting rid of the talk. Like that was too much work for too little return. When I got home, you know, got ready, sitting down at my desk, I thought I would check TikTok again. It wasn't six views it was 6,000 views. So what that told me is one I need to wear glasses and two, that there's some real power behind the platform. So I stuck it out and I still have one to this day. You can check me out at MollyBMCP. Link is in the show notes. Now here is your quick TikTok primer, the background, the whys, the why nots and some how tos if you want to jump in. TikTok it's incredibly addictive and heavy. Users are spending several hours a day watching these short videos. It is an app that was considered a anything is possible for people to stay on the app and so the founders succeeded in that people can find any information about anything on tikt and it does change the way that social media works, even if you are trying to avoid it. Because on TikTok there are a lot of, yes, negative things out there, but there's so much kindness and niceness and empowerment and encouragement. So it is a platform that you can share positive news. Some of the content for younger people probably is a little effortless if you will, little more challenging if you're not as savvy on the phone. But for creating really professional looking videos, it's pretty simple. Now the app is like other video platforms, but it's like a next level. It gives you, like I said, green screens and captions and text from captions and timing your captions. The app is fast paced, but it's also addictive because that's what they want you to do to keep coming back or staying on it. You may need to like brush up on photography, editing, lighting, but for the most part it's pretty easy. Another benefit is that the content is localized. The algorithm knows where you are, knows where your phone number is, knows where you're searching. So they're going to give you a lot of localized content and it has hashtags, challenges, contests out there. There's so many different tre that users love that you can take advantage of. And so now some other benefits to is something that you can explore to find lots of information that follows current trends. So if you want to know what's going on, I would say that TikTok is really the app that tells you what is trending out there from a younger perspective, like what the new songs are, but also what people are talking about. And it's just fun. It's like it's a really fun app. It is about video marketing which is the next trend out there. So even if you don't use TikTok video marketing is it okay? Next. It's also very easy to jump on a bandwagon from an audience that is growing so quickly for people that keep video that want video as a priority. So if your business is already using video, it's pretty straightforward to take that video and bring it in to TikTok. Now, some of the cons the point of contention people do love it or hate it, it is a time suck. And it's also a time suck for a reason. There are machines behind it that make make you want to stay on it forever. So if you are a parent, make sure that you're watching your kids on TikTok. It's also an app that can get into misinformation if information is not flagged for inappropriate content or misinformation of content. But overall, it's a great app. So give it a test and give it a try. See if it works for your organization. At the end of every podcast I leave one indestructible tip. Leave behind that one piece of information that will help you keep your brand indestructible. It's important to remember that TikTok for all the benefits, there are a lot of threats to it as well. If you do not know what you're doing, if you are spreading the wrong information, misinformation, or if you are saying something that is going to negatively impact your brand, yourself, your employer, you can cause a lot of problems. So the tip is this. If you are a business, make sure you add TikTok use social media use to your communication plan and your social media policy. There are a lot of TikTok users, younger TikTok users that post video from their employers, from their jobs, so make sure they understand the policy. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.