TikTok & Google: What You Need To Know

Maybe, maybe not. We will find the answer out today when we talk to Atiba D'Souza from Client Attraction Pros. He's here today to talk about TikTok and Google and virality. Do we need it? Don't we need it? Atiba, so great to have you here today on Cash In On Camera. There's a lot to unpack here.

There really is. And thank you, thank you so much for being here. And thank all of you guys who are watching as well. Hey, thank you all for being here with us too.

I love this. Listen, you're known as the Content Superman. I think you have a lot of different nicknames, but Content Superman is the one that to me just kind of rises above all the others. And I love, you know, you're wearing a hat today that really represents that. How did that whole thing come about?

The hats?

Well, even the nickname.

Okay, so we could do both, but the nickname really stem from the hats because I would do wear the hats an awful lot. But the thing here is everything comes down to content strategy. And content strategy all comes back to understanding and knowing your audience, right? And so, even in this conversation about virality, like virality is one of those fun, funny terms because everybody wants to go viral. But who's actually watching that content? Is it actually the people you want to watch that content. And so what I've gotten known for is figuring out how to create content and a content strategy that your audience who actually wants to give you cash wants to consume.

Yes. So you, you wear, you, you wear this hat. I see you wearing this hat in your videos and pretty much everywhere you go. So I thought I would do something fun today. I actually bought a hat and I don't have a place to wear it. So I'm gonna wear mine today.

Oh, fantastic.

There we go. Those who are listening to the podcast, you'll have to go back to the video and see the hat. But this is the hat that I bought recently and I thought, you know what, when I get on with Atiba, if he's wearing a hat, I'm gonna do the same.

Well, you know, I wish I knew you were wearing that hat because I have a similar hat in blue that's Superman as well.

Well, I think that's the one on your, on your LinkedIn.

No, the one on LinkedIn is the big brim. Oh, I see. Massive.

I love it. I love it. Okay, enough with the hats. I'm going to keep wearing it, though, because it's fun.

Please do, because it looks great on you.

But you know what? It does tie into today's topic because we're talking about TikTok and it's a place where often people are having a lot of fun. There's a lot of entertainment going on on LinkedIn or sorry, rather on TikTok, maybe a little bit on LinkedIn too, but more so on TikTok. It's a lot of entertainment, a lot of people that are, you know, dancing and things of that nature. I'd love to kind of unpack that with you. Let's say someone who is a coach, a consultant, a six-figure person who's looking to sell their own services, who might not necessarily want to get on TikTok and entertain people or dance. What, what say you about that? Should we think about being entertaining on TikTok, or are there other ways to use it?

No, there are absolutely other ways to use it. And I completely understand the trepidation at the same time. You know, I was talking with someone yesterday and she was remembering when she first learned about TikTok. And back then it was called Musical.ly. And it was her friend's daughter who in the middle of dinner got up and said, "Oh, I got to go over to this tree and do this thing on Musical.ly and do this dance.", right? And that's what we all know TikTok to be. Like, these kids create dances, they put them up, and then they go viral. And yes, we're professional and we're trying to make money, we're running a business. That doesn't seem like it needs to be something that we need to be involved in, even if we enjoy it. Like, where's the value in it? And I completely, completely understand. And here's one of, of the things with TikTok is TikTok is evolving, and it's also maturing. Okay. Now, people still aren't going to go to be bored. They're still not going to TikTok to just see a talking head. That's not what they're looking for either. And so, there still needs to be some creativity in it. You need to consider how you create the content. And again, getting back to content and the audience. So, the audience there does want to be entertained, but that does not mean that you cannot educate while you entertain. So yes, you need a hook. Bring that hook in so that it grabs them. What are great hooks? You know, one of the things that my team— we're in the lab right now playing. We have a ton of content coming out really, really soon with this— and is humor. Using humor as hooks. Using the skills that— I mean, if you're into improv, that type of thing, that drives hooks because you're good at storytelling, right?

Now you hit on something interesting, which is the, the fact that TikTok might be maturing a little bit. And when I hear maturing, I think of age. So when you say it's maturing, do you mean that older people are going and consuming content on TikTok? So I'm thinking of, again, the coach consultant, the six-figure entrepreneur who who wants to go to 7 figures is looking at using it to generate clients. And if their audience that they're trying to attract is a little older, it might be worth a look. Yes.

So the reality of it is, is my mother— is your mother on there? Probably not yet, right? Probably not yet. However, it's not the kids anymore. It's not the 18 to 23, 25-year-olds anymore. You're getting more 40, 45-year-olds, late 40s, all of the people in the 30s on TikTok more and more and more. Now, why is that happening? Well, it's happening for a bunch of different reasons. Number one, it's happening because video is king and people want to consume more video. And on top of wanting to consume more video, Adults' attention spans are going pew. And so short-form video is king as well.

I think one thing that happened during the pandemic was it really brought to light for a lot of people who are hesitant, afraid, nervous, apprehensive about getting on video. During the pandemic, they were forced to go into video and start to use it, and they're they were pushed into it and they had to get over their fears. Otherwise, they would not be able to have survived it. Right now, in the post-pandemic world, I think that's an advantage because a lot of people had to force themselves to do something that scared them. Now it's really about looking at that and saying, okay, I got over my fear because I was pushed in. However, now, to your point, it's about the strategy. The strategy is a, a multi-pronged approach, right? You have to think about a lot of things. You and I both do strategy, so You have to think about who is fundamentally your ideal audience. And then there's other things you have to consider. If your audience is a bit older, you might want to consider platforms where they're hanging out. It might be, again, it could be TikTok. So how often, because this is one of the things, the concerns that I have about the online space and generating clients and referrals or speaking engagements is being on this, what I call the hamster wheel of social media. This idea that you're kind of 'You have to post 5 times a day, otherwise it's not worth doing.' Do you subscribe to that, or can you do it in a different way?

So that's a really great question, and it's— here comes the answer. So number one, it depends. Worst answer ever, right? But let me explain to you what it depends on. It depends on where your audience is. So what we tell our clients is, number one, you're going to be creating video content because that's what we do. We create video content for them and you're definitely gonna send all of that content to YouTube. That's a must. Period. Dot. Okay? And we're gonna be consistent with sending content to YouTube. Period. Number 1. Then number 2, you're going to choose the social platform where your client is hanging out the most. Yeah. Figure that out. Where are they the most? Where do they engage the most? That's the platform that you're going to focus on. That's the platform you're going to optimize for. That's the platform you're going to look and say, okay, on this platform, you know, it's best if I only post once a day, or maybe it's twice a day for this audience, whatever. You focus there. Then, in all the other platforms, you do what I call proof of life. And all proof of life is, We're just going to send content there. We don't actually care, like, how well it does or what it does. We're going to analytics on it on a monthly basis, but we're just going to send content there because that content is going to prove that we're alive. Because if our, our customer finds us on, let's say, LinkedIn, but they're also on TikTok, right? We just want that when they go to TikTok, that we show up because it says— it sends a signal to them, oh yeah, they are legit. Or if they find our website through a Google search, right? And then they say, okay, I found their website, now let me see if I can find them on, on social media. And their favorite platform is TikTok. You just want to prove that you're alive.

Yeah, I like that. I mean, I think that works— that can work for a lot of people who are hesitant about getting on a platform and feeling like they have to be on this wheel of constantly, you know, obviously that's the work that you help people do, right? You're helping facilitate that so that they can be consistent and visible and be out there, but they're not having to be in the weeds of the production. And you and I both know from a production, it's a whole thing. It's a lot. It's big. But the strategy is the most important thing, right? It really is. So you mentioned Google. Let's go into understanding the connection between TikTok and Google. And then you mentioned YouTube. There's also a connection between YouTube and Google. Let's unpack all of that. Why are you suggesting that we really understand the connection between TikTok and Google as we move into 2023?

Okay, that's a great question, and I'm glad you asked because And I'm going back to something we said earlier. As business owners, the thing that we care about is what? Money, right? Dollars gotta make sense. Yeah. If the dollars don't make sense, we shouldn't be doing it. Okay, we're not in it for likes. We're not in it for views. That doesn't make us money. Now, understanding that, then when we look at Google, we realize that Google is the best place to understand intent of your potential buyer. Yeah. What do I mean by that? Every time someone types something into Google and does a search, they're looking for an answer. There's a reason that they're looking for that answer. There is information that they're looking for. And what we can do is figure out what the intent of that was. Are they just writing a book report? Are they a 12-year-old kid writing a book report? Okay, not your ideal customer, right? Or are they someone who's actually looking to purchase your service or learn about your product or service? Then, potentially your ideal customer. Google gives us that information when we understand what people are searching for. Okay, so I want you to hold that thought in your mind for just one moment. Okay, Google gives us intent. Google also said in the last year, we're going to reclassify the majority of our database to be video-first content. In other words, we want to post and put video on page one. We believe that people would rather watch a video that answers more— is up to 60% of the content inside of Google search results. Inside of Google, people want video. To answer that more than written content. But when Google said that, they also knew they didn't have enough video content on YouTube to fill that. So number one, they are ranking YouTube videos on page one of Google. That's huge. Something you need to pay attention to. But then number two, here's what else happened. TikTok decided We don't want to be an entertainment platform anymore. We want to be a search platform now. And Google said, go for it, absolutely go for it.

That's big. I, I just want to— I don't think people realize like how big that me— that is. Like, that's huge. What we're saying is— what you're saying is that TikTok videos are indexed on Google.

That's what we're saying. Woo! And so you can, and, and this is what we're doing for our clients right now. You can create a long-form video, take that long-form video, create a YouTube Short out of it, take that YouTube Short, and then format it as well for TikTok, and have all 3 of those end up on page 1 for you.

Ateeba, that is, if that's done correctly, uh-huh, and if that's done well, yes. For those who are kind of going, wait a minute, I don't understand still what that all means, what we're saying is that that's potentially worth thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars of free traffic to you. Free traffic.

And On top of it all, not just free traffic, but it also builds credibility. Right? Because you just think about it for a moment. If you did a search for something, and 3 of the results on page 1 were the same company, you're going to start to think this company must know something about this.

Yes.

And you're going to trust them just by seeing that alone. Builds trust, and people won't spend money with you until they trust you.

Yeah, I agree. It's so interesting. I think it warrants a whole conversation around short-form vertical video, really. And we're kind of hinting at it here because TikTok is a form— YouTube Shorts is a form of short-form vertical video. Atiba, we'll probably have to have you back on the show to talk strictly about that because that's a whole other thing to unpack. It is. But what we're really focusing in on today is the connection between TikToks, vertical short-form video, to the indexing on Google, the searchability of that, the free traffic potential opportunity on Google. And then you bring in, and you brought it in already, but this idea of the YouTube and then YouTube Shorts also doing that. I mean, it's so interesting how things are evolving. It makes your head explode a little, but it is a wow moment, right, to think about that. That the important thing, though, is to come back to before people start going, oh no, now I have to— Itiba and Sheryl said I have to go and do TikToks. Okay, well, take a step back and think about the strategy. It doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be on TikTok if your audience isn't there. That is a waste of time. But if you think or know or do the research or have a strategy or maybe help to determine whether your audience is there, it could be a viable thing to do. Yes. And then we go down the path of production, which is obviously the thing you specialize in. Yes. Yes. Tell us, Atiba, how people can get in touch with you if they want to learn more.

Well, the best way to get in touch with me is exactly what you're seeing on the screen right there. LinkedIn, because I'm going to have a conversation with you. I know you've got questions. I know after hearing this, this probably left you with a ton of questions. And I want to help answer those questions for you. And so What you can do is go to meetatiba.com. That's meetatiba, A-T-I-B-A, my first name, .com. That will take you directly to my LinkedIn. Connect with me on LinkedIn, hit the connect button, not the follow, hit the connect button on LinkedIn and send me a message. Let's have a conversation, me and you.

Awesome. I love that. You know what I love? When I bring on smart people onto the show because I always learn something myself. And I love that you have, uh, a domain that directs to your LinkedIn. I was like, that's super smart, might have to steal that one from you.

So I stole it from somebody else.

So that's how it works in marketing. Um, Atiba, one thing I want to ask you before you go is what is a tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's really helping you to market yourself personally, to help market, uh, client attraction pros. Could be something that's really just, you know, come about recently, or something that's been working for you long term.

Well, I'm actually going to give something here, um, I hope you don't mind, that will help on production, okay? Because I know that's where a lot of people are going to fall down, and I know that's where a lot of people are going to say, okay, I heard everything, but how do I actually create things? Okay. And there is a tool called Descript. Descript. Okay. Yes, you love it. You know it. You love it. And Descript will help make all of this so much simpler for you. So much simpler. I'll leave it at that for now.

Yeah, Descript. Well, when people get in touch with you, they'll ask you about it because it is a phenomenal tool. Our team uses it as well. I'm going to be on your show coming up as well, talking about team and, and things like that. So yeah, absolutely, Descript is an amazing tool. So I appreciate you sharing that with our audience. This has been fun. I, I think that we've shed a light on the connection between TikTok and Google, what it means to you. We also dipped our toes into the idea of virality, that that isn't necessarily what's going to drive business for you, but to think about your short-form video content perhaps in a different way. Yeah. Atiba, thank you so much for being on the show today.

We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It's been my pleasure.