To Tik Tok or Not Tik Tok (My 2 Week Challenge and How it Went)
Oct 10, 2022
What I did first
The first thing I did was talked to an expert. My friend Hilary is a master at TikTok so I had a strategy session with her to get the lay of the land.
What I learned:
- You have to niche super down in TikTok. As in what is the ONE thing you want to focus on? I decided to focus on tips to replace your corporate income which is a little more specific than what I share on IG.
- Post frequently and include a call to action. TikTok is an app that allows you to publish everything at once, but you have to post frequently. If I am being honest the thought of posting 5X a day didn't really go along with my not wanting to run a business on social media plan, but this is an experiment, right? Do what the experts say. I sat down and wrote 14 days worth of posts posting 3-4 times a day. Each post has a specific formula. A hook, which is key on TikTok. That cover heading and one-liner that is going to get a stranger to watch you (because you have to speak to everyone like they don't know who you are). After the hook, you have a story/education and the call to action. At the beginning of your time on TikTok, the call to action is to just get people to follow you.
- Once I had my niche and a 14-day plan I created my account and started posting.
How did it go?
Posting TikTok videos is actually easier than creating reels because the captions are shorter and it is much more organic (not fancy), so that part I liked.
I didn't love posting multiple times a day and I honestly don't love the app. The people that show up in my feed are not people that I would follow but I am told this changes over time. I also don't like that the sound is always on! (I am the person that watches reels in silence. lol)
Most people that followed me at first were already following me on Instagram. *Insert frustration here as posting a lot was taking a lot of time.* But after about seven days, I started to see a few people from TikTok slowly come over to IG. Because I only have about 70 followers at the time of writing this, I can't post any links on TikTok. You just have to assume people will look you up. All my call to actions so far were just to follow me so that eventually I can get a link.
What happens next?
If I am being honest, after two weeks I wasn't sure. I could see the slow growth (like anything, everything takes time) but I wasn't sure if it fit my business model. I don't want to be on social all day or post multiple times a day. But I did like being aware of how the app works and having a presence on it.
I am also not sure if my audience is on TikTok. This answer is still TBD. I know business coaches who slay it on TikTok, but I would rather write an email or create a funnel on autopilot. But that is just me.
I like that I now understand the app and am playing around with ways to repurpose content so it is not such a heavy lift to post original content there. Content repurposing is a HUGE component of my strategy so this will be interesting to see how it plays out. The key with most apps is they don't want you repurposing from others. So TikTok doesn't want you to re-use IG reels and IG doesn't want you posting Tik Tok videos. I looked into using a different editing app called Repurpose.io where you upload content and it creates different videos for you on each of the apps, so now I am testing that.
