28. Am I TikTok famous?

How do you go from 45 followers to more than 20K in 15 days? I'm not really sure! But I'll share my TikTok story with you anyway because I love this platform and encourage you to give it a go.

Transcript

Are you on TikTok? Have you heard of TikTok? It's a social media platform that saw me go from 45 followers to more than 20,000 followers in just 15 days and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. So unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome to Episode 28 - Am I TikTok famous? Okay. The answer is no, no, no, no, not yet, but it's certainly been a platform that's working for me. Before I get into the story, I'd love to know how's everyone going with the Coronavirus outbreak? It is unprecedented times, isn't it? There's not a single person I know that hasn't been impacted by this. My business has certainly been impacted. I've had speaking gigs cancelled because events are canceled.

I've had clients who come to see me to prepare for conference speaking. They've cancelled their sessions because their events aren't going ahead and there's a lot of uncertainty going into the next few months. I was supposed to be working in conjunction with a fair few big events. But fortunately for me, I would love to say that it's great planning, but honestly it's more luck. I do have an online component of my business and so my Skype sessions can still go ahead. My online courses can go ahead. The podcasts can keep coming out and I can keep TikToking!

So what is TikTok? Tiktok is an app you download it just like you download Instagram or Twitter or any other social media platform. And the way it works is it's very short form videos and usually they have music in the background. So some people are dancing, some people are doing tricks, some people are giving advice. It's a whole lot of different content. But it's fun and it's fresh and it's short. And the best way to understand what it s, is just to get an account and don't post anything if you don't want to. But go on there and have a look at what people are posting. And you've got two options in your feed, let's call it. The first one is Following. So you just see videos from the people you're following. And the second one is called the For You page.

Now the For You page is things that the algorithm thinks you might like. No one really knows what the algorithm is. It's like everything isn't it? But on this page, generally I'll see things from people who live in Brisbane. So I think geography plays a part. Also your hashtags that you follow. But what this For You page means is it means that your content is, if it's going well, is constantly getting in front of people who haven't seen you and don't follow you. So I think that's why I've been able to have the success that I've had.

So why did I start well I first joined in December last year, and the reason was is I follow Gary Vee. Gary Vee's like a business coach. He's very outspoken. I really like him and he was like, "People, you've got to be on LinkedIn and TikTok. I'm giving you the keys to the city and you're not effing executing!"

And I remember thinking, Oh gosh, I should try to get on some new things because Instagram's not really working for me. And a short form video seems to be a lot less hassle than YouTube. And this is something that I can do because my brand and my personality is kind of fun. I don't take myself too seriously. And so I got on there and tried to work out what I was doing and if you see my old posts, so if you're on TikTok, follow me @sallyprosservoice - my early posts are really hopeless. I didn't really know what I was doing. Now when I went viral, I still didn't know what I was doing. It's just the beauty of hindsight. I can see what I may have done. And it was a Thursday, it was Thursday the 27th of February. I'd been running a workshop at a university all morning.

I'd come home, I'd had a client, it was a long day, and I threw up my phone and in one take, without even brushing my eyelashes as the good people of TikTok have pointed out, I filmed this video.

Sally on TikTok video: Don't do these three things if you want to sound confident, competent and credible. Number one - vocal fry, you know, that kind of crackly sound when you're talking while holding your breath? Number two - um, ah, sort of like, you know, using too many like filler words, you know? Number three, especially for the Aussies out there, using the rising inflection at the end of every statement so it doesn't sound like we're finished or really believe in what we're saying and ah, like, so if we use all of these three things together, then do we sound like someone that you'd want to work with or that really knows what they're talking about?

As soon as I posted it, I started to see the views and the likes and the comments coming in and I was a little bit freaked out. Like if anyone's been in the position where their phone's been blowing up and they don't even want to look at it, that's what it was like. Even though I was hoping, I guess for success on the platform, I, you know, when it comes, you don't really know how to handle it. And the younger demographic can be quite brutal. The younger demographic makes it a fantastic platform to be on. It's a great way to connect the generations. But I did get a lot of comments that was like, Oh, old lady, don't tell me what to do. Oh, you sound stuck up or thanks Karen. And Karen is a mean word. Ask somebody who's under the age of 18 they'll be able to tell you that.

Anyway, so that video just kept going and going and going. And as of recording this, it's now had more than 900,000 views and more than 164,000 likes. And from then the thing started to blow up. I realized that the videos that were doing well were when I was giving out useful tips. And so I started to do more of that. And over the time, since the end of February, I've posted around two times a day. And now my following is up around the 20,000 it took me about a week to get to 10,000 and then now another week or so, and I'm over 20.

So why is TikTok a good thing? Because a lot of people say, Oh yeah, that's just something the kids are on. It's just dancing. And who cares if you've got 20,000 followers? It's not about being an Influencer. Although I did have one watch company offer to send me a watch. I haven't seen it yet, but I did get the offer. So in that moment I did feel like an Influencer.

The benefits that I've seen is I have got loads of enquiries from this so people can go across to your Instagram page or they can message you on the platform. I've got my messages open and I've had lots of enquiries which have led to signups for my online course it's led to one-on-one classes with some people. It's led me to being interviewed on a podcast. I did that this morning actually by Jayde Vincent. Now, Jayde has 1.3 million followers on TikTok and just posting on LinkedIn about that has seen my LinkedIn following gone up. My Instagram following has gone up. I've been getting more engagement from my Instagram followers because they're seeing my TikTok videos that I'm sharing on the stories. And just this week I got a message from TikTok headquarters, which is in China and they've given me a TikTok manager, so now I'm listed as a creator and they give me the trending topics ahead of time. And so when I post, I'm one of the first in the creator community to set the trend. Never thought I'd be a trendsetter, so we'll see how that goes. But it's been full on.

So it definitely converts. It's not just a vanity metric and this speed of growth. I think everyone would agree you can't get that on any other platform. If you're thinking of joining, I would say give it a go cause something else that Gary Vee said, was the unwillingness to test and experiment is a huge vulnerability in the fast paced world we live in. And with everything that's happening with Coronavirus, it rings so true doesn't it? We've got to constantly be trying new things and look, don't have any data on this so please don't quote me, but I truly feel that this is the app that's going to blow Instagram out of the water. And I'm not just saying that because my Insta game is pretty average.

So that's my TikTok story. Give it a go. Follow me @sallyprosservoice and shoot me a message to say that you listened to this podcast and if you do that I'll follow you back.

And if you'd like to learn more about TikTok, there's some great resources out there that have much more authority on the topic than I do. I am just sharing my personal story so please don't take this as professional advice.

Next week I'm going back to voice and I'm chatting to an amazing self defense instructor about how we can use our voice to prevent being attacked. How we can use our voice to set ourselves up as somebody you know, not to be messed with and not to set ourselves up as a victim. It's a really, really interesting episode and very, very important as well. I will see you then.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. For a full transcript, head to www.thatvoicepodcast.com.