Topic:
HubSpot,
Sales Tips
(4 Minute Read)
TikTok have overtaken YouTube for average watch time in both the US and the UK. If you hadn't even considered adding it into your social media strategy... Now's the time to start.
In this episode of Business as Unusual, Andy explains how to decide whether TikTok is right for your business, what type of content you should create and how often you should post on the platform. We had rave reviews about this episode so it's definitely one to watch!
John: Hello, welcome to Business As Unusual. My name's John and this is Andy.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:00:08].
John: Andy is a digital marketing exec?
Andy Thornton: Executive.
John: Executive at Noisy Little Monkey. You may have heard of them. Represent. Noisy Little Monkey is an agency that my wife and I founded about 11 years ago now. It's a digital marketing agency. Andy works there doing-
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:00:34].
John: ...social media, SEO and CRO for our clients. And in these things, I normally ask people about what they do for their work. I'm going to Andy here but his answers might be a bit biassed because I can sack him. I'm obviously not going to do that because he's fantastic.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:00:53].
John: Andy, don't tell us about your work yet. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you like to do and how you got into digital marketing.
Andy Thornton: Oh, great. Origin story. When I was 11, we had a school's fair and some guy from BBH, which is, Bartle Bogle Hegarty [inaudible 00:01:12] advertising agency had a stall and I talked to him for 20 minutes and I was like, "I'm going to work in marketing." It just amazed me.
John: Wow.
Andy Thornton: I love design and art and I love sociology and people. And so marketing is the perfect combo. I actually really love it. And I'm not just saying that so you don't sack me.
John: Delightful. He really does. [inaudible 00:01:41].
Andy Thornton: I really do. Yeah.
John: And what's your favourite thing to do digitally at the minute when we're talking about marketing?
Andy Thornton: When we're talking about marketing? What you mean in my job or just in my life?
John: In your life.
Andy Thornton: In my life. I mean, the bait answer is to say being on TikTok isn't it really?
John: Yeah.
Andy Thornton: But actually relevant, I've just got Twitter.
John: Wow.
Andy Thornton: Literally, today. I promised myself I wouldn't get Twitter. Haven't had it for 10 years, got it today, so everybody follow me on Twitter. I'm at humansatsuma.
John: What was it? What was the Twitter again>
Andy Thornton: At humansatsuma. I used to have a shaved orange head, if you can imagine that.
John: You did. I'm putting that in the chat. Satsuma, is it that?
Andy Thornton: Shameless plug. Absolutely shameless.
John: It is shameless. Oh gosh. One of us has got a bad internet connection. This is going to be perfect. I've put at humansatsuma in the chat, hopefully it's right. Tell me if it's right. Go follow that. I'll follow it at the end of this, but I've got too many screens open at the minute. But you're using that exclusively for work type stuff. Are we not going to see any real Andy Thornton?
Andy Thornton: Well, will I do some fresh takes about diversity and inclusion? Probably. Yeah.
John: I'd be disappointed if you didn't.
Andy Thornton: Yeah, it's mainly a work situation, but then Noisy Little Monkey is so chill, but...
John: Wait till the new regime starts, no more chill then. Okay. That's cool. Before we get onto the... Oh, wait, don't plug Digital Gaggle in this webinar. Sorry if that distracts you [inaudible 00:03:35].
Andy Thornton: Sorry if this distracts you.
John: Thanks everybody for popping stuff like that in the chat, Katie particularly. I was actually stopping there to plug Digital Gaggle in this webinar because we need to get you all there. It is our first in-person conference in two years, since before the pandemic. It's a bit like this, it's slightly less chaotic because Claire Dibben actually manages it all. It's not me just waving my arms at the front, although I will do some arm waiving. Come along and join us. It's on Thursday, the 28th of October at the Watershed, which is a really cool art house cinema in Bristol and the tickets start at nothing.
Andy Thornton: Zero.
John: That's perfect. We should work together. The tickets start at nothing. It's free to attend online, or it's 45 quid if you want some goodies and all of that kind of stuff. And I think there are some discounted tickets available online.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:04:39].
John: Now, if you just search for Digital Gaggle, you'll be able to find the discounted tickets for in-person.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:04:45].
John: Andrea don't tell me you're coming online. I would like to see you in person because I have a great love for you for a start.
Andy Thornton: Here it goes.
John: And I think we should build on that, but also I'd like the 75 pound please for the in-person ticket.
Andy Thornton: Honesty is always the best policy [inaudible 00:05:02].
John: Andrea, we would love to see you online or in person. It will be a delight. Claire's going to email out the details tomorrow. Back to Andy Thornton, who is the digital marketer at Noisy Little Monkey, who's just set up Twitter. He was encouraged and excited by the idea of marketing by a man from BBH at the tender age of what? 11?
Andy Thornton: 10 or 11.
John: Wow. That's incredible.
Andy Thornton: Somewhere there. I was a bum.
John: So you're going to talk to us about TikTok. I know you use TikTok, that's a ridiculous question because I've seen your toks and your tiks.
Andy Thornton: I didn't before the pandemic though.
John: You didn't?
Andy Thornton: I didn't. I was one of these millennials who was like, "I'm too old for TikTok." And then everyone was just so bored over COVID that I was like, "Look, we're here now."
John: And it's quite an addictive channel, isn't it? To make for and watch.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. Extremely addictive. My housemate actually got it, watched it for five hours straight, and then deleted it. Because she was like, "This is too much." It's next level addictive, but it's good. Yes, exactly [inaudible 00:06:19]. You cannot stop scrolling, which is what makes it a really good marketing platform but...
John: Yeah. I mean, because it's designed to be addictive, isn't it? It's ruining society.
Andy Thornton: Single-handedly.
John: Well, yes. I mean, we're doing a pretty good job just being human beings. Selfish pigs that we are, but TikTok is taking it one step further in terms of taking all of our attention.
Andy Thornton: But it's worse than all of the other social media channels. So the average person spends I think, 58 minutes, so basically an hour on TikTok every day. Whereas Instagram is more like half an hour, average.
John: Wow.
Andy Thornton: So people are glued.
John: Well, let's talk about how we can use this cultural phenomenon for marketing. And I imagine there are, looking at the answers that we did when we asked, how many people are using it for marketing? And by the way guys, throw questions in as we go, I can see Andy's eyes are either flicking up to a different screen where there is a picture of someone more attractive.
Andy Thornton: To see the chat. Yeah.
John: Okay. It's the chat, phew. So stick questions in the chat as we go. But I guess one of the questions that I would ask and thinking about people who aren't using it for business yet, their boss is going to ask is, why should a business use TikTok in their social strategy?
Andy Thornton: Before I answer that, can people put an emoji in the chat if they think that their business shouldn't get TikTok. I want to [inaudible 00:07:51] that while I talk. Great.
John: Okay. Bear in mind, it's not the emoji you thought about for a cough or a sneeze. Different emoji. So an emoji in the chat please if you think your business shouldn't use TikTok.
Andy Thornton: Shouldn't be on. If you think your business doesn't really work for TikTok. Although I think everybody who's here will be like, "Maybe." So, we'll see. How do you know your TikTok is right for you? Oh, excellent. I thought that that was the-
John: I did that just for you. I've only done one emoji to Andy. I didn't follow my own [inaudible 00:08:22].
Andy Thornton: That's okay. Kate's on it. [inaudible 00:08:23].
John: Kate's on it. Fucking emoji.
Andy Thornton: So I was mathematical I would make a beautiful little formula, but I hate math. So I'm just going to give you a little list of things [inaudible 00:08:38]. First one would be target audience. So if your target audience is 60 plus, I wouldn't get on TikTok [inaudible 00:08:45]. You could, but probably not your best move. But we'll come into this later. TikTok's really good for brand awareness. So even if you have an older target audience, it actually could still be worth being on TikTok.
Second thing is, do you already use socials for marketing? Because whether you like it or not, TikTok is the next big social platform. It's not going away. All of the stats, all of the talk says that, and we'll get on to stats later if you're interested. So if you're already using socials for marketing then, getting on TikTok is something that you're going to have to do eventually and there's, I think a lot of benefit of being one of the earlier people to do it because you'll work it out. And then by the time other people cruel on, you'll look great in comparison to them. So make yourself a marketing account an TikTok. There's a soundbite for you, tweet me.
Next thing is, think about your personas and your objectives. As much as, from a personal perspective, get on TikTok because then like me, you can actually get paid [inaudible 00:09:59] about the office. Sorry John. And film it. It's great. You want to think about what are your goals and if you're trying to attract more customers, if you're trying to build brand awareness, TikTok can be really good for that. So that's the main things.
One thing I would say is, it's easy to start a TikTok, it's not easy to start a good TikTok, which is why you're all here. But the way... I'm sorry, if you know this already or you might. Actually, I don't know you but other people might.
John: I'm 51 years old. I don't know this already.
Andy Thornton: TikTok has loads of different sections. So we talk about queer TikTok, or we talk about fashion TikTok and because the algorithm works out what it thinks you want to see, there are whole bits of TikTok that I never see. And I didn't think it was to the extent it was until I saw a TikTok that was all of the viral songs, which aren't even related to my interest. And someone was doing a comparison of straight TikTok and queer TikTok and the straight person knew none of them. And I was like, "Oh." Just in case, you didn't know I'm queer, I've got the hairstyle. I think it's all good.
With that, if you have to really think about your personas, I'm hoping that everyone here knows what a persona is but it's the ideal customer person is interested in your product service brand, et cetera. And think about what they'd watch on TikTok. So it's a really good persona exercise to get in their head and then get onto that side of TikTok because then you'll be able to pick up those trends and those sounds and that kind of thing. Does that make sense?
John: Yeah, it kind of does. No, it really does. And we must come to stats if we can.
Andy Thornton: Sure.
John: But thinking about the sort of stuff that everybody watches on TikTok, and I guess it's the same with every social media, right? The stuff that brands do is really fucking dull. And the stuff that people do is often, particularly if it's accidentally funny is, often even more viral. So how do we square that circle? How does a brand do that?
Andy Thornton: Well, this the thing that I love about TikTok is that, that's not the case on TikTok. So there's going to be loads of really excellent digital marketing people on here who are used to making pretty beautiful adverts or display pictures. Samantha, this is exactly what I'm about to say. You should come up here and lead it with me, honestly. On TikTok, the lower production value, the better. If you see an advert on TikTok, great I'll put you in. If you see an advert on TikTok, you just skip it. But if you see somebody just talking to the camera in a really chill way, you're going to be interested in what they're saying. So it's a completely different strategy and content production than on all the other socials.
My favourite example of this is Costa, who ran what must have been quite an expensive TikTok campaign to get onto the For You page, which is the main scroll. Oh, I'm going to have to blow my nose.
John: Can we have emojis? I don't think we said this, but it is a cold symptom. Thank you Sam. [inaudible 00:13:43].
Andy Thornton: Great emoji choices from you all. Where were we? Costa did a For You page... Very on point Abby.
John: This might be-
Andy Thornton: For You page-
John: Sorry to stop you. You've already forgotten your place. Remember the Costa For You page campaign.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:14:04].
John: You sneezing, coughing, or blowing your nose. That's a nose blow everyone. Emojis please. The weird emoji thing has just absolutely made my week. Guys, that does count as a nose blow and we need some emojis.
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:14:18]. I can't take credit. It's Josh Baldwin, 150%. A true genius. So back on topic. Costa, they did a set of very expensive, very flashy adverts [inaudible 00:14:33] to get on the For You page, but they completely got the format wrong because TikTok, you use other people's audio and you make your own imagery. That's the fundamental way that TikTok works. But they used different audio each time, but had a really similar imagery. And it was really advert flashy. And the comments were just like, "Never buying Costa again."
John: Oh my gosh.
Andy Thornton: "This is horrific." And they actually cut it out early and have now changed into more TikTok style. The biggest takeaway I can give you is, put the production value down to about 0%. Compared to that, Innocent Drinks, if anyone's seen their TikTok, it is-
John: Friends of the show.
Andy Thornton: Yeah? It's so bad but it's viral and everyone absolutely loves it because it's just some idiot messing about at home. And people couldn't believe that that was Innocent Drinks. So having low production value, very ridiculous, very high chaos. Yeah, Ryanair's TikTok is another one. They just feature all their really hot air attendants and everyone's like, "We're here for this." And they do filters over the planes if they could talk. And there's obviously both consumers, but The Washington Post, which has a very formal and authoritative brand voice, normally, their TikTok is some guy fussing about in his kitchen because that's what TikTok likes.
So Ian has just asked, does brand identity matter as much within content? Interestingly phrased question, because I think branded identity does matter in the sense of, if you look at the content that Innocent creates, it is all very much like, you could tell that that was an Innocent TikTok, over something else. Same as Ryanair, they have a similar energy, but it's like for [inaudible 00:16:41] money to a similar person, a similar format. And that makes them really recognisable and builds the brand. So those principles of brand-awareness still count. It's just that it doesn't have to be the same brand voice as your normal stuff.
John: Before you answer Kate's great question, which frankly, my answer is, who cares?
Andy Thornton: Of course, it is.
John: But then that's why I run Noisy Little Monkey and not some big advertising agency. When we're talking about brand identity within the content, lots of old school marketers will go, "Well, how can people see the logo?" And all of that kind of stuff. We're not talking about that, are we?
Andy Thornton: No.
John: Yes, it would equal reputational risk for you Katie.
Andy Thornton: Kate has just said I work for a hospice [inaudible 00:17:37].
John: But yeah. Are we talking-
Andy Thornton: We'll come back to that.
John: The reputational risk bit or the brands and-
Andy Thornton: Yeah. Reputational risk. Well, you say what you were saying.
John: Let's say we're not making a Noisy Little Monkey one, but we're making one for a company that sells-
Andy Thornton: For a hospice. That's Kate's example.
John: We'll do for a hospice. So if you're doing it then for a hospice, I suppose we're not going to plaster the logo all over the back of it.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. I think one of the big things that makes TikTok useful is that, it's addictive and it's shareable. The classic inbound marketing principle is create content that adds value, right?
John: Yeah.
Andy Thornton: People on TikTok are not interested in your white paper, they're not. But what is valuable to people on TikTok is being able to send that to a friend and then they've given them something interesting or funny or relatable or good, right? So there's so much viracy, that's not really a word. But it spreads a lot more than other social stuff. So by doing something good, people will talk about it. Like news stories run all the time about, this has happened on TikTok or that has happened, it's very much something that gets reported on the outside of the app.
In that sense, does chaos equal reputational risk. You can afford to be a lot more chaotic on TikTok than out of TikTok because people on TikTok expect it. Obviously, there was so many news articles about Innocent Drinks and their TikTok. So you can't just be like, "Oh, it's on TikTok so no one will see." I think the thing with Kate's example of a hospice is, value doesn't have to mean funny. I know someone's talked about, what if you're not funny?
John: Yeah Margaret Davidson just asked that.
Andy Thornton: First of all, if you're not funny over commit into not being funny.
John: Like what? Like, be ultra serious or just try and be funny, but be crap at it.
Andy Thornton: No, be like... So Innocent smoothie their first TikTok was a fidget spinner and it said, "We've started TikTok to be down with the kids. I think we've nailed it."
John: Right.
Andy Thornton: Which is just so obviously not down with the kids and stupid that they nailed it. So if you're not funny, lean in. Be like, this is bad. And then... Yeah, thank you Katie that's fab. I will stop talking about Innocent Drinks. There are loads of other examples.
John: I've got them. I think you're answering those questions as we go. If-
Andy Thornton: Yeah, I am answering some of them [inaudible 00:20:35].
John: No, I'm catching most of them as well. So if you miss them I'm [inaudible 00:20:38].
Andy Thornton: In terms of reputational risk, I think all creative campaigns, there is an element of risk in them. For instance, if you're a hospice instead of trying to make jokes, why don't you do TikToks of people in the hospice telling stories from their life. People would love that. That's beautiful, that's valuable and then you show through the app, because it gets shared, because it gets likes. First of all you're just creating content that is on brand. But secondly, more people will see that. That is brand awareness. So as much as you might not get.
But then this is the thing, right? So your target market, people who are moving into hospice, I don't know, actually you could be a child hospice, you could [inaudible 00:21:35]-
John: Well, it might be a charity and they might be looking for donations or whatever.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. And kids can share things with their family. People share TikToks a lot. That's one of the big parts of it. So it happens.
John: And you've got the option of making people tell jokes or not making them, that'd be a bit much. Let's not use cattle prods on the people. But asking them what their favourite joke is, that still works. I'm thinking back to our friend Tiff Maddox who ran Rubber Republic and is a really brilliant advert director. And one of the things that she had an acronym and I can remember the acronym. I can't remember what it all stood for. And the acronym was asked ARSE, A-R-S-E. And I-
Andy Thornton: Of course, you could remember it John.
John: Yeah, of course. But the first one was authenticity and I think that's the thing, isn't it? If you know you aren't funny or your subjects aren't funny, well, maybe you can be funny in a sensitive way, but whatever you do has got to be authentic to the brand or to the business or to the charity that you're working for.
Andy Thornton: National Rail is on TikTok. I can't think of anything less funny than National Rail, God bless. But they're doing lots of stuff around people's journeys, around representing different people because that's what's important to their brand. So you can [inaudible 00:23:02]. I'm not saying go on TikTok and throw your brand voice out the window, be authentic. But I think that's the point, be more authentic on TikTok than you are anywhere else.
And then the other thing to say is, if you really can, so for instance, like say, I don't know. You're a very formal, boring company, whatever that means for you. And you're like, "I will not ever be able to put our company on TikTok." A big thing that people are doing is having employees on TikTok. So there's a huge story. I've written a blog that includes some of the stuff I'm saying on noisylittlemonkey.com/blog, find it there on TikTok. And then there's a link to it there. But Walmart have done a massive thing of loads of people who work for them on TikTok and do TikToks about working for them and that's been really, really successful.
So something else you can do is, pick one or two people who use TikTok personally. So therefore know what they're doing and get them on TikTok, but very much, I'm on TikTok and I work for...
John: People who are already doing it kind of thing.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. And then you can publicise that way. Thanks Casey. You are such a star. Late to the game John. But yeah, so that's something. And then also, even if you do have a company TikTok, it works really well to have one or two people who are in most of the TikToks, because again, it's about creating that standard format, recognisable person, then it feels more personal.
John: Cool. Brilliant. Margaret, you need to set your chat to everyone rather than just hosts and panellists. Because Andy and I are enjoying both your question and your follow up brilliance, but other people are missing out and that's fine. But we'll just share that moment between us three Margaret. Thanks mate. We've really delved into some of the stuff that you could do and what other brands are doing. We were going to talk about stats and some do nots.
Andy Thornton: Yes.
John: For some stats first. I mean, obviously over 60s aren't on TikTok much, but are people my age on it? I'm 51 years old.
Andy Thornton: How old are you John? I didn't hear that.
John: 51, 5-1 years.
Andy Thornton: And you're looking great. So [inaudible 00:25:45].
John: [inaudible 00:25:45].
Andy Thornton: Oh my God. I'm more blunt because I'm ill but I find this question boring, no offence. Just because there is constant articles. Dibbs shared one about how TikTok's now overtaken YouTube. There are constant articles... We'll come to that later Samantha, thanks for asking. About how big TikTok is. And it's only getting bigger. There are 3.7 million active users in the UK. That number is growing all the time. When we talk about how many people are on TikTok, I'm like, so many and it's only going to get bigger. What number is going to be enough for you that you're like, "Okay, now there's that many people, I'm game." Do you see what I mean?
John: Yeah.
Andy Thornton: We know the trend is this, we know you're going to have to be on it at some point. So start early. Age range is interesting. 26% of UK users are 18 to 24 and only 9.3% are 25 to 34. So obviously that's a small percentage. When we're talking 3.7 million users, that's still a lot of people, right?
John: And as you go, the trend is...
Andy Thornton: The trend is going up and because it's getting so big, it started off very much culturally as only for kids and that's now changing. So more and more people are joining. There are a surprising number of 40-year olds on it. It is going up. And also, don't underestimate the millennial. I'm 24. I talk to the CEO of my company occasionally. I mean, I'm doing it right now. So those people still have clout, so even if you're B2B, that's still someone seeing you and that's still awareness and those people in a year will be maybe even more important to know.
John: I think you make great points. We've got a couple of questions, which we'll come to at the end. Thanks Samantha and Margaret-
Andy Thornton: Keep sending them in.
John: ...[inaudible 00:27:55] you guys at the end. What should we avoid doing on TikTok?
Andy Thornton: Okay, great question. As I mentioned before-
John: Claire wrote it.
Andy Thornton: You're just a pretty face, aren't you really?
John: That's all I am.
Andy Thornton: The first thing is, don't advertise. As we said, don't do too flashy, too, buy our thing, which I don't know how many people here are inbound [inaudible 00:28:24] but it's more about adding value, it's more about content. As we said again, don't ever produce. So you can literally just be sitting at your desk and be like, "Hi, I'm doing a TikTok." Done.
Prioritise the personal. TikTok is very personal and there's a lot more therapy stuff or there's a huge ADHD and autism TikTok, but you just don't have as much on other platforms. People get really real, I think partly because you often only get shown to people who are exactly the same as you, which is kind of creepy, but we're moving on. So make it about a personal experience. Like, why should people believe in your brand? Why do you love working there? If you don't, then pretend. And do that kind of thing and then focus on that.
For instance, for Noisy Little Monkey we do a lot of, having a great time in the office, which is ridiculous because when we're not making TikToks, we're all working very hard. But we do a lot of like, "Oh, we all love each other because we do." And that's what we prioritise and what customers say about working for us is, we're really fun to work with. We're actually honest and we care about it. So that's what we try and focus on. So it's just about, trying to get into the personal thing behind it.
The other thing is, don't panic. Your first TikTok is not going to be a success. That's fine. What's different about TikTok to Instagram is, so for my personal TikTok, which I'm not going to share on this. I did a few that did okay and then suddenly I did one that got 30,000 views. So you just keep going and keep putting stuff out and eventually something will go viral.
The other thing not to do is, don't see a trend, plan a TikTok for three weeks and then post it because you're too late. See a trend, do it that day, work it out. It won't be that as good as if you'd planned it, but you're way more likely to actually get seen on it.
John: Right. So if you're going to jump on a bandwagon, do it now with authenticity, don't set up the shoot, script it, get everybody into the [inaudible 00:30:56].
Andy Thornton: Yeah, just do it.
John: Can you advertise on it?
Andy Thornton: You can advertise on it. There's paid advertising.
John: Can the likes of us advertise on it? It looks like it's always big brands I see when I go on.
Andy Thornton: So there's lots of different options. You can do lenses, which cost a fortune. You can do the first screen, which is when someone opens the app [inaudible 00:31:20]. You can also do branded hashtags. The minimum spend is $500, which is a good start.
John: Oh, right. Not much. It's hardly anything.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. So it's fine.
John: Most business can afford easily.
Andy Thornton: And they have change it into coins to gamify it but, yeah. The minimum is 500. I think it costs two pence per view. Let me check. I've got it written down. So it's 50 pence per mile, which is 1000 views and it's 0.2 cost per click. So that was pretty good.
John: Yeah. That's great.
Andy Thornton: And then a lot of people so that you can have branded hashtag, then a lot of people will just put a branded hashtag in a completely irrelevant video to get it seen. But also that's brand awareness. So kind of fine. But yeah. So that's definitely an option. They're starting to really push that more. So we got an example for, we've got an offer, they give us a bunch of free coins if we spent a little bit. So yeah. It's definitely a real possibility for a lot of people.
John: Cool. More questions. Thank you Ian. I'll add that to the question thing. I just want to check, can you hear the scaffolders' rave coming in through my window?
Andy Thornton: No, I can't.
John: Okay, cool. Scaffolders' rave sounds like the worst album ever made.
Andy Thornton: Sounds like an Indie band name. Yeah, great.
John: We've talked about whether or not it's right for some businesses and all of that kind of stuff. We've talked about the stuff you could do. In fact, as a director of a business that wants to acquire more customers and make more money or be it in an authentic and generous loving way. But none of us get paid for having a good time without us having customers.
Andy Thornton: We all live in a capitalist society John, we do our best.
John: How does that fit in as part of the inbound sales process? Getting brand awareness, how do I get them to come to my business and then buy from me or at least, how do I get them to come to my business?
Andy Thornton: The big thing is it's attract. So it's just about more brand awareness, more conversations. And I think that's one of the things that I really love about TikTok is because it is still about value, but it's about personal value. So it's a really good way. Like, you know how everyone who's on Twitter is really smug about Twitter.
John: Yeah, probably. I'm smug about it. I just thought, yeah.
Andy Thornton: I hate it. I got so bored of people being smug on Twitter, I've got on Twitter. Another plug. But it's even worse on TikTok. People on TikTok flipping love TikTok. Sorry Casey. So I think if you see a brand relatively successful, doing something that's relatively interesting and sweet on TikTok, you will appreciate that brand much more than maybe if you saw an Instagram ad because it feels really personal. I think, yeah. Because it's TikTok's saying this is similar to you. You get so used to seeing people who are the same as you that if you see a brand you're like, "Oh, this brand is for people like me." And that's really powerful. Where was I going with that? What was your question?
John: My question was, how do we get people to come to us? But you're saying it is really awareness and-
Andy Thornton: Awareness. But then also, you benefit from a huge reach. It shows it to a lot more people than just the people who follow you. Like Instagram is really quite closed down and they're actually starting to change that now because they've seen how popular TikTok is, and that's why it's popular.
The other thing is cross-posting. A lot of marketing is disruption. We post all of our TikToks on LinkedIn and we get really high engagement for those posts because everyone's like, "I haven't seen a TikTok on LinkedIn for 20 minutes. I'm scrolling in my lunchtime." So that works as well. And it also makes you better because as I said, creating a good TikTok, you have to really think about your personas and your brand personas. And if you're doing that, that's going to make you better everywhere else.
John: And we see people doing it a lot on Instagram as well for consumer brands, bringing the TikTok across to Instagram, right? Am I right in that?
Andy Thornton: Yeah, because Instagram have Reels, which is basically a form of TikTok and pretty much everyone just posts TikToks and Reels. So you can use your TikToks on Instagram, you can use them on LinkedIn, you can cross-post a lot. And also, as I said, there was a whole thing with Ocean Spray, cranberry juice that had a viral thing on TikTok. And again, the media just didn't stop going on about it because it's easy likes for them. So if you have a PR angle to your marketing, get on TikTok because if you can get one thing viral, that's a tonne of links done.
John: We've talked about it being a tract. Guys, slap any questions you have in the chat. There are plenty coming in.
Andy Thornton: We've got some really good ones.
John: Yeah, we have. We've talked about repurposing TikToks elsewhere. You answered that as you went. We have Margaret Davidson again, I think, asked, is there any trend of people abandoning Instagram for TikTok, even though Instagram is getting slicker?
Andy Thornton: So TikTok works as a full platform. You can message on it, et cetera, et cetera. So I think there are lots of people who are only on TikTok. That's a feeling, not a stat. I don't think Instagram's dying anytime soon, but I do also think that no one prefers Reels to TikTok. TikTok's still going to take over. I just don't think it's going to replace it quite yet. That's my hot take.
John: It's a great hot take. Let me just back to these questions over here, back to the chat-
Andy Thornton: Can I ask a question myself of everyone watching?
John: Yes, please do.
Andy Thornton: What terrifies you most about starting a business TikTok because then I can answer that.
John: Cool. Put what terrifies you most about starting a business TikTok in the chat.
Andy Thornton: Or what's stopping you.
John: What was the other one? We had one from Ian Mathison.
Andy Thornton: We've had loads of good ones John. Have you not been paying any attention?
John: No, you've answered them as you've gone. I'm ticking them off, but I had seen Ian Mathison's and I couldn't see it again. Any TikTok, any tips, not TikToks.
Andy Thornton: Any TikTok tips.
John: Any tips for TikTok influencer outreach?
Andy Thornton: Great question. There's actually a link which I will post in the chat now, which TikTok does the hard work for you. So they have a market place for creators. And then you can find creators that sit you there and you can see what kind of stuff they do and their costs and everything like that.
The other thing is, if you can... I mean, we say this. The amount of times that people say talk to your customers and no one does, but talk to your customers, find out who they follow on TikTok, find out the kind of people that they like. Because that's where TikTok will do all of the work for you. Their algorithm is second to none. So if you can get your hands on the people that is showing, the one personas being shown, inevitably, that's what everyone else like them will also be seeing. You see what I mean?
John: Yeah. Man, if I can add a little bit to that, if I may. Often, good TikTokers have good Instagram and often good YouTube accounts and doing a deal with those influencers to get them to create content or repurpose that content on all of their channels. I've seen a few people miss it. And indeed I've missed it. Going, "Oh, make this for TikTok." And then you go, "Oh man, they have even more followers on Instagram." And then also the engagement rates on TikTok-
Andy Thornton: Oh, they're amazing.
John: ...versus other channels are huge.
Andy Thornton: This is the other thing, we've not talked about sign-off but the watches on TikTok are so huge in comparison to Instagram likes and stuff. In terms of reporting, it's a pretty good way to give your numbers a little bit of a boost. Everything's relative, they don't know that.
John: [inaudible 00:40:33].
Andy Thornton: Don't tell John. And it makes it look like you're doing a really good job, which you are. It's true. That many people have seen it, but it's just because it's such a big platform.
John: Yeah. Eye balls are less expensive and engagement is less expensive on TikTok. I'm pretty sure. Certainly from the little datasets we've looked at. Go on, what were you going to say [inaudible 00:40:52]-
Andy Thornton: Just that Kate said manpower is preventing us, which I think is really, really valid. And the main thing with that is, just doing them quickly and just, if you only do four, then you've started. The thing that's interesting about TikTok is the feed works in a really strange way. Unlike Instagram, where you'll see something on your feed and you'll go, I'll click on the creator and they would have posted that three months ago. So stuff that you do now is still going to be being shown to new people in a year or in however long. So even if you only get time to do a few, that's still collecting awareness, if that makes sense.
John: Yeah.
Andy Thornton: The big thing is, we are the first X on TikTok.
John: Yup.
Andy Thornton: You can get a lot of clout for that.
John: We're talking to a lot of, or I'm talking to two or three clients about, why aren't you going to be the first X on TikTok?
Andy Thornton: [inaudible 00:41:52].
John: Katie Roberts, never heard of her, has asked how often should brands be posting on TikTok?
Andy Thornton: As often as you like. I mean the influencer will post flipping constantly, but also some people post rarely. I think the-
John: Give us a definition for rarely and give us a definition for often.
Andy Thornton: I don't know. Once every couple of weeks.
John: Right.
Andy Thornton: The thing about it is nobody has any clue. I'm sitting here like I flipping know anything. I don't know anything. I know a few things, but it's so new that we don't have all of the handbooks yet, we don't have all of the data yet, especially not for businesses. So I think a lot of it is just feeling it out and same for any social channel. What is good for you might not be good for other people. So if it takes you two weeks, in terms of the amount of capacity you have to make good to TikToks. And when I say good, I don't mean good production value. I mean that you've just thought about it for two minutes and then done it. That's still better than not posting anything. So don't think, "Oh God, I'm going to have to suddenly commit to doing a TikTok every week." Just get it out. That's okay.
John: Claire Lamb asks, should we be using hashtags? If so, how many?
Andy Thornton: Again, there's no proper data on this, but from my research and experience and general energy, you always use the hashtag FYP or #FYP as a little two lines in a smiley face. I don't know why but it's really successful. And then a few that are relevant. So if you're doing research in terms, again, of your brand personas and what kind of hashtags they'd be following. So I don't know if us would be maybe marketing or consultives or whatever, if you start typing something in, it shows you how many views each of those hashtags has had. So focus on ones that obviously have had those views.
In terms of how many, I think the best thing to do is to switch it up. If you stick, I don't know, 20 or 10 hashtags, but you don't have much room, first of all, the comment and the comment goes over the TikTok. So please, for the love of God, do you not put your captions under your comment because then you can't read your comment and you can't read your captions and then that's a terrible time.
So yeah, the caption goes to the bottom, but if you do a CCs which is, closed captions, we've got that on now. Definitely do those for your videos, it's accessible and also people scroll without sound, but put those up somewhere that isn't over the description. But yeah. I'd say, for some don't do any hashtags just because you're edgy. And then for some, do three or four and for some fill it and then see what works for your brand and don't be afraid to use branded hashtags because everybody does. It's a bit cheeky, but it's fun.
John: Which kind of makes the point if you're new to it, it's probably worth doing quite a few, one a day or something for a few weeks, because then you can experiment with hashtags and captions and all of that kind of stuff. But particularly hashtags getting that right.
Andy Thornton: Yeah. And you can always delete once they're bad. That's fine.
John: Cool. Okay, so we've got a real particular question. We've got three questions left to cram into the next six-ish minutes.
Andy Thornton: All right, we'll do them fast.
John: So Samantha Steel works for a travel company and most of her videos so far have had to be stock videos. I guess I would be worried about putting a face to the brand for the worry it wouldn't be relevant.
Andy Thornton: Interesting.
John: Thoughts.
Andy Thornton: Why it wouldn't be relevant? So travel company. I suppose, when you say stock videos, are they your stock videos? Or are they bought? Because if they're your stock videos, absolutely use them. If you're a travel company, really what you want to be doing is posting loads of stunning videos. Like, isn't this place gorgeous? With really popular audios over the top. And then a link in the description like, "Come here. It's great." So you don't have to put a person to it.
I suppose in my head, I was thinking of SaaS and products that you can't really make TikToks about. But if you're a travel company, get in and there's loads of TikToks that you use photos and it puts them together. So you look at those as well because you'll have photos of your places.
John: I would suggest that if you've got people going to those places, one in 10 of them is going to have TikTok. I would say, "Look, we'll give you a bottle of champagne if you make us a TikTok, tag us in it." Or however that works and we'll repost it.
Andy Thornton: If you can find people who have done that, you can duet with them, which is where you put your TikTok next to theirs and you can literally just do that as a way of... Celebrities do that all the time as a way of promoting fan stuff. So you could do that as well.
John: Your idea gets a great idea endorsements from Samantha Steel. She was clearly so blown away by my initial idea that she wasn't able to even type. Lovely Josh Marston asks, oh, hang on a second. Sorry Josh, we're going to come to yours. Oh no, we did do Sams. Okay. Are companies and brands covered to use the music on TikTok or do you have to pay royalties?
Andy Thornton: Absolutely not. So that's what's so good about TikTok is you can just use other people's stuff. And I actually don't know if they get paid for it or not.
John: I think they don't.
Andy Thornton: I don't think they do, but there have been so many people who have been made famous by TikTok. By the more people use their music on TikTok, the better it is for them. So there are so many Spotify playlists that are TikTok songs. It's all we listen to in our house, which is embarrassing. No, you don't have to pay. If you start recording your TikTok, you'll have a little ad sound at the top, click that, and then you can search for things, you can see things that are trending, et cetera.
I've not done any of the, this is practically how you use it because I feel like that's all stuff that people can Google and I didn't want to waste their time.
John: No, absolutely.
Andy Thornton: But I'm on LinkedIn. You all have my Twitter. So if you want any help, let me know because it's not very intuitive unless your 12.
John: Yeah, exactly. Josh, I have a real problem with using people's music. That's why we use Creative Commons music, not royalty-free. Creative Commons music on all the stuff we do for Noisy Little Monkey because I have a problem using people's music without giving them attribution. Weirdly, I don't have that problem on TikTok. If I'm making TikToks or if we're making them for a brand, so many people are doing it, I think [inaudible 00:49:10].
Andy Thornton: But you're helping them by doing that, you're adding to it and that's the whole point of that. The other thing is that is-
John: Although this is not legal advice.
Andy Thornton: This is not legal advice.
John: If you're British Airways and you're using Diana Ross then you are probably going to get sued.
Andy Thornton: The way of getting around that pretty quickly, if you set of it is, a lot of people create TikTok videos just for the app. So you can find words of just people talking, use those. There's Creative Common stuff on there or make your own noises. Okay, go.
John: Cool. Excellent. Thank you. And you were able to talk there over my dog barking. Perfect.
Andy Thornton: Great.
John: So we've got a question from... Oh, a lovely name and my ability to read-
Andy Thornton: You being a bad white person right now.
John: Yeah. My ability to read Celtic names has gone. But Ms. Cassidy. Do you think it's worth changing to a business account on TikTok, even though it limits the sounds you can use?
Andy Thornton: Ooh, that's interesting.
John: [Neeve 00:50:14]. That's what it is. Sorry Neeve.
Andy Thornton: Great.
John: My little brain doesn't work on that.
Andy Thornton: Is it worth changing to a business account? I think it depends on why you're changing. So if you're changing to a business account so that you can run a huge paid campaign, probably worthwhile. Are you changing to a business account but you don't use the sounds that are otherwise restricted, in which case, no problem. So I don't have any key wisdom on that. I think it's just, have a think about your goals and then work out what's best from that.
John: Cool.
Andy Thornton: Sorry, I couldn't be more helpful.
John: That's good. I think you've been very helpful. We've crammed an awful lot into this 40 minutes. Margaret Davidson asks, she's been on fire with the questions, Margaret. Are we on a business or a personal account Andy?
Andy Thornton: You know what? I'm going to check that because Dibbs set it up.
John: I bet we're on a personal account.
Andy Thornton: I reckon we are.
John: Because we can use any music then.
Andy Thornton: Yes, I think we are.
John: Let's hope there's a way to transfer to a business account once we get billions of followers.
Andy Thornton: Yeah, we're on a personal account because we can click, switch to business account.
John: Margaret, I'm not sure that's the best thing to do.
Andy Thornton: Right. I'll just summarise. You can learn about your customers so you can get more insights on video performance engagement. You can get exclusive sounds, although as you say, some of them are limited. You can also get inspiration from business creative hub, which sounds irrelevant. And you can use business features. So that will be when they put more paid stuff out. But yeah, so we're on a personal, it's working for us.
John: I suspect what will happen is at some point we'll either be encouraged to, or it will become a useful incentive for us to migrate to a business account.
Andy Thornton: Yeah, exactly.
John: And pretty much that happened with it. If you're an early adopters on Facebook, you had to set up a personal page that you then migrate to a business page. So I'm sure we've been caught in that and it should be okay. Margaret, I wouldn't necessarily copy us. Just have a think about whether or not it's relevant for you. Copying Noisy Little Monkey is always a dangerous thing to do because the way we do our marketing is not necessarily what we would advocate for our clients a lot of the time.
Andy, thank you so much.
Andy Thornton: That's so awesome.
John: I'd like to do some more emojis please in the chat for Andy as if he has just sneezed by way of thank you.
Andy Thornton: Everybody just tweet me so that I look not sad on Twitter. I'm so new.
John: Please humansatsuma on Twitter. And join us next time for consumer behaviour and keyword mapping for user intent, which is going to be probably a little bit more techie than today, with [Joyce Ojaku 00:53:09]. So we're really looking forward to that. Thank you for [inaudible 00:53:13]-
Andy Thornton: That'll be so cool. Thank you everyone for your brilliant questions. If you think of any others, get in touch.
Events & Marketing Manager Claire writes about events, and, uh, marketing.
