0:00
Olivia Messina
Hello everyone and welcome to our webinar, How Biteable Built a Thriving brand community on TikTok. I am going to be the host of today's webinar. My name is Olivia Messina and I am our social media and community manager. And in true Oktopost fashion, we like to do things a little differently around here. So I thought instead of sharing a generic fun fact, we could actually, since summer is right around the corner, share a fun summer travel. That's coming up. So I will kick off, I'll give it over to you, Haley, and then everyone in the chat, please feel free to chime in as well. So like I said, I'm our social media and community manager. I'm based in Erie, Pennsylvania and actually this summer I am traveling to Phoenix, Arizona to see a Morgan Wallen concert. I'm a huge country music fan, so heading to one of his concerts and I'll send it over to you, Haley. Yes.
0:59
Haily Moulton
So I am up in Squamish, British Columbia, which is just about, about 45 minutes outside of Vancouver. And one of the big activities in Squamish is to go back country camping. And I've lived here for about three years now, so I'm still kind of slowly getting into it. But I have one pretty big backcountry camping trip planned at the end of August to a place called Panorama Ridge. So it's about a 30 kilometer hike round trip. And the campsite is about 11 kilometers into the hike at a place called Garibaldi Lake. So it's a very, very beautiful place with a nice view if you want to look it up on Google. But I'm really hoping it works out. I tried to go last year and we had some pretty weird summer weather here in Squamish where it was still snowing in July. So unfortunately called that trip off. So hopefully it's sunny at the end of August this year.
1:47
Olivia Messina
Amazing. Well, sending good weather vibes your way. And for anyone listening in that maybe has not heard of Biteable, could you just give us a quick brief overview Biteable and what you do at Biteable?
1:59
Haily Moulton
Yeah, of course. So I'm the growth marketing manager at Biteable. Biteable is a video making platform that allows anybody leading a team or that needs to communicate with people to easily create explainer videos or really any type of videos. So we've got like thousands of templates that you can choose from or you can start from scratch. We also just released Ava, which is our AI video maker. You enter in a few prompts and we will automatically use AI to create a video for you. It's free.
2:27
Olivia Messina
Very cool.
2:28
Haily Moulton
You can check it out. And my role is growth marketing manager. I primarily do all of our organic social media, but I also help a little bit with our email marketing as well. In true startup fashion, we're a small team of about 30 people, four people on our marketing team. So lots of hats.
2:44
Olivia Messina
Yes, definitely. Well, now that everyone kind of has a little bit of background info on us and what we do, we are here today to talk all things TikTok. And when it comes to B2B social media, every platform kind of has its own role. So LinkedIn is a little more professional. There's a little more long form content there, where Twitter, for example, is shorter form content, a little more laid back. You have a direct line of communication with your customers and users. Instagram can be used in B2B more for employer branding and community building. And then TikTok hit the scene. And at first it was really seen as this trendy dance app. And a lot of the younger crowd they were hopping on, they were the early adopters and something very interesting happened. So every day people started to go viral and they were gaining massive platforms overnight. And it really didn't take long for B2C brands to kind of jump on and find a new home. But for most B2B organizations, and I'm sure everyone tuning in also has been through this, there's a little bit of skepticism when it comes to B2B brands on TikTok. I like to call this the TikTok for B2B dilemma. Since TikTok is generally associated with that younger crowd, these organizations thought to themselves, I don't think our customers are on TikTok. I don't think they want to consume content on TikTok. So it was this big dilemma. Flash forward to today. We now know, and we have some data to back this up, that this is actually not the case. TikTok is so quickly growing and now has 1 billion monthly active users. And in fact, 60% of the users in the US are under the age of 30, where the other 40% are older. And we also have more insight into the B2B buyer journey and cycle. And we also know that millennial millennials make up 73% of B2B buying decisions. So there is actually a huge opportunity for B2B organizations on TikTok, one that definitely cannot be ignored much longer. And this is actually how Haley and I met. It's how I was introduced to Hayley and Biteable. I shared a day in the life of a B2B social media manager on my personal TikTok and Biteable actually commented on it. So that's how I discovered Biteable. So you really can see new brands and new thought leaders. So it's something that really cannot be ignored much longer. I know for us at Oktopost, we've had customers discover us from TikTok, so there is a huge opportunity. And anytime I think TikTok and B2B, I immediately think of Biteable. And I would say that when it comes to B2B marketing on TikTok, biteable definitely set the tone. And I like to call this the biteable way. So, Haley, the one thing I love about Your presence on TikTok is it's so relatable and it almost feels like it's a personal page. It doesn't scream a brand. You're definitely the farthest thing from boring. You use a lot of pop culture references, you utilize and weave in a lot of millennial work culture and jokes. So I would just love to know how you kind of got started and how you found your content sweet spot and did you have to experiment at first or did you find success right away? I would love to know how the Biteable Way came to be. Yes.
6:28
Haily Moulton
So it was a long journey to get there. We started our TikTok account in December of 2020. So set the scene. It was like peak work from home time with COVID happening. TikTok was not quite new at that point, but not many businesses were on it. And I feel like it was still like the young dancing and lip sync app at the time. Even personally, I wasn't on Tick Tock, didn't have it on my phone, didn't really know what was going on. So it was like the first week of December and my boss at the time was like, you know, we're a video making platform, this is a video app. I feel like we should have a presence there. And I was like, yeah, like, sure, we'll give it a try. But I don't really know what kind of videos we're going to post. So he gave me a challenge at the time. He's like, let's post one video a day for seven days and just see what happens. So I was like, okay, let's see what happens. So I downloaded the app honestly, didn't do much research and started making videos inviteable with our little animations and uploading them to TikTok. And as you can probably guess, they absolutely flopped. Nobody cared about them. So then I was like, well, this is obviously not getting us anywhere. Let me try something else I'll do. A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager also didn't do very well because I was working from home and I was like, okay, let's watch me sit at a computer for eight hours then. This was my first remote job, and Biteable is a fully remote company, but a lot of people were working from home for the first time at this time. So I was like, let me try and make some videos about what it's really like to work from home. You know, things that happen when you're working from home, like throwing in a load of laundry or taking a shower that feels like, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this during the workday. But it's also like, everybody's doing this during the workday, and if you're getting your work done, who cares? So I started making video content about that, and that's what really took off for us. So the first video we had that did well was a joke about wiggling your laptop trackpad to keep your Slack status active. And I just like, I know nobody on my team cares what my Slack status is, but like, me personally, I'm like, I would really like it to stay active. So I made a video about that. It did pretty well for us. I think at the time it was like 50,000 views, which, for a new account, I was like, over the moon. I was waiting for Hollywood to call me, thought I was pretty much famous. So I was like, hey, this is working. Let me keep going in this direction. And it was really easy and fun for me to make that content because it was really relatable to me. But then also while this was happening, while I was experimenting with our content, I started spending more and more time on the app. So I really kind of understood TikTok as a social media platform is so different from the others in the sense that, like, the way people speak is very different on TikTok. The way they act, the way the comment section is kind of like its own app, it's so wild. So I kind of started to practice and I would scroll exclusively on Biteable's account. I didn't have a personal account at the time, so any comment I left came from Biteable's account. And I really, like you said earlier, was just acting like a human because there weren't many businesses on the or on the app at the time. So I was just like, I'm going to be a person instead. And that really worked for us before any of our videos did well. We had some comments that did really well and that kind of got people coming to our page. So even still to this day, I try to engage more on TikTok than I actually like put out content wise. So I might post one video a day, but I'm scrolling for like an hour and a half a day just commenting and engaging with people who might be interested in our content or whose content I just like, genuinely enjoy. So I think it was a double whammy of those two things. Like, we found the content that worked for us and we kept going in that direction. But we were also like really engaging with all these other people. Like your social media manager video that I found. Yeah, like cemented our community there.
10:17
Olivia Messina
I love that you called out actually leading your page and engaging with other accounts. And the comment section on TikTok is a gold mine. And it's such a great little hack and secret right there for brand awareness because you might not have a lot of followers, but you could comment something super funny or super relatable and it'll get 3,000 likes and then 3,000 people now know the name of your company company because you commented. So that's such a great little tool and hack for brand awareness right there. So thank you for highlighting that. And I want to pause briefly and actually throw it out to the audience for a second. Now that Hayley kind of broke down her content a little bit and what she has found success with sharing, I would love to know what you guys actually care about seeing on TikTok from brands. Are you looking for more of those, like work, funny trends or do you want to see more tips and tricks? Do you want to see more things related to the company's culture? I'd love if we could just have a little insight there. And then on this side, while you're thinking, I wanted to share a quick little tool that I use sometimes if I can't think of content ideas. You can actually go into the search bar on TikTok and type in your niche and then you will see all the keywords of things that people are searching for and then that's a whole list of video ideas right there. So wait for everyone to answer because I know I like. I really do love Haley how you are sharing the more like work millennial. I think it's so funny because it's so relatable. It's like a universal, universal experience. So I really love that. The educational content, company culture. Content, fun content. Yeah, I think that's especially if you are trying to pitch Your brand to go on TikTok to maybe a boss. And you don't know what kind of content you want to be posting. Company culture. I feel like you can't go wrong there. I really love that idea. Everyday life in the office,
12:24
Haily Moulton
anything except a sales cta. Yeah. Relatable. As soon as something comes across as like a little bit salesy to me, I'm like, scroll.
12:31
Olivia Messina
And you can tell immediately. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. You have to really align your content with what TikTok actually is and is used for. And it's mostly for community and. And exactly what you have created at Biteable. Awesome.
12:49
Haily Moulton
Edutainment. I love that combo. I think the Washington Post has absolutely nailed Edutainment. They were like the OG brand on TikTok.
12:57
Olivia Messina
Yes.
12:58
Haily Moulton
So good.
13:00
Olivia Messina
Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for that insight. And now, Haley, what you have created on Biteable, like I've said, is truly amazing. And I know something like this does not just happen on accident. Yes. The TikTok algorithm is tricky. And Haley and I were just chatting before this. I had a random video go viral just the other day, and I was like, why did this one video go viral? But for you, at Biteable, you guys consistently have millions of views and hundreds of videos that have gone viral. I mean, I scrolled down your page for two seconds and was able to clip all of these millions and millions of views. And this does not happen on accident. There is some strategy behind it, and I know you're using some tactics to get there, so I would love if you could just go over some of the tactics and keys to success that you have used in the past to get started and are still using today.
13:55
Haily Moulton
Yeah, I'll go in order of what's on your slide here so it's easier for me to wrangle my thoughts. But the first thing that really set us up for success, me personally at Biteable, was that I was never held to any specific metrics when we were starting our TikTok account. So we, for all of our organic social channels, approach, approach them all with the goal of brand awareness. So when we started our TikTok channel, there was no like, okay, we need 50 leads by the end of the first month or we're not going ahead with TikTok. It was just kind of like a, let's try it and see what happens. So I didn't really have that pressure of I need to hit these goals and if I'm not, then I need to change quickly. Which really gave us the time to experiment. Mind you, TikTok moves so fast, so I could tell pretty quickly if something wasn't going to work, like our biteable animations or my Day in the Life videos. So that allowed me to just kind of like, go outside of the box and try new things. Jumping right on the piggyback of that is trust from leadership. My leadership team never sees any of my TikToks before I post them. Most of the time they don't even see. I'd probably say, like 75% of the videos I post. My boss is a reels user, so he sees the one reel I post a week and then he'll be like, that was really funny. But I think just having their trust and, like, allowing me to act a little strange, act a little different, kind of push our brand guidelines a little bit. The way we talk in the comments section isn't the way we would talk in a comment section. On LinkedIn, I talk like a human, like it's my account, essentially. Whereas on LinkedIn I do talk like a business. So having that trust from them really, again, allowed me to try new things and not be afraid of any repercussions that I might face from them. Because we were just trying to, at this point, get views and, like, get our account out there. Willingness to be a little weird. I think it's so funny on TikTok because you could post something and think it's the weirdest video ever. And then you always have people in the comments that are like, I've never had an original experience in my life, which was the case when I posted one of our. I think it was our most viral video on TikTok was about taking a shower in the middle of the day, which is my personal favorite work from home Perk. So I made this silly little video of me, like, dancing my way to the shower. And it got over 4 million views and I think it got like 5 million views on real. So it was like, crazy. And I was like, nobody's going to be able to relate to this. And everybody in the comments was like, I love a midday shower. Like, I thought I was the only person that did this. So it's kind of like people find that stuff relatable and even if it's weird to you, like, it's entertaining. And the last one, I already kind of touched on it a little bit. But act like a human, not a brand. I engage with people's content on TikTok as if it's a person talking to a person. It just really helps to build those relationships. And I think when we saw the rise of TikTok, we really saw people like they weren't interested in the picture perfect business content, kind of like what Instagram used to be. Like they wanted the real authentic side of what it's like to work at this company or what this product does or the people behind it. So I think allowing me to kind of become essentially the mascot of Biteable, people felt like they were talking to me and they knew they were talking to me in the comments section. So if I posted a video earlier, they'd like follow up on that video and be like, oh, how was this thing? Or like just kind of building that friendship, essentially like a parasocial relationship, but with a brand. And it's been really cool because I've met friends through Biteables TikTok that like I've hung out with in real life now. And Olivia, I met you, so I think it just like really humanizes it and it's way more fun to interact with a human than it is to interact with a brand. So that's been a really big key to success for us.
17:36
Olivia Messina
Yeah. And I think that really speaks to the community you've built. Because what I love about your TikTok comment section, for example, you are responding to mostly every comment. Huge. And when you get a reply back from a brand, you just feel special. And those like the. I firmly believe community is built in the comments because that's when you're talking directly with your customers, your prospect, your audience. Like that is gold right there. And I love that about Biteable. You guys are so engaged and you really have built this incredible community. And another thing I just thought of is what I think you highlighted is so important. Social media moves so quickly. And especially if you want to stand out on TikTok, you have to be able to take a trending audio or a cap cut template and deliver that day or the next day. And if you have to wait for your boss or someone up higher to approve it, you're probably going to miss the mark. And then they're probably not also going to understand if they're not on TikTok and they're not the one consuming these trends, you're probably not going to understand. Then you actually explain it and then you've missed the mark. So I think that's really important to highlight there as well.
18:47
Haily Moulton
Yeah, I mean, we all woke up a few weeks ago and all of a sudden cap cut templates were all over TikTok and I don't think anybody had that in their TikTok strategy to like, post cap cut templates. And then it was just like my whole for you page was a capcut template. So I was like, okay, this is amazing because it's a lot easier for me as a social media manager to make this, but, like, let me go in here and see what these are all about.
19:07
Olivia Messina
Yeah, it was, it was crazy. And that's like. I mean, that's social media right there. It moves so quickly and you have to get behind on the trend of the moment or you're going to get left behind. And I think especially everyone tuning in on here, you either have a TikTok account for your brand or you want to. And if you are getting started, most of the times you are starting with a completely blank slate, which I feel can be intimidating because you do never know what is going to work, especially on TikTok. So I would love to know from you, how should someone get started if they had to start tomorrow? What should they be looking at? How should they be building a content strategy? What would be your advice here? And I kind of broke it down into the basics of TikTok strategy, so I'd love to hear your insight here.
19:59
Haily Moulton
Yeah, so I think when I first started our TikTok page, I did everything wrong in the sense that I just kind of like jumped right into it without really spending time on the app because I just didn't know that it was so different from the other platforms. So I would say, if you haven't already, first of all, just download the app and consume content. Look at the content that is engaging to you. Why do you like it? If you scroll past a video, why do you think you scrolled past that video and just kind of like take notes of the things that either catch your eye or that you find entertaining. Also, search to see if any of your competitors are on the app. Search hashtags or keywords to see if anybody's already talking about you on the app. Because that could be a really big hint of, like, if their content's performing well, maybe you can either use them as an influencer or kind of follow the style of content that they've created. Obviously, Biteable's Cult or Biteables page is very, like, trend and meme focused. And I will say I don't think that's the best way to go about it. Now, TikTok in 2020 was so different than starting a TikTok page from scratch in 2023. So when we started, it was all really, like, entertaining and meme heavy and it still works for us because we've already got that community established there. But I think it's kind of overdone now. I will say that's not saying you can't do it. I think it's definitely great to mix that type of content in, but I'm seeing a lot more like storytelling, edutainment type videos come into play. So I think kind of approaching it like what type of content is popular? The app now is really, really important. Yeah, I think that covered everything in content. Analyze competitors, search hashtags, cadence. When we first started, I would post one to three times a day. That's a lot. And I was posting on weekends too. That's like the perfect recipe to burn yourself out, especially as a one person social team like I am. So I'd say do what works for you. Try and post like once a day on weekdays. But if you don't have time, don't beat yourself up over it. Comment on other people's videos, engage in some way. Just like start in any way that you can. Like I say engaging back is just as important as posting. Olivia, you called out biteable response to every single comment that we get for the most part. Even if it's just like smiley face emojis, I'll comment some emojis back or like sometimes I'll comment something funny back to their emojis. I just think it's such a fun way to kind of get the conversation going for the creation. I've seen a lot of brands take the road of hiring content creators that are different from their social media managers, which I, I think if you have the budget for that, incredible. That's just kind of like, it makes it so much easier. And content creation on its own is a full time job. You can use these short form videos across so many platforms now. You've got shorts, you've got reels. They even perform well on LinkedIn. So it's really worth the investment if that's something that you have. One face of the brand has really worked for us again because we're a B2B company. We don't have a product that we can show off and I could record my screen, but that's just like not really engaging on TikTok. So that's why we kind of just went with the my face route and I was comfortable with that. But we also do have members of our team contribute to the videos occasionally. One time we all made a music video to Umbrella where I assigned people parts and had them send it to me or I Recently went on vacation for two weeks and I said to my boss, like, I'm gonna really try to unplug this vacation. I don't want to be on social. Like, that's just not a real vacation. So I asked him if he would be willing to kind of take over our tikt page for that time. And I set up kind of this little plot where my boss that isn't familiar with Tick tock takes over the Tick Tock. So they were kind of like Boomer style videos. And I warned people ahead of time, I was like, listen, be nice to Mike, he's coming on the page. And we had some really fun trends set up for him. So it was all planned in advance, but it was like so fun to see our community interact with him and get to meet another person behind the brand. So yeah, that's kind of the way we've approached it. But I think really doing that research before seeing what other people are doing and also just keeping in mind what kind of content do you enjoy making? Because if you force yourself to make content that you don't enjoy, it's going to become really evident on the camera and nobody's going to really want to watch that if you seem bored. So there's a lot of things to keep in mind. That was a really long answer, I apologize. But it's really just kind of like experimenting and doing what works best for you.
24:20
Olivia Messina
Yeah, there's definitely a lot at play when it comes to TikTok. And I think some people just don't know where to start. And I think that's where that experiment, experimentation is really key because I know for us at Oktopost, we are a social media company for B2B marketers. So we tried funny social media manager jokes or marketing jokes, which surprisingly, you know, they did well, but nothing viral. But some of our best videos are actually us giving tips about LinkedIn. So you again, you truly never know what's going to land. And I love how you guys one face, you know exactly who you're talking to when you're engaging with the biteable brand brand. But I've also have interviewed someone on my podcast who their whole team contributes to their TikTok account. So they meet once a week and they talk about the videos that they're each gonna film. They each film one and then the next week they set them live. So that's also an additional way you could go around it if maybe you don't want to be on the TikTok. And there's also so many ways. Now, I hear a lot of people say I want our brand to be on TikTok, but I personally don't want my face on TikTok, especially with cap cut templates and all of these trends. There are so many ways that you can go about creating content where your own face doesn't need to be on TikTok as well, really.
25:35
Haily Moulton
And I think we just got a really great question in the comments from Farah or Farah, I apologize, what are your thoughts on repurposing existing content? I am all for it. The amount of content I put out on TikTok is insane. We've posted thousands of videos in the two and a half years that I've been on the app now. And I like, I recycle ideas constantly. If I have an idea or a video that does well, I will reuse it like word for word. I will literally copy the text from one video and put it on another and put a different sound in the back like a week or two later. And I think it's just like, why wouldn't you. If you found an idea that really works and people relate to it and people like it, it'd be silly to not use it again. So I've done it all the time. Our content is frequently about midday showers. We're kind of like known for our midday shower content at this point. And like just the millennial memes, I constantly am repurposing ideas. And I think, I think it's totally fine because I think as social media managers, as people that run the page, it's really obvious to us when we recycle content. But TikTok is so good at distributing your videos to audiences that aren't just your followers, that maybe, maybe a small handful of people will realize, like, oh, they've posted a video idea like this in the past, but so many people won't realize it and that'll the first time they see your content. So it's just like, think about how they see it. Don't worry so much about how you see it. Recycle that content. Do it.
27:01
Olivia Messina
I couldn't agree more. And that could be again, the first time someone sees your brand and you might have been like, okay, maybe I don't know if I should post this again. But then, you know, you're. It's going to be shown to a new audience as well.
27:12
Haily Moulton
So yeah, there was actually a TikTok question sticker. I think it came around at the end of last year and it literally just asked people what was your most viral video and the question sticker, you just reposted your most viral video. So for us it was that midday shower one in our repost of the exact same TikTok with that sticker on it got almost 2 million views. It was like nothing was changed in the video.
27:35
Olivia Messina
Yeah, and you'll often see brands, you'll see a viral video once and then you'll see different outlets post it and every single outlet it also viral. So, yeah, repurposing work. And now that we have kind of set that groundwork, I would love to talk goal setting and analytics and measurement because I know if you maybe don't have a TikTok yet and you want to start one as a brand, you are probably going to have to pitch it to either your boss or leadership or executives. And the first thing they're going to ask you is, okay, what is the goal? What are we trying to get out of this? How do we want to show up? What are we measuring? And I know you guys have a very unique perspective when it comes to measurement on TikTok, so I would love to know the overall goal and how you are measuring success when it comes to TikTok.
28:27
Haily Moulton
Yeah. So our goal for TikTok is to increase our brand awareness and we measure that through our impressions and our engagements on the app. So we're not focused on having people sign up for paid biteable accounts from a TikTok video that we saw, which is why we really focus on kind of those like funny, relatable videos that are designed to get views. The way we kind of see it is Biteable is not a very well known brand. So we don't have the advantage of like a McDonald's or a Wendy's. That is just that name is known. If you say biteable, nobody's going to be like, oh yeah, the video maker if they do, fantastic. But like, chances are they won't. So we were like, let's start by getting people to know who we are and then they can like learn to trust us. They'll build a relationship with us. And out of curiosity, they'll probably eventually click the link in our bio and see our website and learn a bit about what we do. But like, we're not really focused on selling to them through our videos. So brand awareness is the main one. And like I said, when we started our TikTok page, I was really lucky that I didn't have any specific metrics. And it kind of still is. We don't have specific metrics. We're not like, oh, we want to hit 5 million views this month. It's something that I do track and report on to the team. Like, here's what our video views were, here's what our engagements were and we look at it over time just to see, like, are we growing? Because obviously if we weren't looking at that, it'd be like, are we wasting our time? But that's the way we approach it.
29:44
Olivia Messina
It.
29:44
Haily Moulton
And to be quite honest, our target audience, it's not that they're not on TikTok, but they're probably not really on TikTok. They're mostly on like LinkedIn and YouTube. So we focus a lot of time on those other platforms and we focus a lot of product related content on those other platforms. Whereas TikTok, our target audience might be there, but they might be more of our target audience in a few years. So we kind of think of it as like planting the seed, you know, like friends with them. And then in a few years when they, they need us, they'll know us. So that's the way we focus on it. We don't focus on leads. We have had people find us on LinkedIn and be like, oh, I found you from TikTok. And we know that it's driven some signups. I will say I don't think it's like rapidly increased to our trial signups, but that's not our goal. It's really tough to have that as a goal in organic social. Like we've never put any sort of money behind any of our videos on the platform. So we kind of just like post and hope it gets to the right people. Recruitment. We're not hiring at the moment. We haven't been, we haven't hired in about a year just because of the economic climate, the climate that we're in. But about a year and a half ago, I had posted this video that was meant to join a trend. And like I said, we're a fully remote team, which is a pretty big perk for a lot of people when they're looking for a new role in. This video I posted was about working remotely and it led to a huge surge to our careers page. People took it as a recruitment video. I didn't post it with that intention. I just thought it was like a funny trend video. But our comments were flooded with people asking if we were hiring and how can they join, how can they apply. I think the video ended at just over a million views and our careers page from Friday to Monday. Friday was when the video was posted. Our careers page was visited 20,000 times and it's normally visited like, like I think it was 30 to 40 times a day is our average. And this weekend it just like exploded. And I was talking to our recruiter at the time, she was like, so many people are applying to our general application, which was one of the only rules that we had listed at the time. So it's just kind of funny how sometimes you have a video where that wasn't really your intention, but it's the way people interpret it. So that was pretty cool to see.
31:54
Olivia Messina
Yeah, I mean that is the power of TikTok right there. And you can get so many new eyes on your brand in such a short period of time. And I wanted to call it something earlier. LinkedIn talks a lot about the 95.5rule where 95% of your potential buyers aren't even ready to make a purchasing decision at that moment. And so that's really important. So leads doesn't always need to be the goal. Focusing on brand awareness is key because when they are ready then they will think of you. So, so I'm really glad you highlighted that, Haley. And this is we're getting into the good stuff now. So anytime you type into Google TikTok tips, TikTok best practices, you will often hear a lot of the same kind of stuff and it's kind of stuff that is pretty self explanatory and it's kind of all the same. So when I invited you, Haley, onto this webinar, I was thinking to myself, I want to know the insider tips and secrets and best practices that people are doing and that no one is really talking about. So I would love if you could just share some of those best tips and practices.
33:10
Haily Moulton
Yeah, I've talked about the first one a lot. Get ready to experiment. Don't be afraid to fail. I always tell people and I need to remind myself of this sometimes too. Don't let views dictate like how good your video was or how good you are as a social media manager because you could have created a fantastic video and posted it and it didn't get many views. But maybe it just like wasn't the right time of day or maybe TikTok honestly TikTok has moments where just like weird things are going on with their like searchability. So give it a try again, be willing to fail and don't let those failures keep you from like trying new things. Business account there's always a lot of questions about like creator account versus business account. Creator accounts obviously have access to pretty much Every single sound that you could ever use on TikTok, including trending sounds or like, trending songs like a Harry Styles song or Taylor Swift song. Whereas business accounts won't be able to use those. Yeah, we have a business account. I have never felt hindered by our, like, inability to use a Harry Styles song per se. For the main reason we have a business account is just like, legally. Right. Will Harry Styles sue biteable? I hope not. Like, probably not, because we never use his songs now, but I feel like it's just not worth the risk. So the way we get around that is there's always weird remixes of songs going around that are posted as original audios that businesses have the ability to use. So I do use those. I don't limit biteable to just like the commercial library that you can use in ads. But I do think if you have a business account, it's. Or if you are posting for a business, it's worth it to just have the business account to kind of like, don't risk being sued.
34:47
Olivia Messina
Yes.
34:48
Haily Moulton
The easiest way to say it. I agree engaging with content is more important than posting. And I've touched on this a little bit too. But we're really, really active in our comment section. But in other comment sections too. I think it's just so funny to go into a really funny video and, like, have a funny comment and people start engaging with that comment. We have so many comments that have surpassed, like 10,000 likes, which is wild. Like, the TikTok comment section is just so, so crazy. So really get in there and start engaging with that content. What I like to do before I post a video on TikTok is, is I will just scroll the App for like 15 to 20 minutes and engage with other people's videos and then I'll post mine. Does it do anything for our video? I don't know. But I like to think that if people see our comments, they'll click our profile maybe and they'll see the video I just posted. Who knows?
35:37
Olivia Messina
Good. I love that tip. That is key.
35:40
Haily Moulton
I love that I'm not here to tell you it's a hack or anything, because again, I have absolutely no scientific evidence that this does anything for your videos. But I just kind of like it. It shows TikTok that you're active on the app, you're engaging with people's stuff, and then, like, maybe it'll increase the eyes on your videos. Who knows? But that's just something I've started doing, mentioned it earlier, but repeating content ideas is totally okay. I repeat them all the time. I repeat them, I'd say, at least weekly, like some different content idea that we've had. And I repost them or repeat them on other platforms too. So I think it's fine. Don't burn yourself out constantly trying to think of new ideas. Also, another place I love to find ideas is in the comment section of other people's videos or your own videos. Sometimes people comment things and it kind of like triggers a thought in your brain and you're like, oh, wait, that would make a really good video. So just write that down in your notes, app or wherever. My favorite tip is the last one here. This is something I do on every single video that Biteable posts. I am the first person to comment on our video. Not from my personal account, from Biteable's account. So I'll post a video as Biteable, then I'll go into the comment section immediately and ask a question. Or just like an extension of the video. Maybe I'll post a thought. Doesn't always have to be a question. And I'll be the first person in my own comment section. I like to use the analogy that when you're shopping, it's really awkward. If you walk into a store as the only customer and there's like five employees just watching you shop, you're like, oh, I don't really want to be shopping here right now. I'd rather be in a store with a few other people where I can, like, shop in peace. So I think of it as, like, if I'm already in the comment section, that's kind of like another customer in the store, that ice is broken. People feel more comfortable adding their thoughts, either replying to the comment or the question that I've left or just like adding their own thoughts in there. And honestly, since doing that, I've seen our comments, like, the engagement on our comments has really, really increased. I don't have an exact number, to be quite honest, because I don't keep track of comments on their own. I just lump those in with engagements. But I've noticed from spending all day on the platform that our comments really increase after doing that. So that's my. My main tip.
37:52
Olivia Messina
Yeah, well, that's. That's actually really interesting because I've always thought that maybe you shouldn't be the first to comment. And you're nodding your head like, yeah, you've heard that. That's really interesting to see that it's actually increased your engagement. So that is definitely a trick. I'm going to test out And I love that analogy because again, it's like you go and click and there's no comments. You're like, oh, I don't know if I want to be the first one here. So.
38:16
Haily Moulton
Yeah, and it's like, there's a lot of pressure, like, oh, my gosh, I'm the first person in this comment section. Like, what do I say? It has to be a good comment. And then you, like, get. Get in your head and you're like, oh, I didn't have anything good to comment. I'll just keep scrolling. And I feel like people go to the comment section more than they go to the caption or, like, more than they read the caption. That's how I interact on the app anyway. Honestly, all of these tips that I've come up with are not only from my time posting on the app, but just kind of like, making note of my behaviors as a consumer on the app and then like, kind of analyzing it, like, oh, why did I do that? Or why did I feel that way about that video? And then keeping those thoughts in mind when I'm creating content. More tips here. Thanks for writing all these down. I would have forgotten some of them. Don't delete videos that flop. I know. It can be so embarrassing if you're like, oh, I really, really love that video. And it got literally one view. And I've had happen. Biteable has over 30,000 followers now, and I have literally posted videos within the last month where they've literally gotten one view. And I'm like, what is going on? And honestly, something weird is probably just going on to TikTok if that happens. But those videos later took off and they, like, all have thousands of views now. Recently especially, I've seen this happening a lot. Older videos, like some of biteable's videos from 2021 are getting engagements right now. And I'm like, how are you even finding this content? So truly, don't delete those videos. Nobody cares how many views they got. You care more than anybody else. Just let them go. Let it do its thing. Yeah, it'll be fine. I think there's always a lot of talk on every social media platform about being shadow banned. I don't think it's a thing. That's my personal opinion. I think if your content is consistently not performing, just try and switch it up. Try and experiment some way. Like Olivia said, search your niche on TikTok. You can filter your searches too, and you can sort them by, like, most viewed, most liked, and then you can see where the engagements are and like what kind of content people are engaging in. Responding to comments, again, I respond to pretty much every single comment. Even mean ones. We're really lucky we don't get many mean ones. But if somebody comments something rude on our videos, a lot of the time it's along the lines of like remote workers are lazy or like you shouldn't be showering on company time. I just comment back something funny like, yeah, it's engagement.
40:37
Olivia Messina
Yeah.
40:37
Haily Moulton
And Biteable's brand is like kind of naturally snarky.
40:40
Olivia Messina
So if it's that, yeah, I love that.
40:42
Haily Moulton
This last one is honestly one that I'm not very good at on Biteable page, answering frequently asked questions by responding to questions with videos. It's a really cool feature that TikTok and Reels have. Now we don't do this mainly because we're not like, I don't really do a lot of talking to the camera videos on Biteable Page, but. But if you are like a TikTok page that does or you're promoting products, I think this is a great one where it's like people are asking questions, then you respond to that question with a video and like show them.
41:10
Olivia Messina
Yeah, I think it's awesome.
41:11
Haily Moulton
Oh, and one other tip I've noticed, I don't use it in every video, but if I'm creating a video with multiple scenes, I like to have one cut, like a jump cut within the first second of the video to capture people's attention. I just think attention spans are so short now that like if you're moving things in the video, just move them quick because it might feel like so fast and choppy, But I think TikTok is fast and choppy and it's like a little bit chaotic. Another thing kind of along those lines that I've seen people do is if they're telling a story, they'll be talking to the camera, telling a story, but doing something like completely unrelated like cutting fruit or folding their laundry as they tell the story. And it like distracts your mind in a little bit and it like you oddly focus on the video. So yeah, another trend I've seen that seems to do well.
41:56
Olivia Messina
Yeah, I've seen the same. And going back to not deleting videos that flop, I think that the TikTok algorithm right now especially is showing older videos. I know my older videos are being shown as I'm scrolling through. As a user I'm seeing older videos pop up where you go to the comments and you can see people commenting from months ago and Then also don't worry about the views because. Because no one can see the amount of views unless they click onto your profile and scroll and find the video on. So you don't need to worry about the views because no one's really looking at that anyways.
42:32
Haily Moulton
I feel like as social media managers I personally anyway like constantly go to our profile view and I like look through our views. I'm like, yeah, nobody else is doing that. Yes, just me.
42:41
Olivia Messina
Totally, totally. And Haley, we are nearing the end of the webinar here and I want to do save some time for some questions but I, I couldn't let you leave without knowing a little bit of how you are managing this all because again I know you are managing more than just the social media presence. So I would love you could just leave our audience with a few little tools for their toolkit and then we will jump to Q A for everyone.
43:06
Haily Moulton
Yeah, so I think like the hardest thing for me for TikTok is content creation. I think that's the biggest time suck creatively, it's draining, it's time consuming. So I, I was kind of trying to figure out how biteable could stay up to date and quick on the trends and put out a lot of content, but how I could reduce the amount of time I spent creating that content and I found what works for us is I set aside two filming blocks every week. One on Monday, one on Thursday. Spreads it out nicely where like any trends that come up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'll film them on Thursday. Any trends that come out over the weekend, I'll film them on Monday if they're related to our brand. And honestly most of our videos are pretty easy to film because they are like lip syncing trend meme style videos. So it doesn't really take me a long time to film one video. So I'll block about an hour of time on Monday and an hour on Thursday and in that hour I'll film probably anywhere from 6 to 12 videos depending on how funny I'm feeling or like how creative I'm feeling and that I just use those throughout the week. Honestly most of them never see the light of day because they're like kind of a half thought out idea or I just look at them later and I'm like, don't really like it this. But I have them there. I always keep them in my drafts in case I am creatively fatigued for a long period of time and just need something to pull from. So I really think those time blocks are super helpful. Then in all that time in between, when I'm consuming content, I'm saving sounds, saving videos that inspire me. And I always have this really chaotic notes app on my phone phone, where I write down, like, different ideas that I have and the sound that I think might work well with that idea. So then when I go to film those videos, I kind of have this, like, writing rough script for myself of, like, here are the ideas that you had when you were feeling funny in case you're not feeling funny right now, because sometimes I'm not. Yeah. And I've really kept that consistent. So that has been my schedule for, like, the last two years now. And it just works for me. And honestly, I try not to put pressure on myself too. If I'm not feeling funny, if I'm not feeling creative on a Monday morning, and then I just don't film, and I'm like, okay, let's pull from that draft bank that I have. So I think that, like, being graceful with myself has really helped that. And really reducing it to those time blocks is just an easy way where, like, I know that's something that I have coming that day, and I can be prepared for it. So that's my main tip. That's kind of how I've worked it out for TikTok. Don't be afraid to say no. The things that don't align with your social goals is so much easier said than done. But as social media managers, we're, like, constantly getting things and requests thrown at us. So I think, like, no is a full sentence. You can explain why you're saying no if you want to, but we really have to kind of, like, stand up for ourselves and stand up for our roles and protect the goals that we're going towards because we know best. We're the experts. Yes.
45:48
Olivia Messina
I love that. No, it's a full sentence. All right, thank you. Haley and I definitely wanted to leave some time for some Q and A, so feel free to add in the chat any questions you have. And while you're doing that, that, please, please, please, everyone drop what you're doing. Follow Biteable. Also follow Haley. She has great content on her personal page as well about marketing. And it's just, I feel like a very. A more Haley version of biteable, very authentic, very funny. Still all the jokes in there, so definitely everyone follow Haley as well. And we have a few minutes to answer questions if we have any new questions coming in. Gonna scroll up and see if we have any earlier that we might have missed. I have.
46:34
Haily Moulton
I am in the Q A section right now. Hello, Hannah says. Hey Haley. Love the content. Were there any concerns from the team that the content wasn't directly related to your product? How about now that you've been at it for a few years, does Biteable ever want more of the product to be shown to increase brand awareness? And if so, how do you approach that? This is a great question and I think it's one of the main questions people get when they see our content and they're like, it's funny but that it's like, I don't know what your company does, so why are you posting this? And honestly with Biteable, I'm very grateful that there's never been a concern from our leadership team about that. They were kind of like really excited. They're like, wow, this is working. This is getting a lot of views. And I've explained to them that TikTok can be pretty finicky. Like once you set yourself up in a niche, if you stray away from that niche, it can be kind of harsh in the way it like severs your views sometimes. I've seen people try and transition from like a lifestyle account to say a comedy account or something and it's, it's tough. So we have decided like we have this great, really, really engaged community on TikTok. We'll just keep at it. We'll keep going with the content that we have there and trust that people are eventually going to find us on our other platforms. But where we have tried to experiment with more product related content is actually on YouTube shorts. So shorts is the one place that I don't repurpose our TikTok content. I tried for a little bit bit but it didn't really do well there. And a lot of the sounds that we use on TikTok I didn't want to post on YouTube because I knew they'd be copyrighted immediately and I just didn't want to run that risk. So we use Shorts as our short form platform to kind of experiment with slightly more product focused videos. And we've also taken kind of like some notes from our TikTok content and applied them to Shorts so they're more edutainment style. We have one series on Shorts that's like decoding common corporate acronyms or corporate phrases and then I'll also do short tutorial style videos there. Like some of our new features, we have a video to GIF converter so I'll post videos like how to convert your video to a gift for free or how to create custom gifts for your brand. So we're using those other platforms as a way to experiment with the more product focused content. We're not too worried about it on TikTok though again because not that our target audience isn't there, but our target audience isn't primarily there, they're primarily on other channels. So that's where we really focus that more pro product related content.
48:53
Olivia Messina
Amazing. I see another comment at the top asking she's a social media manager at a tech company and trying to develop a TikTok strategy. Now can we blend different content themes while optimizing the algorithm? Talking about incorporating a variety of topics like tech talks, highlights from tech events, cutting edge tech innovations and amusing videos showcasing our office life life. So I would say definitely yes. And Haley, you can add upon what about to answer, but I say definitely yes again, especially in the beginning you never know what's going to work. And we've had different video types for us, I know that have good engagement that are totally separate. So like LinkedIn tips, we've had one that has performed really well but we did another social media manager joke that performed really well. And then I also have recently started posting TikTok or not TikTok podcast clips on our TikTok and those are like very like tactical short tips and those are doing really well right now. So I don't think you need to completely niche down all the time. I think if you find something that works, keep going with it. There's no one is saying you have to like niche down on one particular theme. So that's what I would say.
50:11
Haily Moulton
Yeah, I completely agree. I think I've seen a lot of channels do it. They'll have kind of like different almost like original series where like this series they'll talk about this. This series they'll talk about this. And I've seen them also kind of highlight those series in different way, whether it's different playlists on their TikTok channel or even like different covers. Like a purple TikTok cover will be this series, a red TikTok cover will be this series, which I think is really cool. Absolutely. Like Olivia said, it's really cool even when you're experimenting. And I think that different style of content, maybe your educational content won't get as many views or maybe your funny content won't get as many views or vice versa. But I bet one type of content will be really great for brand awareness and the other type will probably be really great for like following or leads or something other than brand awareness. So even if it's not getting, like, a ton of views. Look at other ways that it might be impacting your channel in positive ways, and I bet there would be one. So definitely Biteable just sticks to the memes.
51:08
Olivia Messina
All right, well, we are nearing the end. This will be sent out. Everyone will receive a copy of the recording. I wanted to say thank you, everyone, for joining us today. And thank you so much, Haley, for breaking down the basics of TikTok and how you built your thriving brand community at Biteable. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in. And thank you so much, Haley.
52:56
Haily Moulton
Thanks, Olivia. And thank you, everyone.
