This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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How can you use TikTok to promote your side hustle? What's up friends? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Chris Guillebeau here. The final episode of the month of July, episode 2,769.
We're gonna talk about TikTok for business, the best strategies for creating engaging content, using TikTok's unique features to your advantage, and building a loyal audience. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to expand your current side hustle, my goal is to give you inspiration and tools that you need to succeed every single day, seven days a week, always new episodes. So we're gonna hear from a listener today interested in leveraging TikTok to grow their side hustle. Now, I mentioned unique features, TikTok's unique features. TikTok has done some things that have really changed social media, how people communicate, brands, and so on.
And then this is now being applied across other networks as well. There's kind of like a TikTokification of social media. So what does that mean? Well, I'm gonna give you a couple tips here. Detailed question in my answer coming up in just 30 seconds.
Hey, thanks so much for being out there. [Music]
Hey, Chris, TikTok seems to be a powerful platform for creators, and I've noticed many businesses using it to reach a wider audience. What kind of content works best for business growth on TikTok? And how can I effectively engage with users on this platform? Are there any specific strategies or features I should be leveraging to maximize my reach and conversions?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks for always providing such great insights. [Music]
So one of the big things I learned, one of the big insights I had a few months ago came from when I was visiting Evan Carmichael's mastermind group in Toronto. And just talking a bit with Evan and understanding how different TikTok is. And the key insight I went away with is, well, TikTok doesn't actually care about followers or subscribers so much.
So as a creator, you can have a big audience. You can have like a lot of followers, but the TikTok algorithm is so strong that it's built on serving the right videos to people who are interested in those videos. Almost regardless of who they are following. So the follower count does matter to a degree, but it's not at all like how it's always been in the past or how it's usually been in the past. It used to be, you've got a social network, you wanna build up a bunch of followers so that they see your content.
Now, if you're familiar with Instagram and how things have changed on Facebook and other accounts in recent years, all of them, really all the networks, you understand that the algorithm influences decisions about what is shown increasingly. So TikTok has taken this to an extreme. So basically, to give you an example, Evan was telling me he had like a million followers on TikTok and some of his videos were being seen by like a thousand people. So a huge, huge gap there. However, he had some videos that really took off.
So it's all about the video. So you could be a creator that has a low following account or a low number of subscribers. And if you make the right video, it's gonna reach a lot of people. So it's basically content first. And that is essentially what is rolling out across Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, YouTube Shorts, elsewhere, the whole industry is kind of following that.
And like all these things, there are two ways to look at it. One way is like, it's kind of discouraging. I've been trying to build a following and now my followers don't get to see my content. The other way is to say, wow, this is cool. If I'm starting new, then I don't have a huge audience.
I feel like I'm always at a disadvantage, but I'm actually not, or it's a lesser disadvantage because if I make the right videos, then they're going to be shown. So that is the key insight. There's a lot more we could talk about, but if you just take that away and start thinking about, okay, if I want to make social content, I need to be thinking about what the right content is and who is it for, and how is it gonna capture their attention within a couple of seconds, like very quick time period. How can I give them something helpful, useful, interesting, funny? I mean, that is a big value of social media these days, funny, humor, et cetera, and then construct your campaigns accordingly.
So think about relatability, think about that educational component, have a mix of that most likely, and then build a schedule and start posting more. That's kind of what you do. I'm learning along with everybody else out there. Of course, it's been fun to learn a lot this year. I've been sharing much more frequently this year, and I plan to keep doing that going into next year.
So I'll share more lessons about that as I go. But for now, thank you for listening. Much more is coming up as we move into the next month and beyond. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
