This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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One of the things you notice if you've been online for a while is that each social platform or really any kind of platform at all, like anywhere where people are commenting or engaging or watching or posting, they each have their own kind of behavior. And it doesn't work very well if you decide, oh, this is the behavior that I want to have from one platform and I want to apply it somewhere else. There's this like shared language and sense of expectation of how people do things. And this relates to today's listener question, which by the way, welcome to Cytosol School. Thanks for tuning in.
She is building a pretty big platform on TikTok. She's got 200,000 followers and she's trying to encourage these followers to join her newsletter and it's a challenge. Like a lot of them do not want to join the email opt-in. Now the email opt-in is really valuable and she knows this. That's why she wants to bring them over, but it can be difficult.
And so her question, which she will go into in more detail is should she be fighting harder for this? Like should she keep pushing or should she just kind of accept this is the way that it works on TikTok? Let's talk about conversion for short form video, going to email, but also just the psychology of why followers tend to resist this move to off platform. I think it's something that affects a lot of things these days, no matter where you're trying to reach people or bring them, you need to be aware of these network effects and just the expectations that people have. I'll try to make this as simple as possible and as actionable as possible in my answer, Bella's question and my response coming right up.
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Hey Chris, I'm Bella from Knoxville, Tennessee. In the past nine months, my how-to sewing clips have blown up on TikTok. I have 200,000 followers and counting. But the problem is I can't really convert these people to email. I stuck a link in my bio, offered a free pattern and only have 600 signups so far.
TikTok fans just don't seem eager to leave the app. Um, am I pushing too soon, offering the wrong incentive or do short form audiences just not convert? At what stage does it truly make sense to pour energy into email when my growth engine lives on TikTok? - So Bella, I think the first thing to know is that it's totally normal that most viewers of your short form video, whether on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube Shorts, they are not going to join your email list. Their default behavior, their status quo, like what they're most likely to do is just keep scrolling on that short form video platform.
And so if your opt-in rate is, what is it, less than 1%, that's actually, you know, if it's 0.3 or something, that's not failure. You know, with enough visitors and enough views, you can actually build a substantial email list that way. So 600 signups so far is not bad. Basically, you just keep making videos and a small percentage will join. But it's going to be difficult to get it, you know, much higher than 1%.
To increase it, you do want to upgrade the incentive. So try to give people, like not just a, you know, one PDF or something, but a three-day mini course or something that is, you know, truly exciting. And maybe there's a community element and, you know, people have to like comment to get it. And then you're sending them, like there's a lot of, there's just a lot of encouragement toward getting something that is free and doesn't have a lot of upsell to it. You have to really kind of focus on that value.
So don't expect that most people will come over. Just know that's how it works. They are used to this certain behavior on this platform. But then the ones who do come over are going to be pretty valuable. They're going to be what we would say in the sales world as warm leads.
Like they are your true fans, or at least they're actively interested in making a purchase or engaging in a more direct way. So, you know, you might add 500 emails a month and that's pretty great. If you do that, that would be 6,000 a year. And that's a lot. You can actually do a lot with that many people, especially when they are so targeted.
So I would say don't lose heart. Just understand how social networks work and what their natural behavior is so that you can gently encourage some of those folks to come over and join your newsletter. Listeners, let me know what you think. Of course, if you have a question or comment, sidehustleschool.com, we are starting a new month. This is episode 3,227.
Every single episode from the podcast archives is available for free download or streaming at sidehustleschool.com. New episodes come out seven days a week. Listen wherever you like. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
