Mastering TikTok Trends and Marketing to Boost Sales W/ Wave Wyld

Today’s guest is…The one and only Wave Wyld!!

Wave Wyld is TikTok Marketing & Trends Expert. She has helped thousands of creators and business owners grow their TikTok accounts with a “Content First” & “Community Approach” so that they can make more impact and profit.

This podcast is sponsored by: https://www.syllaby.io The ultimate AI tool for video marketing! Find topics, create scripts, create AI videos, edit, and schedule them directly to your social media profiles!

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Embark on a journey through the bustling world of TikTok with me, Austin Armstrong, and the indomitable Wave Wild, where we unravel the intricacies of short-form video content and its monumental influence on sales and marketing. Discover the transformation from personal brand photography to TikTok trendsetting with Wave, whose expertise sheds light on the potency of viral appeal and brand establishment. Together, we tackle the challenges creators confront and the significance of staying alert to the ever-shifting sands of social media trends.

Venture deeper into the realm of TikTok as Wave and I dissect the art of trend analysis and content creation that hits the mark. Learn about the nuances of personal branding within the TikTok ethos, and how a simple catchphrase can carve out your unique space in the digital expanse. Equipped with tools like Creator Search Insights and a firm grasp on analytics, we share strategies that help creators keep their finger on the pulse of what's hot and what's not, ensuring they stay ahead in the game.

As we wrap up, the spotlight turns to the art of selling on TikTok without sounding like a sales pitch. Pinning videos with purpose, leveraging live streams, and navigating the once-taboo 'link in bio', we delve into creating marketing funnels that are as effective as they are seamless. Whether you're looking to build a following, enhance user interaction with tools like ManyChat, or simply looking for the next big content idea, this episode is your treasure map to TikTok triumph. Remember, your journey is ours, so reach out with your thoughts, feedback, and who you'd love to hear next on the show. Let's keep this entrepreneurial spirit thriving together!

Disclaimer: The above links to websites or tools mentioned in this episode are affiliate links. This means that if you sign up using that link, I will get a percentage as a commission. This helps support me and this show.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

But I can look at it and see that that creator made $7,000 from posting that video in sales. Like it is working. People are buying, so I don't think it's going to slow down anytime soon. People are shopping, you know. If you hate it, you know you just got to suck it up. It's a part of the app. I guess there's not much you can do about that. But I think it's actually working. People are shopping.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Welcome back to Business Talk, a short form video marketing podcast. I'm your host, austin Armstrong, and on this show I interview the best content creators and entrepreneurs who have leveraged short form video to actually drive leads and sales. In this podcast, we deep dive into their tactical strategies so that you can get actionable takeaways. You can connect with me across social media at Socialty Pro. Today's episode is sponsored by my company, syllabiio. Syllabi is a one-stop shop for video marketing on social media From finding trending topics your potential clients are asking online to generating new video scripts, creating AI videos with real clones, a built-in video editor and even direct publishing to your social media accounts. Syllabi enables anybody to become a content creator. You can get started today with a seven-day free trial in the show notes. Let's jump into today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Today's guest is the one and only Wave Wild. Wave Wild is a TikTok marketing and trends expert. She has helped thousands of creators and business owners grow their TikTok accounts with a content-first and community approach so that they can make more impact and profit. With a background in personal branding, wave launched a brand on TikTok as the queen of trend alerts, which then started the movement of trend alert style videos and has become a mainstay within the social media industry. I know personally. I've gotten so many trends from her. Wave has participated in creator community programs with TikTok and YouTube and regularly appears in national media, top rated podcasts and social media summits. I am so excited to have her join today. Wave, thank you so much. I'm so pumped to learn from you.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to talk to another TikTok expert like yourself. That's so much fun when we get to have that kind of back and forth and chat about all the inner workings of TikTok.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yeah, we're going to nerd out for everybody here a little bit, get some actionable takeaways. So yeah, it was great. We've been connected for a couple of years on TikTok. I think we're a couple of OGs at this point, but they deleted my account. But that's a whole other thing. I finally got to meet you at Social Media Marketing World two conferences ago, sat in on your session. It was awesome, learned a lot, but I don't know a whole lot about your backstory. So what is kind of the Wave origin story?

Speaker 1: 3:02

Yeah, so before TikTok, before I started on TikTok, I had a personal brand photography business. I had done photography many years on and off, but I was focused on just creating content for female entrepreneurs and I was doing video and photos and a lot of those clients. They also didn't know really how to use the content. It wasn't a lot of video back then. There was no Reels, there was no TikTok, it was mostly photos. But they didn't know really how to use the content. It wasn't a lot of video back then. It was there was no reels, there was no TikTok, it was mostly photos, but they didn't know what to post. And so I was doing a little bit of the digital marketing, personal brand coaching, all that kind of stuff, along with the photography biz. And then I had an Instagram coach friend who said you know, you should really get on TikTok. I think you'd like it there. It's a lot of fun, it's so new and this was early 2020. And so I thought, okay, I'll give it a try.

Speaker 1: 3:54

I was kind of tired of the whole Instagram aesthetic curative vibes and I just fell in love. I was like I just loved how creative people were being, how you could use music, all the effects, all the things that you could do. I just fell in love with the app, the culture of the app, and I had a video go viral. Well, back in the day I thought it was like meta viral Now, like it was 100k views, but still, you know, it got me hooked. That's what happens you go viral your first video and then you're hooked on the app.

Speaker 1: 4:18

And so I started to just learn everything I could about TikTok and I was talking about it with my Instagram audience and so many people were asking me questions and then it was just like light bulb moment. You know, my friends was an Instagram coach and I was like I could really help business owners use this as another social media marketing platform. So I started a whole new account because the other one I was posting on was just so random all kinds of random topics and I just pivoted. I did a huge pivot. By that time we were a couple months into the pandemic. Photography. Stuff was slowing down and I was like I'm just going to do it, I'm going to go all in and completely pivot, and that's how it all started.

Speaker 2: 5:00

I love that. That's awesome. I just love hearing where all of these greats come from beforehand, right, because it's like years and years of experience to become that sort of overnight success story that people don't necessarily see. So I'm curious for your photography business and channel were you doing video beforehand? Were you doing any sort of like? I mean short form video wasn't really a thing prior to TikTok. I mean, I guess you know Snapchat's there and Pinterest was around and Vine, but that had died years earlier. Were you doing any video or was this kind of your first foray? I was doing some.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Yeah, I was doing some video. But the video we were kind of doing and I had this on my photography website was like a one-minute video on your website. That was not quite like a speaker reel or something, but, you know, like a one-minute demo that kind of showcased everything about you, yeah, so that was kind of more what I was doing. Yeah, short-form video did not exist.

Speaker 2: 6:01

Yeah, what was that first video that went viral? For you, out of curiosity, yeah, that one.

Speaker 1: 6:08

I talked about a Zoom hack in that video and I think it was just so timely because it was at the height of the pandemic where everyone was going to Zoom and I showed people that there was a beauty filter on Zoom. Now they're like built into every kind of platform but yeah, you know, a love me, a beauty filter. So, yeah, that's what. That's what got me like a hundred K views.

Speaker 2: 6:34

That's awesome and what was that? So, had you ever had a video go viral like that before? What was your so? What was going through your mind? What was it? What was that like?

Speaker 1: 6:44

Uh well, you know, you know it's the dopamine right and it gets you addicted. So it was just crazy to think that I could get that many eyeballs kind of on my content and it was a bit of a wake-up moment about how crazy this whole app can be for a business owner. Obviously, I teach that you want to go viral. If you do want to go viral, if that's the goal, you don't have to go viral to be successful. But if you do want to go viral, you want to do that with intention. You don't want to go viral for the wrong reasons.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I've seen that happen so many times and it just kind of attracts the wrong people to your account. So, yeah, I mean I just I saw this huge opportunity and also, because of my personal branding background, I saw how important it was on TikTok to build a personal brand to help you stand out, cause it's all about standing out right. You need to stand out on that for you page to get attention and that's kind of where you know the trends came in and that whole you know being the queen of trend alerts.

Speaker 2: 7:45

Yeah, so I want to. I want to dissect that a little bit, because that's what you're known for. You've built this awesome personal brand around trends on on TikTok. What did, what were your? So you created this new TikTok account for this. What were those early days look like? What, what type of content creating and, ultimately, how did it lead to these trend alert videos?

Speaker 1: 8:08

Yeah, well, at the time I think I had only seen about maybe four or five other people doing TikTok marketing tips and a few people. I saw, two people who were doing announcing like trending sounds and they were doing it very much. Like you know, use this sound to go viral. And that just felt a little icky to me because we all know you don't just use a sound and go viral. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. So I didn't really like the way that was positioned and I had started to notice the trends. As I scrolled on the For you page, noticed like people kept repeating, using a certain sound and kind of repeating an action and but putting their own spin on it, and I was like, oh okay, this is like what the TikTok culture is all about and I kind of, over time, started noticing that there's different styles and types of trends and then really defining them and then coming up with strategies on how to use them. So that's kind of like how the trend stuff started.

Speaker 1: 9:07

I started announcing them, Of course, with my personal branding background. I really wanted to stand out, even though there was, like, like I said, only four or five other people I had seen at that time doing TikTok tips. And so, you know, I started off like with this cheesy I have it right here dollar store crown that I would wear, and I created like a catchphrase and I introed all of my videos the same way and to really make it noticeable. And then so I started gaining traction on that, and then what I realized was that essentially what I'm doing is helping people with content ideas and that is solving a huge problem for people. So essentially it's just providing content ideas. People like that, and I was like, okay, I got to do more of those people started calling me queen. I didn't really realize the slang back then and I was like, okay, I'm gonna just, you know, become the queen of trend alerts.

Speaker 2: 9:59

I love that so much. And, yeah, I'm thinking back on my own TikTok journey a little bit, because there's a lot of people that like as like I was doing my own thing in seo, but like I was studying from amazing people like you and kenya kelly and and rachel anderson uh, I'm trying like ginger marketer jackson tips johnny blue eyes, like these are. These are like tiktok sort of coaches, coaches that I've learned from. It's so cool to see how early it was. Out of curiosity, were there any people that you were watching and learning from as well in those early days, like four years ago now?

Speaker 1: 10:38

I would say Rachel Peterson was a big one for sure, Huge influence. I love her. There was a few others that aren't around anymore, but you know, honestly, what I did the most of was I studied content, and this is like when I told my students to do. I would just go, instead of even using the for you page like you can use the search tool, putting keywords and study content in your niche. So I would just watch videos very mindfully. You know how you just watch videos and you're not really paying attention to things. It's kind of you know you're consuming just kind of very passively. So I would watch them very mindfully and I would notice the videos, like what were they saying in the beginning of that video? To get attention, what were they doing? What were people saying in the comments? Like how did they get engagement? I would just seriously study content. And then I kind of again noticed that there were patterns in things and I was like, okay, so this is how people are creating content, Because back then and it's so fascinating, back then, in 2020, we didn't have like the short form video formats that I identify today.

Speaker 1: 11:48

There was just a lot of different things, and now we have, like everyone knows what a talking head video is. Now we have the character skits, which you know you leveraged. I also helped a creator grow to a million followers with the character skits, the mindset and motivation account. I call them character skits. People have different names, but you know that's when you play multiple one person playing multiple characters in a video, Like we have these formats now, which is so fascinating. So I just kind of studied content because, again, essentially a lot of what I do is teach people how to create content. I could almost call myself a content creation coach and really what that is is learning how to communicate a message through short form video, and that's what I love. That's what I'm super passionate about, because I believe every video you post should have a clear message. It should have a clear purpose. What are you trying to communicate? How do you want to make people feel? What is the goal of this video? All those things. So that's really what I focus on.

Speaker 2: 12:45

So, so good, I mean a hundred percent right Like you gotta be intentional, you have to have structure, you have to study other people, sort of if you, if you fail to plan you, you plan to fail, and this can just, uh, you know, applying some of these best practices will set you up for consistency and success in the long run. Now, if somebody wants to find trends online besides just following you of course you were kind of alluding to some of this, but what are some ways that people can find or notice or analyze trends in the moment, so that they can kind of stay on top of things?

Speaker 1: 13:23

Yeah, absolutely. There's a few features on TikTok that can help you. But before I get into that, I'll say the most common way is to just scroll your For you page and find again identifying patterns, looking for sounds that are used. So this is what a lot of people do they scroll on the For you page. If you see a new sound maybe you haven't heard so much before and I always say, like, if you see someone perform an action that doesn't seem but seems like unusual, like maybe someone's reaching out their hand or they're turning around in a certain way, then you kind of know oh, that's probably a trend. You can click on the little record in the lower right and then you can go see how many videos have been made using that sound and look at the top videos and see. You know when were those videos posted? So is it relatively new, is it kind of old or there's? You know what type of creators are having success with it. So that's the most common way people do it.

Speaker 1: 14:18

But TikTok has some cool features. I don't know if you've checked out the new creator search insights tool. You can go in there and it shows you trending topics. Yeah, so all you have to do to access that is, you actually in your search, have to type in creator search insights and a little tab comes up and you click on view. You go in there. It shows you trending topics for your niche. It shows you, yeah, you can actually choose, like fashion, sports, and it'll show you trending topics.

Speaker 1: 14:45

That's one way. Also, in your analytics, the features on TikTok they change a lot, you know that. So maybe not everyone has them, but when you go into your analytics it will show you trending videos at the bottom and it'll show you stuff like that your followers have watched. That's another way that you can find trends. Of course, you have the TikTok viral playlist. A lot of times those sounds are associated with trends. So there's lots of ways. The TikTok creative center I think it's called lists, trending hashtags, trending sounds, different types of trends. So there's lots of ways to find them.

Speaker 2: 15:21

So good, I just learned something new. So, uh, I, I were the the audio listeners. A good incentive to go watch the video. I'm going to quickly show this. So uh, so, this is awesome. I had no idea this existed. Yes, when you uh search for literally creator search insights if you can see up here as this top little widget there and then you I guess, and it's related to your niche.

Speaker 1: 15:52

It is like in saving the capabilities and the data that it has. So, yeah, it's related to your niche, but you can also search like what your followers are searching for. You can search like within other niches. It's just you can also put in keywords, but this is really again going to help you with content, ideas, keywords and knowing what your target audience wants. It's pretty powerful tool. You're going to go nerd out on it now.

Speaker 2: 16:20

I am 100% going to just block off an hour after this call and just dive into this. Thank you for that. That is awesome. So, aside from well, I guess more specifically TikTok as of right now, maybe this week or over the last couple of weeks, what are you seeing as sort of some of the top trends, or maybe if you have any favorite trends?

Speaker 1: 16:44

I have lots of favorite. I'm always big on the POV trends. They are so popular, they're like the lifeblood of TikTok. They will never go away, as much as TikTok also wants original content. These POV trends are kind of like, I say, the lifeblood. They're so easy to create and there's a whole bunch of those going on right now. But I also want to just and it's almost it's too hard to almost describe all of them, but I want to mention photo carousels. Those are so hot. I have been talking about those like in every workshop, every speaking bank, about photo carousels since, I would say, early January. They've been really pushing those.

Speaker 1: 17:19

I don't know if you've seen the notifications come through the app where they're encouraging you to make photo carousels, but they are really popular. You know the cat cut templates how popular those were, like last year. It's all about photo carousels now. So they're really great because you can use them for educational content, you can use them for storytelling. But there's also a lot of photo carousel trends and that's like when you have to use a sound and then set a number of photos with that sound and then they put text on screen. That's like a part of the trend. I think you know. It's just really important people understand that even though it's called a photo carousel, it doesn't mean you can just take your Instagram carousels and repurpose that back to TikTok, because you know your aesthetic Canva designed photo carousels are not gonna hit.

Speaker 1: 18:08

They're just they're not gonna hit on TikTok when these photo carousels are really just random selfie style photos. You know random photos in your camera roll that you always use text on them. That's usually a part of the trend or educating or the storytelling, but that's kind of more how they work on TikTok. And again, I don't know if you just heard about this, this was just released a couple of days ago. I think one reason why they're pushing them is because of this new TikTok notes app. Have you heard of the TikTok notes?

Speaker 2: 18:38

I have? Yeah, I did see. I did hear a little bit about this. Is there any demo out yet? I just read that there are.

Speaker 1: 18:47

I don't think it's out yet. I don't think it's out. There's a website. I think it's still in development, but the I mean I got the pop up notification and it's essentially going to take your photo posts and put them on the TikTok notes app, unless you turn that setting off. But they need content. They need content for that app. You know you're going to start an app. You need to have some content there. So maybe one reason why they're encouraging people to make photo posts and I just I kind of like it because it's an easy style of content to make. You don't have to show up on camera like all the time. You can just grab a few random photos and post them up. So I'm all for it. I think it'll be really interesting to see how it competes with Instagram.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Yeah, I love that. I'm very interested. They are so fast to innovate on TikTok and I think that's one of their so fast when some of these other. The trends move fast, the innovation moves fast, the features moves fast, much faster than Instagram, facebook, youtube, linkedin. Linkedin's just announced they're working on a short video feed. Oh, linkedin, linkedin's just announced they're working on a short video feed. Oh yeah, what are you guys? Four years too late.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:01

So slow? What about TikTok shop? Out of curiosity, I've been really fascinated with it over the last couple of months. Have you dived much into this? Are you working on TikTok shop with any clients or anything? Have you dived much into this? Are you working on TikTok shop with any clients or anything? Have you?

Speaker 1: 20:14

experimented. Yeah, so here's the thing. I'm fascinated with TikTok shop too. However, I don't have it because I'm in Canada. Tiktok shop's not in Canada, it's only in the UK, us and then some Southeast Asia countries. So I don't see what it's like on the feed.

Speaker 1: 20:32

But I hear from creators who absolutely hate it on TikTok and then I hear from creators who love it. But I think it's fascinating because I just got access to this TikTok analytics tool and you can go in and see so much data and I was kind of thinking you don't have access to it, I don't see it Like people really hate it. But then I went in and I was like man, this is working. Like there are companies making millions of dollars, there's creators making 1000s of dollars. It will show you all the data of how many sales this creator got, what the original video was in TikTok shop, and I can look at it and say and see that that creator made $7,000 from posting that video in sales. Like it is working, people are buying. So I don't think it's going to slow down anytime soon. People are shopping. You know, if you hate it, you know you just got to suck it up. It's a part of the app. I guess there's not much you can do about that, but I think it's actually working. People are shopping.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Yeah, it's been pretty fascinating and my wife even is a little annoyed at me because I don't know if there's a specific criteria of how many followers that you need to have. But I have gotten so many free samples of products and exchanges for videos that I'm like addicted to it. Like I've got a foot massager down there, I've got a neck massager in the bun, I've got mushroom coffee. I've got a neck massager in the bind, I've got mushroom coffee, I've got sunflower seeds. I've got all this stuff for free. It's like, yeah, I'll make a video for your thing. But I think they've really just nailed the interface there and it almost has become sort of a trend.

Speaker 2: 22:07

I am seeing review videos of products in my feed constantly and maybe that's just my feed, uh, maybe that's a lot of people, but I I am seeing so many of these products and a lot of these videos are going viral for creators that had no following before. They're just you know, they're just like these are the best smack and sunflower seeds ever and it gets, you know, 200 000 hearts on it and uh, and it's a, it's making them money, it's making the shop money, the shop functionality. You go into the individual little store. I just think they nailed that entire uh interface. I hope canada gets it soon because it's a.

Speaker 1: 22:45

It's really cool I hope so too. I'm really interested to kind of see the back end of it and and and see how how it all works. But um, yeah, I was. You know it's crazy to see what people are buying too in this. In the data I could see like the number one product right now is this oil pulling product. You like swish, your swish oil mouth? I'm like what? How are people are buying this?

Speaker 2: 23:10

like guru nanda or that's it.

Speaker 1: 23:13

That's like the number one product on TikTok shop. Yeah, I see it every day. And it's also fascinating to see how much money the brands are making, Like the makeup brands and stuff. They are crushing it.

Speaker 2: 23:25

Absolutely yeah. So if you're in the e-commerce space, y'all you got to experiment with TikTok shop right now. It is the easiest way to get influencers to post about your content because it's like they've they've unlocked affiliate marketing for the masses, without sort of telling people that it's just affiliate marketing. So, rather than doing brand deals with with influencers and paying them thousands of dollars and I say that as somebody that does a lot of brand deals, but as a product owner and e-commerce owner this is a golden opportunity right now to blow up your product online, because they are pushing the TikTok shop, they are pushing videos that are reviewing your individual products and everybody's making money, so everybody's happy with it. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Yeah, pivoting to off TikTok trends. What are sort of your takes on that? Because I still think trends start on TikTok and then two weeks later they'll hit Instagram reels. What are your thoughts on assessing trends on the other platforms YouTube Shorts, assessing trends on the other platforms YouTube Shorts, maybe Facebook Reels, instagram Reels and then also repurposing strategies as well? Does it make sense to repurpose your TikTok trend videos over to Instagram Reels? Should you wait? What's your expertise there?

Speaker 1: 24:49

Oh, I get this question all the time, yeah, so first of all, I want to say that there is a little bit of a different culture on all the platforms, so some of the trends will translate to Instagram, but not all of them, and some of them take a bit more time and some of them hit immediately, Like there's one going on right now that's just came over so fast. That one like oh my God, don't tell me how I did it, or I did it and it was hard. That one, you know, you probably heard it. That's not the exact line. It was stuck in my head for days and now I can't think of it, but some of them translate really fast. So, when it comes to repurposing, you can definitely experiment and try it. It's kind of like you already made that content, like why not? So most people do. However, I will just say it doesn't work for everyone. I have students who can't get any traction on TikTok with their videos and then they are rushing it on Instagram. I also have people who are on Instagram who just can't get any. You know, reposting the TikTok can't get any traction. And I also have people going TikTok. You know, reposting the TikTok can't get any traction and I also people going TikTok you know to Instagram who it's just flopping all the time. They're different algorithms, different audiences. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You have to experiment and so you know. Hopefully it kind of works for you.

Speaker 1: 26:06

As for YouTube Shorts, I would say the culture there hasn't quite developed Like when Reels came out. It was pretty much a copy of TikTok, but I found over the past few years it's really developed its own culture. There's a lot of the different trends there than there are on TikTok Right now. Shorts is still very much a copy of TikTok Most people repurpose. One reason is that they're in-app video Editor and stuff is just not as robust as TikTok or Reels. But they are trying. They are trying so hard. They are introducing, you know, shorts-only trends. They're working with a lot of the musicians and artists to create these trends. A lot of them are dance trends, so I feel like it's a little bit like TikTok 2020. But I think a lot of the Shorts audience use a little bit younger as well, so they do have some Shorts specific trends. However, most of the TikTok trends, especially those POV ones, will translate to Shorts.

Speaker 2: 27:07

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Really, just thinking about it, and it's interesting because YouTube Shorts was sort of the first to market after TikTok. After TikTok was banned in India, youtube was like hold my beer and rolled Shorts out, and then Instagram Reels followed and whatnot. But I completely agree that TikTok has its own vibe and culture. Instagram Reels has its own vibe and culture. Now YouTube Longform has its own vibe and culture. Instagram reels has its own vibe and culture. Now youtube long form has its own vibe and culture.

Speaker 2: 27:37

But youtube shorts, I think they they are floundering there a little bit. I don't get that sort of that sense of it. Not for lack of trying. Like there's um, they they have for larger youtube shorts creators. They have uh, uh, like a youtube actually has, like has a shorts group where they have live meetings and feedback and speakers come in. I've attended a bunch. Kenya Kelly, who's been on the show I know, attends all the time and she gets gifts from them and cool stuff. She goes all in. What do you think it would take for YouTube to sort of develop their own shorts culture?

Speaker 1: 28:16

So I think one of the problems with you know the longer form creators is they do. They know long form so well. They don't. They just don't get short form and you know, being in the shorts program, they are pushing these trends. I've seen it a few times. I've participated in their like 30 day challenges.

Speaker 1: 28:36

A lot of the long-form creators don't want to do trends. They're not into that trending style of content, especially in certain niches like video gamers, like young guys who are streamers and stuff. They don't get the trends, they don't want to do them. So I think that's kind of one limitation. That's kind of holding people back. I'd be curious to see over time if it does kind of create its own culture. Again, I think you know they need to work on some of their features. They have copied some from TikTok, like the duet and the stitch feature, although I still don't see a lot of people using them within the app. They're still just doing those kinds of things in TikTok and then reposting it. So really encouraging getting creators on board to use more of those features and we'll see if there's some sort of culture develops.

Speaker 2: 29:27

Yeah, it'll be interesting. I like what they've done with the sort of related video feature, so a short can tie into a long or you can add it to another short. It's great for podcasters. I think it's a little clunky though. It's like not the easy to like, click on it just looks like a text box and it doesn't really translate that well to be like in my experience. But we'll see it's going to be interesting. So to pivot sort of now over to the business side, because I want to give some people some really tactical, actionable advice, because it's great to go viral, it's nice, but going viral doesn't always necessarily mean that it's going to translate into leads and sales for your business. So let's start with your business. So how has TikTok and short form content in general impacted your financial status, impacted your business?

Speaker 1: 30:19

Yeah, well, it created a business to start with. I didn't have a business before it, so that's kind of how it's impacted me. I've been able to create a business helping people communicate a message through short form in a way that you know that's what my mission is all about Helping them get more, amplify their message so more people can see them, get more visible so that they can have their message heard, and grow their business, impact their lives and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but that's the gist of you know it created a business for me. I had no business before short form content and now I just teach how to make short form.

Speaker 2: 31:03

That's awesome to hear and so, if you feel comfortable sharing, what is your funnel look like so you create all of this content sort of? What does that look like? Is it link in bio to an opt-in to email drip sequence to slide into the DMs to coaching call? What does your funnel look like that's actually working for you?

Speaker 1: 31:28

You pretty much just explained it. It's pretty simple. It's a pretty simple marketing funnel. Find it. It's pretty simple. It's a pretty simple marketing funnel, you know, um, what I I pretty much do, what I teach my students, is to make content at all three parts of the funnel. So at the top of the funnel, you know you want to get more awareness, so there's different types of content you want to make for that. That can be trending content. Um, there, you know, I have other strategies called attraction posting, um, where your really goal is to get visible. It's all about brand awareness and convert them to followers. And then, of course, you want to make content at the middle of the funnel, so that might be educational content, content that connects with people, inspires people, all that kind of behind the scenes content. Some of that can be top of the funnel too. You can mix it up a little bit, but really focusing on nurturing, creating that community. And then content at the bottom of the funnel that you know puts your offers out there and encourages people to take action and purchase.

Speaker 1: 32:26

But yeah, that's pretty much my funnel, that's the way I create content, try to, you know, at all three stages and then drive traffic to the link in bio. Of course, I have my lead magnets, a few different freebies, um, and then they. It's like a uh, I have like a five email sequence. I don't I'm not a big fan of really really long email sequences, like 10 emails in a week kind of thing, um, so I don't have a super long one and I'm all about giving lots of value over delivering. And then I have low ticket offers, you know, mid ticket offers and higher ticket offers. Really just, you know, moving people through the funnel. That's the way I was taught when I did, you know, digital marketing courses online back in the day when I had my photography business, and I still pretty much do the same thing now.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Yeah, so good, you've got that funnel into the the value ladder, uh, as I've heard it called.

Speaker 1: 33:22

You know, low ticket, medium ticket, high ticket offer, uh, they all shouldn't yeah, I'm sorry, I'm trying, you know, know that the DM culture doesn't exist on TikTok, but I'm trying to get people into my DMs. I'm telling people to DM me. I don't know if you've seen this update, but my TikTok stories have changed and there's a direct message prompt. There's no comments or anything. It looks like Instagram stories. So it says send DM. So I try to get people to send me a DM.

Speaker 1: 33:53

When I do TikTok stories and get people into my DMs, you know it's not as robust as Instagram.

Speaker 1: 33:59

So there's a whole DM strategy on Instagram and right now I would say Instagram is all about, like the DM, you know, automated marketing and all that kind of stuff and they shy away from link and buyout, whereas on TikTok, like we, that's really all we have is the LinkedIn bio to drive traffic. But I'm trying, with the DMs, getting people to my DMs and then you know being able to say, like you know, I'd click the third link in my bio. You know you can't send clickable links, which really sucks, but sometimes I really try to make all my URLs really easy to type. It's always like wavewildcom slash like one or two words. So you know, because you can't click on them, hopefully people will copy and paste it or type it out type of thing. But I'm trying to get that DM culture kind of going. I really hope TikTok goes in that direction. There was talk about that maybe last year I heard buzz about TikTok, you know, making the DMs a little bit more robust. I think maybe safety and privacy concerns are kind of holding it back.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Yeah, I agree. Like I'm thinking back, like the DMs were good like three, four years ago, and then there was a lot of action going on in the DMs and then they sort of got rid of it. I'm trying to remember the timeline. They sort of got rid of it and then they brought it back months later. Oh, they disabled people that you were not friends with from DMing and so that sucked. But they brought it back, but it was a level deeper. So it's message requests and I don't know about you, but most of my message requests are just spam. Most of I want to hear everything, but I do get a lot of spam, um same as instagram I get a lot of spam.

Speaker 1: 36:02

I will say the amount of, like sugar daddy messages, um, I get those every day and really those are big hat on tiktok, wow, but like every day I could, yeah, um, and then I don't think I even check the filtered, like those don't even get into filtered right, there's like two levels and then the filtered ones. I don't really check too much. It's a lot of spam. So if you are, I do recommend keeping your DMs open, but just know that you're going to get spammed. As a business owner, you really should, because I have gotten leads, I have had conversations from the DMs.

Speaker 2: 36:38

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I'm the same way. I got to get better at checking the requests in there, but yeah, it's just so much spam in there. So for the business owner that wants to build out some of these funnels and build out this sort of content silo, what advice would you give Like how much top of funnel, how much conversion building, trust and rapport content, how much call to action oriented content? And then on the backend, like setting up a link in bio or a freebie, like, what advice would you have for somebody that's just sort of getting started? What are some actionable takeaways that can set them in the right direction?

Speaker 1: 37:18

Well, I think the first thing you need to do is be really clear on your goals, what it is that you're trying to do on TikTok. So, of course, all of us, as business owners, we do want to make money. That's what keeps us in business. However, you have to remember, on TikTok you got to be a little bit more subtle about selling. I find that through videos, I find selling comes a lot easier through live streaming. I also encourage selling through TikTok stories because those are primarily shown to your followers. Not a lot of non-followers see them. I've done studies on this. It's generally about like 80% followers see your stories, so that's a warm audience, people who know you, so you can use them. I've done studies on this. It's generally about like 80% followers see your stories, so that's a warm audience, people who know you, so you can use them.

Speaker 1: 38:01

I don't know if you're using TikTok stories at all, so you can use those more for stories and sorry, for selling and take advantage of the pinned video features. That's where you know when people come to check out your profile, they see those videos, three videos pinned to the top of the page. Use those to profile, like who you are, what you do, your offer. You know your lead magnet. I'm really really big on list building, so you definitely need to create content. I just did a training on that in my membership, on how to use TikTok to list build with specific video formulas and whatnot. You've got to be. You know, it's all about building your list. You got to be promoting that lead magnet or whatever it is that you're doing, to build your list on a regular basis.

Speaker 1: 38:45

Pin one of those videos maybe, mention it in your bio, get people to click, go to your link in bio. You know, and I mean, let's talk about the whole link in bio thing for a second. That was really suppressed language. I get a lot of questions about this. I'd say like a year ago, but now I'm seeing people say link and bio all the time and I'm seeing it in comments and it doesn't seem to be so much of an issue, so you don't have to worry about that. Um, I feel like I'm rambling on a little bit. I don't know if I answered your question all the way.

Speaker 2: 39:14

No, I know that was me.

Speaker 1: 39:16

And, but yeah, as far as, like I think one thing I always stress with my students and a mistake I see is that when you're making content, you want to think about the five W's that we learn in school, like what, who, where, when, why, those kinds of things. And then you don't have to. You can sometimes make content on the how, but remember, people are going to pay you for the how and for support. So I try to focus more on, like the what and the why. Why is this important? What is it? Who is it for? When should you do these things? That is going to be very highly educational content. So think about that when you're making these bite-sized videos. And so, because everything that you're doing that's educational should lead to your offers right, it doesn't make sense to make educational content that has nothing to do with how you help people, so keep that in mind.

Speaker 2: 40:13

Such valuable advice there. I was just kind of laughing in my head when you were talking about the link in bio thing. I had actually made a t-shirt that said click my link in bio, and so I would just point at the shirt.

Speaker 1: 40:26

That's a good idea. I saw some people doing that on the live stream as well. I'm still kind of weary of it and I have a habit of saying something else, like check my profile or I've been using, I've switched over to Stan store. So I just say Stan store, cause it's so, it's such a common link and bio tool, or we'll leave it, say your link tree, but yeah, it's. Yeah, I mean that's all we have to drive traffic.

Speaker 2: 40:52

Until I hope that one day they they enable some sort of automation like ManyChat on Instagram and Facebook. Oh my God, that would be amazing. Yes, in the comments, and I'll DM you. Handles the rest of it.

Speaker 1: 41:06

Yeah, although those kind of videos on Instagram, I'm starting to get a bit annoying.

Speaker 2: 41:13

I do a lot of them. I get it, it is, it's still working, it's working. That's them. I get it, it is, it's still working, it's working.

Speaker 1: 41:20

That's why everyone's doing it.

Speaker 2: 41:22

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think we are somewhat. I go back and forth on that, right, because we're sort of in an echo chamber as content creators and digital marketers that are in the know and we follow other content creators, so we see a lot of it right, but I always try to think about the end user as well. Do they see everything that we see? Do they know everything that we know? Is it as annoying to them as it might be to us? And so that's where I go. I go back and forth on that, just personally.

Speaker 1: 41:59

It's very you know what. You have a very valid point. It's very true. They probably don't notice. It's just that we're marketers and we see all these little things. We know what they're doing and lots of marketers watch other marketers to see what their funnels are like or what they're doing, because everyone wants to know what's working and that sort of stuff. So it is a very valid point.

Speaker 2: 42:19

Well, let's talk about your membership a little bit here, because you have a TikTok mastery membership. You're just kind of alluding to what's going on in there. So who is that for? What's all in there? What's the value that people can get from that?

Speaker 1: 42:30

Yeah, so that's a monthly membership for business owners and creators, whether you're a beginner or an experienced creator who wants to grow on TikTok and make money. So within that membership you get my trend report, which goes out by email, and that is 50 trends per week. It's a little bit insane because it covers I cover TikTok, instagram shorts, and then I also put content, ideas and hooks in there. And then there's a monthly masterclass, which are very high action. I just did the one on list building. We have a community, I do coaching audits and all of that is for like $19 a month, which is crazy. I made it a no-brainer. The idea is that you don't need to buy, spend a couple hundred bucks or a thousand bucks on a course, it's all in there.

Speaker 2: 43:16

So good, so much value. 50 trends a week, that's amazing. If it's a machine, that's incredible. And the links of that will be in the show notes. Everybody, Definitely. I have learned so much from Wave. I highly suggest if you're interested in growing on TikTok, growing with short form check that out. It's going to be awesome. Wave sort of last question here, I guess. Whether it be for fun or for education, who are some of your personal favorite content creators right now?

Speaker 1: 43:46

Oh, that is so hard to answer that I will have to say I watch Paris Hilton. I don't watch a lot of celebrities. I love Paris Hilton because the evolution of her personal brand is fascinating. Like she has had a major comeback in the last few years and now that she's got babies it's just so interesting to see her grow and you don't know how she did it. Through storytelling. She got vulnerable and she shared a lot of stuff that went on in her childhood that was very traumatic, very relatable. So her she is like crushing it and killing it.

Speaker 1: 44:21

Who else would I say I follow? A few cat accounts Make me really laugh. I love cats. I'm a fan of Meredith Lynch just for, like her hot takes on pop culture. She, I think, is a journalist. I love Sinead Bovel for ai news. Um, who else? Uh, hayley bailey is like one of these you know famous tiktok creators, but I think she's just super talented content creator. The way she makes her videos, um, all the things she does, all her like watching her do collaborations. She makes me laugh a lot too, I think. I think she's super talented. Yeah, that's trying to think. Who else? I don't know how you say her name Lenita Yelena Dong. Maybe you don't know who I'm talking about. She does comedy well. Her skits are so funny. There's just so there's so many talented people on TikTok, yeah many talented people on TikTok.

Speaker 2: 45:20

Yeah, that's awesome Wave. This was so great. Just a TikTok masterclass here, a short form masterclass, across all things. I'm probably going to listen back to this episode a couple of times to continue learning from you. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to follow you, to stay up to date on trends and whatnot, what's the best way that somebody can get ahold of you?

Speaker 1: 45:35

Yeah, so you can follow me on social media. It's just my name at wave wild. You can slide into those DM and you could check out my website, wave wildcom.

Speaker 2: 45:43

Perfect. Thank you so much. I will again have all of the links in the show notes of this episode. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to another episode of business talk. If you learn something from this podcast, please do me a favor. Leave us a five-star review on iTunes. It allows us to help and inspire more business owners, entrepreneurs and content creators. See you next time, friends. Thank you for listening to another episode of Business Talk. If you feel like you're ready to get started on TikTok, I have a completely free TikTok checklist that you can find in the show notes and description of this episode. If you found this episode inspiring, consider leaving us a five-star review on iTunes or your favorite podcast listening platform. I know that's a lot to ask of you, but it really does help the podcast reach more people. Do you have any feedback about the show or a guest you'd like to recommend? Email me at podcast at socialtprocom. Until next time.