TikTok is no longer the place for dance moves and lip-synching to music.
Instead, it's transformed into a search engine, a specific culture, a way to get in front of new people, and a way for small business owners like you and me to get more sales! The truth is, there's a specific way to use TikTok to get in front of the right people and actually turn those people into customers... and today's special guest, Wave Wyld, is sharing all of her secrets on how to do just that!
Wave Wyld is TikTok & Social Video Marketing Expert. She has helped thousands of creators grow their TikTok accounts with a “Community over Virality” approach. Wave’s background in personal branding and photo/video creation helped her launch a brand on TikTok as the “Queen of Trend Alerts” which then started the movement of “Trend Alert” style videos that currently dominates social media feeds.
Wave is a member of TikTok’s invite-only, Creator Community Program as well as YouTube’s Shorts Creator Community and regularly appears in National Media, top-rated podcasts, and social media summits.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL LEARN:
LINKS MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
Follow Wave on Instagram and TikTok @wavewyld
Learn Wave's 7 steps to get your first 1,000 followers on TikTok
Learn more about Wave
LEARN MORE FROM MONICA LITTLE
Website: www.monicalittlecoaching.com
TikTok is no longer the place for dance moves and lip-synching to music.
Instead, it's transformed into a search engine, a specific culture, a way to get in front of new people, and a way for small business owners like you and me to get more sales! The truth is, there's a specific way to use TikTok to get in front of the right people and actually turn those people into customers... and today's special guest, Wave Wyld, is sharing all of her secrets on how to do just that!
Wave Wyld is TikTok & Social Video Marketing Expert. She has helped thousands of creators grow their TikTok accounts with a “Community over Virality” approach. Wave’s background in personal branding and photo/video creation helped her launch a brand on TikTok as the “Queen of Trend Alerts” which then started the movement of “Trend Alert” style videos that currently dominates social media feeds.
Wave is a member of TikTok’s invite-only, Creator Community Program as well as YouTube’s Shorts Creator Community and regularly appears in National Media, top-rated podcasts, and social media summits.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL LEARN:
LINKS MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
Follow Wave on Instagram and TikTok @wavewyld
Learn Wave's 7 steps to get your first 1,000 followers on TikTok
Learn more about Wave
LEARN MORE FROM MONICA LITTLE
Website: www.monicalittlecoaching.com
[00:00:00] Monica Little: Hello and welcome to episode number 39 on the Product Biz Podcast. My name is Monica Little and I'm so excited to introduce you today to Wave Wild, who is a TikTok and social video marketing expert. So before I bring Wave on, I just wanna introduce her really quick so you know who you're talking to.
[00:00:17] Wave has helped thousands of creators grow their TikTok accounts with a community over virality approach that we're gonna talk about today. Her background in personal branding and photo and video creation helped her to launch a brand on TikTok as the Queen of Trend Alerts, which then started the movement of trend alert style videos that current.
[00:00:38] Dominate social media feeds. She's a member of TikTok s Invite Only Creator community program, as well as YouTube's Shorts Creator community, and regularly appears in National Media top rated Podcast and Social Media Summit. So to summarize, she's basically a social media expert, and today we are talking all about TikTok.
[00:00:58] If you're not on TikTok like [00:01:00] me, I'm not on TikTok. This is going to be an amazing episode for you to understand what TikTok is really like. What do you need to be successful on TikTok? Some really great tips and tricks and insights on how to make your mark on TikTok. If you are on TikTok, I think you're still gonna walk away with some amazing perspectives from Wave on how to keep growing your TikTok page, how to get more sales on TikTok, how to make sure people are watching your TikTok.
[00:01:25] What type of content to. All things TikTok, and I am just so excited to have you here today to learn from Wave. And with that, we will jump right in. Are you ready to go behind the scenes and learn what it really takes to create consistent sales each and every month with your handmade small business?
[00:01:45] Join me, Monica, little Self-taught multiple six figure small business owner and your product business coach. As I give you the insight and inspiration on how to better run your business and increase your sales in ways that you may not [00:02:00] have even been aware of, so that your business can truly become what you knew it could be back when you first.
[00:02:08] Learn how to let go of perfection, overcome the fear of failure that is holding you back, and finally start taking action so that you walk away feeling like you've cracked the code on how to run a successful small business. You are listening to the Product Biz Podcast. Welcome wave to the product, this podcast.
[00:02:28] I'm so excited to have you as a guest here today. Thank you so
[00:02:32] Wave Wyld: much for having me. I am super excited to talk TikTok with your audience. Can't wait.
[00:02:38] Monica Little: Oh my gosh. This is such a fun topic because I am not on TikTok. I have no idea how TikTok works, and I know I should be on it, and I know a lot of people listening either are in the same boat as me or they're on it and really trying to figure it out.
[00:02:51] So, Super excited to chat with you today, but before we dive into all the gems that you have about TikTok, I would love to just know a little bit more about you. What do you [00:03:00] do? How did you get into TikTok, and now you're sharing all this awesome knowledge. So where does this come from? Tell us all about
[00:03:06] Wave Wyld: it.
[00:03:06] Oh, gosh. Uh, it's, uh, it's a little bit of a long story. I'll try to make it short. Um, I was still weird talking about myself, but I, uh, before the pandemic, I had a business doing, uh, photography and video content creation for small business owners, entrepreneurs, uh, consultants, all that stuff. Uh, basically personal brand photography and then pandemic, uh, everything shifted.
[00:03:31] I had a friend who was an Instagram. Was like, Hey, you should go on TikTok. It's really early. There's not a lot of people using it, uh, for their businesses and, and just go explore it. And I was kind of tired of, you know, uh, the Instagram algorithm like a lot of us can get. So I jumped on TikTok. I didn't know what I was doing, but I found it like really fun because I love the music.
[00:03:54] I love dancing. Although you don't have to dance in your videos at all. It's kind of actually like cringey to dance in videos [00:04:00] now. Uh, but uh, yeah, so I got on it, um, and just started making content. I had a few videos go semial, and that got me hooked. And yeah, I just started sharing that with my Instagram audience and people were asking me lots of questions and then it was like light bulb moment.
[00:04:18] Uh, I could teach people how to use, uh, business owners how to use TikTok as another social media marketing tool because that's exactly how I thought. It is primarily seen as an entertainment platform. People go there to, uh, be entertained, but you can use it exactly. See other social media platforms. So I com I just totally pivoted my career and I went super, super deep into learning everything I could about TikTok and here we are today.
[00:04:42] Monica Little: Oh my gosh, I love it. And I think that's awesome. Like you said, I think a big thing, at least for me when it first came out is, was. It was so entertainment focused and I was like, can I really use this for my business? Or is it truly just people dancing, people lip singing? And I, I heard you say that that's really not [00:05:00] what's trendy nowadays anymore.
[00:05:01] People are really moving away from that. So tell me a little bit more just about. Um, how people can really leverage TikTok in order to get sales. So what are you seeing now? Are you seeing a lot of businesses? Are you seeing a lot of people buying products? Are you seeing a lot of people going there for education, going there to learn new things?
[00:05:20] Like what is TikTok right now? And maybe give us an overview of what it was when it first started too.
[00:05:27] Wave Wyld: Absolutely. It is everything that you just said. Uh, we know that that hashtag TikTok made me buy it. Uh, I mm-hmm. have probably a billion, billions of views right now. That's really popular. Shopping on the app is popular.
[00:05:40] Uh, oh my gosh. There's so much to. To say, where do I start? Um, one thing that just comes off to at the top of my head is, uh, and this is really important for product-based businesses, is that TikTok is really becoming a video search engine. They're trying to compete with Google, so there was a lot of talk about this last summer.
[00:05:58] So if you have a product-based business, [00:06:00] you really wanna be optimizing your videos for s e o to rank. So, because people are, we, they are finding, there's been research on this that people are using the search feature more and more now to find products, to research products, to learn how to do something.
[00:06:14] So the things that you type in Google like. How to do X, y, Z. You're gonna put that, they're gonna put that in the search function as well. So you wanna be optimizing your videos for that. So one, like really good reason why, uh, business owners should be on TikTok, but yes, they are all there. , I would say yes in early, you know, 2019, early 2020, it was a lot of the dancing and lip syncing.
[00:06:35] Sometimes people still think it is like that because when you join the app, the algorithm, it's a recommendation algorithm, so it doesn't know who you are. So it will show you more of that kind of generic content. Uh, but once you start, uh, engaging with content, you kinda have to train the algorithm to what you.
[00:06:54] Then, you know, it's going to show you more of that content. So if you start watching more videos on small [00:07:00] business talk, you're gonna see a lot of more small, small business, uh, product-based businesses. If you search Etsy, you're gonna see like all of the kind of Etsy accounts and, and what people are doing there, and you'll see more of that.
[00:07:10] So you kind of have to train the algorithm because it's all curated towards you.
[00:07:14] Monica Little: Yeah, I absolutely love that. And it really does sound, that's what I keep hearing from people is just that it is this new search engine. Like people literally go to TikTok to search for things instead of going to Google, which is so crazy because it's always like, Google it.
[00:07:28] Google it. But now people are going to TikTok to learn. I think I saw someone, it was something funny. I don't know if it was like, they call it clean talk or something of all the crazy cleaning that you can do in your home on the before and after in the organization. So just like totally random stuff.
[00:07:44] Right? But people are going there to learn. It
[00:07:46] Wave Wyld: is fascinating that like every, you can find everything on TikTok. So yeah, if you wanna learn more about cleaning, I don't know. Your mattress, you'll, I'm sure it's on there. It'll be on there. Clean talk is the thing, all the communities are on there. [00:08:00] because of that recommendation algorithm.
[00:08:01] That's kind of how these communities form. Like we know how big book talk is. We see that a lot in the media, but there's fitness talk, there's food talk, like it's all
[00:08:09] Monica Little: there. Oh my gosh. I love it. That sounds so awesome. Okay, so as we talk about actually getting on TikTok and having this work for you, I know you mentioned it's like a video search engine and you wanna make sure you're optimizing your s e o to actually rank so people can see what you're posting on there.
[00:08:26] But can you maybe give just some general top tips or top best practices on how to really make the most outta.
[00:08:33] Wave Wyld: Absolutely. I think if you are brand new to the app, maybe some of your listeners are, there's a few key things you should know about TikTok. Uh, so one of them is that you need, there's two accounts, okay?
[00:08:45] Backtracking two accounts. There's a creator slash personal account, and there's a business account on both accounts. You need to reach 1000 follow. First before you get access to your website field, we know how important that link in bio [00:09:00] is, right? Because when you're a business, you wanna be driving traffic to that to sell your products, your offers, uh, whatever freebies you have, communities, all that good stuff.
[00:09:09] So you do need 1000 followers. However, there is a little caveat. If you are on the business account and you, uh, give TikTok, uh, your business information, you can get the. Uh, without having 1000 followers, first they just wanna verify that you're basically not a bot or like a spam account. Mm-hmm. . Uh, so that's one thing to consider.
[00:09:28] So that's definitely the first milestone on TikTok is to reach 1000 followers. So some best practices to do that is, well, number one is consistency. And I know everybody says consistency all the time, and it's like, yeah, that's so generic. , but here's what you need to realize about TikTok. It's an app that rewards consistency.
[00:09:48] So you can't just post a video, go away for five days, come back, post another video, go away for two. Uh, you need to be posting on a regular basis. So I do recommend daily posting, [00:10:00] especially if you are under 1000 followers. So that requires having a content strategy, . Uh, and so many people come to me and they're like, I didn't realize that you, you really needed one.
[00:10:09] It's like, yeah, you have one for Instagram, you need one for TikTok too, so that you can plan, uh, and you have an idea of what types of videos that you're posting. You have a plan on what you're doing. You're being more strategic about it, cuz that's gonna help you grow your following as well.
[00:10:24] Monica Little: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:10:25] I love that. And I love how you said consistency and that's something that I just wanna dive in a little bit more because I think, although it is common to hear, you gotta be consistent. You gotta be consistent. I love when other people come on the podcast and also say that cuz I harp on that all the time cuz it's, it's true.
[00:10:41] You know, if you think about TikTok or Instagram or any algorithm. They want you to be on there actually. Mm-hmm. posting and engaging and using the app, right? Yes. So, of course, if you're posting frequently, they're gonna show you to more people because you're doing what they want. They want [00:11:00] you on there, they want you shopping, they want you browsing, they want you addicted to the platform.
[00:11:04] So the more you post, the more confirming you are to the actual. App that you're using it, how they want users to use it. So I think it's so important, the consistency piece, just to mention that too, because so many people, um, I think really struggle with that. But it's a long-term game, right? Anything that you do in business, you truly have to be all in, no matter what platform it is, just to make sure that you get your mark on it.
[00:11:26] Wave Wyld: Yeah. And another thing is that, um, and I think people don't realize this, that TikTok has kind of become a little bit like Instagram and that there's multiple features now. So I think a lot of people go to TikTok and think about just posting videos. But TikTok has stories. And you should definitely be leveraging stories.
[00:11:45] I know like people just don't use it. I'm like your, your stories, TikTok stories are shown to your followers only. So that's a warm audience. You wanna be leveraging stories. And then they have live streaming as well, just like Instagram. So you wanna be using these features. They [00:12:00] also have, so that's three, a total of three features.
[00:12:02] If there is one more I'll, I'll just as a technicality, yes. There are four features. It's the TikTok Now feature. I don't recommend it though. So, um, but to use those three features and, and think of it more like how you use Instagram. .
[00:12:15] Monica Little: Yeah, I love it. And just building community across all those different places.
[00:12:18] Mm-hmm. . I love it. Okay, so let's switch gears to maybe some of the common mistakes. So I know you mentioned a thousand followers. We really want to get there so we can link our bio. You talked about consistency, you talked about a content plan to get more, but what are, maybe on the flip side, some of the common mistakes that people make when they are getting on TikTok?
[00:12:36] I
[00:12:36] Wave Wyld: would say the biggest mistake is probably not understanding the culture of TikTok. There is definitely a different vibe. Compared to Instagram, we know Instagram's a little bit more curated. Our grids look really pretty. We have nice covers on our highlights. Maybe your stories are really graphic. Uh, TikTok, um, is an app that's really built around authenticity.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] So it's all about being in the moment. These are really short videos. You don't have to show up as as perfect. So, uh, there, and there's a lot of trends on TikTok as well. That's a big part of the culture. Uh, there's a lot of slang that people play into that is a part of the culture. So when you make your videos a little bit more native to the platform and, and more of that TikTok vibe, they tend to perform better.
[00:13:23] Uh, so, you know, you can't just get on the app and expect to learn the culture overnight. It kind of comes over time with experience. You kind of get all the inside jokes cause there's a lot of inside jokes like, you know, if. Singing, it's corn. I mean, it's a little late now. We all know that one from last summer, but you know, when you come on the app, you're like, why are people singing about its corn
[00:13:44] Right? Because it was like a really big, big, huge trend that everybody, a lot of silly stuff, right? There's a lot of silly stuff on TikTok and a lot of these kind of inside jokes, so that is a part of the culture. When you play into that, your videos tend to perform.
[00:13:59] Monica Little: I love that. And I know you [00:14:00] focus a lot about leveraging trends on TikTok, and that's something that big that you really talk about.
[00:14:04] So speaking of the corn thing, which for me, I was one of the outsiders and I heard it everywhere. I'm like, what are these people talking about? Like what is this corn shit going on? So I'm glad you mentioned that, but, but tell me more just about trends on TikTok. How do you really leverage trends? What does that mean and how can people really learn from that so they can use that to their benefit?
[00:14:24] Wave Wyld: Yeah, I love that you bring this up cuz I love talking about trends as the cleaner trend alerts. Uh, so first of all, I would say there are a lot of different types of trends on TikTok and it can be really overwhelming when you join the app. There's things like challenges where you just, it's a challenge.
[00:14:43] You have to do something and it's not really. It's not really on niche so much. There's like duet trends, dance trends, lots of different types of trends. But what's really important to know is that for business owners, the most common and the best trends for you to do are what I call [00:15:00] P O V trends. Now, these are, uh, also popular on reels.
[00:15:04] But these are trends where that anybody can adapt them to your niche. It doesn't matter what your niche is, your industry, you can adapt it to your niche. And they are very quick videos. They are short sounds, typically five to eight seconds. And the whole idea with these sounds is that there is, uh, dialogue that you're lip syncing or there's lyrics that you are lip syncing.
[00:15:28] And there's a punchline to the sound. And once you hear that sound, it's, it's pretty intuitive, like what the punchline is. Uh, then you wanna use text on screen to make a joke to relate to that punchline. So that is the most common type of trend on TikTok, uh, because they are so adaptable and they're very quick and easy to make.
[00:15:47] Shouldn't take you more than five minutes, cuz you just have to show up on video, do the little lip sync and then use text to tell the. Now one thing about these trends, uh, is that most people do it for the relatable joke, but there [00:16:00] are so many other ways that you can use trends as well. You can use them to inspire, to educate, to, um, to make sales.
[00:16:06] Though there's a lot of strategic ways that you can use the trends, and you'll probably see that when you, uh, start looking at it more carefully on the app. Oh my gosh,
[00:16:14] Monica Little: I love it. And on the, the point of view, the p o v trend that you mentioned, I know there was an example that, that you shared before, which was specifically about someone's like bridal bouquet being repurposed into some sort of, um, in a frame or something.
[00:16:29] So can you talk me through that a little bit more? Like what was it real Cause I love, I love that cuz it was physically a product, right? So how did that work?
[00:16:36] Wave Wyld: So that specific video was that Kelly Clarkson song where she's singing, here I am. So that's the punchline of the sound, right? So the idea with the video is that you're gonna step into the frame and you're gonna show off your product.
[00:16:49] And then in a p o V format, you're gonna say, uh, here, you know, here I am, you know, uh, just reminding all my followers, or just reminding everyone that I make, you [00:17:00] know, X, y, z and do it this way, kind of thing. Oh, I love it. Um, yeah. So it, it also tends to feel a little less salesy when you mm-hmm. when you do it.
[00:17:09] Point of view, .
[00:17:10] Monica Little: Oh my gosh, I love it. And I love how you said it. So simple and so easy. Cause I think anytime we talk about a new platform, at least for me, and I'm sure other people who aren't on it, it's just like so complicated to learn a new platform. You know? It's like I just learned Instagram finally feeling like that's in a good spot and now there's this whole other world.
[00:17:28] But I love how you said a lot of these are what, five to eight seconds? It doesn't need to be super curated or perfect, or. You know, it does. It can just be literally what's going on in the moment and how the culture of TikTok actually prefers that authenticity. Mm-hmm. , so it really seems like it's a lot easier.
[00:17:43] Do you find it easier to post content on TikTok compared to Instagram, seeing that you've been on both platforms?
[00:17:50] Wave Wyld: I do. Just because there's not, um, so much of the writing of the copywriting, right? There's a lot more of that on Instagram. Uh, now I [00:18:00] do plan, I do recommend planning out all your videos. I do teach all my students to script.
[00:18:06] That means just writing down exactly like if you're speaking in the video, what you are going to say so that you can kind of look at it. And see if it's gonna be really long, if there's some information you can take out and see if it's really clear and concise and, and all those things. Uh, but not as much copywriting, which I find takes a lot
[00:18:24] Monica Little: more time on Instagram.
[00:18:25] Yeah, and that's so interesting. So I was just on a coaching call for my clients too, and that's what she said she struggles with is on Instagram. She's great with the photos, great with the videos, but when it gets to the caption, like, what do you write? Is this good enough? How do I make sure I'm sharing what I need to share?
[00:18:40] So I love, I, I haven't thought of TikTok in that pony view, but I. You said that it's truly more of the creative side and less of the writing and the word part of it. Mm-hmm. . Is there any caption at all that goes with TikTok or is it literally just video and then people can make comments? Yeah,
[00:18:58] Wave Wyld: there is a caption, however, [00:19:00] It's, it's so different than reels because in reels the caption is below the video.
[00:19:04] In a separate spot, there's caption space, but then it takes up, you have to click on a little button to say, that says, see more. And then that comes acro on top of the user interface and it's hard to read and most people don't click on that button. Uh, so there is, um, A longer caption. However, most people like and I recommend it, just keep it to, you know, a couple sentences of, of something.
[00:19:26] There's all kinds of strategies for that. We're putting in some keywords to help rank, uh, and a few hashtags. That's really what people are using them for. Um, or some people don't use them at all. However, if you're a business owner, you definitely wanna be using
[00:19:38] Monica Little: them. Yeah, I love it. So this next question I think is perfect because if we're not.
[00:19:42] Using a ton of words if we don't have a ton of captions. Do you have any tips for making more sales through the actual video part of it, or what do you recommend since you can't truly, you know, share with people this two to three paragraphs like we can on Instagram? So what would you [00:20:00] recommend for making more sales on TikTok?
[00:20:03] Wave Wyld: Uh, this is a great question because I feel like so much of what I do as a TikTok coach is really just teaching people how to communicate through short form video. So when I, when I say, when I teach people how to do short form video, it's not like, You know, I tell you like what settings to use on your camera and how to set up a ring light.
[00:20:20] It's all about communicating an idea. And what I've noticed over time is that there are many different video formats that are kind of TikTok culture or, or, or have come about from the content creation process and. And the nature of the app. Uh, so there's a lot of different ways that you can communicate a message.
[00:20:39] So, for example, one of them, the most common on TikTok, I feel like it doesn't work on reels as much, at least mine don't, is talking heads, right? That's when you are just talking to the camera, delivering information. Now that never performs for me on reels. It's a different culture there. Maybe it does for some people, but it doesn't for me anyways.
[00:20:58] Uh, then if [00:21:00] you were doing a talking head, then you can have a little bit of a format where, you know, maybe you introduce the problem, maybe you show some emph empathy, maybe you show the solution, that type of thing. Uh, now another way to communicate through short form video is what I just call music, uh, with onscreen text and the video.
[00:21:20] That's very common too. And that's, those are great videos to batch because you don't have to show up on camera. You can have, uh, random footage of you doing anything behind the scenes in your business and then putting text on screen to educate, to inspire to, uh, showcase products. Um, but also, you know, I think it's really important for business owners, uh, when you're talking about selling, is having like a content pillar that I call product features.
[00:21:47] So important for product-based business owners. This is really just a pillar that is pretty much all behind the scenes of your business. So you are showing, uh, in a video, you're pretty much answering [00:22:00] the question, how is the product used? How is it not used? Who is it for? When is it used? All those things, right?
[00:22:06] These are videos that feature your product, although you're not directly saying like, Hey, buy it, or You're not even maybe listing the benefits, but it's still featuring your product. . Yeah, I
[00:22:16] Monica Little: absolutely love that. And I think it's so interesting because at least what's coming to me as you're saying that, I think so many people, including myself, it's like, okay, I've been on Instagram for a while.
[00:22:25] I've been saying this stuff to the point that I don't really get back to these basics very often because I kind of feel like I've said what I've needed to say. But as soon as you shift to a new platform, I think that's just a different perspective of like, okay, I'm gonna start from the basics. I'm gonna tell them about what my product is, how does it work, how to use it.
[00:22:45] Think it's a little bit easier of a bridge between those, because sometimes people struggle on Instagram to share that. I think just because we've been on Instagram for a while, so it's like, really, I'm talking about, you know, how to use my product. That's a lotion, you know, pretty [00:23:00] straightforward. But when you go on a new platform, I think it's easier to be like, okay, new people starting from scratch.
[00:23:05] Let's start with the absolute basics to get people excited about
[00:23:09] Wave Wyld: it. I mean, people love the behind the scenes. Uh, that's a big part of the culture, right on TikTok is this, it's not so curated. It is behind the scenes. So yes, you would think like, yeah, everybody knows how to apply lotion, but you'll go on TikTok and search videos.
[00:23:23] You'll see there's a lot of people applying lotion, showing how they apply it on their skin. Like it, I know it seems so basic, but it. .
[00:23:31] Monica Little: Yeah, I love that. And that just makes it seem so much simpler. So I'm just over here like, okay, I've had a little bit of a fear getting on TikTok, but you make it sound like it's at least easier than maybe, or maybe simpler.
[00:23:43] I'm sure it's, there's things you need to know and the right way to do it, but it's a little bit simpler than what maybe I was envisioning in my head, which is awesome. Um, when we talk about getting more video views, getting more sales, Maybe more specifically on the video view [00:24:00] side, do you have any particular tips there?
[00:24:02] Because I'm assuming TikTok is pretty, very quick content. Like what is five to eight seconds the normal? Um, and how do you ensure people are watching your video if it is a quicker timeline like that? Yeah,
[00:24:17] Wave Wyld: so the number one way to get more video views is through your hooks, right? We all know you have to have a hook to get people to stop scrolling, but I think this is even more important on TikTok versus Instagram because remember on TikTok, is, it's a discoverability based app, right?
[00:24:39] The people who are scrolling on their for you pages, that is a cold audience, right? You wanna get your video on that Stranger's for you page. They don't know you. So it's a cold audience. You have to appeal to people who don't know you to get them to be like, Hey, what is that? Oh, that looks really cool. Or She's really cool, or, I like, what?
[00:24:58] Oh, that was interesting. Or, [00:25:00] or maybe they felt an emotion to get them to hit that follow button. Yeah. Whereas on Instagram, right, it's primarily your followers who are seeing your content, um, and who already have an established relationship with you. So I would consider that more of a warm audience. So that's why that hook is super, super important.
[00:25:18] And there are many different ways that you can do hooks and you can incorporate multiple hooks together. You know, we could, you know, I can go super, super in depth into that, but just knowing that you have to have the video hook. And I would say the other thing to that, It's not Instagram stories, right?
[00:25:35] On Instagram stories. You can just come on and start talking and be like, Hey guys, you know, um, it's, uh, got up really early this morning and I just thought I would jump on here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, that's not going to perform on TikTok. People don't care. remember, these are strangers. People don't care what you have for breakfast or that you just got up early or, or you're whatever.
[00:25:58] Uh, you have to structure [00:26:00] your videos, uh, in, in a different way. Again, you have to speak like you're speaking to one person and use that hook. So, you know, being like, Hey guys, right? You wanna talk to one person, um, you know, use the hey guys in the stories. That's fine when you're speaking to your followers.
[00:26:14] But, uh, the videos that you're trying to, uh, get more followers from the for you page, uh, you definitely wanna speak like you're speaking to one person.
[00:26:23] Monica Little: Okay, awesome. I have a couple questions from what you said. So first thing, um, cuz what I heard, and I think there's a distinction that you just mentioned, but I have heard from people that said, just think of TikTok as your Instagram stories.
[00:26:35] But I think what you're saying is it's kind of like Instagram stories in terms of it's the authentic behind the scenes. Yeah. But it's not like the same content that you share on your Instagram stories. Is that
[00:26:49] Wave Wyld: right? That. Totally
[00:26:51] Monica Little: nailed it. Okay, cool. Because I think for me, I was like, okay, I'll go on TikTok and I'll just literally share the same stuff as my story.
[00:26:57] So it's like stories in [00:27:00] terms of behind the scenes. Casual snippets. Yeah, casual. Okay. But you still need a content plan. You can't just roll up and post whatever. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. Beautiful. I love that distinction. Okay. And then you were talking about hooks. Can you just gimme one example of a hook and do you put this at the beginning of the video, at the end of the video, throughout the entire video?
[00:27:20] What do you, what do you mean by that?
[00:27:21] Wave Wyld: Yeah, so the def how I def uh, the definition of a hook is something you say or you do in the first three seconds of a video. Right to get people to stop scrolling on the for you page to get them to watch your video now. Yeah, maybe your hook could be four or five seconds.
[00:27:42] Generally it's three seconds is what I recommend. Uh, so some, uh, one of the most common types of hooks are what I call a title hook. So I think about, I always talk about, uh, YouTube videos, right? They always have a title on them, [00:28:00] and that title is meant to get your attention and tell you a little bit about what the video is, what's gonna, what the video's about, right?
[00:28:08] The same thing, what the title hooks. So these are mostly educational videos. If you're making. Some sort of educational video around your product than you might wanna use or your industry. You might wanna use a title hook. Mm, I love it's, it's got to get people curious. Get them to stop scrolling and also give them an idea of what the video is about.
[00:28:27] So if I say something like, three Mistakes you're Making in your TikTok bio, you know exactly what that video is about. Hopefully, you know, mistakes is like a power hook word gets people to like, what? What? I don't wanna make a mistake, right? So they stop scrolling.
[00:28:41] Monica Little: Oh my gosh, I love it. And this really gets to being like a good marketer, right?
[00:28:45] Is figuring out how to entice people, especially with this quick, short attention span that people have on TikTok. How do you reel them in and, and is it true on TikTok? It's just testing, right? Everything you put on there, since, like you said, you do recommend a post every single day. It's just [00:29:00] putting something out there, seeing what works, and you kind of learn.
[00:29:03] Where, um, like what hooks are working for you and how to continue to get in front of new people? Definitely,
[00:29:09] Wave Wyld: it's a lot of testing. Um, that is marketing, right? . You're always testing and looking at the data, seeing what's working, what's not working, and algorithms are always changing. So yes, it's definitely to good to kind of stay on top of that and, and see what's working.
[00:29:24] Cause I've definitely changed my content strategy when I. things are kind of no longer working or take a break from that and then try it again or, or mix it up. Um, so definitely a lot of experimentation.
[00:29:36] Monica Little: Oh my gosh, I love it. Cool. Another thing you said earlier is making sure to optimize your video for the s e o of TikTok.
[00:29:43] So you actually rank, do you have any tips on how to do that? Is that truly just similar, having a hook so people watch it and then you get shown to more people? Or is there more. Scenes of how to actually rank and how to actually get seen on TikTok.
[00:29:58] Wave Wyld: Yeah. So when it comes to to [00:30:00] ranking, you really want to focus on a few keywords, uh, that you're using in your video to rank.
[00:30:07] So, uh, when you're planning out your video, um, you're making your script, you're thinking like, what is the goal, the purpose? What am I doing in this video? You wanna plan for a few keyword. That you wanna rank for? Mm-hmm. But then you wanna consider, uh, where TikTok is pulling this data from. So there's five places.
[00:30:26] So the first one is the caption. Then we have hashtags. Then we have the text that's being used in the video, what you're saying, the audio. Uh, and if you use close captions, those five, uh, like subtitles, those five places. So once you've kind of picked your keywords of what you wanna rank for, then you wanna think about, um, you know, putting those keywords in text on screen, saying those keywords, putting those in your, um, caption and using them as a hashtag so that they will all help increase your chances of, of
[00:30:57] Monica Little: ranking.
[00:30:58] Oh my gosh, I love that so much. Cause I think a lot [00:31:00] of times, and maybe I'm just old school, I don't know, but when I hear seo, I think of words, written words. And when you think about s e o for your website and being shown on Google, it's literally they're indexing the words on your website. They're scraping what words you use.
[00:31:14] But I love how you said now, s e o on TikTok is not just the words. The things you say and the close captioning and the actual text on the video. I think that is so, so cool. Which also shows the power of having those key words and using them in multiple places and just continuing to be an expert on whatever topics you're talking about and getting people to find you through that.
[00:31:41] Wave Wyld: Yeah, and think about, you know, as well, like not every single video needs to be, you know, SEO optimized. If I make one, you know, a video that's kind of a trend. And, uh, it's not something I really want. Doesn't really matter if it's gonna rank, but if I'm making a video on how to do something, then [00:32:00] definitely I wanna, you know, rank, uh, for that.
[00:32:02] So, You don't have to obsess about it too much. Right. Not every video has to be like, oh gosh, I gotta find keywords and hashtags and, and
[00:32:10] Monica Little: all that stuff. Yeah. I love that. That's, that's a good balance to have. I'm glad you said that. Awesome. Cool. So I know you have an approach about community over virality when you talk about TikTok, so share with us a little bit more about that.
[00:32:22] Wave Wyld: Yeah, so what that just means is that you don't have to have hundreds of thousands of followers or to be going viral all the time to have a successful business on TikTok. And the reason why I say this is because when I came to the app, I saw how growth focused it was, and yes, that is the main appeal of TikTok.
[00:32:42] People wanna go there because you can get lots of eyeballs on your content, you can go viral, but people get really, really hung up on those things. And when I saw that you can have success without doing that, that's when I got like super excited. I was like, okay, so you can just use this like every other social media marketing tool and just [00:33:00] focus on attracting, you know, your ideal followers or your ideal clients to you so that you can nurture them and, and take them through the funnel, right?
[00:33:09] Uh, so that's really just what it means because I've seen. So many times with students who are, um, crushing it on TikTok and they don't have, you know, hundreds of thousands or more followers, they've just attracted the right people and made their own little community. Um, and they're not obsessed with like, trying to go viral or, or you know, again, getting hung up on those vanity metrics because I see so many people
[00:33:32] Monica Little: do that.
[00:33:33] Yeah. And I think that's such a big thing is, is not caring. What's the number of followers? And that goes across Instagram too, and TikTok. But it's so interesting that I, I see a lot of people and that they really struggle. They're like, oh my gosh, if only I had 2000 followers, or if only I had 10,000 followers.
[00:33:49] If only. And it's like, well, if you got a couple hundred, you know, and you just speak to them in the right way and you just connect with them. I mean, and those couple hundred people buy from you. I mean, you're golden, right? You [00:34:00] don't need to have hundreds of thousands.
[00:34:02] Wave Wyld: Yeah, so that's why I focus on strategies to attract the right people, because it's way more valuable to have like 500 ideal followers, like people who would be potential customers who really are interested in what you're doing, rather than like going random viral and getting like 10,000 followers who.
[00:34:19] Are not really targeted and
[00:34:21] Monica Little: yeah. Yeah. Quality over quantity, right? Mm-hmm. name of the game. Awesome. Cool. Well, I would love to know before, um, you share with us on how people can connect with you and keep learning from you. Before we get there, is there anything else that you wanted to share about TikTok?
[00:34:34] Any other final tip? I know you've given us a lot of gold, but if there's anything else that you wanna share, just wanna give you the opportu.
[00:34:41] Wave Wyld: Sure. I would just say, if you're not on the app yet, just go download the app and do some research or even just research on, if you don't wanna download the app, just go to the, the website and do some research.
[00:34:52] Type in the search bar some, uh, keywords that you use in your own business or your industry and go see what's there. And go [00:35:00] consume some, some content. And that's gonna give you a good idea. Uh, if you know, if you, and get those creative juices flowing and thinking like, can I do this? Does this feel right for me?
[00:35:08] Is this still right for my business? Will I like making videos? Does this seem fun? Uh, because it has to be fun. If it is not fun for you, it is going to feel like work. It is going to feel like a char, a torque, and it's gonna be hard to be consistent. So, you know, that's very important that you wanna be having fun on the.
[00:35:27] Monica Little: Oh my gosh, I love it. I think that's perfect. Perfect advice. And that's what I'm gonna do as soon as we get off . I'm gonna download the app and actually just be a browser and, and see what it's like. And I know a lot of people who listen, I think it's like a 50 50 split on people who are on TikTok or aren't.
[00:35:43] But, um, I think you've given us some amazing tips, some amazing motivation to get on there if we're not, and I'm just so excited to have had this conversation with you. But before we end, I would love for you to share where can people learn more from you? I know you mentioned that you help people with short form content, [00:36:00] so tell us more about your services too.
[00:36:02] Wave Wyld: For sure. So, uh, you can find me on TikTok and Instagram are my main platforms. Uh, just my name at Wave Wild, W A v E W Y L d, my website, wave wild.com. And I have a membership called the Inside Scoop. And this is where you can find trends. So it's gonna save you a lot of time. I actually, um, provide every week over 30 TikTok trends.
[00:36:25] Uh, 10 real trends and short trends as well. Uh, and it's also focused on growth. There's a lot of, um, training videos in there, uh, content ideas vault with over 500 ideas and linked TikTok sounds. Uh, it's amazing, so you can go
[00:36:38] Monica Little: check that out. Oh my gosh. I love it. Sounds like so much awesome knowledge and it's just been so good to hear from you and have you share this with everyone on the product-based podcast.
[00:36:48] So thank you so much. I will make sure to link all of that amazing information and your contact info in the show notes for anyone who's listening. And with that, I just wanna say thank you so much, Ray, for joining me today on the product-based [00:37:00] podcast.
[00:37:00] Wave Wyld: Thank you. Happy TikTok.