The Writing and Marketing Show

TikTok My Thoughts So Far

January 26, 2022 Wendy H. Jones Episode 106
The Writing and Marketing Show
TikTok My Thoughts So Far
Show Notes Transcript

I'm continuing with the TikTok Theme with an episode covering my thoughts so far and giving hints and tips and what I have learned in the last two weeks of being on the platform. 

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Hi, and welcome to the writing and marketing show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. it's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast, so it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 106 of the writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur Wendy H. Jones. As always, it's a pleasure to bring you this show. And I really am enjoying doing it. And today I'm going to be talking about TikTokand my thoughts so far on it. Now I know I seem a bit obsessed with TikTok at the moment, but I have been using it for the last two weeks. And I've been using it to try and grow my book numbers. I've been using it as an author, and I thought I would give you my thoughts. Last week I had a interview with the fabulous Leila DuBois. And it was lovely to hear from her she is phenomenal. And if you haven't listened to last week's show, that's episode one or five, I would advise you to go and listen to it because her hints and tips are second to none. As I say I've been using it for a couple of weeks now. And I thought I would share my thoughts. But before I do that, I would like to say as I say it's a pleasure to bring you this show every week, I do so willingly. But it does take time out of my writing. So if you would like to support that time, you can do so by going to patreon.com/wendyhjones And you can support me for just $3 a month, which is a price of a tear coffee a month. Or you can support me as a one off. If you're enjoying the show. You can do it. Buy me a coffee, Wendy H jones.com. And just click on Buy me a coffee. And you can do that for a couple of dollars. And it would let me know you're enjoying what I'm doing and that you're enjoying the show. So what off tick tock? Well, I thought I'd say I thought I'd share my thoughts with you. I've been using it extensively. For the last two weeks, I've been immersing myself in it, and getting used to getting used to the platform really, and looking at how it can be used as an author. So I have several thoughts on it so far. First of all, you need to spend time training your algorithm. This is really important. I know Lila said that last week. And what that means is you just go to hashtags that are important for your, your type your genre. So booktalk is one of them. You've got author talk, you've got crime thriller, you've got Crimethrillertok, thrillertok, fantasytok, spicyromance, spicy, there are lots, you just need to look up hashtags. If you type in a hashtag, you will find something. And then what you do is you then follow people who have come up on those hashtags, if you like their videos, and you like and comment on their videos, and I'll get to that a bit more. But the more you do that, the more you will train your algorithm. The second thing you can do is you can also click on something and say that you don't enjoy it, it's then then say why, you know, it's not suitable for you and whatever. And then it won't, that type won't show up on your feed again. And it took me between 24 and 48 hours before I got rid of all those lip syncing youngsters. And I was more focused on booktalk on books and authors. And I've been having a fabulous time ever since then. Now I'm not saying anything about the lip syncing youngsters. There's a place for that. But then also, there's also a place for everyone else. And people believe that they can't go on Tik Tok because they're too old. So only for youngsters. Trust me, that is not the case. And there are lots of authors. There are a lot of people who are talking about books who are not under the age of 30. So that is a little bit of a method when it first started out. Yes, it was only the youngsters, but it's moving into the older demographic in terms of using it for other things and booktalk is fabulous. The next thing I would advise you to do is follow people the more people you follow, the more people will follow you and that is extremely important. Because you want to get followers obviously you want to get followers because you want you want people to see your to see your feet however, there is also a for you page rather than just your personal feet. And afar youth page is when you're looking on Instagram Home, when you click on Home Instagram, sorry, TikTok, and you're clicking on home, there will be two things there will be followers and for you page for you, the for youth page is where you're showing things by people other than your followers as well. And so it's quite important to get things shown on the for you page and the more people you follow from the for you page or from the hashtags, the more people will follow you. And following is key, you want to build up a follower and following and I will explain why it is key. Later on, it becomes clear. liking and commenting are also key, you want to like and comment and support others. And this is not a dump and run type of platform, like all the others, the more you interact, the more you will get from it. So you're there to support others not just dump it on videos and run for the hills. And you need to you need it needs to be a two way process. And the more you support others, the more they will support you. Watching videos all the way through is important. And the reason that is important because there are analytics and I'll get to the analytics later. And they will say how much of your video has been watched so on average. So for example, if 300 people have watched your video, and then it will tell you out of your 15 second video, they've watched seven seconds, or out of your three minute video, they've watched seven seconds or five seconds or whatever it is, yeah, on average, what you want to do is get it as close to the 15 seconds as you can. So watching videos to support others is key. And this is why shorter videos are better 15 seconds or less because on tick tock with videos. The shorter the video, the more interaction, the more people will watch it. And the more comments and likes you will get. If it's a three minute video, people may get bored, and they will they will just leave your your video and scroll on to the next one. Because there's 1000s and millions and billions of others to be seen and watched. And you don't have to go through one all the way through for three minutes. Now there are some fantastic three minute videos that I have watched and they're usually all based around people talking about TikTok using TikTok how to use it for your books, and how to sell books on it or talks about writing or tips, talks about marketing. You know, things like that you can get away with a longer one where people's attention spans might stay longer because they're learning something. But if you're just talking about yourself and your books, the likelihood of somebody actually watching the whole three minutes decreases exponentially. So it's it's about helping others as well. It's not just about me, me, me, me, me. However, people do like to see your face. People do like to see you talking about things they do like different things that you're doing. If you can do comedic ones, they like that there are a lot of different things they like. So it's not all about buy my book, it's about doing different things. So for example, I did a little video, I was walking through the woods, I did 15 seconds of that video. And then I put a caption on that said, A Walk in the Woods crime writer style. And then underneath another caption that said, Now where can I find good wherever it be a nice place to dump a dead body. And that was a very Just a quick one that got a lot of views, it got a lot of interaction got a lot of comments, because it was just a simple video. And it was only 15 seconds long. And people can watch it all the way through and they enjoy it. So, it's not all about buy my books, that's really important. If all you're doing is buy my books, this is my book, do you like my book? Here you are buy my book, I've got a new book out, then people are going to get fed up with you because you're not giving value. And you want to give value. You want to do different things you want to ring the changes. And I've had somebody comment on one of my videos, I'd only done one or two, maybe about my books and they weren't long, they were just 15 seconds. And somebody actually commented on mine saying, I don't read your genre, but you are fast becoming my favourite person to see in my feed. And that I'm at the start of my journey and I that really spoke to me, you know, because I was giving value and I wasn't just talking about buying my books. It's no that person may not buy my book, but you know what? They might have somebody that they want to buy a book for For a present and I think, actually I remember when to each Jones, and I love her on tick tock, she writes crane books, and my best friend loves crane books. So I'm going to buy one of her books for her birthday or Christmas, or just because I'm feeling nice. And I want to give her something nice. And I want to support the author. So giving value and being yourself being natural is extremely important. Talk about books, talk about what you're reading, mentioned other authors help them out. And why not? Comment on other videos about books, comment about what you're reading. If people ask what you read in just comments. It's a good book, fabulous author, whatever, and try out different things. try lots of different things. I mean, I've done duets, I've done stetch. I've done all sorts of different things. I've done funny ones, I've done one where I was in my car, just chatting about rating. And I've done all sorts of things. And I'm just trying them out. And my views and likes and things are doing quite well. And I'm pleased with that. On the whole, it's better to stay within the app. Now you can do videos elsewhere, that's really good. But very often they will have a watermark or they will be recognised as coming from elsewhere. And they won't be shown to quite so many people. And I did do one about my books. I did it on book brush, it was just a very simple video, and had a picture of the moon with some bats. It had done a picture of my book cover, the book cover flashed in and out. And it had some scrolling words. So it came in dead women and that scrolled out again. Then it came in and it said I can't remember what else it said is dead women a heinous killer. And then it said, and that came in and went out again. And then the bottom one said, the streets are awash with blood and it came in and it went out again. And I've had some great compliments about that. I have to say people who said it was very effective. It was a very good video, it was slightly different. And that's one of the two things I've done three videos out of the the 12 or 1 I've done thatare about about my books, the others said about different things about reading about and I'm just trying different things about writing, and writing tips, things like that. But on the whole in that that video was done was done on book brush, and I loaded it. And but everything else is done on my feet. And I'm just trying to try different things. It's done in the app, the app is phenomenal. The app has so many editing tools, you can put music, well that was the other thing I did on that little video, I had some sad music in the background. So together or what extremely well, you can put music, you can put trending music, you can put trending sounds, you can add sounds from other people, you can link sync to those sounds, you can do your video to that sound. Just try different things out. Don't be frightened. I mean, these are not professional, some people are getting 1000s and millions of views and light on things that are not even lip synced properly. Because they're just trying out in that authentic. It's all about authenticity. It's all about being yourself. It's not about being professional. And if you do share to other apps, which I've done a couple of times, but I have realised that you can't share it to things like Instagram reels. But I've discovered a couple of things. Well, first of all is Lola says last week, it has to be the right size, like went. But the other thing I've discovered is it leaves the Tick Tock logo. And it looks a bit unprofessional when you're on Instagram. And you've got a tick tock logo in so I'm not sharing to other apps unless I download it and I get rid of the Tick Tock and logo. And I might do it that way. But on the whole I'm not sharing two other apps because yeah, I have done it. I've tried it. It's worth doing. But it does look a bit unprofessional when there's a watermark bouncing around your video and saying tick tock tick tock tick tock. So, think about that. I can't tell you what to do or not do, but it does look, it doesn't look as if you're really trying hard and you've just shared things out. But sharing things out is good as well. And the other thing I've learned is tick tock is like a game. It really is like one of these games where you get awards for going further you get rewarded for moving forward. So when you get to 1000 followers, you can actually put a by Lincoln, or go live on Tik Tok as well. And so you get awards for certain things. And when you go live people can give you awards. If you get awards, you can make money out of it. I mean, I haven't gone down that route so far. And so it's, you know, there are ways of making money on Tik Tok when you go live, but remember, if you are going live, you need to go live for the right reasons. And it's not just to talk about your books, it's to give value in maybe to talk about books in general, maybe to talk about why you write Crime books how to write crimbooks, why you write fantasy books, why you write women's fiction? Why you like Christian fiction, you know how to do it. And marketing hints and tips for authors give value in your life. And then people may or may not give you give you money. Now, the the the way you can give money is rare tick tock rewards, they can reward you and tick tock for words, you have to buy them. And you can buy so many awards, and then you can give them to people when they are live. So I again, I haven't done that yet, because I'm still exploring things. I'm not saying I won't. But I am saying that there are a lot of things you can do. But you don't have to do it all in the first two weeks. And you're also rewarded for watching and interacting on others videos. And when I say that, it means that the more you do that, the more your video will be shown to other people in their follower feed or their for you page. So, it's really important to be on the app, and to be sharing other people's you can do different things you can like, you can comment on them, , you can share them. And I have shared other people's videos. And you know, just to help them just to support them. And because I think they're good videos, and I've had quite a few shares on mine, much to my amazement, and which I'm really pleased about. And so you need to like you need to view Remember, I said view all the way through, you need to comment. And if you like it, you can share it. And that way you'll be rewarded by your videos being shown to more people. One thing I have fast come to realise is that your first four or five videos are shown to more people. And again, this sounds like a game because it gets you addicted to it because you get high and interaction. And you're chasing that the whole time. So don't be disappointed if you first five gets 1000s of hits, and then it drops off a bit. And again, in order to n order to get it shown, that means you need to interact more, you need to do more, and you need to do things to grow your followers. The other thing I've realised it's important to be consistent with your posting, if you're only posting once a day, then post once a day, every day, if you're only posting twice a week, post twice a week on the same days, whatever you do, be consistent in it. And then you will find that you will again there'll be more views people will be nor when they to look out for you. And you will get a lot of different interaction. And the other thing is that tick tock is addictive is really addictive. I'm not joking, it can work like a drug, especially when you're chasing those views and things. Because again, if you don't interact, you're not going to get the views. And if you don't get the views, you're not going to get the likes, and you're not going to sell more books. And when you are doing your book, book ones. So really and truly you need to be on tick tock quite a bit, but don't let it take up your whole day. And I've been using it a lot for the last two weeks because that's a deliberate ploy to get more used to it. And I wanted to be able to, to get to grips with it. Learn from other people, what are they doing in the videos, if you watch videos, you're going to learn a lot about how to use tick tock. This is not a dump and run platform. It's a platform where you need to watch the videos and you need to learn from them. And you need to interact and be kind to others. And you also need to be yourself and be chatty. This is not about professional videos. This is not about you showing yourself as the most professional author in the world. This is about you being authentic, being yourself. Yes, there will be times where you'll get dressed up, you'll put makeup on, etc, etc. Other times you may be in your gym jobs, or like I was in the car talking about writing before I went into the dentist. It's about being authentic and being yourself. So yes, you want to be professional, but this is not about showing just a professional life and identity. This is about being yourself having fun, and being spontaneous, doing different things. And using trying the different effects, trying the different things that you can do. Yes, you want a brand, you want to be a brand, but you want your brand to be synonymous with this as someone I like, this is someone I want to look at their books. This is someone who is actually cares about others. So, I hope this has helped you. And that's 20 Different things I've given you. So my top tips at the very end is our be authentic, interact with others. Like, comment, share, be nice, and just enjoy yourself. So take care and I will see you again next week.That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. I'm also went to H Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing keep reading and keep learning