eComm Weekly – EP29: Why TikTokers are Your Brand’s Best Allies

[00:00:00] 

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the room. We got a really great topic today. We’re going to be talking about influencers and more importantly, influencers on TikTok and how to double down on them. So we have a guest today. Paul Harvey. Hello, Paul. Hey, how’s it going? It is going great. Now I’m at an event I’m hopefully.

Um, you can’t hear the background noise. Uh, I’ve got it plugged into a, uh, a mic here, so I hope everything’s good. Anyways, just a quick introduction. This is e-com weekly. We’re going to be talking about influencers and how to double down on Tik TOK and, um, really see if you’re doing it properly. The do’s and the don’ts we’ll be touching on a lot of different.

Uh, my name is norm Ferrara. I’m the host of lunch with norm podcast on Monday, Wednesdays and [00:01:00] Fridays. We cover Amazon and e-comm business, and this is going to be a recorded podcast. So if you want to come up or a recorded call, if you want to come up, ask some questions, I’m sure there’ll be lots of questions today.

Just raise your hand and we’ll bring you up on stage. And if you don’t want to be recorded, please don’t raise your hand. And I see Joe, Hey Joe. We were supposed to be on the other day. And, uh, unfortunately I had to cancel, but anyways, I can’t wait to get Mr. Joel up here talking about all things branding.

But today the most important thing we can do is talk about the subject Tik TOK influencers. So Paul, Mr. Harvey, how are you? Yeah, not bad. It hasn’t been that long cause I just had you as a guest on my podcast about a month. And so. You’re in South Africa right now. So I really appreciate you coming on at this hour and, um, let’s get into it.

So just a little bit about yourself and, [00:02:00] and why you got into the influencers. Yeah. So thanks for that. So, um, like yourself, um, I think I’ve worn pretty much every hat on Amazon. So long time, Amazon seller and software boarder and the consultants and so forth, but basically, um, we, um, Uh, last year when the two is changed and the rebates were banned, I ran a rebate service and actually performed really, really well, but we knew that the tear was updated was coming.

And when I came, um, yeah, w where’s your business die over? Not what suits you is change. But then we said, because, because of the rebate no longer allowed. So then we coveted because we’ve been doing influencer marketing for the past two years. And the reason I’m so bullish on influencer marketing is purely because.

Tik TOK right now is still this, um, small, like the young kid on the block. And right now Tik TOK is like equivalent to like a Facebook ads from 2015. So I’m trying to get [00:03:00] everyone just take advantage now, before the masses jump in,

he normally there. I was muted. I was talking to myself like a normal dude. So anyways, I was saying, you know, part of the audience is going to be new to tech talk. The other part are probably on, they have their own account. And then the other side is probably working with influencers and kind of reaping the benefits.

So can we just talk about why tick-tock is so hot, right. So, first of all, we like, um, the reason it’s hot is because I was always pretty late to gain to Facebook and I was way too late for Instagram. And if you are first on Instagram as an influencer or advertiser, there was so much promise. There really was right now, Instagram is just saturated.

If you try and do any external traffic. And so to Marketo Instagram, it’s just [00:04:00] tough. However, with tick-tock things are much easier and Alyssa. What’s interesting about tech talk is Amazon just loves Tik TOK. Traffic is, is such a strong buyer pool on Tik TOK. If we look at the top trending products on Tech-Talk, they are the best sellers on Amazon.

L’Oreal even created their own tick tock page as an Amazon storefront, just going on all the tick-tock trends. So Amazon loves Tik TOK traffic, so you can send Tik TOK traffic to Amazon listing. Amazon loves you for it, you know? Uh, and this is for everybody listening right now, we’re going to get into this, but Paul helped my son out.

Uh, so, uh, he came on, he was talking about Tik TOK and the same subjects we’re going to be talking about today. He had one. On how to increase, like working with Tik TOK influencers and how you can post on your own account. That just [00:05:00] changed the game for us. And it wasn’t that long ago. So, um, anyways, I want to talk about that and you know what yeah.

What people are doing to get that extra boost with the influencers. So first let’s go into, how do you find an influencer on. So, first of all, there’s, there’s a number of ways. Um, the easiest, uh, I, I should say the cheapest way is using the tech talk creator marketplace. When you create a tech talk business ads account, which takes two minutes when you create one.

You also get access to tech talk, create a marketplace. That’s purely just tech talks platform where they have influencers on board and you need to have it. I think it’s at least a 10,000 followers to be accepted. And those are the types of influences that they are smart. They know what they’re doing.

Just bear in mind, even if they charge a lot, even if they’re on a. The tick-tock creates a marketplace. It doesn’t matter where they are working with influences takes Tom. It really, really does. [00:06:00] Like for me, it takes about a month to get content posted. And that’s what me nagging them everyday. Like annoying parents, but that’s the.

So the first thing I would say, start with Tik TOK, create a marketplace. And then, um, there are a whole bunch of software tools that can help you. Like there’s in teller, fluence, um, affluence, there’s a whole ton of influencer tools and how we do that outreach. Also, what you could do is just, um, started, um, uh, DM-ing people on tickets.

I would say, I like, I like your stuff. Can I pay you for stuff? And, um, a lot of them are very open to that, so there’s a lot of ways to go with it. But the main thing is that people get despondent because it takes so long, but that is the nature of the business. Ain’t up of influencer stuff just takes awhile.

So how do you get people to call you back? Because I know I was talking to another, a fairly successful Amazon seller via. Who is doing outreach and trying to get people to call them back or [00:07:00] just reach out back to him. And he’s saying, he’s not getting the response. Like he’s sending out hundreds of emails and he’s getting only a few people answering them back.

How can he improve? There is actually no real way. For example, is that my team, they reach out to at least a hundred influences code in front of the people who’ve never spoken to before they reach out to a hundred per day of those hundred, maybe 30 reply of those 30, maybe 10 were a worthwhile of those 10, maybe five actually follow through.

So that’s like, that’s essentially a 5% success rate, right. That’s the norm. I’ve tried all the software, I’ve spoken to agencies, so on and so forth, and they all had the same metrics. The main thing is they just get a lot of stuff, just DM people at scale. And, um, if you use a software package like, and so affluent one of those, then you can [00:08:00] do that.

Um, then, um, There’s those influences are more likely to be receptive because they actually gave their details saying they want to be contacted just Baymont. That means they normally will want a big, um, invoice or a big. Right. And by the way, if you’ve never checked out app Sumo, a P P S U M O. Sometimes they have deals on these new influencer network apps.

So check it out is it’s very inexpensive, got nothing to do with AppSumo. Um, but anyways, I also see, uh, and you recognize this guy, I’m sure. Paul, Joe, how are you? Um, pretty good. Normally are how are you doing? Hi, Paul. Hey Joe, how you doing, man? Good. So I know Joe, you are big into the influencer marketing and branding game.

You want to add anything to what Paul’s already said? Yeah. I agree with Paula, the getting them to contact you back is a pain in the arse to say the least. [00:09:00] Um, we, you know, we have the same, the same thing. What we’ve had luck, a lot of luck with is, um, um, mining, um, uh, companies follower and Byerlys. And there’s several softwares out there.

One is called influencer bitch. And I’m actually working with somebody else on developing one that evaluates your followers and your buyers, and looks for nano influencers and reaches out to them with the goal being to create a small army. Advocate of advocates and advocacy program. That basically is your viral marketing team and they not only create tick talks, they create, um, different content for you to place across all of your social media.

And we gamified it a little bit with rewards and they can earn points. And, uh, it actually it’s, it works with.[00:10:00] 

Very good. I’m just trying to get back to my screen here. I did something. Yeah. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Perfectly. Oh, okay. So I guess the other thing like we were talking about and, you know, trying to build up that influencer base, so now you get somebody that’s contacted you. You’ve got them too, depending on the price point.

And we could talk about the different types of influencers, but for the most part guys, would you recommend that a nano influencers, so people under 10,000 followers would be the right market for most sellers? Yes. Yes. And also I’m cheap. So I like the smaller ones cause they’re cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. And I liked the ones actually even under 2000.

You know, you get those moms with the 2000 followers. No, they know all of them. And a lot of them, um, have the same views, you know, or have the same issues [00:11:00] that they do. Um, so it’s, you know, it’s easier to find people that will like, you know, what you have going, and there are more pets. A hundred percent agreed.

So when you reach other, what kind of expense are you looking at? Uh, is it free? Is it $10? Is it 500 bucks? You know, the, the industry is changing to it to a, they’re trying to change it to a pay paper, perform. I’m saying. And I agree with that. I mean, that’s what we always focus on is pay for performance. I don’t want influencers like Kim Kardashian.

I want creators people that are going to create a lot of content for me. And that way we’ll give them an affiliate link and, you know, we own the content, but if, if I stop, you know, if the campaign ends and I still share that content on Pinterest, I’m still gonna use their affiliate. And when they see those additional cells, I’m trying to create a long-term relationship with these people.

So when they see those [00:12:00] additional sales, it motivates them to create more. Exactly it, that is a brand new model. It’s not brand new, but it’s brand new to this industry. I’ve never like until this year, I’ve never heard about, you know, getting people onto a paid, almost affiliate link for being an influencer.

Now I do want Paul to explain, so for everybody that’s on here and if you’re not using Tik TOK or if you’ve just got your own. Paul is going to show you how to scale fairly quickly. And Joe, you’ve probably already know this. You’re already doing it, but what’s the simple. Uh, so for me, the main thing is most of us, if you run paid ads, you’ve done Facebook advertising.

And the biggest problem with Facebook advertising is testing, not the creative, creating a nice, sexy image or video, and thinking about takes to do. All that type of stuff. And that’s where it’s different with, with tick tock, tick tock, the motto is literally from tock, create tick talks, not ads. [00:13:00] So to what tech talks are, ones, what?

Sorry, what tech talk ones is more native contents. So when it does very similar to Instagram, um, or the influencers, if let’s say a normal, you create content about my brand, then I can contact you and ask you and request for. Add authorization code now. Um, um, anyone can give anyone the add authorization code and once they give it to the advertiser, the advertiser can then actually turn their posts into a paid ad on Tik TOK.

So all we really do. Boosting the content, but it’s actually a paid ad. And what’s nice about this is these are quotes, Spock ads. They have been shown to have the highest ROI on Tik TOK right now. And purely because it’s native ads. Most of the users aren’t aware that this is an ad because it looks like normal generic content, and it is normal, generic content just boosted.

So nice thing about this is if you just get. [00:14:00] 10 pieces of, uh, UGC. So 10 influences or tank content creators, whichever 10 pieces posted on TechTalk. You can boost those over and over again. And so one, one situation, because for the influencer, they just get more views. More Luxe and that type of stuff. So they won’t say no.

And then it’s a win for you because the better though, the ad performs more sales, you will get. So I find this way more and more easier because I don’t have to sit there and create images and worry about texts and so on and so forth. I just get a whole bunch of UGC. They boost it. And whenever one of my clients has about 20 pieces of love content on tech talk from 20 different influences and what we noticed with them, um, As you did with Spock ad, it can be boosted in literally like two or three minutes.

And because what Amazon sees Amazon then sees traffic coming from Tech-Talk from 20 different influences. So in Amazon’s ours, this [00:15:00] brand is going somewhat viral because there are so many people talking about it on Tik TOK and Henson. Amazon’s getting traffic for it. So in essence, I’m sorry. I talk way too much.

It’s just, um, check checkouts. Spark ads is P a R K. And, um, there’s tons of stuff about that. That, do you have anything add right there? Yep. Yep. Sorry. I think I talked over you, Joe. What was that? I said, that’s the money shot right there. That is worth, that is worth coming here today. That is actually worth a million bucks.

Yeah. I’m working with this, uh, creator. He’s actually a marketer. Um, and he owned a marketing company and now he’s just working with creators and trying to cut a deal with him too, for 150 tick talks for $6,000. And he actually grows your influencer list, natively doing it. And it’s not just a one and done or anything.

He [00:16:00] actually community. And the influencers and we’ll email them and say, Hey, this is working for this person right now. Um, here’s some creatives, here’s some assets. Uh, you might want to try something like this and he gives him ideas and he’s needs developing your future, as well as those. It’s not just about the tick box, but it’s useful.

Yeah. For six grand, 150 of them. That’s three a week at 40 bucks a pop that’s actually not pad. Hmm. Right. W what’s crazy is a lot of people on the call will be thinking, oh, well, six K that’s low money, but if you try to do it yourself, you’ll realize six. K’s not alone. Many. We tried doing this off it’s one, Amazon live, you know, I mean, for what some of those people were trying to charge, it’s.

I mean, that’s consistency. You know, a hopeful thing about social media is consistency. We all try to post on social media. We all think we know what we’re doing. We all think we’re getting [00:17:00] engagement, but that doesn’t by no, we hire these social media managers that are great at getting followers, but they don’t buy.

So it’s those passionate, it’s the people that care about your title. That are going to do the best. And that’s, that’s what I like about the advocacy programs. They already love your product. So what about the legal side of this? Uh, so you, you, you, you go in, you start to boost these campaigns. Are you legally allowed to share those videos on any other platform or do you have to have some form of.

So, um, um, um, I went LA, um, I’m, I’m very relaxed about this now. I shouldn’t be, but because their spark ads, that’s all done within the tick-tock, um, atmosphere. So when they use the word influence that gives you that. They can choose whether it be seven days, 14 days. And when I say access, that just means a link to the P to the post.

It doesn’t mean we can actually edit anything or change anything. [00:18:00] We can’t do anything nefarious. So most influencers won’t mind too much about that. I love them. What they do is that they leave there. They only give you access to it for like a month. Purposely you, so you have to request it again so they can charge you again for further rhexis.

So in terms of legality, I think it’s legal to use this stuff on Tik TOK. Don’t quote me on that, but taken off Tik TOK. I think that might be going into hot water. Yeah, I, um, I haven’t done it with spark ads, but we normally do it with regular content and we always post, we always hashtag it. You know, that it’s sponsored, um, just to cover our ass.

Um, but also, but also that’s part of the, the influencer agreement that we’re going to do, that they know we’re going to do that. I mean, you know, shout out to me, a shout out is not worth the money because it doesn’t last more than a day. But if I can take that shout out and move it to Pinterest, I just added seven months, you [00:19:00] know, but now, you know, Pinterest has changed this year completely.

They want fresh content. They don’t want you to repurposing anything from another planet. Um, and so you got, you actually have to change it up a little bit to get it to work on Pinterest. Okay. So I guess that’s the answer, uh, you better, uh, if you want to take it off, uh, you should probably, and I, I can see this happening.

If you’re going to give more exposure, more promotion, the influencers, probably going to want to have something in writing, just to make sure that it, you know, they’re getting compensated. If you go back to that model that we were talking about originally, I don’t think they’d have a big problem and still, I I’d probably have them sign off on something, but if they’re getting, uh, you know, 10% or 15% back on a deal, they’ll probably be very happy to have more promotion.

Yeah. It’s something that, it’s something that we do that I really liked doing. It works [00:20:00] really well. As soon as I start talking to somebody, I’ll ask them what kind of results they’ve had in the. You know, and they’re, they’re like waders, they kind of pump it up a little bit. They add to it, you know, they, they, they lie basically.

So then what I’ll do is I’ll say, okay, well, you know, it’s a commission-based and this is the commission. Well, if you surpass what you give me as a projection, we’ll double your commission or triple your. Not really adding bonuses to it and adding any performance bonuses has had a huge impact for us.

Very good. Now I see, uh, Paul, uh, has left. I don’t know if he has a bad connection or not, but, uh, we did have it. I hope I’m saying this right. Well, um, welcome to the panel. Do you have a question? Okay. Uh, thanks for your both working. And I’m a new here and I didn’t was I [00:21:00] talking about, but, uh, I can, uh, I can, uh, talk with you about, uh, your subject.

Uh, okay. So, uh, just want to make sure that, uh, uh, you wanted to ask a question, uh, and talk about any tick talk influence.

Okay, so, Hey Joe, what are some of the dues and some of the don’ts with tick-tock? Um, yeah, I probably Paul’s a better person to speak to that specifically, but, um, you know, as far as just the, the overall with influencers, the things that I know, and that carries over to all plans. Um, you, you really, the difference between influencers and creators is that influencers really are more concerned with driving traffic to their own posts, plus getting you [00:22:00] sales.

But they’re more concerned about driving traffic to their own posts, Kim Kardashian, and you know, people like that. They, they all say things they’ll post things, but it’s always about their own post create. Are, you know, they’re more involved and they, they don’t have that backend and they don’t have expensive agents.

Um, so they are focused on the brand, you know, and they will do more for your business. It takes a little more. Maybe you want to have a happy mix. Um, we try to have, you know, in a perfect world, I’m going to have 50. Uh, 50 people in an advocacy program. And that might have a couple of micro and macro influencers as well, but most of them are going to be advocates and brand ambassadors.

So we all know like, uh, Joe and Paul, we have a friend, his name’s Paul Barron and what he’s done, and it’s not specific to tick-tock, [00:23:00] but it’s when you come down to user generated. He’s taken, uh, repeat customers. He’s also done his outreach to influencers and between I think January to March last year, he received over 6,000 images.

He had a bad knee, he had a negative review on him. And it was a false review. It was just bad. Um, and he, he reached out to the influencers and he said, Hey, um, can you guys pinpoint, you know, and show that this is a false claim that this, this person made over the weekend. He got 30 videos that he could post wherever he wanted to.

And, um, anyways, that’s the power that, that you have with these influencers on top of. Um, we’ve had a couple of influencers, heavyweight influencers from Tech-Talk on and they said, Hey, look, you know, maybe at first we’re getting a flat rate. Maybe we’re getting commission, but at the end of the day, if we like your [00:24:00] brand, if we have a great customer experience, we’re doing this for free.

Like we’re pushing your product outside of tech talk and getting people to hear about your brand. So it’s just not that one, you know, video that you’re seeing. You’re actually building brand ambassador. That’s the name of the game, right? I don’t know. Paul, you, you, uh, you were, uh, out, uh, I guess you lost, uh, uh, power or whatever, but anyways, you’re back.

I was asking about the do’s and don’ts what are the dues and what are the don’ts of reaching out to tick talk? Um, thanks for that. Sorry. Yeah. I had some third world internet. Um, so yeah. Um, yeah, so the, the do’s and don’ts pretty much I say to everyone don’t, don’t, don’t sweat it like pure wanting. Okay.

Can you give me a template so I can reach out to people. These are just people reach out to them and then split test your results and see if you’re nice and friendly. Does that work? If you’re read an [00:25:00] ugly. Yes, what is going to happen? Reach out to people as much as you can. And remember, influencer marketing, reaching out to them is kind of like contacting the hot girl in high school and she doesn’t want to talk to you.

That’s pretty much influencer marketing because influencers all the hot girls and we just try and get the date. That was a story of my life. Uh, Hey, I just noticed too. We’ve got some interesting comments in the chat. Uh, about reaching out to influencers too. So, you know, feel free to check that out. All right.

So down to the last question, what about expectations? I hear all sorts of expectations. How do we manage them and what can we do?

So I’ll jump in quickly. Cause I, I really want to hear, um, Joseph’s spots, but for me after I’ve used tons of influences in the past, and I’ve always felt that our thought burned off towards where I would use the influencer, [00:26:00] maybe some mythology or don’t do enough research so and so forth, but I pay big money for a big influencer and then they, they do the post.

Nothing but crickets. And because of that, I have a kind of negative mindsets with influences because I want to be in control. I want to send the traffic, not the influencer to run the way I do now. Um, that, that same strategy and spark ad. Now what I do, I go after smaller influencers, like tiny, tiny ones where I pay them almost nothing or something.

And then I boost their contents with tech talk ads. So instead of spending maybe 1500 on a big influencer, I’d spend maybe two, 300 smaller influencers and then spend the next thousand dollars boosting that content. Because if we can boost it, we control the traffic and that’s the main.

All right, Paula, do you have any, uh, Joe, you have anything to add to that? Um, yeah, something that we do that’s actually working really well is, um, we [00:27:00] game-ify, uh, we will, game-ify our influencer program. So, you know, for every post you get 10 points. If you buy our product to get a hundred points, you leave a review, you get a hundred points.

You can redeem those points, maybe for a gift. But at the end of three months, you, whoever has the most points can win 2,500 bucks. But if you have a hundred people that start that contest, you know, and only maybe 10 goes. Let’s say though hundred people though, each gave you five posts, you know, five shout outs that are free.

Um, it, it, it, it can drive your posts right up to the top of that, that social class, um, you know, with, with the expectations I used to, you know, really all I expect out of anybody’s honesty. If I can get that, I think I’m doing pretty good. Um, You know [00:28:00] that I like the pay per performance model I’ll pay. I don’t care, but I’ll pay somebody really, really good after they prove themselves.

Great point. Uh, so for everybody who’s listening, uh, remember if you want that Willy Wonka golden ticket, remember to go back and listen to what Paul and Joe were talking about. Um, how Joe described the money shot. It’s worth a ton if you’re building up your influencer network and trying to get exposure and scale.

So just that point alone, uh, will definitely help out your growth and scale, uh, in Amazon or in any e-com business. Now, uh, I think that’s about it for today. Um, we are like, we’re here every Thursday at one o’clock Eastern standard time. E-comm weekly. Different topics every week we usually run for about a half hour.

Uh, we’re part of the start, uh, startup club, uh, [00:29:00] uh, club. Uh, we have a room and we really appreciate it. So if you want to hear more about entrepreneurs and different rooms about entrepreneurs, just go up, click the little green house and you’ll get notified. All right guys. So how do people get ahold of you and Joe?

I want to get your contact information too, as well as Paul. Let’s start with Paul. Thanks. Yeah. So for me, just reach out to me, just email me@apollatrankstir.co R a N K S T E R. Fantastic. And Mr. Joe, um, you can find me on my Facebook page or my website, which is e-com hyphen optimizer.com. And you can email me at Joe at e-comm hyphen optimizer.com.

All right. Fantastic. All right, guys. Well, thank you. And especially Joe, thanks for coming in today and, and adding to everything and Paul as usual, thank you very much. Paul have to do the YouTube and everybody else. Thank you for being part of the community and we will [00:30:00] see you next week. Thank you. You guys have a great day.

Thank you. Take care.