Why you should be selling your products on TikTok – with Anna Frapwell

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Welcome to the Bring Your Product Ideas To Life podcast, practical advice, and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products. Here's your host Vicki Weinberg.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:23

Hello. So today's episode is one I've been wanting to record for a while, because today we are talking about TikTok and specifically how to sell your products on TikTok. So I've been looking around for a while for an expert that could talk to us about this. And I was put in touch with Anna Frapwell. Well, Anna is the founder of Neon Digital Clicks, a digital agency supporting eCommerce, baby, kids and family brands to increase sales for a range of online marketing tactics. She has over 20 years experience in marketing and PR, working for some pretty big agencies and retail brands. So we're talking brands like Revlon, Bravisimo, Baylis and Harding, um so brands you have definitely heard of. Um, Anna and her team are passionate about helping clients create a thriving ecosystem through paid social Google, and E an email marketing where their brands can grow and flourish. So we had a really great conversation today, all about TikTok. We spoke about why you might want your products to be on TikTok, and once they are there, what you can do to promote and sell them. So if you have even considered having your, selling your products on TikTok and even if you haven't, I would say this one is essential listening. So as always, I hope you enjoy, and I'd now love to introduce you to Anna. So hi, Anna. Thank you for being here.

Anna Frapwell: 00:01:38

Hello. Nice to meet you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:40

Can we start by you giving a quick introduction to yourself, your business and what you do?

Anna Frapwell: 00:01:45

Sure. So, uh, my name's Anna, as you said, um, and I head up, uh, Neon Digital Clicks. I'm the owner and founder, we're a digital marketing agency and we focus predominantly on paid social. So anything to do with meta. So Facebook, Instagram, but also TikTok as well as Google adds and Klaviyo email marketing. And we work predominantly with eCommerce brands helping them to scale. So if someone's finding that their sales are plateauing then we will support them with scaling those.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:16

Amazing. Thank you. And I've invited you on here today to talk about TikTok. Um, because I hear a lot about people needing to get on there, particularly eCommerce businesses and I know absolutely nothing about it. So if you don't mind, we are going to start right at the beginning. And can you just give us a quick introduction to TikTok, what it is? Yeah. What would, what, what it is let's start there.

Anna Frapwell: 00:02:37

Yeah. So, um, gosh, that's a really difficult question to answer really, because it's, it's so many things I suppose, but it's, um, a, it's an app that's one of the fastest growing. Outside of Facebook. So social media apps outside of Facebook, um, it has really kind of grown rapidly in the last couple of years. Um, and particularly during lockdown, it kind of took hold and kind of went a bit crazy. Um, it's a video app, so everything on there is video based. Um, it's a started off, I suppose, with a much younger audience, but actually interestingly enough, over the last I'd say year, the 40 plus audience has become the fastest growing audience on the platform. So I think that many people are afraid of TikTok and are maybe avoiding TikTok because of the preconception that actually all that's on. There is young people, 20 something doing really cool dances or lip syncing to things, but that's really not the case anymore. And actually it has changed so much the algorithm on TikTok. Pretty amazing. It's um, everyone, so everyone who has a TikTok account will have a for you page. Uh, so that's your FYP page. And on that FYP page, it will pull in content from people that you aren't necessarily following. So as it works a little bit like reels are now in that you will see within your feed on Instagram reels that are, um, the algorithm has worked out. What kind of reels you might be more likely to interact with. So that gets fed into your Instagram feed. Well, the same thing happens with TikTok, but it's kind of the core focus is your, for your, for you page is populated with all the people that you follow and you've interacted with, but also it's filled with other, um, creators that you may also be interested in finding out more from. Um, so it's a really, um, targeted feed, um, that it, and because of that reason, it's no surprise that people get really drawn into it and really kind of engrossed in what's going on because you're constantly, constantly being served content that is relevant to you. And that you want to see more of.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:56

Amazing. Thank you. I mean, we, I mentioned to you earlier. I haven't even downloaded TikTok. Yeah. But I do know from listening to other people that it can be quite addictive. I've certainly heard of people talking about spending much longer than they intend just watching video after video. And am Iright in thinking they are short form videos as well.

Anna Frapwell: 00:05:12

Yeah, they are short form videos, but they have increased the length of the videos. So originally it was like really short snippets. Um, but now you can record much longer videos. However, um, we are still finding ourselves certainly from an ad's perspective that it's the shorter form videos that the higher performing videos. You've got to kind of think of your, um, audience on TikTok as having quite, uh, it's such a fast paced platform that you kind of got to think about how much can you get across in quite a short space of time. Because the attention span isn't quite as long as it may be on other platforms. Um, so get everything you need to get across in a 15 second 30 second video, although there is the option to record longer videos.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:56

That's interesting. Thank you. And I feel, it probably goes the same for things like reels as well. I know that myself, I'm much more likely to watch something if it's under 30 and I know like 30 seconds is such a short, but if I look at something and its a minute and I probably would be less likely to play it if I'm honest.

Anna Frapwell: 00:06:14

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think, you know, it's just. It's what's happened hasn't it to culture. We, we expect everything to happen so quick, so fast, even, you know, going back to eCommerce businesses, you know, one of the big things that I talk to clients about or leads about is, you know, how quick is it to get from seeing a product you want, to checking out? Because actually the more you can shorten that length of time, the better, um, and it's kind of the same across most things. When it comes to marketing, it's, you know, get those messages across, get that people to take those actions as quickly as possible.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:46

So we might cover this later on, but you've just sparked the question if you don't mind, Anna. Which is, can you shop on TikTok?

Anna Frapwell: 00:06:53

Yes, you can.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:53

Okay.

Anna Frapwell: 00:06:54

So there's a TikTok shop, um, and you can get registered on the TikTok shop so you can use the TikTok shop. Um, you can also integrate, as you would do with Facebook and Instagram, you can integrate your website, um, into your page so people can click through and go straight to your website as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:12

Oh, wow. I had no idea. So I can definitely see we'll talk a bit later about opportunities, but I, yeah, I can see actually, um, there are more opportunities than I thought there would be with a short form video platform.

Anna Frapwell: 00:07:23

Definitely.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:24

Are these quite new features? Relative?

Anna Frapwell: 00:07:27

Uh, well, I mean, the platform's pretty, pretty new, I suppose, but, um, yeah, I mean, not particularly, um, you've been able to obviously advertise on TikTok for quite some time, so that integration's been there for quite some time as well. Um, so no, not particularly new, I would say.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:44

Okay. So what, let's talk a bit, a little bit about, um, content. What kind of content is good? You've mentioned shorter form videos rather than longer form. What other kind of content is, is good for TikTok?

Anna Frapwell: 00:07:57

So. In terms of content, and this goes across organic content and also any ads that are created as well. It's native content. So it's a very native platform. And I think this is one of the things that you can kind of reassure yourself with. If you're thinking about dipping your toe in the waters of. You don't need to put the pressure on that people sometimes do when it comes to a perfectly curated Instagram feed and everything's got to look great and it's got a kind of, the aesthetic is quite important. Although there's an argument to say that that isn't quite as important these days on Instagram, but with TikTok actually, just get out there and do it because it's the native content that works really, really well. It's the, the stuff that hasn't been thought about quite so much, that isn't quite so polished. It's that kind of grabbing your phone, doing a quick TikTok, whether that's talking directly to a camera to kind of impart some knowledge or just update someone on what's going on in your business during your working day, those kind of things. Brilliant. Um, It's really important that kind of, um, you use kind of news generated content as well. This is more so with ads. So anything that is taking a customer's point of view, and maybe they're showing an unboxing experience if they bought a product or, um, they are showing the features and benefits or three reasons why they love this product. It's those kind of things that work really, really well. Um, the other thing that works, um, particularly well is, um, like I say, the three reasons why, so whether that's from a user actually doing a video about three reasons why this product is great. Three reasons why this service is great. You know, there's no reason why the business owner can't do those as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:42

Okay. And so the videos they don't need to be sort of edited as you might do for an Instagram reel, for example?

Anna Frapwell: 00:09:49

No, no, not at all. I think there can be, and there are loads of creators that actually specialize in really cool, like transition videos or really cool lip syncing videos or amazing dancers. But leave that to the creators if that's not your thing. Don't try and make it your thing because that's when you start going, oh, I can't do TikTok because actually everyone can do TikTok. It's um, those kind of things. If that's not what you enjoy doing, it's not what you're good at doing. Don't do it. Find what you are, you can do. And treat it a little bit like Instagram stories, you know, on an Instagram story, you wouldn't think it about it as much as you would when you were creating a reel, it's about grabbing a camera, showing someone part of your day. It's about, um, talking about what's going on in the moment. It's about imparting something, you know, some knowledge, something that's just happened to you that you kind of go, oh God, I didn't didn't realize that was, that was going to be the result of this action or those kind of things.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:47

Perfect. Amazing. Thank you. And thank you for making the link with Instagram stories. Because that was a, that was coming up in my mind. Was it similar to stories? So that's how it feels to me, quite informal and yeah, doesn't have to be particularly polished perhaps. Um, yeah, that's interesting. And so what kind of people are on TikTok? Because you mentioned earlier that over forties is the fastest growing demographic. Yeah. So if we look, take TikTok overall, what's the demographic like, and is it, um, Yeah. So wider question.

Anna Frapwell: 00:11:20

Yeah. So I mean, it is a really broad dynamic. Definitely. Um, it's TikTok is the first app in the world that's not owned by Facebook to have over, um, 3 billion downloads. Um, it's kind of an, the explosive growth of TikTok will overtake Facebook in less than two years. And it will. The number one platform for paid traffic. It, you know, it's, it's heading that way. Uh, TikTok are investing so much money into improving the algorithms, improving the services so that advertisers will flock there. And particularly if you are thinking about dipping your toe in the water of, um, TikTok, whether that's organically or through paid, think about doing it in quarter three because quarter four is obviously going to be huge for, for generating those sales. But in terms of kind of who on TikTok. I'd say it's pretty much everyone. You will, whatever your niche, you will find an audience for your niche. Um, I can just pull up some stats for you. I thought I had that page loaded so you might have to.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:37

No, don't worry at all. And so we mentioned sounds like everyone, everyone apart from me is on. Um, but do you have any data or do you know what people are there for? And I guess the big question here, because we're talking about products businesses, is, are people there to shop? I know they can shop mm-hmm um, but is, do people shop on, on TikTok? Do people come to TikTok looking for things to buy?

Anna Frapwell: 00:13:01

Yeah. So I'd say largely people are there for entertainment, it's a highly entertaining platform. Um, and it's kind of, that's where this whole kind of getting sucked in and getting engrossed is because you kind of, the entertainment factor is there, but then also you're being served content that is completely relevant to you. What you want to see, what you're interested in, what you engage, but yes, there is a large proportion of people that are there to shop as well. There is a hashtag that is TikTok made me buy it. And that is basically full of people doing unboxing videos, people showing what they've purchased and what they've seen on a TikTok that they've then gone on to buy. So it's a massive, massive part of what TikTok is all about, is that kind of introducing people to brands, introducing people, to products, introducing people to, um, interesting things that they may not have seen before. Um, creating trends around products, creating communities around products, you know, all of those kind of things are definitely where you kind of would go to TikTok or and the more you get involved in that, the more you kind of want to see more of that, if that makes sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:11

Yeah, it does. And that really does make sense. Because I mean, I know that if I come off, across a small brand I've never heard of before, I'm looking at buying something, one of the first things I do is go to Instagram. Because most places are having Instagram. And that was a platform I'm very comfortable with just to kind of look at what they post and get an idea of them and see if customers have tagged photos and things like that. So it sounds like it's very similar on TikTok in that if there's a brand you're interested in, you could find out a whole load about them by looking at their content. And I guess, can you also see content that people post about a brand?

Anna Frapwell: 00:14:42

Yeah. So hashtags are searchable as they would be on, um, Instagram. So you can, you know, if you tap, if you tapped in a brand's name into the search function by you, you know, if there's a someone's recorded something about particular products, it's highly likely that they have hashtagged that brand as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:00

That's really interesting. Okay. So it sounds like that's one good reason that product businesses might want to consider being on TikTok mm-hmm Are there any other reasons that people might want to consider giving it a try?

Anna Frapwell: 00:15:11

I think that there's a lot of fatigue around Instagram. And I think that a lot of people felt, feel like, you know, in, in the, certainly in the small business world, in the independent business world, that there, you know, there was this massive boom on Instagram, you could do a lot organically with Instagram and actually, is that happening anymore? Is the engagement there anymore? TikTok is kind of where I would, I would never say no Instagram, by the way, you know, I think that every platform has its purpose. And I think that when you, you build on different platforms and you kind of create a really good foundation to your business, utilizing all the elements that each different platform has to offer, like, I would never say turn your back on Facebook, I would never say turn your back on Instagram, but actually when you add TikTok in, there is another method for driving traffic to your business. For driving awareness to your business, for driving that kind of additional layer of endorsement. Um, kind of those behind the scene things that are also important for a small business and it's, it is at the moment, a very, relatively easy place to see growth and engagement.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:20

That's really interesting. And I think you're right in that all of the channels you mentioned have a place and it's kind of working out what works for you, because I think all of us have channels that work better and those where, that don't. Um, and it certainly sounds worth giving it a try. In fact, by someone that I follow on Instagram, um, who was a podcast guest a while ago, she started doing TikTok not very long ago and saw, like, I think one of her TikToks went viral and she's been on there for like a couple literally days. Um, so it definitely sounds like there isn't a downside to trying, um.

Anna Frapwell: 00:16:54

No.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:54

If it doesn't work and you don't enjoy it then I guess you just stop.

Anna Frapwell: 00:16:58

And I think the other thing is it's a bit like in it's a bit like reels in that reels can, you know, you could create a real, not get a lot of engagement and then like two months later find this real, all of a sudden it's getting loads of engagement. TikTok is the same. It's, you know, you can put out content, it may not immediately get any reaction, but then all of a sudden, there might be a flurry because something has resonated with someone and then it's getting fed into for your, for you pages and it's kind of growing. So it's not like you create something, it didn't work and you can go, oh, okay. It didn't work kind of onto the next thing. It always has that potential to kind of grow and flourish at some point.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:38

That's really interesting. So, yeah, I didn't really think about that because I guess on Instagram, once you, with a post, I'm talking about an image post. Yeah. Once you posted it, a day, well, probably not even a day, like hours later, I feel like if, if you don't get that many likes and comments in the first couple of hours, you're probably not going to.

Anna Frapwell: 00:17:56

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:56

There's very few people that are going to scroll down your feed to look at what you were talking about a couple of weeks ago. So that's really interesting that with TikTok things do still pop up.

Anna Frapwell: 00:18:05

Yeah, definitely. No, it's brilliant. And it's, um, you know, I found it myself that, you know, if I, I there's a TikTok that I posted quite a while ago and I was looking back at some stats and actually that one had all of a sudden gone from a couple of hundred kind of views to thousands. And it was just, yeah, it's crazy how that can happen about in the background really.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:28

Yeah. You have to make sure you give us the link for your TikTok.

Anna Frapwell: 00:18:33

Yes I will do.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:35

So how easy is it to get started on TikTok? Um, is it just the case of setting up an account and...?

Anna Frapwell: 00:18:42

It's super easy. It's really intuitive. It's kind of download the app, get yourself going by following the prompts. Get yourself set up and then just go for it and also just kind of don't overthink it. Um, and the thing with TikTok, because it's so fast paced, this is the only, I suppose, drawback as a business owner is that you do have to, um, produce if you're going to really go for it. You have to kind of commit to, to doing a TikTok at least once a day. So it can feel like a lot of content, but if, actually, if you shift that in your mind and think about it in terms of doing stories, rather than doing the kind of reels that we, sorry. Yeah. The reels that take time to kind of plan out and, and think about, you can actually can kind of quite quickly see how you could regularly do a TikTok.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:33

Yeah, that makes sense. Especially if, I guess it's just you talking to camera and I guess you could intersperse those with more produced ones, if you wanted to. Yeah. Um, because am I right in thinking that you can create quite nice videos or canva or whatever, and then yeah upload them to TikTok.

Anna Frapwell: 00:19:48

You can do that, but then there is so much within TikTok itself that you can make use of. There are so many functions and things like that, that you can use that actually you can, within the platform itself, create some pretty amazing things anyway.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:04

Oh, I had no, actually this is ringing a bell because, um, yeah, obviously I don't know much about this as you can tell, but I do kind of vaguely remember people would go to TikTok to create reels that then they would upload to Instagram. That was definitely a thing wasn't it? Yeah, it definitely definitely was.

Anna Frapwell: 00:20:20

Yeah, so it was a thing. Um, and it's because actually, if you create a reel and you post it to TikTok, it's it doesn't work. But if you do it the other way around, it does work, but you won't get the kind of level of engagement that you kind of would, if you did it the other way around.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:36

Okay. So the, so the best way to create videos, sounds like, to do it within the app itself rather than uploading.

Anna Frapwell: 00:20:41

I would. Yeah, definitely. I mean, there are people that do it other ways, but I just, I think there's so much there. Why make it harder for yourself by going somewhere else, creating it somewhere else, bringing it into TikTok, actually, do it natively within platform.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:55

That's a really good tip. Thank you. And I'm guessing that's a bit quicker as well than, yeah. Any other way. Um, okay, so ideally I guess you want to be, if, if you can, doing a TikTok a day, when you get started mm-hmm. If, if someone's going, oh my gosh, I just can't do that. Please don't make me do one a day. What would you say the minimum is to kind of build up? Even, I mean, taking into account, you're obviously going to grow much slower if you're doing it less.

Anna Frapwell: 00:21:20

Yeah. I mean, well, that's kind of down to personal preference, really. I mean, you know, you want to be, you do want to be doing it every day. It really is one of those things that you kind of have to go 'right, I'm going to, I'm going to commit to it. But like you say, if you're doing it just to dip your toe in the water and practice and have fun, like that's the best way to start. And if it means that you're doing three a week, you're doing three a week and that's fine. Um, I would kind of tips for how to get started. I would kind of follow, um, influences that are relevant to your business niche. I would follow other businesses that are already on TikTok that are similar to yourself. Um, I would just spend time on the app and just really kind of fully immerse yourself in the app because it's not until you do that, that you kind of start to understand some of the kind of way things work and the nuances and what other people do. And a lot of is repetition, a lot of it is other people copying what other people have done and putting their spin on it. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's not about coming up with something really cool and new, it's about actually seeing things and working out how you could take those and utilize them within your business.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:30

That makes sense. And we have a touch on this slightly, but what would be good? Do you have any just quick ideas for if someone's going 'okay, I'm going to listen to this podcast and I'm going to get on, I'm going to get started'. Do you have a few, like really quick ideas for product businesses of the kind of videos they could just go away and get started.

Anna Frapwell: 00:22:48

Definitely. So kind of things like how you got started. So do a TikTok on, you know, how the business started a bit of background about who you are, what you're all about, why you've created your business. Um, some, those three reasons why, um, and unboxing videos. So, you know, actually what's the experience when your product lands with someone. And you can even like take it, so for example, we work with quite a few subscription boxes. Um, and one of the videos that we often encourage them to do is, you know, box arriving at door, going through letter box landing on the door mat, someone picking it up, opening it, and kind of that enjoyment of like revealing the goodies inside. So that kind of experiential video. Um. You can link up with, um, creators, get creators to create content for you. There's a brilliant Facebook group, um, called UK influencers. And it's kind of like almost a marketplace where you can post your business, your product and you can say, you know, we're looking for people that can create TikToks, um, for our business in exchange for free product. Or if you are prepared to pay, then you know, this I'll pay 50 pound per TikTok, whatever. So that's another place that you could utilize to get some TikToks made for you. Um. Which its a really, really great way of, of growing quite quickly as well. Um, yeah, and I think that use generated content kind, what our customers say about us. So you can kind, you could almost like put some text on the screen of kind of five star reviews that you've had, things like that, that just either give a little bit more background into your business and why you started and kind of that whole behind the scenes take you on a journey of your day. You know. What do you do from the moment you walk in the office to the moment you leave, um, and you know, three reasons why you should do this, why you should buy from us. They're the kind of things that work really well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:42

That's amazing. Thank you. And definitely the sense I'm getting is you probably can't go that far wrong if you just pick up your phone.

Anna Frapwell: 00:24:49

Not really. I mean, because what is the worst that is going to happen? You won't get any views. Nothing, you know, nothing negative is going to happen by, you know, creating a TikTok that doesn't end up on lots of you pages. It's, it's really not, you know, there is nothing bad that can happen from it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:25:08

That's good to know. So TikTok, do people, is it a platform where you like and comment or is it or not? You just view?

Anna Frapwell: 00:25:15

Yeah. Yeah. So you like, you comment, you engage. Um, if people comment it's very similar to other platforms, they make sure you respond to their comments. There's other, other functions that you can do, um, as well, where you can, someone comments, they may ask a question about your product and then you can take that comment, create a TikTok from that comment. So you have the comment in the actual showing in the TikTok video, and you are responding in video form to that question that you've had. So that is brilliant because you are not only engaging with someone, but you are creating video. And if someone's asked that question, it's like the other people are thinking about that question. So that's another brilliant thing to do. The other thing that I've just thought of, that's also a really great way to get, um, involved quite quickly is by using um, the stitch function. So a bit like on reels where someone can create a reel and then you can kind of stitch your response to that. So you have the original reel playing and then your response alongside it. You can do that on TikTok as well. Um, so, you know, if you find someone, I don't know, talking about maybe a problem they've go,t in your product, you know, solves that problem. You could have that as a stitched TikTok really nice.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:28

I'll be honest. I am getting more, we talk more tempted. I could, this could be next, my afternoon gone now. And I really could.

Anna Frapwell: 00:26:37

Yeah. Well that is the problem. That is the biggest downside. As you kind of find yourself, you find yourself going through the phases of TikTok, like completely resisting it and saying, I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to do it. Downloading it, being a bit frightened by the whole thing because you see all these hundreds of videos and then all of a sudden, which is, fully committed you're in it every day. And you can't like not look at it every day.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:00

Oh, I'll have to let you keep you posted on how I, how I do. I also should have said thank you for mentioning that Facebook group as well. I'll find that in links stuff in the show notes. Because that sounds like that could be a really good option for someone who just wants a bit of a boost when they get started.

Anna Frapwell: 00:27:15

Exactly. I think it's called UK influencer opportunities.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:20

I'll find it. Thank you. And speaking of giving a bit of a boost, let's talk a little bit about TikTok ads, because I know that's one of the things you specialize in. Um, so, well, first of all, um, how soon would you suggest people start looking into ads? I mean, should, can you do them from day one or do you need to build a bit of a following first? What tend to work best?

Anna Frapwell: 00:27:42

No. Well, that's the beauty of, um, ads particularly is that you don't need to have that kind of consistently engaged page in order to start running ads, which is something you do need to have on other platforms. It would be not great advice to go out there with a Facebook add, uh, Facebook ads campaign and a completely empty Facebook page and a completely empty Instagram page. You have to kind of commit to running the ads and fully getting on board with doing the organic side as well. So with TikTok, that's not such a worry, obviously it's great to have an organic page, but it's not going to impact the performance of your ad campaigns as it would do on other platforms. Um, and it's um, not something that I would suggest going out at when you are, and, and running ads when you're just starting, because with all ad campaigns, you do need to invest. Um, and I think it's a bit like, you know, you can run a bath with the tap dripping, or you can turn the tap on properly and run the bath properly. And that's kind of the difference between just putting a small amount behind, um, advertising campaigns and really kind of turning it on and doing it properly because a large part of advertising is that whole testing and optimizing. If you're not putting enough in to get through testing, it's going to take you a very long time to get to the point where you know what's working and what's going to create and generate sales for you. So I wouldn't say it's something to go out with. If you were kind of a new business, just starting, always, always, always start with the foundations of your business, get them right. And then layer on some advertising on top of that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:29:17

That's brilliant. Thank you. And how about, um, if you decided you, you know, you're in the position where you were ready to commit to doing ads on TikTok, mm-hmm, what advice do you have about how to do them?

Anna Frapwell: 00:29:30

So it's very much like, um, doing it organically on TikTok. So the ads that work are the ones that look native. So the ones that don't stand out as an ad, they're very kind of native in content. They use a lot of user generator content. They use a lot of creators and influencers to create content for them. Um. And again, it's the same kind of thing that works really well, it's that whole storytelling. It's the unboxing. It's the reasons why it's the benefits it's getting. All of those across in, in ads is what, what really works and converts on TikTok.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:02

Okay. That's good to know. So if you had, um, let's say you had an unboxing TikTok that you'd created, that you were pleased with and it was, you know, and it did well, can you turn, um, an organic TikTok into an ad?

Anna Frapwell: 00:30:15

Yes. Yeah, you can. They're called spark ads. So you can use those as, um, TikTok ad. You, the thing to bear in mind with, um, TikTok it and the, and it is kind of something that's often a barrier to a lot of people and, and I can totally see why, is that TikTok works when you have volume of creative, it's such a fast paced platform that unlike Facebook, you could have an add on Facebook that works really, really well, and it would just truck along. And if it's getting conversions, it could just truck along for months. Sometimes TikTok, your ad's going to fatigue within a couple of weeks. So you kind of have to make sure that you've always got that creative content that you are generating. And we work with people to do that for them, or we work with creators to get those creative for them. So it's not necessarily something that the, the client has to do themselves, but you have to be mindful that it's the volume of creative that kind of makes TikTok work really well. And you kind of have to be aware that, you know, in any one campaign you may need five TikTok ads running and they may only last you two weeks. So you'd need fresh content.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:31:23

That makes sense. I guess, I guess to think of it as refreshing the ads constantly. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. That is quite different to other platforms isn't it? Because you're right. Yeah. With Facebook you can definitely set up an ad and just as long as it's performing, just keep it going.

Anna Frapwell: 00:31:38

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:31:38

Um, and how is it? Um, so I promise this is my final question about ads. Because I mean, I find Facebook and Instagram, like the targeting side of ads quite. I mean, it's got better, but it's, I find it tricky. I I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it tricky. Um, how do you find TikTok for sort of working out how to target your ads and who should see them and that kind of thing?

Anna Frapwell: 00:32:03

So, um, just with Facebook and Instagram, TikTok has a TikTok pixel that you need to get onto your website so that you can retarget people and you can utilize the data from, um, people landing on your website to then create audiences and create, look-a-like audiences and things like that, so that you can kind of make sure that you are really targeting the right kind of people. Um, I think that iOS 14 update, I don't actually know much about that. I won't go into it in great detail, but when apple did their iOS 14 update, it did impact loads and those things when it came to targeting. And, and certainly in terms of the kind of accuracy of the targeting that we were able to utilize pre iOS 14. Where things were really pretty pinpoint. You could kind of go, oh, I want to target someone that likes this and you'd find them. Um, there are less interests now across Facebook and Instagram than they used to be. Um, and it is about kind of making sure that because of the fact that there are less interests and because targeting has become harder, that's why your creative really has to speak to your end user. So it's your creative that will do the job. So you will, will probably go out and this it actually applies across all platforms, it's not just TikTok, it's not just Instagram, it's not just Facebook, you are out to a broader audience, but you use your creative and you use your copy to target those people.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:28

That makes sense. But it sounds like the algorithms quite sophisticated then.

Anna Frapwell: 00:33:33

Yeah, it's it is, it's really sophisticated and it it's, you know, you will get then as a user, you do really genuinely get things that you are really interested in, in your feed.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:46

That's good. And, and it's not always, also, from what you're saying, it's not always obvious when you're seeing an address when you're seeing organic content either.

Anna Frapwell: 00:33:53

Yeah. I mean, obviously. Where. I mean it is, but most of the time, because you know, there is always a call to action and things like that. So as an appetizer, I'm probably acutely aware of what's an ad. So what? What's not an ad? But on the whole, your main focus needs to be, to try and get these things, to look as native as possible so that they don't, they disrupt the feed because they're creative and engaging. They don't disrupt the feed because you go, oh, that's an ad, I'm going to scroll past.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:34:21

Yeah, I see what you mean and what would be your, um, sorry Anna, I'm going to move on from ads for a second. What would be your sort of number one overall tip for someone wanting to get started on TikTok?

Anna Frapwell: 00:34:33

It would be don't overthink it, make it as native as possible. Put the polished squares of Instagram well behind you and just get on it and have fun.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:34:45

Thank you. That's such good advice. And my final question Anna, is if someone wants a bit of help with their TikTok ads, um, what's the best way for them to contact you?

Anna Frapwell: 00:34:55

Sure. So we are offering anyone that listens to this podcast, um, and wants to find out a bit more. We, um, I'm going to give you a link to our landing page, so we are going to offer some free mini audits to anyone that is interested in potentially working with us or would like to do some advertising on TikTok. So that's, that's an opportunity, but, um, if you want to find us just to follow us from an organic point of view, then we are on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and we are at Neon Digital Clicks on all three platforms.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:27

Thank you so much, Anna. And thank you for that link because I'm going to put it in the show notes because I think that's a really good opportunity. Thank you. So that's just like a little mini audit or is it, or?

Anna Frapwell: 00:35:34

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:36

Oh, that's amazing.

Anna Frapwell: 00:35:38

Yeah, so we can, yeah, we can do that. And we can just give some kind, really quick tips and advice and pointers.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:44

That's brilliant. Thank you so much and thank you so much for everything you have shared today.

Anna Frapwell: 00:35:52

That's okay, thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:55

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogues and lots of free resources on my website, vickiweinberg.com. Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.