488: Crafting Virality on TikTok with Talia Datt of The Social CliQ

0:00Right now is literally the best time to start an e-commerce business and here's why. In 2018, we created something that was a first of its kind, a comprehensive online course to start and launch your e-commerce business from scratch, and we called it Start and Scale. Now, five years later, this course has helped 25 ,000 founders in 65 different countries kickstart their business ideas, including thousands who have achieved six and seven figure results. Founders like Laurieann Trin, who use Start and Scale to create a kids apparel brand that celebrates heritage. Or Samantha Brett, who used Start and Scale to build Naked Sundays into Australia's number one SPF skincare brand.

0:38Or April Scott, who used Start and Scale to gain the confidence to launch her luxury sleepwear brand. Although we've updated the program before, this year proved that right now is a defining moment for e-commerce, and it's because of AI. With AI, what used to be slow is now fast. What used to be complex is now simple. And what used to be expensive is now cheap. Every business is going to look so different in 10 years, and if it doesn't look different, it'll likely be out of business. So we went back into the studio because we knew to keep Start and Scale valuable for your business, we had to update it with the most relevant tools and strategies.

1:13So today, we're proud to introduce the brand new Start and Scale 3.0 course. And this course is for you if you don't have an idea yet. You're going to learn the fastest path to creating brand names, product ideas, logos, images, all through the power of AI. Or if you already have an online store, you'll learn how AI can help you automate repetitive tasks, analyze customer data, create all sorts of different content, and even handle customer service and so much more. So whether you're a start and scale veteran with a flourishing e-commerce business, or you're hoping to take the first step to 2024, this new course will help you completely transform your e-commerce journey with the power of AI.

1:54We're super proud of this incredible program. This is the third iteration. We've spent so much time, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So if you want to know more and want to sign up, which I highly recommend you do, if you want to start the store and you're confused or you're not sure where to start, go to founder.com forward slash build my store. That's founder, F-O-U-N-D-R.com forward slash build my store. I can't wait to see you inside. What you need is thirst. You need to be a thirsty human. is intent on learning. It's a really fascinating exploration of human potential. Now. The Founder Podcast.

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3:06Talia, welcome to our e-commerce AI summit. Really excited to speak with you today. You're an instructor on the Founder platform. You've taught an incredible course. We actually haven't even released yet, really on how to monetize your social. You're a master when it comes to TikTok, You're the founder of The Social Click, a full-service digital marketing agency, which really specializes in social media. And then also, you manage and leverage a group of 3 ,000 TikTok creators worldwide. So you know a lot when it comes to working with creators and then also creating content that really drives traction and brand growth and revenue.

3:49So excited to hear how you're using AI, everything that's happening. So before I jump in, we get into it. The first question I ask everyone that comes on is, how'd you get your job? Okay. How'd you find yourself doing the work you're doing today? I firstly, Nathan, thanks so much for having me again. It's so nice to chat with you. I found myself in my position basically by, I was in a corporate sort of job and I was essentially just working as an administrative assistant and very quickly realized that that job really wasn't for me. And the day that I quit was the day that tapped to shop on Instagram popped off.

4:35And so I saw that as an opportunity to basically learn social media and learn how to monetize it. And so at the time I enrolled myself in a course, I started to learn what was then very the base of social media and started to offer our services for free. Over the last five years, we've developed an agency of social media experts. And I found myself in a founder position, helping brands leverage social media in the best way possible. And so it's been a journey of a founder and it's been an incredible opportunity to basically leverage socials and help brands do so as well. So let's talk about TikTok and AI.

5:22You know, right now, how does TikTok from your view of the world incorporate AI? How does the algorithm work? What is the algorithm favoring? What are you seeing right now when it comes to client accounts? And yeah. Well, what we know is that TikTok is essentially, the algorithm is essentially founded upon AI. Their AI technology is basically monitoring users' engagement on the channel and then delivering videos that sort of resonate with those users. So that's why TikTok ultimately is so addictive and why brands can essentially take such advantage because this AI software that's working in the back end of their algorithm is monitoring the behavior of individuals and then delivering content.

6:11it goes even as far to say that there's an element of face recognition. So if you're using like a content creator with the right sort of, with a certain face age demographic, it's essentially going to, the algorithm is going to identify this person's face and deliver that content to users of a similar demographic. So what we're seeing with TikTok and the algorithm overall is that it's really using this sort of real-time level to monitor behavior and preferences of users and deliver content accordingly. Yeah. So let's talk about how brands can use TikTok. So if you're an early stage brand, just starting out, you've got your product, how do people get started with TikTok?

7:04how often should people be posting? Talk to us about that. And like, I know you taught an incredible program on our platform, which we haven't released yet. Coming soon, if you're not a member, make sure you sign up to Founder Plus to get access to it. We have programs relaunching all the time. But for those that like are just kind of dipping their toes or wanting to understand TikTok and use it as a platform to grow their e-commerce business, what would you say is a starting point? Well, first things first, create an account. And the second thing I would recommend is just essentially consume content on the channel, right?

7:43Take 15 minutes out of your day, watch what's happening on TikTok in order to understand the type of content that other brands are putting out to the platform. From there, you have the base knowledge as to what you can expect on that platform to start to generate a strategy that will work for your brand. So for me, I feel as though monitoring those trends, monitoring the behaviors on the channel and what the AI algorithm is essentially telling you is the best way for you to start your journey with TikTok. Start by then putting together a really strong sort of strategy that includes both proactive and reactive content.

8:27proactive content being content that you can really pre-plan and that you can really post at any time and it still be relevant. Think about those days in a life, the product explainers, the testimonial type videos when it comes to TikTok with a combination of allowing for space for reactive content. So the on-trend content that the algorithm is consistently spitting out and showing you as an opportunity to basically leverage the For You page. So if you are going to start with TikTok, which I would highly recommend if you are a brand, start by creating essentially a channel, consuming content, monitoring what's happening on that channel, and then starting to put together a strategy that includes both proactive and reactive content.

9:20I think the combination of both is really the best way to sort of start to play around with the brand. A-B test sort of content. A-B test the algorithm to see what is going to work best for your brand long term. Got you. And do you use the TikTok native editor to create content or use something like CapCut? What do you recommend? So the native editor, I find amazing because it essentially gives you the trends that are currently working on the platform. It showcases and is able to sync music with your videos. It has a range of different sort of features that the app wants to see on its For You page.

10:06but we also use a combination of say CapCart and Adobe in order to create even higher, yeah, higher producing videos. CapCart is an exceptional AI tool that allows us to essentially use the videos that we take and put into a certain, what's the word, and put into a certain format and it will spit it out accordingly. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Hey, FounderFam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with OmniSend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmniSend to founder students for a while now because it just works.

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11:37Should you be posting like videos with yourself talking through your product or do you want just kind of crazy product videos? Like how do people like, what are some go-to styles or is it just, yeah? When it comes to quantity, I would always say quality over quantity when it comes to TikTok videos. Rumor has it that posting twice a day is probably the optimal level. But I know as early starter founders, it's almost impossible to deliver content at that level. So I would definitely start with essentially four times a week as a base minimum and then scale or pull back accordingly. Yeah. And do you want to have a combination of creators, but if you can't afford that to use them, like what's your take there?

12:30I think creators are an amazing tool because they essentially showcase a diverse range of age, gender, ethnicity, demographics, fix, making your product relevant to the target audience that, yeah, making the product relevant to the target audience that you're essentially trying to sell to. So I think that that's a huge opportunity that if you can and afford to use creators, incorporating them makes your content, makes your brand more relevant to the masses. Yeah. And then when it comes to like, okay, So you start creating content, reactive, proactive, start understanding the platform. Is it about follower numbers or what really from your experience drives clicks, drives traffic, drives people wanting to go and buy an e-commerce product from TikTok from your experience?

13:25From our experience, it's the reactive content and the trend-based content that really drive the clicks, right? because we know that the AI algorithm is essentially looking for content that supports the trends that they're seeing perform well. So it's going to favor that type of content on the for you page. So what you'll see is that if you use a suggested audio or you use a suggested trend, TikTok is essentially going to favor that piece of content above all else, above followers, above follower numbers above engagement numbers they just want to see those trends almost take off so in my eyes what we're seeing the best way to enhance clicks and actually build that channel is by using that reactive trend-based content yep got you okay and then what other advice would you give to e-com founders when it comes to tiktok or they're just getting started or perhaps perhaps they're not getting the traction they're looking for i think when it comes to tiktok try and get involved as much as you possibly can.

14:32What we see with AI is there's a range of tools essentially helping people create content. But what we're seeing is that level of authenticity sort of dropping in doing so. So if you can get involved and be the personality, be the face of the brand, showcase the behind the scenes of the company, what you'll see perform really well on TikTok is that people will want to engage in that sort of content. It's because it's what makes your brand unique. It's the reason why someone would choose to purchase from your brand above all else. So by showcasing that personality from the founder and from the company itself really puts you in a unique position.

15:14Yeah, I agree. Okay. So let's talk about AI tools. Like what tools are you using in your business right now? And, you know, or talk to me about like the features in software that you're using as well in AI tools. Chat GPT is my best friend and we use it company wide. Not only does it help us generate content ideas, but it also helps us with captions, in script text, like hooks. It really provides us with a range of great copy that we can use across our social plans. Not only that, from an agency perspective, it's helping us deliver on emails. It's helping us transcribe key meetings. It's helping us really, really make our processes more efficient every single day.

16:08Yeah, got you. So it's not just enough though, just to like type, create five videos or five scripts on how to grow your TikTok following or like, you know, for, you know, why this awesome, you know, activewear brands, you should, you should buy the product. Like, you know, give us five ideas. Like, so how do you train it? Talk us like what insights, advice do you have around training it? So I think you need to look at chat GPT as a person, right? I know it's not a person, but look at it as a person that you need to date initially. You need to feed them as much information, ask a questions, let it ask you questions in order for you to get the perfect outcome from the channel.

16:57It's really about feeding it your tone of voice, feeding it examples, feeding it information about your brand in order for it to be able to develop the right sort of content plan. When I talk to ChatGPT, I'll often say, start with Hi ChatGPT, we're in the process of doing X, Y, and Z. This is our tone of voice. These are some examples that I've liked previously. Can you help me with essentially providing five other examples? And what we'll see is it will spit, if we provide that sort of context and that information, it will spit out generally information and guide us in a much better and stronger way that applies to our brand than if we just ask for five broad ideas.

17:47Got you. And how long has it taken you to really kind of get it dialed in to like, has it got better over time? and you still like, yeah, talk us through kind of how long it would take for you to, you know, create a video script for a video or, yeah. Well, I think chat GPT is really just a starting point. It's not the be all and end all, right? It's providing you with guidance and it's providing with great ideas. But generally we don't take what chat GPT gives us verbatim. We use it as almost like a guide. So what we find is we've essentially created a range of different templates in the way in which we provide the right information.

18:31We feed that to them. We ask it for ideas. And if we're not happy with those ideas, explain to them why we're not happy with those ideas and keep sort of going back and forth until we get it right. From there, we take it and adapt it to what we know is going to be the perfect sort of outcome for the brand. And so for us, there's no sort of length of time. It's really about just providing it with as much information. And if it's not delivering, providing it with feedback so that it can improve. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this episode and learning a ton. As you know, in this series, we interview some of the greatest founders of our generation to find out how they did it.

19:15However, if you're thinking of starting your own business and you want to hear from some incredible stories from everyday people like you or I who are actually in the trenches, only been building their business for maybe one year or two years, like they're building right now and they're really in the early stages, but they're getting success. You should come and check out our new podcast from zero to founder hosted by our community manager, Molly Flynn. These are in the trenches stories from our very own successful students that have gone through some of our programs. People just like you who are deep within the process of building their very own successful business.

19:54These are the founders of tomorrow. You can find the From Zero to Founder podcast on all platforms. And remember, it's founder without the E. All right, now let's jump in the show. Are you using any other generative AI tools like Bard or Claude or Bing? Hmm. We're using a lot of CapCut in our agency at the moment. And we're also using a lot of TikTok's in-app sort of editing feature because obviously we're trying to generate as much video content as possible that's on trend that the AI algorithm is going to favor. So for us, pretty much ChatGBT, CapCut and TikTok's in-app editing are probably our three greatest tools and greatest assets for our agency.

20:44Got you. And so when you're creating the content, are you scripting it? Yes, we are scripting it using generally chat GPT by providing it with context of who our target audience is, what's the key messaging, what has performed well previously, and then allowing it to adapt. Yeah, got you. And then, all right, so the videos are scripted. can you use like a teleprompter to create the video? So you're just using like a teleprompter app, but you're using a teleprompter app on your phone, shooting it and then putting in the editor? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. We, I use the app teleprompter on my phone.

21:23Um, and essentially, yeah, we put that script in the app, we film it, and then we use a tool like CapCut or TikToks in app editing in order to edit that, that scripted content. Got you. And do you have any principles when it comes to like what a viral video on TikTok will look like? Like you've always got to have a hook. Like is there any other pieces like they must follow or must kind of have these elements if you want, if you even publish a video and get it ready? Yeah, so I think the ultimate piece of TikTok content really starts with a hook always. So it draws someone's attention. It then often sort of presents a problem and provides a little bit of a failed solution in the process before introing the product.

22:14When you intro that product, really provide those USPs, the benefits and sort of demo that product before providing a call to action at the end. So in my eyes, the ultimate piece of content really incorporates all those different sorts of elements. And I tell ChatGPT that when I ask it for a script so that we can get it 100 % every time. Yeah, got you. And then what about video links? Video length, 15 to 30 seconds is the idea. So that means to shoot a video, it doesn't take that long, right? Doesn't take that long because also you're using these sort of tools around you. that can provide you with that information and help you edit it quickly, help you script it quickly and help you video it quickly.

23:03Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And you're always about kind of when it comes to, I guess, TikTok videos, they've got to be made for the platform, right? Like you wouldn't take something that's been already shot in another format. You always go TikTok first and then you publish it out to other platforms? Exactly. We always say that essentially all, no Instagram content is relevant on TikTok, but some TikTok content is relevant on Instagram. So as part of my course, it really takes a TikTok first approach because if we can create TikTok content, then we know that some of that content can be applied to other platforms and then you can essentially fill in the gaps.

23:50Got you. And can you just give us an example of like a brand, or maybe you can't share the brand's name, but like the kind of traction, if you get this right, you can get from like getting this right? We worked with a meat company that essentially we used a trend-based creator and a trend-based concept in order to introduce sort of the perfect TikTok approach. And we saw in a number of days that video go absolutely viral with 7 million views worldwide and resulted in a sold out product essentially. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. That's the one thing that I've found really interesting. And it's definitely something that's up and coming is a lot of e-commerce brands are being built off the back of TikTok or like, using TikTok videos, then putting them on Instagram Reels as well.

24:46And they're not paying anything for traffic. And they're just basically blowing up. I mean, it's almost like a once in a lifetime opportunity. And we did have this a little bit with Instagram early days, but never before have brands had the opportunity to go as viral, get as many views by simply posting a video without even putting paid budget behind it. If you can nail the content strategy, you can essentially ensure that the brand's longevity and ensure that you're going to build a community on a great platform that is consistently going to deliver. Yeah, a hundred percent. Okay. So it's, you know, I think anyone watching this right now, it's pretty clear you need to be using TikTok to grow your brand it's a great traffic source if you get it right um how long would it like i know it's it's a difficult question to ask around like how it's kind of like how long is a piece of string but how do you really know like how long to keep going on a platform like this like how long how long would you expect it to take like months six months 12 months like what sort of commitment should you make to yourself as a founder how much time would you recommend spending on a platform like this in the early stages?

26:04So all it takes is one video, right? And it's hard to quantify what one video sort of looks like because it takes one video to go viral, but it could have taken 50 videos previously for you to learn what's worked well and what hasn't worked well. In my eyes, if you're setting out a social strategy, at a minimum, I'd be looking to invest 12 months into that strategy. Now, it's not to say that that strategy won't change or shouldn't be adapted during that time, but it really is important that you set out 12 months that you're going to consistently invest. You're going to consistently report on what you're seeing on this channel and produce content in line with those sort of results.

26:49So as a founder early days, I believe that building a social presence and that sort of community is probably one of the most foundational things that you can do because that community is going to tell you what they're seeing with your product, how they're finding it, how you can improve, where you're outperforming your competitors. They're going to consistently provide you with that feedback. So make it a priority when you're actually putting together your sort of calendar. Yeah, got you. Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered. With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs, and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success.

27:38Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence. You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. Okay. So let's switch gears. We've shared, we've talked about tools, talked about TikTok, we've talked about strategy, we've talked about content. Can you share any like, like actual chat GPT prompts that help your team with creative ideas and copy, like any exact prompts? Yeah. So as I said, we usually start with actually saying hi to it as a starting point. And we, I mean, I can, I can essentially tell you, we would say hi, chap GBT.

28:22We're in the process of working on a social media content plan for this brand. And we'll give a brand name. The posts will go out on this platform and this platform. So often Instagram and TikTok, and the brand's tone of voice includes these sort of elements and doesn't include these sort of elements. So we talk about, I don't know, the types of ways we'd describe the tone of voice, like authenticity, excitement, best friend-like, whatever that sort of looks like, in order to make sure that that tone of voice is really, really strong. And then from there, we'd say these are some copy examples that we'd like to include.

29:05So then I'll often give it three examples that have performed exceptionally well for this brand. And then I'll then go on to say some words that I don't want it to include before asking it to generate a range of different captions for a post sort of concept. So if my post is the day in the life of a founder, right, I'll say this post is a day in the life of a founder who has interviewed with a range of different podcasts. They've essentially mentored their team. They've tested a range of new products. Can you help me with a one-liner for that sort of piece of content? And TikTok will start to spit out.

29:51I mean, not TikTok, chat GPT will essentially start to spit out a range of different captions that align with how you've briefed it. Yeah, got you. And then when it comes to, I guess, implementing AI tools or AI solutions for founders, what do you see as like the biggest challenges that they face right now? I think it's change management and that the team's apprehensive to actually utilize AI. They think that it's going to replace people's jobs. But I also think for everyday founders, there's a level or a lack of knowledge essentially in the different platforms available. Only the platforms that are really in mainstream media, I think people are leveraging.

30:38There's a range of different other sorts of AI tools that could really assist business owners that we're probably not leveraging enough. So in my eyes, I think it's about taking the time to research what's available and then starting to implement the best solutions for your business. Okay. And then I was going to say with the rise of these content, AI content creation tools, how do founders remain true and authentic to their brand? I think it's really about showcasing that behind the scenes and the founder presence all the time. Because if you are using AI to basically generate a range of your social media posts, what you'll find is it does become a little stagnant and it does become a little bit same, same to what everyone else is producing.