SPI 574: How to Get Started with TikTok for Business with Rose Griffin

Pat Flynn: Hey, hey, it’s Pat here. You’re about to listen to something a little different on the show today. It’s not our usual Friday format where I follow up on Wednesday’s episode. Don’t worry, those aren’t going away forever. Just a little break to bring in something even more special, in my opinion. In this episode, and the next few, are a part of our Teaching Friday Series, which we do with our SPI Pro members. We have an incredibly talented pool of people within SPI Pro, so we thought, “Why not give our Pros the spotlight and teach you, here on the podcast every once in a while?” It’s just one of the perks of being a part of Pro in fact, is this possibility. With each episode, you get to hear a different pro teach you something special from their area of expertise. Without further ado, I’ll let them take it away. Oh, and if you want to find out more about SPI Pro and be a part of it, you can go ahead and apply at spipro.com.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Smart, Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your guest host, she shares the same hometown as the Soapbox Derby, Goodyear, Devo, and LeBron James. Joining you from the 330, let’s welcome Rose Griffin.

Rose Griffin: Thanks so much for that amazing introduction. I am Rose Griffin, the owner of ABA Speech and I am here today to talk to you about getting started with using TikTok for your small business. My business is called ABA Speech, and I am a speech therapist and BCBA, and I help autistic students start communicating. I have been on a journey these past five years. I have courses. I have a podcast. Thank you, Pat. I took Pat’s Power-Up Podcasting, and it helped me start the Autism Outreach Podcast. I offer courses, consultation and services and one thing that I really, really love and enjoy is social media and optimizing social media to reach my ideal clients. I am on TikTok at ABASpeech. Make sure you come over and find me there.

Rose Griffin: And I started on my TikTok journey when the pandemic started. So in April of 2020, I was hanging out at home like the rest of the world. I have three kids, and we had heard so much about TikTok. So I decided to start a family account for TikTok. We made our very first TikTok back in the backyard and my husband taped us, and that is how our journey started. I started then using it in June of 2020 for my small business, ABA Speech, and I started making content that would resonate with speech therapists, with parents. It has been amazing to see the growth ever since. I’ve been able to build a community of followers there that engage with my content, that have purchased my courses, and that I have done coaching and consultations with as well.

Rose Griffin: Now you may be thinking, “I am too old to be on TikTok.” But the business owner in you may be thinking, “I should be on TikTok already.” There are so many businesses and organizations that have a presence on TikTok, that every day that you don’t get on the app is another day that your competitor may be joining.

Rose Griffin: And so what I want to do today is I want to share my top strategies on how you can get started on using TikTok. The last strategy that I’m going to share is going to be a secret TikTok hack. So if you are listening and you already have a TikTok and you want to optimize your TikTok, make sure that you stay on for this last strategy. You will love it.

Rose Griffin: So my number one strategy for getting started is to download TikTok. If you have not downloaded TikTok, make sure that you download it and just spend some time on the app. You probably have some ideas about what you think TikTok is. You probably think that it’s a bunch of younger people dancing and doing trends and all of that. But there’s so much on TikTok that is cooking videos. There are people that highlight their days. There are people that show you behind the scenes of their business. And yes, there are people that are doing comedy and they are dancing as well, but you don’t have to dance to use TikTok. So I just want to throw that out there right now. If that’s not your jam, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t have to be the way that you do TikTok.

Rose Griffin: So number one, download TikTok, spend some time on the app. That’s what’s so interesting about the algorithm is that it really understands what videos you love and enjoy. So if you’ve been watching videos about autism, then it is going to show you more videos about autism. If you’ve been watching videos about having a growth mindset, it’s going to show you videos about that. So spend time on the app and start to follow accounts that resonate with you. I follow a variety of accounts. I follow accounts that I find interesting from a professional standpoint, and I follow accounts that I find interesting on a personal standpoint, that have absolutely nothing to do with speech therapy, that have nothing to do with helping autistic learners.

Rose Griffin: Spending time on the app is going to allow you to see all the variety of video formats that are being made. There are people that are using trending sounds and they are doing a dance that is popular. There are people that are talking. They just talk to the camera and they have a lot of followers that way; that resonates with their audience. There are some people who are doing duets. So they may have a video they really like, or they want to show their audience and they’re going to do a split screen. So part of them is on the video, and part of them is showing the video they really, really like. There are many different video formats, and the only way to feel more comfortable knowing what’s going on in TikTok is to spend just a little bit of time on the app to orient yourself to TikTok. So, that is number one on our starter guide.

Rose Griffin: Number two is to create a profile with your business name. You can do it. You got to get started somewhere, and this is how people will find you. I’ll never forget when I was just getting started with thinking about getting on TikTok. I remember Gary V saying, “It doesn’t matter what social media platform it is, people will find you.” And this is the truth. I have a decent size Instagram following, about 20,000 people, and I have people that have followed me over to TikTok because they’ve looked up my name. So ABA Speech is my small business and so that is my name. On Instagram it’s ABA Speech by Rose, and on TikTok it’s ABA Speech. So if your message is resonating with your ideal clients, they will find you. Make sure that you include a picture that is aligned with your brand.

Rose Griffin: You’re going to want to spend a little bit of time on your profile. You also want to include keywords in your profile, just like with any social media platform. When people see your profile, they should know who you are and what you do. You want to make sure that you keep things very simple and very clear, and this is going to be a great next step on the app. So we have our profile, you have your business name, and you have your message so that when people click on that profile, they know exactly who you are and they know exactly what you do. When you reach—this is a goal—when you reach a thousand followers, you will have a clickable link in your profile. So right now, if you go over to my profile, you will see that I have my most popular lead magnet with a clickable link. So sometimes I make videos and I discuss that lead magnet, and people can see that that link is right in my profile, which obviously that’s going to help me capture my ideal client’s email and start that nurturing relationship through email marketing.

Rose Griffin: Once we have spent some time on the app, we’ve created our profile with your business name, we are going to, drum roll, please, we are going to start making videos. Let me tell you, you can do this. Hear it again. You can do this. You have to get started somewhere. If you scroll back all the way to my first video that I made in June, I think I had gone golfing that day, so I had on some golf clothes, not really aligned with being a speech therapist, and I was just pointing to text on the screen. And that’s okay because you have to get started. And you can see my videos, if you scroll through, that I have experimented with different types of videos. When I find a format that resonates with my audience, I make more of that type of video. So you have to get started with making videos.

Rose Griffin: I would just suggest making a variety of video formats to see what your viewers really want to see. You could make an information video. You could make your first video where you are introducing yourself. If you are somebody who is not camera shy, you can make a trending sound. You can make a dance video. And what’s amazing about finding the trending sounds, when you spend a little bit of time on TikTok, if you find a sound that you like, you can just click on that sound and you can save it.

Rose Griffin: So when you go to start making videos, you will have all of those videos there that you have saved from watching some of the other TikToks. But you could try to make an information video where you just introduce yourself to the audience. That’s a great thing. That’s what I did at first too. You can use a trending sound and do a dance; if that’s up your alley, go for it, try it, see if you like it. You can try your hand at a duet where you find a video that you really love, and then you decide to duet it. You have a split screen, and this is how you make a video for your listeners. So my suggestion is you just have to start making videos.

Rose Griffin: Once you get in and you start making videos, you’re going to feel more comfortable with finding sounds that you really love, with finding sound clips that resonate with your audience, and with editing as well. There is amazing organic tools right in TikTok, and I use the editing tools that are right in the platform. You can edit, you can start a timer, there’s different effects. All of that can seem a little overwhelming at first, but the more time that you spend on there, the more time that you can make videos that are going to reach your ideal client and you can start building a community.

Rose Griffin: I have had so many amazing opportunities and relationships that I’ve built from my time, my very short time really, on TikTok. I have had people do consultations with me, and I’ve met them on TikTok. I’ve had people who have signed up for my courses, and I have found those people through TikTok. I’ve also had a couple guest opportunities on other people’s podcasts. The one podcast I was just on talking about helping autistic students was an account that has 500,000 followers. So it was amazing to do a collaboration with those two individuals that I was on the podcast with, but it was amazing because they could share that information with their audience as well. How amazing to build those connections, and it all started on TikTok, which is so amazing. So that is my strategy for you.

Rose Griffin: So let’s sum up what we’ve talked about so far. Make sure that you download the app. Just do it. You don’t have to tell anybody you downloaded TikTok yet. Create that profile when you’re ready with your business name and let people know what you do. Keep it clear and simple. And the next step is to start making those videos. Just do it, post them, see what people really love and enjoy hearing from you.

Rose Griffin: All right, my next strategy is to make a plan. Every week, I make a plan for what videos I’m going to make that week and I stick to the plan. So sometimes I write it down on my dry-erase board. Sometimes I jot down notes on a scratch pad. And then the most important thing I do is I batch videos for the week. Now you may already be in this mode, if you’re an entrepreneur and you have a small business that’s online, because we know that short-form video is absolutely where it’s at. So wherever you are on your journey with video, batching is going to be such a time saver.

Rose Griffin: So what I do throughout the week, I do spend a little bit of time on TikTok. And if you don’t have the time to do that, that is totally fine. I offer some coaching and guidance for people who are hesitant to get started with short-form video. That’s completely fine but what you want to do is you want to make a note and you want to make a plan of what videos you want to make for your TikTok account. And so what I do is throughout the week, I make a little mental note of what videos and what sounds I want to use or what topics I want to cover with my audience that week. And then I batch all of those videos at once. It probably takes me about, I would say 45 minutes to an hour, once a week. And then I have all of my TikTok material for the entire week, which is amazing. You just do it, and you’re done.

Rose Griffin: And what you can do is you can even write the notes you’re going to write, the copy. You can include hashtags on your TikTok, which I encourage you. Just like other social media platforms, those hashtags are going to let your audience find you. I actually just had a call with a potential client yesterday, a discovery call, and I said, I always ask, “How did you find my account? How did you find out about ABA Speech?” And she said, “I was searching for a certain hashtag and I found your account. You had many, many videos made about speech therapy and autistic learners.”

Rose Griffin: And I love that. I’ve had my business long enough that I love to ask that question: “How did you find out about me?” When I first started my business, I was a little hesitant to ask that, because I was just so excited that somebody had found my business. But as I grow in this journey of being an entrepreneur, I love to ask that question because I want to know. If you found me on TikTok, that’s great. I get emails weekly from people who have found my account just that way. So make your plan, make your videos, and batch, batch, batch. The amazing thing is, is that these videos that you’re making for TikTok, you can also utilize on Instagram as a Reel.

Rose Griffin: So my last tip and my last strategy is going to be, how can you take your TikTok and take the watermark off and upload it onto Instagram as a Reel. If you don’t know what a reel is, a reel is on Instagram. It is short form video and honestly, if you scroll through Instagram, this is almost all that you see. So this is where you get a two for one deal. You can make your TikTok, you can use this website called SnapTik, and I have this, I put together a PDF download guide for you. I’m going to share this link for the show notes. It’s going to recap what I talked about here today, and it has this website link. You don’t have to search for it. This is going to allow you to copy your TikTok link, put it through this website, which is free, and it’s going to allow you to take that TikTok watermark off and upload it as an Instagram Reel. That is my secret TikTok hack.

Rose Griffin: And I’ll tell you what, I do this every single week. And you can see how I do it. ABA Speech by Rose is my Instagram and you can see, I am utilizing one video, but I am putting it in two different places. And I’ll tell you what, these Reels really, really resonate with my audience and they get thousands and thousands of views, which always blows my mind, but I just love reaching people in that way.

Rose Griffin: So let’s recap what we talked about today in our episode. You need to get on TikTok for your small business. You can do it. Every day that you don’t get on TikTok, your competitors are coming over and they are starting a profile. So download TikTok. Spend some time watching the videos. Create a profile with your business name. Let people know what you do. Start making those videos. Don’t be shy. Get started. Make a plan and batch your videos. And if you’re ready to optimize your TikTok and use my secret TikTok hack, you can use your TikTok videos and put them on Instagram as a Reel.

Rose Griffin: I’m so glad that I had time to spend with you today to talk about utilizing TikTok for your small business. I am going to include in the show notes, a link so you can download your TikTok starter guide today. I do offer social media audits, TikTok coaching, Instagram coaching too. Visit me, I will include my email, [email protected]. I can’t wait to help you on your marketing journey.

Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at smartpassiveincome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.