Passive Income With Tik Tok

Passive Income with Tik Tok? This week's guest is a pro at building a following on Tik Tok and converting that following into passive income revenue! Hear how Austin Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder of SocialtyPro, shares his best practices and personal strategy to leveraging Tik Tok to generate passive income.

Austin Armstrong is a lifelong digital marketer, public speaker, and CEO of Socialty Pro, a digital marketing agency specializing in TikTok marketing for businesses and Search Engine Optimization. He is also the host of BusinessTok, a TikTok marketing podcast interviewing real businesses that leverage TikTok to launch and scale their companies.

Austin has posted over 1500 videos on TikTok tripling his own business and thousands more across his clients' accounts.

Austin loves helping individuals and companies grow their online presence in order to generate brand awareness, thought leadership, customers, and product sales by getting creative and thinking outside of the box.

Mastermind - www.thepassiveincomeexaminer.com/mastermind

Connect with Austin - www.socialtypro.com

https://www.tiktok.com/@socialtypro

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/businesstok-a-tiktok-marketing-podcast/id1612378488

Lindsay:

Hey everybody. And welcome back to the passive income examiner podcast. I'm excited again, to bring you a phenomenal guest today, we have Austin Armstrong. He's the CEO of social pros, which is an organic TikTok marketing digital agency. And we are gonna dive into how to use TikTok to create passive income. So thank you Austin, for joining us. I'm so happy to have you here,

Austin:

Lindsay. Thank you so much for having me on I, I really appreciate it and it's an honor.

Lindsay:

It's my pleasure. Well, let's start by just learning a little bit about you. Tell me kind of, how did you get to where you are and, and what got you. Why what's your, why? Why are you doing this?

Austin:

Sounds yeah, sounds good. I'll, I'll take it back. Um, pretty far. So I've been actually doing digital marketing for about 17 years, which is more than half of my life. I started back doing social media, uh, on my space of all platforms as, as a we, uh, 14 year old, just sorta stumbled into it and, uh, uh, fell in love with it immediately and, and never looked back. So I've, um, been along for the journey, uh, mostly behind the scenes, uh, as all of the platforms have, um, come and gone. Um, I went the agency route, uh, early on in my professional career. So went from intern to paid intern, to part-time, to full-time, uh, which led me to working with, uh, various other, their businesses as their, um, uh, head of digital, uh, mostly in the behavioral marketing or the behavioral health space. So working with drug and alcohol treatment centers and psychologists and therapists and, and whatnot.

Austin:

And, about, three years ago, I started my own, digital marketing agency, called social Ty pro. And we really started by specializing in social media marketing, video marketing and search engine optimization. And I joined TikTok about two and a half years ago, and it was really the greatest decision. Uh, I had ever made. Uh, it has completely changed my life and, and, uh, in the last year and a half, we've really gone all in on, on TikTok. So, um, it's just changed my, you know, the answer, your question of the why, uh, this platform has changed my life. Uh, and now I'm sort of on a mission to just put out all of the information that I can so that at least people can see the opportunity of how it could potentially change their lives as well.

Lindsay:

Yeah. So let's, um, let's talk about that. You mentioned kind of before we started to record that you can talk about anything TikTok related except dancing, which I love because I think that's what so many people think of it as is, you know, just a place to go be goofy, and somehow that's gonna bring us clients and there's this like ambiguous ball of unknown that, you know, leaves us all. Wonder how in the heck do we use TikTok or leverage it for business. So let's talk a little bit about that. Mm-hmm what are some strategies that you used or that you kind of came to discover very, uh, helpful for you and for your business?

Austin:

Well, in really good marketing strategies in general, you have to know exactly who you wanna reach really clearly define your, your target audience, your target buyer, your target, persona buyer, persona, whatever it is that you wanna call it. Um, the, the more detailed and more outlined that you can, uh, put together, uh, the better you're gonna have a filter of, uh, content creation, guidelines and, and whatnot. Once you have that clearly outlined it's about educating and providing value to that person. So while there's, you know, fun trends that come and go on the platform and, you know, silly dances where you might point at stuff on there, or do different ski, uh, skits or sketches and, and whatnot, what I've really found is the most valuable in, and this might be a little counterintuitive for some people initially, but to give your best information away for free, I've been doing digital marketing, as I said for 17 years.

Austin:

So I had just have so much knowledge of, of websites at, and, and tips and strategies from so many different platforms of how businesses can grow their presence online. And I decided to give all of that information a, a way for free in short bite size pieces of information that people can take the information, implement it for themselves, uh, and, and scale, and grow their business. And jet generate income, generate leads, generate sales and, and actually change their life. And this has had a, a completely adverse effect because I've been giving all of that information away for free more people are likely to follow me because they want more information, but they know me. They like me, and they trust me, which ultimately me when I make a, a hard sell video or when I tell them the next steps that they can take, or even if they just wanna investigate who I am and what our agency does, uh, on their own. I make it very easily accessible for them to take the next steps, but they, because they trust me. And because I show up every single day providing free value, it has changed my life. The, the amount of passive income it's generated business that it's generated. It it's helped me grow my team. It has just been phenomenal. So give as much a way as you possibly can, because that's how you're gonna earn trust.

Lindsay:

So is there like a certain type of that works better than others? I mean, is there just a talking head, is it better to stand back from the camera? I mean, is there, is there any sort of strategy to that or is it just kind of, Hey, just get the it's about the information and the quality of the content, not necessarily how it's filmed?

Austin:

Yeah, it's a combination of, of both. So I think if you have really good, valuable content tent, you'll get really far my, how I shoot 99% of my videos is just holding the, the camera up and selfie mode, uh, starting an opening hook. You know, here's three ways that you can get more website traffic. And then what I'll typically do is I'll, I'll flip the camera around and I'll just record on my computer screen and say, you know, here's tip number one, do this X, Y, and Z tip number two X, Y, and Z. And then I'll flip the camera back around on selfie mode again, and just have a closing call to action. You know, one specific call to action, share this video with yourselves. So you can take action on it later. Or if you want more information about this, you can click the link in my bio to schedule a call with me, you know, um, really specific structure, opening, hook value, closing, call to action.

Austin:

That's how I personally do it, um, for reference, uh, I don't think we had mentioned, I have 320 something thousand five followers. I do several million views a month. So just by doing something as low key as that, you can have a lot of success on the platform. Now, when we're, uh, shooting with a, a particular client, um, we like to get a little more fancy if you will, because they're hiring us, they're paying for us to, to do something for them. We do wear both with remote clients, as well as, uh, a video production team in, uh, orange county and, uh, Los Angeles, California. And so what we'll do with them is, is a popular style of sort of fun, quick edits. So we'll present a, a frequently asked question to somebody. Let me give you an example of, um, like we're working with a therapist, uh, and he's a narcissism expert.

Austin:

So we'll ask him questions. Like, what are the signs that you're in a relationship with a narcissist, for instance, um, we'll have the camera guy ask that question on camera. He'll begin to answer it in typically one line or, or two lines, and then we'll do something on motion where he, you know, hides behind something or puts his hand up to the, uh, to the camera lens, uh, or, you know, just panning up or panning to the side or something like that. And that, that first shot connects directly into the next shot. And what this does, is it sort of, um, uh, triggers you to keep attention. So they're little, uh, attention hacks. Um, if you will, to hold the attention, uh, through the pieces of information, and it's all presented in one line at a time bullet pointed information, extremely valuable that they can take something away. So those are two very common, uh, different ways that we create content, both work exceptionally well.

Lindsay:

Interesting. Well, I like to hear that there's, you know, I, I believe that too, there's multiple ways to get to the end result and they, most of the time work, if you work, 'em, , I'm sure it's probably more about consistency than anything else. Yeah. Consistency. Well, okay. So like when you first started diving into and, you know, it was kind of a new world, everybody was on there, it was trying to figure it out. Uh, did you happen to have any particular videos that went viral that got you started or do you think it was just a longevity of staying on the platform for so long, that's build up your growth?

Austin:

Uh, I did. And, uh, let me tell you a little bit about my early days on TikTok. So when I first got started, I had no game plan, uh, and it was terrible. It sucked to be honest. it's good. Yeah. Uh, I tried to, I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to figure it out like everybody at, at first I spent a lot of time I'm watching, uh, videos and watching similar creators. I tried to do some of the like trends and, and dances and stuff like that. And, and it really felt flat. I didn't get any growth or any momentum for, for months. I think I had, I was being pretty consistent. Like every couple days I would upload a video or something like that. Mostly it was random stuff. And then occasionally I'd do a, a business, uh, related video, but it was a lot of just fun.

Austin:

For instance, zero traction. I think I had, in three months I had gained like 300 followers or, or something like that, which is relatively low for the, for the platform. And what happened was I, I was let go for my job at the time. And I had went all in on my business at that time and even more so I made the decision to go all in on, on TikTok. And I wanted to, I had sort of an epiphany, I guess of let me, you know, why am I on this platform in the first place? I'm not gaining any traction, doing these silly trends and whatnot. If I want to go all in, on my business and leverage this tool as a way to generate income leads and sales for my business, I have to niche down. I have to hyper focus and I have to just create content around what my agency does, which is offer social media, marketing, video marketing, and search engine optimization.

Austin:

And so as soon as I pivoted that pretty quickly, uh, traction started to happen. So in the first week or two, uh, growth started, uh, it was, uh, steady at first. So I was creating Instagram videos or, you know, tips about ins how to grow on Instagram, how to grow on YouTube, SEO tips, Pinterest tips, like all of these different platforms. Uh, and I was kind of going about it in a, in a cycle, you know, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, SEO, et cetera, until an SEO video really took off. That was the first, uh, viral video that I had. It was, uh, uh, do this before you post any image on your website. And it was talking about compressing that image, um, to reduce the files so that it can help speed up your website, which is not something that you think would go viral, uh, on, on TikTok.

Austin:

And I think I also mentioned something about, uh, um, uh, geo tagging that image, which is a technical term and, and not for local SEO. Um, but that video did about a million views, which for somebody that had a couple hundred, maybe 1000 followers of that time was massive. And that took me from a couple hundred to, um, maybe a thousand followers to like eight or 9,000 followers in the next like 48 hours or something like that. And I started to generate, uh, leads in business that way. And what I did immediately after that is I pivoted and I went almost all in on SEO. And I did, what's called a video response, which is a TikTok, uh, feature. You can actually respond to comments with a video. I res I did a video response to every single comment that I could. I cranked out hundreds of videos over the next two weeks.

Austin:

And that really skyrocketed my account that gave me 10, 20, 30,000 followers or something like that, because what it did was it created all of these individual videos linked back into that one initial viral video. I pivoted my profile and I really became known for SEO on TikTok. Nobody was really talking about SEO, uh, on the platform at, at that time, if you think about other platforms like YouTube or , you know, just being an SEO space on Google, it, it it's so saturated, even Instagram, you know, it's been, there's a mill and creators talking about SEO, but nobody was doing it on TikTok. That was my opportunity. So I seized it and became known as that SEO guy, uh, for instance. And, um, that was those, those were the early days. So just,

Lindsay:

Yeah, well, that's a good story. I mean, it's good to know that, like, you know, you just kept at it, I'm hearing you, that you focused on being intentional. You weren't really sure what you were intentional about even. So there were still some experimental going on and then all of a sudden something kind of took off and then that gave you the clue, like, okay, here's, what's up, that's neat. And I'm glad you brought up the SEO, because that was actually a question that I had is how relevant is SEO to TikTok. Like, so for example, you know, I do lot of keyword search opt, you know, like analytics, I guess, is what I'm trying to say before I come up with a headline for my podcast. Right. Because podcasts are searchable. Yep. And so how true is that for TikTok? Is that something that people are using and is there, I guess I could go down a buddy trail here, but is there like a special way to determine what key phrases people are using in TikTok? Because I'm gonna guess it's probably different than Google.

Austin:

Yeah. So it is extremely relevant. First of all, um, I have maybe not so controversial of opinion. Um, but every social media platform is a search engine. People are just looking for information differently than like Google being YouTube, other search engines out there. They're searching for loose information around a particular topic. They're searching for accounts, they're searching for hashtags, but they're still looking for relevant information. So there's not like a keyword research tool, as far as I'm aware, um, of finding phrases that people are searching for on TikTok. However, what we actively do is we're, we're leveraging SEO keyword tools like a hf.com SIM rush.com. Uber suggests any keyword research tool out there. And looking at frequently asked questions that people are searching for on Google. And we're creating videos, answering every single one of those questions, because it's still human. That's asking that question.

Austin:

There's still going to be into around that topic. And it's untapped doing that on TikTok right now. And so what we do is we optimize around that particular, uh, question or search term. For instance, we put it in the actual description of the video. We put it in the headline, um, of that, uh, video, the, uh, the cover photo, the display, uh, we turn on transcriptions so that, um, or, uh, captions so that the captions display on that as well. And then we optimize the profile around that subject matter as, as well. So like the, going back to the therapist example, uh, his profile name on the profile, not his username, but his display name is orange county, California therapist. So anybody in California, anybody in orange county that is looking for a therapist near them, he's gonna be the first one to come up because nobody else is, is leveraging it as a search engine. And it's real it's um, the TikTok, um, discoverability platform is really interesting and, and, uh, um, specific on what you're able to search for. So you can type a question in type in a long tail keyword, and it's gonna show you specific videos that are related to that search or to that query. So it very much so acts as a search engine, and it's an opportunity.

Lindsay:

I, I am with you on that. And I've heard recently, and I CA I didn't personally verify this, but it was on another podcast. Uh, I don't know if you've heard of the social media examiner. He had a ticket oh, yeah.

Austin:

On there, Mike Kelner.

Lindsay:

Yes, I know. And he had somebody on there and they were saying that, you know, I think it was last year or 2020, it was 21 or 20 that TikTok, outranked, Google as a search engine. Yeah. And especially when you look at the demographic of younger people, and that's another thing we can talk about is how, like, what businesses, I love the idea that you have a therapist just looking at TikTok because, you know, you have to yourself, a lot of people say, well, TikTok is for the younger crowd, you know, is it really a space for me? And I've heard other people who say I've really blown up TikTok, and it's not producing anything for me. I don't see why I'm there. So there's all these, you know, pros and cons and just random information, and everybody's gonna have their own experience. So what do you say to those things? Like, what's your, what's your opinions on those kinds of topics?

Austin:

Yeah. So, uh, you have to be really intentional on why you're on TikTok, what you wanna get out of it, and then who you wanna reach of course, and then create intentional content around that. If you're just jumping on trends, you know, you can have a million followers, but not generate any income, just because you have followers doesn't mean that you're actually gonna generate leads in sales. I started gaining clients on TikTok when I had five, six, 7,000 followers. You really don't need that many followers or, or views as long as you're really intentional. And you're creating valuable pieces of information for who you're trying to reach. So be really specific. Um, when you have a, a thousand followers in your, uh, a thousand followers on TikTok, you're able to add a link in your bio. And that link is how you're gonna actually start to generate, uh, leads in, in sales and, and business is having a really strategic link in your bio, whether it's, uh, to a sales page, to, um, a Calendarly or to like a link expander tool, like link tree or beacons, or, you know, one of the, the million that are out there now.

Austin:

So you can turn that one link in into many, uh, but I can tell you firsthand, uh, I've generated a lot of revenue from directly from TikTok as have all of our clients. We're managing about 10, uh, TikTok accounts for various businesses in various industries right now, very successfully, but it comes down to intention. Uh, again, you're messaging who you're trying to reach. What do you want to get out of that really be clear. You wanna create different, uh, levels of funnels of, of your content as well. Right? Uh, so really good marketing content here is, uh, you know, there's awareness stage, which is going to be the largest bucket of content, you know, really general information. That's going to attract the most amount of people, content that nurtures, uh, you're a existing followers. So, um, builds upon ideas that you've, that you've talked about in the past, showing specific examples of implementation and then direct sales videos as well, which is a hard sell video.

Austin:

It's a hard sell video is never gonna go viral. yeah. You say, you know, click the link in my bio to schedule a call with me and, and we, you can sign up for my, my agency's SEO services, right? That's not gonna go viral and I don't want it to go viral, but it's specific to the people that are already in my funnel that I've already nurtured through continuing to put out educational content, they're ready for a video like that, uh, which is gonna, you know, if a regular video gets 10,000 views, 50,000 views, a million views, whatever one of these videos is gonna get a thousand views, 2000 views, 3000 views, et cetera, but it's gonna convert like crazy, and it's gonna generate sometimes hundred leads from that one specific video. So let's Have to,

Lindsay:

Oh, say that again. I talked over you say that again?

Austin:

No, no. Yeah. Um, it, it can, and absolutely does work, but you have to stick with it and you have to have that methodology in place.

Lindsay:

Okay. Sometimes I get ahead of myself. So, um, what is some, what are some specific strategies? I mean, you have a call to action video, every what, 10 videos, or, I mean, how often do you produce one like that?

Austin:

Yeah. Even less than that, you know, maybe one in every, uh, 30 videos or something like that. I, you know, 80, 90% of the content that I put out there is completely free, valuable, uh, information, cuz I don't wanna oversell, uh, I don't want my channel to be infomercials. Um, I just want, uh, to provide value. My whole goal of my channel is that I thoroughly believe that if someone binge watches my videos, they will have all of the tools that they can grow and scale a business for themselves.

Lindsay:

Now that right there is a quote if you wanna be on you wanna be a success on TikTok. Imagine if everybody could watch your TikTok feed and have all the information they need to be successful. Now that's a good way to get your content started.

Austin:

Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Lindsay:

Now let's take it to the next level. So you finally figured out the sauce to kinda get your TikTok to go viral and you know, to grow your audience. How did you monetize that aside from the, the specific obvious, Hey, click here to schedule with me. What else have you done and strategically what have you done to make it passive?

Austin:

Yeah. So, let me think out loud of all the different ways that I, that I've monetized. So, um, uh, affiliate marketing is, uh, is a great passive strategy. So, creating videos, promoting products or services, I do a lot of, uh, website reviews of, of SaaS products and whatnot. So setting up affiliate marketing for that, having, links to that in, in my bio. So I'll do a video on, you know, this is the most, most useful website, if you wanna grow your Instagram account. Right. And I highlight all of the videos and then I CLO I do a closing call to action. Like you can try it in my bio right now for a free trial click that link in there. Um, and then they'll go, a percentage of them will sign up and then I get affiliate commission for that. Uh, I also do digital downloads, uh, which is another passive strategy.

Austin:

So I have, uh, downloadable eBooks, uh, for sale as well as, uh, video courses. Uh, and those links, uh, live in, uh, in my Beacon's link as, as well as the link expander tool that I use. Uh, so every now and then I'll put in a video like, you know, here's, uh, here's nine ways that you can increase your rankings on Google, my business, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you want my complete Google, my business secrets ebook, you can get it in my bio now. And I charge $9 for that. I believe. So that drives, decent sales. And then I do the same thing with my, my SEO course. I think I'm charging two 90 and for my, uh, SEO video course right now, um, create tons of SEO videos. I did a, um, a course launch for that. So I hyped it up over like two months did a pre, uh, pre-launch sale did that.

Austin:

Uh, but just having that link in my buy on reminding people from time to time, uh, that drives sales there, I also have free email, uh, checklists as well. Uh, so to build my email list. So I say, you know, I'll do I just released one of these videos yesterday? Did you know that I, uh, created, uh, an SEO check, a free SEO checklist for you, of everything that you need to do to grow your business. You can get it in my bio right now and that'll generate a hundred, a hundred emails every, uh, every time that I do that video. And then that sends people into an automated drip campaign and that automated email drip campaign also has links in, um, into my, uh, digital download ebook, the video course, consultation, bookings, et cetera. Those are most of the passive income strategies that I use, but I also do a lot of, promote paid promotions for businesses.

Austin:

so like brand deals, if you will. So to purposely promote, some of the websites that I do, sometimes they want a non, uh, just a paid for UGC. So they want me to create the video, but it doesn't necessarily be hosted on my profile. They just wanna run ads on their account. What else do I do? lead general for other, uh, other businesses as, as well. So, um, like if we don't do any paid advertising, but I have partners that, uh, at other agencies that do paid advertising, we're entirely organic. And so if I generate a lead and send that to them and they land, I get a commission of that as well. and then those are, those are quite a few strategies.

Lindsay:

Yeah. That's great. Well, I'm hearing, this is what I'm a proponent of is not just creating a passive income product, but a system. And that's really what you've outlined and it's something we've talked about a lot. So on the podcast is, you know, creating that system and it takes really a thought time, energy to map it out. And then just to take it one little bite at a time, how long did it take you to go, like kind of from zero to kind of, I wouldn't say necessarily where you are now, because I'm sure that's been, you know, quite a while, but let let's say, like, you were comfortable, like you had quit your job or you had gotten laid off and you needed to supplement your income. So kind of what was the timeframe that it got you from? Just figuring it out to, Hey, I can do this now. I got this, I got the rhythm.

Austin:

Yeah. So, in three months, we were already generating enough income just from driving, uh, sale lead calls and, and sales, uh, to completely, I was actually making more money than I was at my job at the time in that, in that timeframe. But it's taken about a year and a half, to build up all of these other streams, that I've mentioned. it's not, you know, just like you said, like it's, you know, a lot of this can be overwhelming. You don't need to have a million different monetization avenues off the bat. You don't, you don't need to, you know, have the, the free checklist, the, the ebook, the, the video course, the, uh, the brand deals, the, um, the, the EGC, the, um, the lead gen opportunities affiliate my market, you know, all of these different things. You can just do one at a time and then build on it.

Austin:

And once you have that, that system in place, you know, build, go onto the next thing, go onto the next thing. So like maybe once a month, I work on creating a new funnel, uh, that'll generate income. And then I test, and I, I, uh, I start to implement that until it's, you know, ready to rock and it's completely automated and, and good to go. And then I'll start working on the next thing and start working on the next thing. so it takes time. but you know, you can, you can get really far in the, in like a month or two by, you know, having a solid offer, I'd start with a free email opt, so that you can start to build your email list. And then from there start to, to monetize from there

Lindsay:

Mm-hmm and then also have that map, like have the big picture in mind. Yes. So, you know, what direction you're going, that's important, which mm-hmm obviously you must have figured that out at some point, and then you started just ticking off the boxes. mm-hmm so that's great. Yeah, we,

Austin:

Yeah, I've set up like a mind map thing before, you know, so it, you can visualize it a little bit. Like there's a lot of information up here, but it's so good to, to visualize it. So you can like check things off.

Lindsay:

What's really cool about this. Like, and this is coming from my perspective where I think about passive income strategy as a funnel, and ultimately it's a come content marketing engine that drives the traffic to the sales and content marketing is typically a long form content strategy, such as, you know, blogging, podcasting, YouTube, whatnot, whereas TikTok, it's interesting that you've done so well there because it's considered a short form content, but so many people are on the platform. So many people are using it now in a different way that I think it's really something for more business owners to take notice of and really get in now, uh, and build that out because it's going to be, I think, in the ranks of blogging and all the, I mean, you've just proven it, you've just literally explained the same process that bloggers have used to be successful and podcasters have used to be successful. You're literally using that in a TikTok strategy, which is, which is awesome. frankly.

Austin:

Yeah. I, I would, expand on it. It too, it's so important right now to have a short form vertical video strategy because every platform is adopting. It you're even seeing them on television. We see TikTok videos on ESPN. every everywhere, you know, walk into a, a subway, walk into a train station, walk into, uh, an airport. You're gonna see vertical videos on television screens with black on the side. Vertical video is, is here to stay mm-hmm . Now Instagram rolled out reels, YouTube rolled out shorts. Facebook has reels now. Um, uh, Pinterest is a vertical FLA, platform. LinkedIn supports vertical video, Twitter supports vertical video, even Google my business ports, vertical video. And so what you can do is by having a really, well thought out short form, vertical video strategy, you can leverage that across all of your social media platforms. So you can have one video and repurpose it across everywhere. And it like a charm right now. Mm-hmm

Lindsay:

that makes total sense. And I really, I really, I wanna just recap a couple things you said that I think are worthy of rehashing because to me, you know, I'm, I'm, I listen and I pick up on things. And one of the things that I noticed you said was like going in and looking up what people are searching for and what questions, what frequent ask questions or people asking around a topic and then creating a video to answer each of those. What were those three? You mentioned three websites specifically where you were getting that kind of information. Can you repeat those please?

Austin:

Yeah. A H refs.com. That's a H R E F s.com SIM rush.com SCM R h.com and Uber suggest.io and all of these. so Uber suggest has, the best free, plan where you don't even need to sign up and you can get a lot of this information. HFS and URA are agency standard tools. That can be a little pricey, but it's so worth it. If you're doing any sort of SEO work on, on your website and, and really how to leverage this, to do exactly what I was talking about is you can just type in something related to your industry. So to continue with that example of the therapist, you can type in narc like, narcissist in their key, in the keyword tool, and then you can filter it by I questions. And what it's gonna do is it's gonna show you all of the questions that people are searching for online that include the word narcissist, and, and now you have a year's worth of content strategy. for your social media platform. Woo. You

Lindsay:

Can do done.

Austin:

You just answer each one of those questions in a 32nd video. You're good.

Lindsay:

That's I mean, that's so simple. It's and you know what I love about it is it doesn't involve dancing.

Austin:

No, no dancing

Lindsay:

or trendy music. Like that's the other hangup I get on is like, I don't know, trendy music. I'm a country girl. I'm listening to nineties country over here. Okay. Like I'm not listening to the journey music oh man. That's great. Well, this has been just phenomenal. I mean, so much good information it's worth, you know, listening to this episode more than once because it's got such good, good nuggets of things, and you've literally mapped out the whole content strategy for people if they wanna take it on themselves. So what if they don't, how would they find you? What if they would rather just work with you directly?

Austin:

Yeah. So, uh, firstly, if you wanna learn, more, about how other businesses are, are leveraging TikTok to grow their business and, and generate income, I'd suggest checking out my podcast. It's called business talk business T K you're gonna get a lot of information there, but if you wanna contact me directly, um, you can find me anywhere online at social Ty pro I'd suggest, just go over to TikTok. find me on there at social Ty pro that'll be the nest place and we can connect on there.

Lindsay:

See, and you didn't even direct him to a website. How about that? It's like your TikTok has become your website in a way. How cool.

Austin:

Yes. Yeah. That I, I love it. Yeah. I, we have a website, social pro.com, but I honestly, I get so much more out of our social .

Lindsay:

Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, you know, one thing it's come up on my podcast a few times and it's really been on my brain, like just in general, thinking about, is a way to develop a community and how important that is. And, and it seems like in this online space, more and more, despite the fact that we have technology to bring us closer together, we still are more isolated. It's like, here's my TikTok one way video and go to my link and buy this. And that seems like the, the, the modus operandi of everybody in the online world and what I'm really loving is how TikTok could create that dual relationship because they can comment. Yeah, you can. How do you do that? Let me ask you that on your, on your TikTok videos, what is some of the ways that you encourage and get engagement and kind of get your, uh, viewers to like message you?

Austin:

Yeah. So TikTok has some of the best, uh, engagement avenues, of any platform that I found. It, it's just amazing and Instagram copied this one feature recently. but just by asking your audience questions regularly, VE in, engage in the comment section, you know, do a video on a particular topic and, and prompt them and say, what do you think about this? Let me know, or what, what do you think we should do in our next video? And then what you can do is a video response. So, um, this is one of the most powerful features that was unique, uh, to TikTok for a while. But, uh, when you get a comment, any comment you can, um, respond to that comment with a video and the comment displays on the actual video for as long as, as you want. And think about that from a professional stance.

Austin:

Like we work a lot with therapists and, and doctors, a Dick specialists and whatnot. What platform out there on the internet, can you ask a doctor a question and get an answer that's, you know, somewhat personalized as much as they're legally and ethically able to of of course, right. But to, to bridge that gap is so amazing, right? Like, you know, people can book a consultation with me or they can answer, or, you know, ask me a question on social. And if I think it's gonna be generally applicable to a lot of people, I will answer that comment with as much, uh, value as, as I possib. So that is a wonderful way. And then going live, uh, is a great way to build a tribe as well, go live. As often as you can answer every question on there, that's, what's really gonna build a lot of rapport and you can drive sales from your live streams, like crazy if you're generating a lot of value.

Austin:

And what you can do too, is, um, uh, I, I believe you have to have a thousand followers in order to go live as well. But what you can do is you can invite other people, onto your live too, which then goes out to both of your channel's followers that you're both live and they can come on, they can ask you a, a question. You can respond to them right there, and then boot 'em out. If they, you know, say something and bad or something like that, you have total control, of course . Um, but there's so many awesome ways that, that you can engage with an audience and, and, and build that out. Like there's a Q and a function on everybody's profiles where people can ask you questions and they're publicly stored on, on your profile. And you can do video responses to all of those questions and their whole organized, it's just a fantastic way to build rapport.

Lindsay:

Wow. Really? I had no idea. I'm so glad we have this conversation because I've been in my own little space, kind of wondering what social media platform am I gonna go all in on? Cause there's so many, and they all seem to have a way to make it work. Like we said, but I've been on the fence with T to just trying to figure out what is my strategy. So you just nailed it. I'm so excited to dive in and really try it out. Like I'm, I'm really pumped up about it. Um, I'm glad this is, this has been great. I mean, I've spent my last year and a half focusing on my long form content, and I know I can easily branch out into small form. I just need to kind of have a, a way to go and to, so thank you. Well, is there any other last little bits of wisdom or tidbits you wanna impart on anybody before we wrap up?

Austin:

Well, I hope this it, it at least broadens people's perspectives on the platform of, of what's pop. Uh, what's possible. So many people still have that miscon option that it's a kids dancing app or a music lips syncing app, but there are businesses thriving on this platform in every industry. So what I'd suggest is if you're on the fence at all, give it a shot, get on the platform, start researching other creators in your industry, give it a shot, give it a month, give it one month of creating 32nd videos every day. See what it can do for you. And if it's not for you after that one month, forget it and say, you, you thoroughly tested out. You tried it. It's not for you, but just give it a chance because it just might change your life too.

Lindsay:

Definitely. Wonderful. This has been great. Great. Thank you so much.

Austin:

Thank you, Lindsey.