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Another Day
TikTok Business or Personal
When I first started with TikTok, I was advised to join with a business account. I was led to believe that with a verified business account, once you have 1000 followers, you would be able to include a clickable link to your website in the bio section of your profile.
I got quite excited this week. I thought the rules had changed when I discovered that I was able to add the clickable website link even though I had less than 100 followers. I even posted to the Certified Partners group sharing the news.
I was then advised that business accounts seem to be much harder to grow organically. The sound library you have access to is limited as well, so I would be better off changing it to a personal account after all. Oh well, you live and learn. I will have to relinquish my clickable status for now.
This week’s progress
I managed to complete the training for week 11 of the Beginner’s Advantage this week and published my blog post well in time for the Saturday Share. I think I received the most comments ever for one of my posts. People are so supportive and helpful.
I made two more videos for TikTok trying to be “myself” and I feel I’m slowly getting the hang of it. I’ve been adding the earlier ones to Facebook, just testing the water, so to speak.
One step forward…
The other day I had a great surprise. I was checking my contacts in the backend of Affiliate System and discovered that I had gained my first external email subscriber. I was over the moon and made it the subject of one of the new TikTok videos.
At last, my efforts were beginning to work. The gentleman in question had left a comment on one of the Facebook videos asking for more information. I replied by directing him to my link tree.
…And two steps back
However, I have just discovered that his entry in the contacts section of the app had three tags. Single Optin (Yes!), Confirmed Optin (Great!) and another marked “+1”. I thought “what’s this?” Having clicked on said button, it revealed “Email Unsubscribe” (Oh dear!).
Think of the positives, I said to myself, at least it shows that the unsubscribe button in the emails is working. I am not deterred; I will continue to make more videos and keep learning from these experiences. Rome was not built in a day and affiliate marketing will not be mastered quickly. I’m determined to get there! I still consider that I have made progress this week, despite this minor set back. I am sure he will not be the last to unsubscribe and they will be in the minority.
It’s All About YouTube
This week’s training was all about YouTube and some very useful tips on how best to use it to promote yourself and your affiliate marketing business. Personally, I will not be following this path; I have TikTok as my primary platform and Facebook as my secondary and they will do me for now.
A lot of the information and recommendations could easily be applied to creating videos on any of the platforms. I won’t go into minute detail but I will share some of what I learned.
Some things I didn’t know about YouTube: –
- There are over 2.5 billion monthly users
- Over 1 billion hours of content are viewed daily
- YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine only surpassed by Google
- YouTube is the 2nd most visited website, again only surpassed by Google
- It’s only been in existence since 2005
- It was created as a video dating site originally and was reinvented as a video sharing platform when the writers discovered that people were posting videos of anything for amusement.
- In it’s first year of existence, it generated around $15,000 in revenue. By 2022, that figure had ballooned to nearly $20 billion a year.
One piece of “advice” resonated with me. It was the fact that your first attempts at videos will be terrible. Yep, they got that right!
Make lots of videos!
I’ll finish with a quote from Jimmy Donaldson, AKA “Mr Beast”. He has the 2nd biggest YouTube channel on earth. This made me laugh and I think this goes for any social media platform where videos are made and seen.
“Make 100 videos. It doesn’t matter what they are because they will be terrible, but do something you like doing. Your first ten will be garbage. Then make ten more; these will also be garbage, and so will the next ten. But eventually, things will start to improve. You’ll get better little by little, the best way to improve your content is to make content and see what people like.”
I’m currently up to video number 10. Oops!
How are you going with your video efforts? Let me know in the comments.
Until next time,
Take care.
You were busy this week! Great progress! I am torn on what primary platform to choose. I tend to overthink things and that really slows down my decision-making process. Your information on TikTok regarding choosing a personal or business account is appreciated. Just curious, what made you choose TikTok over YouTube? Thanks for this valuable post!
To be honest, I never considered YouTube. I saw the training on TikTok and thought that’s the one for me.
Hi Andy,
Great post! I just found out the other day about the personal account for TikTok. I had a business account and had to change it to personal. luckily, I haven’t posted anything yet. Sophie told me that a personal account will get you more viewers, and to also set it to “content creator” so you can track everything. I was able to switch to personal from business, but I haven’t figured out how to put it as content creator unless I make a whole other account. I don’t want to do that, because then I’ll lose all the people following me now. Thanks for the great information in your post. keep up the good work. I’m sure it will get easier for you as you go. The leads will come. You just have to say consistent and be patient.
Meredith
What a great productive week you had! I like You Tube. Always have. I’ve had my channel since 2011 and stopped for awhile, but am back!
I had no idea about TikTok business versus personal when I started. I wish I had known it sooner, but as they say, you don’t know what you don’t know. I’ll need to see if it is possible to switch from TikTok business to personal without losing anything, as the points you have brought up make a personal account seem like a better option!
Hi Alison
I changed from business to personal without losing anything (apart from the clickable link, of course).
Hi Andy,
I follow you on Tiktok. You are doing great. And I agree, our first videos are not good at all. But we all had to start someplace. Just stay on track and you will get there.
I’m also looking into Instagram and Youtube… So make sure you keep us all posted. It helps when we can see what others are doing. See you on Tiktok.
Sandy
congrats on making progress, and thanks for sharing what you learned about the business vs personal tiktok accounts – I’m going to be setting up an account soon and that’s good to know
Andy, brilliant post thank you so much. Firstly, regarding the thousand followers, it’s not very clear when you first join TT and what the benefits are of personal or business account. I did ask a question on this in the group early on and most people said just keep it as a personal one. The downside is that you can’t put a clickable link until 1000 however that’s exactly the incentive you need to have something to aim for. I’m at 503 now and it seems like a long way to go but I’ll get there. Regarding that guy that subscribed and then unsubscribed clearly he was just after the two training videos that you get when you sign up. Don’t worry about it if he wants to learn more and get further into it he’ll have to come back to you anyway. And even if he doesn’t so what, many others will join over time so don’t worry about it. Keep going. The MrBeast quote is so true. Just keep making videos. People will watch and you will learn and it will get better. All the best, thanks, Atif
Thanks for those words of encouragement, much appreciated. 500 followers already. That’s fantastic progress!
Hi, Andy!
Lessons learned are your success!
That’s what you’re sharing, and that’s where you get the value you’re giving to people, so well done!
I think I also created a TikTok business platform, so I will look into changing it before I delve into that world. Thank you for that help!
I’m going to use YouTube as my main strategy. I’m still learning how to get started. I expect that I shall do my first video this week or next. I’m getting excited about adding another layer to my business.
Keep sharing your progress! It’s helpful!
Nakina
Andy,
I am still contemplating about which platform to use for my primary social media platform. I am undecided between TikTok and YouTube. I will be making my decision this week and start posting my videos. I will take “Mr. Beast’s” advice and take a LOT of videos, good and bad. LOL. I look forward to your next post.
Sherri
Hi Andy,
Thank you for some great information – much of which I didn’t know as well regarding YouTube.
I really can appreciate and relate the fact that all our videos will not be “perfect” or even good in the beginning but like everything else, they will improve with time and after doing a few hundred 🙂 we should be experts!
All the best!
Andy,
As the song goes life a dance sometimes you lead and sometime you follow. Or put another way sometimes you take two steps back and then 3 steps forward and you learn as you go.
Each time we take a step back we learn something new that propels us forward.
Don’t let it get you discouraged it’s just part of the journey.
CJ