Every brand builder has a burning question… How do I ignite growth on TikTok in 2023? This episode unveils a treasure trove of insider insights, including the answers you’ve been waiting for.

Join us in welcoming Bronte Culleton, the expert in charge of Senior Growth & Strategy Management at TikTok, to Building Brand Advocacy. You’ll hear from host Paul, Verity (Duel’s Brand Advocacy Lead) and Bronte as they tackle your questions on organic growth, proven engagement strategies, and the inside track of TikTok and its algorithm. Touching on the importance of Live Streaming for creative brands, the benefits of utilizing TikTok Shop (now live in the UK & US) to drive revenue are unignorable. 

If you’re eager to immerse yourself in the world of TikTok and master the tactics needed to see success, buckle up. Bronte knows the ins and outs of building Advocacy on the platform, sharing insider know-how for traversing the TikTok terrain. Tune in for strategies that foster community and spark engagement on TikTok, alongside insider tips for fashion and beauty brands to see organic success on the platform.

Building Brand Advocacy 041: The TikTok Playbook: Winning strategies and insider growth tactics ft Bronte Culleton

Bronte: You need to provide value, free value, to your audience. People aren't going to want to support you like you. Unless you're giving them something. 

Paul: Have you ever wondered why some brands grow exponentially, building legions of passionate fans that live and die by their logos? And some, well, don't. I do. All the time.

Paul: And that's probably because I'm a massive brand nerd. I believe that there's a secret sauce at the core of every remarkable brand. A formula that sparks the growth of passionate communities of fans. And in this podcast, we're on a mission to uncover the first principles that any brand can apply to unlock that potential.

Paul: This includes principles of brand building in a hyper connected world, maintaining authenticity, and coordinating communities of advocates and fans to drive passion, awareness, community, and commerce. My name is Paul Archer, and I'm a specialist in brand advocacy, having consulted for hundreds of brands on the topic.

Paul: And in this pod, I interview the greatest brand building minds and share my own learnings along with those of the incredible team of experts that I work with. We'll be translating the tactics, strategies, and actionable insights. for brand builders to exacerbate their brand success. It's time to build brand advocacy.

Paul: Hello, welcome to building brand advocacy for a special episode. I'm joined by the amazing Verity from my team and the awesome Bronte Cullerton from TikTok. And we're going to be digging into the platform, digging into some of the techniques that brands can use. We have some questions that have been submitted by some of you guys as to those burning issues that you really want answered.

Paul: We're going to get stuck into it. You ready? Yeah. So TikTok, first of all, it's been a manic couple of years, right? So you guys have grown to become this juggernaut. It's went from something which, and not a lie, it was a joke. We always used to joke that one day we might integrate with TikTok and everyone would giggle to going live and hitting 10 million people in a month.

Paul: And it's just this insane thing. Every brand we work with is in the same scenario. They're like, yeah, this is huge. They're on it. They've been on it. They're seeing success. Some of them not seeing success. We're kind of reaching that equilibrium level now. What's next for TikTok over the next year or so?

Paul: Like where do you see things evolving? 

Bronte: Good question. One TikTok shop that's exploding. And I do think that. Again, like many people, they were like, this isn't going to last. It really is. We're seeing so many more brands adopt it. We're seeing a lot of success with TikTok shop and the fact that it is moving overseas, so it is launching the U S it's obviously huge in China.

Bronte: And I don't know if there's another country, but yeah, it's pretty huge in Asia. And I think a lot of people just thought we weren't the market for it, but TikTok was very much adapted to our market, uh, to the UK. So yeah, TikTok shops, massive. I think live streaming in general. I know there are some other apps, some other platforms that have tried to do it, but they're just not doing it as well.

Bronte: And then I think probably something that doesn't come from directly TikTok, but just more creative brands in general. I think as like consumers. We trust people more than brands. So if you can be the face of the brand and show it, then you're kind of winning. 

Paul: Oh, okay. Well, let's, let's dig into that. Those sort of three points that you've got there.

Paul: So I'm going to take the middle one first. So live streaming, right? Meta have tried it. And they've sunsetted it. I mean, social commerce, all these live streaming platforms, Firework and all the other ones, they've raised trillions of dollars and haven't really done very much since, you know? And, you know, everyone's trying to replicate what's happening in Asia in the West, yet we're still not seeing it.

Paul: Live streaming still isn't a thing. What makes you say that it is about to start really kicking off? Well, 

Bronte: all the brands I work with... There's so many brands that are making a lot of money on live streaming and what's really exciting is it is a less competitive space. So if I was to tell a fashion brand, which I do, the new ones I work with, how to start in your first 30 days.

Bronte: The best thing to do is have a combined selling model and include live streaming in it. Because live streaming is really, what happens when you go live is you suddenly have um, potentially a, well you have less competition immediately. There's less people going live at that exact minute because how could they?

Bronte: So you've got less competition, and you've got still the same amount of viewers, potentially. You've also got, obviously, same, um, time interaction with them, as well, which customers have never got to see before. And then, in terms of, for the brand, Like how, how we see it working is, yeah, it's less competition.

Bronte: There's customers who are actually matching up to the live stream model. And what I mean by that is there are actually a lot of people who prefer shopping on live streams. You see it in the comments, even though if you don't buy personally on live streams, you're not going to see this. So it feels a little bit like, have you heard about Twitch?

Bronte: Of course. Yeah, Twitch. And you hear about these massive celebrities in Twitch and you're like. Who the hell is that, number one, like, as if that works, and actually, those people are making millions of pounds. Gamers are making millions of pounds, but I just don't know it. Doesn't mean it isn't happening, and that's very similar to what is going on with live streaming.

Bronte: It is happening, and brands that can do it have less competition at the moment, and yet the audience is kind of growing for it. And so what are 

Paul: we talking when we say live streaming? There are two types. There's the owned channels, and then there's the earned channels. The brand is creating that content or they're using an influencer or a creator.

Paul: I know one of the big things that a lot of the people who look into the Asian market is because these are creators, a live streaming there to their streams, to their audiences, and they're selling like products in the bucket loads through this. Is that the model you're looking at? Or are we looking more at the owns channels when a brand is doing a launch or they're doing a special, special deal where they're broadcasting out to their audience?

Bronte: Okay. And I actually think what happens sometimes is that brands see live streaming as a branding event and they're like, Whoa, this is going to be amazing. Like I don't know what designer brands did it, but a few of them did catwalk shows and it looks really cool, but it isn't necessarily going to convert sales because people are watching it to be entertained.

Bronte: They're not watching it to drop a thousand pounds on a coat. Whereas if you don't adopt that model, because. We kind of know it doesn't turn into sales and you just focus on selling and having someone who is a salesperson on front, in front of the camera. Then you're going to build the audience who want to buy from you anyway.

Bronte: And yeah, it's going to be successful at actually making sales. 

Paul: Okay. Do you think there's a bigger opportunity for brands to be capitalizing on their audience, their partners, their ambassadors, the creators that they work with to have 100 live streams for those people to push them out to their own audience?

 Paul: Or they should be really focusing on high budget owned streams, you know, getting a studio set up. You've got one of your employees talking through the products, as you mentioned, like a salesman. Where do you think the opportunity is for 

Bronte: brands? So, they should definitely encourage creators to go live for them.

Bronte: Especially the ones who are, like, predominantly livestream creators. Because there's ones who don't ever go live. Or if they do, it's like a real treat. And even then, that's really cool. But you don't have to have a large budget if you're going to do it in house. And in fact, I'd probably discourage that. I, for luxury brands, it's a little bit different, but just try it.

Bronte: You just need a good background. You just need a good background. You need a good creator or presenter, shall I say. And you need to be selling. If selling is your, your like, The aim. And if it's for a branding perspective, you also need to be mindful of the fact that if you're doing TikTok shop, we can see the sales directly, and that's going to be the best way to actually make sales on live stream on TikTok.

Bronte: And you're not making sales, then later on, that's going to harm your data because TikTok's going to see that you've gone live, you haven't made sales. And then the next, let's say, you do it five times, you have never made sales because you weren't really pushing it. You weren't really trying to make sales.

Bronte: It was branding. Okay? Then of course, by the sixth time, we're not going to push that out to people who are going to buy. So then you're not going to make sales even more. So that's one thing to be mindful of. Like if you're going to do it, make sure it's not a TikTok shop, if it's for branding purposes. If it is for TikTok shop, you're going to have to get your reps in.

Bronte: You're going to have to get data behind you. Because we get better, a bit like a paid ad, we get better at targeting over time. So yeah, your first live, you might make zero, second live, zero, third live, 40 pounds. And then it just goes up and up and up. But if you keep just trying to make zero, then being expecting to make a thousand pounds or 10, just not going to happen.

Paul: Okay. And then, so we're moving on to the, the first point, which you said about TikTok shop then. So the the the The bit they're like, why should a brand use TikTok shop when they can drive people directly to their dot com? You know, a lot of brands we're talking to are saying, well, I don't get the data in the same way.

Paul: I can't put them into a loyalty program. I can't build up brand awareness. And they've invested huge amounts of money in their website to allow that purchasing experience to happen. Like, why would they not just use an affiliate link to drive them to their dot com? Why would they use you guys? 

Bronte: We would have better conversions, or we'd hope to have better conversions.

Bronte: So for a video, it is kind of similar. You do have less clicks, so you click onto a video if it's got the link matched on TikTok shop, and on your brand, as well as a creator, it's going to look exactly the same. So it's about three steps to then purchase. So it's literally click onto it by now. Great. All my details are already put in there.

Bronte: So the steps for consumer really easy. And we all know that more steps equals less conversion rates. So that's one thing, slightly high conversion rates on a video for sure. Really easy to match up the creators on TikTok shop. We have something called affiliate marketplace and that has loads of creators that you can see their past data, whether they've actually.

Bronte: Um, and then you're going to drive sales, whether their videos have performed well, all of that stuff. So that's really good. That's another reason. So creators, slightly higher conversion, maybe exponentially higher conversions if your website's pretty bad. And then for lives, you're not going to be able to have someone on their phone, watch your live and also be on your website at the same time.

Bronte: So you physically can't do it. So therefore you need to have a TikTok shop presence if you are going to do shop or live streams. 

Paul: That makes sense. And what sort of stage are you at now? Like how much revenue is going through TikTok shop? How many lives can you give us any of that 

Bronte: data? I can't give you exact revenue, but we're definitely growing.

Bronte: We're growing and the targets for the teams are super high. And I think it's, it's crazy. I can tell you this, like some brands I personally worked with very small brands. I know you've probably got an audience with much more established brands, but very small brands will start with zero, pretty much no sales, even off Tik TOK.

Bronte: And they can build up in just the space of three months to 30 K a month. And then we see much bigger brands. You've got creators behind them. I can say this because it's in the news, many of my Mitchell is. It's making 500k a day or something on TikTok. 

Verity: Can I just ask you, so this price point of TikTok shop, like if you've got a high price point or a luxury brand, does it work?

Verity: Because I think made by Mitchell, like we have noticed dropping their prices and it's heavily discounted what we feel now. Do you feel like there's a certain price point that you need to have to make it work to kind of drive that amount of revenue or can it still work for luxury brands? It 

Bronte: could definitely still work for lots of brands.

Bronte: I think you're very correct in saying, in the early days of TikTok, maybe a year, two years ago, that's how we got into the market. We had cheaper prices. We subsidised the discounts. We're making a big loss, if we're really honest, and I think that's not a secret, because you could figure it out. We had free shipping, massively subsidised, and therefore, we got many people just trying it out.

Bronte: The 1 water bottles... That was to get people to simply use it once. Once you've used it once, the conversion is so much quicker because you don't have to ask for details again. You've got the data, yeah. Yeah, that's how we managed to get in, you're right. So then the audience is much cheaper, but we have got the masses, and then we start getting people with higher budgets.

Bronte: To also adopt it because that's kind of the done thing and more brands are jumping on. And what's really interesting is yesterday I was reading about luxury fashion on TikTok. There's actually a study, I want to say study, maybe that's not the right word. But there's a paper that TikTok released, they did loads of findings on luxury.

Bronte: You can Google it. And one of the things is that TikTok luxury brands have outpaced fast fashion brands in terms of their media impact value. Okay. That's a bit wordy, but basically luxury brands are now getting a lot more value out of using TikTok. So, Louis Vuitton's a really good example, they're, like, utilising TikTok and it's making them grow.

Bronte: I think, I was, what, there's tabby shoes, do you know what they are? I think so, yeah. Yeah, like the weird, like, camel toe shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, they had blown up on TikTok because someone stole a girl's tabby shoes, and it was a date of hers. She went on a date, they stole her shoes, and she spoke about this story on TikTok.

Bronte: Tabby's shoe sales have now gone up and they've continued to go up off the back of that going viral on TikTok. 

Verity: No, I think that's quite interesting actually, because I mean, we actually had some brands around over breakfast, not here, but we had breakfast this morning and that was one of their main issues with TikTok shop.

Verity: We had a brand that was really kind of heavily invested in it, but then they noticed that, you know, sort of their price points were getting out matched by the discounted brand. So it's good to know though. 

Bronte: Yeah. In terms of. I think that will happen anywhere, though. Like, luxury brands are always going to get outpriced by cheaper brands.

Bronte: So I don't think TikTok necessarily... It's going to stop that. Yeah. Do you want to

Paul: go back to the food bites? Well, I mean, we were the live stream. One of the theories I've heard is that the Asian market didn't have QVC. They didn't have live shopping TV that, you know, your weird aunt used to watch and buy widgets that she didn't need. Like that, that's this kind of perception that it has in the West.

Paul: Like, is it, do you think that's breaking down? I mean, like you, you said you're seeing it, but where are we actually going to see this sort of shift? Does this behavior is happening to. An entirely new demographic. We looking at the Gen Zs, we looking at millennials at who is actually using live 

Bronte: shopping?

Bronte: Yeah. Gen Z millennials are a little bit older. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to share in terms of who's buying, but you'd be surprised that it isn't just young people. The youngest demographic that can buy I e Gen Z isn't the, uh, the biggest spenders. It follows the general trend that we always see in industries and that is like 30 year old women who have the highest purchasing power.

Paul: Hey, it's me again. This podcast is sponsored by Dual, which is my company actually. Dual is the leading brand advocacy platform used by the top retail consumer brands including Unilever, Charlotte Tilbury, Elemis, Loop and about 50 more to manage, measure and scale their advocacy, member, affiliate, creator and brand ambassador operations.

Paul: The platform offers unparalleled scale for complex brands. By automating 10 of the standard advocacy management activities and allowing them to focus on arming their advocates with the right tools to tell the brand's story and drive social commerce, they can grow faster for less. We only work with 15 percent or so of the brands we speak to, but we try and add value in many other ways, this podcast being one of them.

Paul: So if you are a brand that's interested in this, maybe a large consumer retail brand, ideally you're doing 20 30 million dollars as a minimum and you're pretty advanced on social and you need to know what the next stage is, then please get in touch. Email me paul at duel. tech. That is p a u l at d u e l dot t e c h or google duel.

Paul: tech.

Paul: Fair enough. So then the final point you said then was... The idea of creator led brands, which, I mean, it sort of feels like today there probably should be no new brands that aren't creator led brands. This feels like they are becoming a synonymous thing, this sort of cult of the founder and everything that's coming through that.

Paul: Do you think that... TikTok is responsible for that, or do you think that TikTok is really just capitalizing on that because you're giving, I saw a post that you did, which was comparing a creator, their own account versus their company, which had about, you know, 10 percent of the audience and the views, even though the content was basically the same, like, how do you think that works and why do you think that's the case?

Paul: And second of all, how do you think brands can start to capitalize on whether they have a creator founder or they don't yet? 

Bronte: Yeah. Really good questions. Yeah. Yeah. The example was Matilda DeJeff. Everyone loves her, she looks amazing on her own TikTok, she posts the same on her brands, her one gets better because we trust her more, we like her more, we like brands, we love people.

Bronte: That's literally what I wrote on the LinkedIn post, but yeah, so in terms of how a brand can capitalise on that, uh, if you're a smaller brand, try and be, try and get face. Because you're a bit more nimble, you can do that already. It's going to be a bit difficult, and I was thinking this the other day, what's going to change?

Bronte: Are we then going to end up losing trust of these creative brands? Because we're already starting to lose trust of celebrity brands. I don't know whether you've seen, a lot of people are talking about celebrity alcohol brands, and they're just not popping off like they used to, because we're used to it.

Bronte: So I do wonder what's going to happen, but yeah. Regardless of that, if you are a smaller brand, try and get someone who can be the face of the brand. Whether it is you as a founder, or whether it is you as a social media team. Who, a larger brand that does that quite well, is Rommel. They have two girls, I can't remember their names, one of them is definitely called Molly.

Bronte: They are great creators on TikTok. I actually met them in the office. And they both got like, 20, 000 followers themselves. They're actually the marketing team behind TikTok team. And they're the face of Rommel on their TikTok. Obviously they've got other celebrities that they pull in as well. So Olivia O'Neill is also Rommel Baran Abassador.

Bronte: Maya Jama, that's a celebrity, but Olivia O'Neill is very much a TikTok girl that you can't have a founder first brand, find someone else and try and have them as the people behind the brand that we start to grow and love. Another thing that you can do as well is actually have creative partnerships. I know that's really obvious, but little ways that you can do it and ways that we've seen successful on TikTok is having bundles.

Bronte: So if you're a beauty brand, fashion brand, you could have Emilia Olivia, I think it's her name. She's a big makeup TikTok girl, and she has a bundle with pink honey or the beauty crop. It's a beauty crop. And. She hasn't made anything, but they've let her have a bit more commission. She's picked out her top favorite products.

Bronte: It's increased, obviously the price point that the customer is now going to buy. And it's putting her stamp on it. She had a big launch for her beauty crop bundle. And that was a really good way of leveraging a creator that everyone loves. It's getting involved, but you're not even creating new products for 

Paul: them.

Paul: Is it even packaged differently or is it literally you're just getting her curated list? Yeah, you're getting a curated list from her. She's basically selling a shopping list. There's nothing more than that. She's like, here is my shopping list. You can buy my shopping list too. 

Bronte: Genius. There might be an extra little box, but like I was watching a packing video of it today.

Bronte: I don't think I saw a different box. 

Paul: Why not? Maybe that's an opportunity, but yeah, like if you look at the unboxing, but bar that, Yeah, it's huge. 

Bronte: Yeah. She's doing like her face and makeup, so, with all their products, so it kind of makes sense. Love that. I'm going to completely 

Verity: switch the conversation because we mentioned unboxing, unboxing, get ready with me videos, obviously huge things.

Verity: How can they like get on what's going to be next? Because obviously like the ASMR, AMS, ASMR, yeah, thank you. Like obviously that's a big thing, the unboxing, get ready with me, like brands are saying 

Bronte: We're getting 

Verity: involved in them, but how do we know what's coming next so we can jump on that early? I mean, we're not kind of saying like jumping on all trends and trying to become viral is like the sustainable way to grow, but obviously they want to tap into certain things that is there a way to do that or 

Bronte: is it just?

Bronte: Yeah. So one, you could just look at TikTok all the time. That sounds so obvious, but genuinely, if you want to be ahead of the trends, you need to, you need to watch it. And I would also follow some creators who comment on trends. So Coco Moco is a really good creator who you can follow. She breaks down loads of brands that doing really well.

Bronte: She broke down why the tube girl was so good. And she also gave pointers to other brands on how they should collaborate with her. She literally said in a video about a week ago that a hair care brand should collaborate with her. Um, Spotify should Spotify has. So yeah, follow Coco Moco. That's a really good creator.

Bronte: And. Yeah, start looking at TikTok as an educational resource for its own trends as well. I find that even more useful than, I know TikTok for business has a website where it'll tell you what the trends are, but I find just going on TikTok and being in the know and being a consumer of it really useful.

Bronte: And then, as you said, I think brands don't need to be fixated on building trends or following trends. That isn't really a strategy. And what I often find brands do is they jump on a trend and they don't even do it well and they get 400 views and they wondered why, because there's a thousand videos of this trend, which are 10 times better.

Bronte: So why would anyone watch yours? So I think that brands need to have their own strategy and there's so many other points that they can make their own trend. That's something that you should try and aim to do. They should try and aim to have their own mini series.

Paul: Yeah. There's another one we're seeing quite a lot. Brands can actually rely on their community to do it. If they've got a bunch of creators that they're working with, a lot of the time they're always trying to give them such heavy oversight. Like, here's our brand guidelines, this is what we want you to do, this is the brief, don't go vary from the brief.

Paul: But actually if you're like, this is the product, make it look great and however you want, the creators are going to go with whatever they think is... Right. And often that is jumping on a trend that is current that day, that minute, that hour, rather than what a brand marketing team has had to go through, had to go through the CMO for approval.

Paul: And when it comes back, it feels at best it's weeks or months old, you know, that's, that's the kind of scenario. So you can always be current and they're always going to be much more on the cutting edge than almost you'll ever be. Yeah. Most of the brands are struggling to drive revenue. At the end of the day, I mean, I think everyone's struggling to drive revenue, but they're struggling to drive revenue through TikTok.

Paul: And they're hitting the wall with their growth, or they're consistently getting engagement only from a few loyal fans. They're like, they're maxing out like 300 views. So what do you think the secret is to driving revenue? And what should the customer journey look like this to achieve it outside of 

Bronte: live?

Bronte: Yeah. So firstly, I think they just need to have a proper strategy. I see so many brands posting so many different types of videos. They will post slideshow pictures. Which are really highly professional, that's never gonna do well. That doesn't look like a TikTok, so no one's gonna look at it. They will post behind the scenes one day, they'll then get in front of the camera and Start talking about, I don't know, something within their industry, or they just try and sell, sell, sell.

Bronte: And that just, none of those things are TikTok. You really need to understand that TikTok has its own tone of voice. And some elements of that is that it's really authentic. So it's the most authentic platform out of all the social medias, realistically. Nothing's, we don't want highly filtered. We don't want the photo shot.

Bronte: We don't want things looking beautiful and perfect. We actually want to know, we want it to look like a real person. That's another thing is that it's also super diverse. At TikTok, that's literally one of our principles is to continue this diversity internally, but also you can see that reflecting out.

Bronte: We get behind the big events, like the pride events, all of this stuff. We love those sorts of creators. So, incorporating those things, being authentic, making sure you're championing diversity. And then probably the biggest thing is that you need to provide value, free value, to your audience. People aren't going to want to support you like you, unless you're giving them something.

Bronte: And that is so true on TikTok. So I actually think that people should start to see TikTok a little bit more like a Netflix. And kind of my final point is, it's an entertainment platform. We don't call ourselves a social media, we call ourselves an entertainment platform. So you need to be entertaining, providing value.

Bronte: And what does that look like? the generic, entertainment, either inspiration, that's going to be your strategy, education. So if you're a sustainable luxury brand, how could you educate your audience about sustainability? And how can you stop talking about your clothes? So you literally want to be saying like, you could do a piece on why fast fashion is so bad.

Bronte: That could be 10 videos. You can have every single point on why fast fashion is bad on those 10 videos. Then those, your target audience will start following you because they want to be educated on that topic. So I think educations are really a good kind of value to chase after and incorporate in your strategy.

Bronte: Yeah. No, I love that. And I think 

Verity: when you listen to conversations, I think people do, they don't kind of understand that it's probably is an entertainment platform and they clump it into. I suppose they, obviously, they're repurposing what they're doing on Instagram, they're probably have a similar strategy to what they're doing on Instagram as well, and actually it's two very separate things.

Verity: And I suppose what you've just said there really makes it clear in terms of how TikTok is very different to that. Something that I just wanted to touch on, obviously, Instagram community is a big buzzword, which I obviously love. And they're creating and they're, they're updating and bringing out new tools, obviously, because I think now consumers want a bit more than just consuming content, like, they want to connect and feel connected with audiences.

Verity: Is TikTok doing anything similar? Because obviously, we've now just got broadcast channels on Instagram. Yeah, like another way that brands can and creators can. communicate and connect with audiences. Is TikTok purely kind of just that entertainment, that value, the education piece, or 

Bronte: will they, or are they 

Verity: kind of doing things to 

Bronte: build communities as well?

Bronte: Yeah, so I think TikTok is more of a community builder than Instagram. So if you look at the comments on TikTok, that's where the community is built. People are having general conversations and finding their people, same as the live streams. So we have quite a big community of Pokemon sellers and they all know each other.

Bronte: They know the drama that goes on and we even speak to some of the merchants who are selling Pokemon merchandise and things like that. And that's pretty much the community there. It's the comments, the fact they can live stream together and they can produce reactive videos. You've probably seen this on TikTok.

Bronte: You can duet someone, you can stitch someone, and that is how we're actually having a two way conversation. It's for all the features that already exist. But, if there's something that we want to test out, TikTok's very quick to do that. So, I have no clue, obviously, the community feature on Instagram's just launched, but I can imagine if it's good and it's valuable, then...

Bronte: TikTok will want to try that as well. Nice. I've got one more question from 

Verity: our community. How can a fashion or beauty brand become successful organically without creating content like Duolingo 

Bronte: and Rhino? Yeah. 

Verity: Should they be doing something really out there or is it another type of hook that drives the wow factor?

Bronte: Really good question. So there's some basics that I think I could give some advice. One, have a consistent format. So that means try and have... Your video is looking very familiar every time they pop up and then once you've built a bit of a following then you can play around the formats. But what I would say, and it makes it so much easier for beauty and fashion brands, is to batch film and have same background.

Bronte: Um, try and have, as I said, the same format. So, one, uh, fashion brand which I saw recently that did this well was a Modest Wear brand. And every time you can see the amazing clothes, they have a trending audio, it isn't music. It's the voiceover ones where I have like Kim Kardashian saying something stupid and it will kind of match what's going on in the frame.

Bronte: And they just repeated that there's 30 of those videos and they were generating good revenue from that. And that was very easy for them. And then once they've maybe expanded, they've got more followers than they can incorporate some other things, but have the same format. And the reason why this is so important is because let's say you go viral and maybe you have to test this out to find out which format works best, but let's say you go viral.

Bronte: The customer journey is they watch this video, they like the video, but they physically actually enjoy it, not just liking it. They then go onto the profile, and they see very quickly, within about three seconds, if there's any other videos like that. If they don't, they're not going to follow. And that's, I think, what brands get so wrong, is that they want to post all these crazy different things.

Bronte: And it takes some ages and yet they don't then get followers from it because they haven't looked at their data to see which one's working. Yeah, consistent format, definitely, TikTok tone of voice, be authentic. It does not have to be a big production. Stop doing photo like slideshows. You don't even need an expensive camera.

Bronte: If I look at the luxury brands, there's I was actually looking at a lot of diamond brands. I know that isn't just luxury fashion, but it covers some of them as well. And there's some brands, which you can tell the only reason why they've got followers is because they're featuring celebrities or they heavily boosted it with ads.

Bronte: So you can see that because they suddenly, they have no comments and their views are in the millions. And that's boosted with ads. That's obviously very costly as well. And that hasn't done anything. All it's done is shown them a picture that they probably already see on the website, or they already know what Gucci or Cartier looks like.

Bronte: Um, whereas you can do the flip side and you can look at some TikTok first brands. So Brilliant Earth is a really good example of a very much a diamond luxury brand, more expensive, who they just get in front of the camera. They're making TikToks. And they are talking, they're educating the audience.

Bronte: They're making it about the audience as well. Something which I saw, which is really clever. So, they have like their diamond rings and they said, Your diamond ring, based on your career. And those videos did really well, because it puts the viewer in the video. And then obviously everyone comments on it.

Bronte: Because they're like, Oh haha, I'm a doctor. Yep, that was my one. claiming that sort of thing. So I think make TikToks, try and put the audience into it if you can. And then the probably the final one is go on to TikTok and really search your competitors. I would search direct competitors, people who are selling literally the same products as you, and then indirect competitors, brands within your industry, brands which would have the same audience.

Bronte: So when I was looking for this diamond brand, I was also looking at beauty brands, such as Fenty, because they told me they were a really cool diamond brand. So I was looking at other cool brands that people love and then you get ideas from that. Yeah, it's a 

Verity: great idea. And I think as well, those three things, like, it sounds easier than probably is.

Verity: But I think a lot of brands just get a little bit overwhelmed with Instagram and then TikTok. Because I think as well, like, we're told we need to be posting like three videos a day. And you know, to kind of even break through the algorithm and stuff like that. You've just made it sound a Bronte,

 Paul: actually you've got some big news. So do you want to tell us 

Bronte: a bit more about that? Yeah, so literally, next next Friday I will not be working at TikTok anymore. I will not be technically employed. But I'll be starting a TikTok agency. The name's in the air. So maybe you can give me some feedback. I think I'm going to call it Social Street.

Bronte: I had some other names like attention seekers, but then I thought it did sound very professional. So yeah, I think it's gonna be called social street, but if you want any, you know, TikTok advice, want a strategy for your brand, then you can get in contact with me on LinkedIn, probably the best one. My name is Bronte Moon Culleton.

Bronte: Moon is actually my middle name. I'm like the only Bronte Moon Culleton in the world, I think. There's none on Facebook, there's none on LinkedIn, so I'm taking it. We will link your profile in the comments, don't worry. Amazing. 

Paul: Amazing. So anyone can reach out if they want to figure out how they can hack TikTok from someone from the inside, basically.

Paul: Yeah. Amazing. Exactly. Well, Brontë, that's been marvellous. Thanks a lot for the time. Cool. Thank you 

Bronte: so much. Thank you.

Paul: That was another episode of Building Brand Advocacy, the world's top brand building podcast. To find out more about Building Brand Advocacy and how this podcast is part of a bigger plan for our brand building cookbook. Then make sure to search for Building Brand Advocacy in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are fine.

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