👥 5 lessons on how ‘normal’ companies can find success on Tik Tok, with Dan Knowlton
Read time: 4 minutes
For the final TMM webinar of 2022, we handed the mic over to Dan Knowlton, CMO and co-founder of the video & social media marketing agency, Knowlton. He’s also the co-founder of podcast, Business Anchors, which you can listen to here.
This year, Dan has seen great personal brand and lead gen success by committing to posting on TikTok. In this session, he shared everything he’s learned along the way.
As we’re at the end of the year, it’s time to shout out sponsors. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to bring these sessions and learnings to your eardrums and inboxes each week. So, if you can take a minute to hop over to Linkedin and thank them before you log off for the xmas break, it would mean the world to us.
Watch Dan’s full presentation and Q&A here, and recap on the key insights below.
🕺 You don’t have to be a rhythmically talented, good looking, young person to succeed on TikTok
When Dan signed up for a TikTok account in January 2020, he didn’t necessarily think that it was a platform that ‘normal’ businesses could benefit from. There were a lot of teenagers dancing, and not a lot of businesses. But, he assured us that here and now in 2022, TikTok is for everyone.
For over 2 years, Dan was more of a TikTok content consumer than a content creator. But in March 2022, he spotted an opportunity to share engaging, entertaining, and informative marketing and business related content, and started to post videos a few times a week. By June, he’d had over 1 million views and 2 semi-viral videos. And he only had to do a little bit of dancing…
👨🏫 So what has he learned along the way? Here are 5 lessons from Dan’s TikTok journey
- Consistency + testing = growth
Dan fiercely believes in diversifying your marketing channels and always investing 20% of your resources back into trying something new. In February 2020, that looked like Knowlton starting a podcast (which is now one of the biggest drivers of new business for the agency). In 2022, 20% of their time was spent on TikTok, consistently posting videos and testing formats to optimise growth.
Dan explains that by testing different things, you can fast track success. When something performs well, you can emulate its success by following the same format. Below are just some of the different formats that Dan and the Knowlton agency have tried out.
- Get inspiration from outside your industry
Regardless of whether you want to add TikTok to your marketing mix, Dan recommends downloading the app and spending some time scrolling and consuming content. This can serve as a great source of inspiration for content for other channels or campaigns you may be working on. You’ll also gain a better understanding of what works in short form vertical video content – a format that Dan believes is not going away in 2023.
- Ensure your Tiktok content is attracting the right target market
A video from any account can go viral on TikTok, and any video can flop. It is truly a feast or famine platform. So, when you do see success, it can be addictive and lead to you wanting to try to jump on every trending sound and do what everyone else is doing. It’s easy to get blinded by big numbers and create content that is trending, but if it doesn’t help you hit your objectives, then it’s not time well spent.
When thinking about your TikTok content strategy, keep your target market in mind, and tie your business mission and messaging to trending moments. The combination of the two will help you to create content that flies AND tells your story.
- Repurpose your Tiktoks
If you’re going to invest time in making TikToks, you want them to work hard for you. Dan suggests using a free tool like Snaptick to remove the TikTok watermark from your videos, and then uploading those existing videos to other platforms like Instagram Reels or Youtube Shorts. You’ve already done the hard work of creating the content, so make sure that you get the most out of it.
- Use Dan’s TikTok cheat sheet to fast-track your success
Give the full webinar a watch here, and go and check out Dan’s TikTok account here.