#644 – Viral Content Creation For TikTok

Join us for an exciting conversation on the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10, where we explore strategies for going viral on TikTok and harnessing its e-commerce potential. Our special guest, Liz Herrera aka “Hurricane Liz,” a seasoned e-commerce entrepreneur, shares her incredible journey from selling Pokémon cards in her college dorm room to becoming a successful figure in the Amazon world. Liz opens up about her early ventures in retail arbitrage, the challenges she faced during the Black Friday poker incident, and how she adapted by launching her first private-label product. Her story is one of resilience and adaptability, offering valuable insights into building a thriving online business.

Listen in as we discuss the evolution of TikTok as a powerful platform for business growth, transitioning from organic reach to leveraging TikTok Shop. We’ll explore the nuances of working with influencers and creators, as well as strategies for managing these relationships effectively. Learn how businesses can build in-house content creation teams to reduce reliance on costly external creators and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of TikTok Shop and influencer marketing. An upcoming event in Vegas will also be highlighted, focusing on taking control of content to maximize commercial opportunities.

Finally, we’ll uncover the potential of AI in marketing and sales, challenging traditional notions of content creation. Discover how AI can be leveraged to generate a high volume of content on platforms like TikTok, enhancing brand presence and driving sales. We share practical tips for maximizing TikTok strategy, such as using multiple accounts and the shotgun approach in advertising. Be inspired by a success story where a client generated $1.5 million in just four days through strategic e-commerce tactics. Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of TikTok’s e-commerce potential and learn how to implement these strategies for brand growth.

In episode 644 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Liz discuss:

• 00:00 – Strategies for Going Viral on TikTok
• 04:13 – From Thrift Stores to Private Label
• 08:32 – Navigating TikTok Shop and Influencers
• 12:35 – Tapping Into TikTok’s E-Commerce Potential
• 13:57 – AI-driven Brand Growth Strategy
• 20:54 – Standing Out to Influencers on TikTok
• 23:43 – Maximizing TikTok Strategy for Brand Growth
• 24:36 – Monetizing TikTok Reach & Strategies
• 27:52 – AI With Green Screen Strategy

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Did you know that there are people generating millions of dollars of sales in just a few days thanks to TikTok? And it’s not just about TikTok shop. Today’s guest is going to talk about some of the strategies that helps creators go viral on TikTok. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. Oh, that’s completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we have a first-time guest here. I know her from the Professor of Howard, the professor of Howard, the professor of Amazon, Howard’s marketing. He always calls her Hurricane Liz. We’ve entitled this podcast Hurricane Liz, so we definitely going to check the origin of that nickname. But anyways, Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz:

Thank you, Bradley. Glad to be here, excited.

Bradley Sutton:

So, first of all, origin of the name.

Liz:

Well, that came from. I’d like to not remember that part of my life, but unfortunately it came because I was. This was back in the Amazon days. Anytime I would go to an Amazon event, they would call me a. They said I was a event whore, which basically means you go to every event that there is under the sun, moon and the stars, and I’ll go to every event and I would go and really party. It was like I would go in like a hurricane, in and out like a hurricane and then just come back and that’s the name just stuck with me. It was you know, off to the races from there.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, there you go, all right Before Amazon world and everything. Where were you born and raised?

Liz:

I’m originally from Texas, so I’m from. El Paso, Texas. It’s kind of like West Texas it’s hot, it’s the desert and there’s really nothing to do. So I somehow ended up in Miami. Now I’m in Miami and it’s a little bit more like a hurricane lifestyle.

Bradley Sutton:

So that’s kind of where I’m at. You probably experienced maybe a couple of mile hurricanes while being out there. Okay, yeah, did you go to college after high school?

Liz:

I did. I actually played college basketball and I played one year, but I was taking University of Texas El Paso.

Bradley Sutton:

The minors. Right, the minors, exactly UTEP minors. There we go, All right.

Liz:

It was that long ago. I’m much older, so I went and I played during the era when there was no internet. So there’s still pictures of me, but they’re from the newspaper.

Bradley Sutton:

That kind of tells you why only one year?

Liz:

on me, but they’re from the newspaper. That kind of tells you why. Only one year, because I was making more money out of my dorm room selling on Pokémon cards, and so then I just decided, like this is crazy, I’m never gonna make a career in the WNBA and make the same kind of money I can sitting in my underwear in my dorm room.

Bradley Sutton:

So I, I did. I made plenty of money, uh, selling Pokémon cards on eBay myself in the day like someone’s from Japan.

Liz:

So yeah, they still have, they still sell. Real well, I just sold some.

Bradley Sutton:

I bet you wish you held on to a lot of the stuff you sold back then, because they kind of like 20x over the last like five years or something crazy.

Liz:

You’re not going to believe me when I say this, but there are many of them still in my garage oh you could be sitting on a small fortune over there yeah, and I still sell them. I just sold some. I don’t even know how to pronounce it. It’s like Hatterene version, it’s like a three pack. I sold it on eBay today. So almost every day I still sell Pokémon cards. Okay, all right cool.

Bradley Sutton:

I love it. I love it. So that was your. You know, that was kind of going to be my next question what was your first entry into e-commerce? And so I guess it was, like you know, selling Pokémon while you were still in college and then so, when you dropped out of college, were you, did you just go like full-time e-commerce, or what did you do?

Liz:

No, actually I went full-time e-commerce for a little bit. I had a site that sold MMORPG money. I did real well on that site, but then I had to take a break from it. I quit that because I jumped into the online poker world. So I did real well in that and then Black Friday happened, lost all my money that I’d made at online poker. They literally confiscated it and the poker site shut down. It was just pretty brutal and I had to go back to what I knew best, which was e-com, so I jumped into Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, what year was this about then?

Liz:

I don’t even remember. It was 2013 when I first started playing poker, so 10 years later, something like that, okay.

Bradley Sutton:

So, like private label, were you in wholesale.

Liz:

What kind of, what model? Were you doing. I was got. I remember the dates now Poker was 2002 to 2012 or 13, and then I had to jump into Amazon, so 2013. I started by going to thrift stores. It was ridiculous. I had to go and scan in thrift stores with Profit Bandit at the time your phone and Profit Bandit and started with that. I would go to Goodwills and resell books, whatever I could, because I literally lost pretty much almost everything. I had House, cars, everything. I had to get rid of everything and I had to go back to what I knew best, which was e-com. So it started from the ground up Retail arbitrage, went to wholesale, then jumped into private label.

Bradley Sutton:

What was your first product that you did? Private label.

Liz:

I literally made this product up out of thin air. I called it a curling iron glove, but what it actually was was those gloves that women use to wash themselves with. They’re kind of like a little they scratch you a little. Yeah, but this supposedly was a curling iron glove. I would get it at a wholesale store down there called Helen of Troy, where all of Oxo’s products and everything and I private labeled that, because I was literally paying 25 cents for each of these things and reselling them on Amazon for like $14.99 or something.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you still selling on Amazon now?

Liz:

No, I stopped selling on Amazon. I went to Walmart. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

What was your peak on Amazon, like what year and approximately how much like just gross sales and profit, were you?

Liz:

doing. It was about 2.5 million a year on. Amazon selling toys. Toys that’s a difficult one. Toy business just got very dog-eat-dog. It’s like plastic it’s imported, the costs went up and it was just not worth it anymore.

Bradley Sutton:

So for online marketplaces, you’re selling on Walmart exclusively now.

Liz:

Walmart and then I do TikTok. I started TikTok a little differently than everybody else but I strictly do Walmart and then now TikTok. And just seeing the traffic differently than everybody else, but I strictly do Walmart and then now TikTok, and just seeing the traffic that you get off of TikTok for Amazon, I’m already tempted to go back in, despite my feelings for Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Walmart. Is that private label then?

Liz:

It’s a mix of private label as well, as I still drop ship, so that still works real well.

Bradley Sutton:

So like regular traditional drop shipping, or like the two-step drop shipping where you ship it to yourself first and then ship it to the customer.

Liz:

No, I do traditional Drop Shipping, still on Walmart. There’s still ways to make that work, and so it’s really profitable for me. I’ve done that for quite some time and I’m going to continue to do it until it stops working.

Bradley Sutton:

What kind of revenue are you doing there?

Liz:

So there the margins are about 20%. So it just depends on the amount of money that I decide that I’m going to spend that month. And it’s a little complicated. It’s not as simple as it might sound. You got to be able to adapt to what they throw at you.

Bradley Sutton:

Is it like Walmart to Walmart Drop Shipping or other websites or?

Liz:

It is Walmart to Home Depot to Walmart. That’s it.

Bradley Sutton:

Home Depot to Walmart.

Liz:

Okay, that’s the only way we’ve made it work. We tried it with Walmart to Amazon. It doesn’t work because Amazon will shut down the account. Walmart to Walmart won’t work because once Walmart finds out, they shut you down, but Home Depot, for some reason, they will let you do it. So we do strictly Home Depot to Walmart.

Bradley Sutton:

So, on Home Depot ships, what are they using to ship? Like what carriers?

Liz:

The standard ones like UPS.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so they don’t have like their own, you know like tracking number, like Amazon does, which is why you can’t do Amazon, so okay, yeah, they’ll catch you with Amazon and then they’ll catch you with Walmart, because it’s coming from them, but Home Depot, no, it still works with Home Depot. Nice, nice, all right. So that’s I would say in the beginning of TikTok shop, especially the ones who are just starting. It’s like hey, which is how it should be. Hey, if you’re selling on Amazon, you’ve got your products in the States already. Why not just go ahead and put the same exact products and pictures and stuff? You can even use Amazon Fulfillment and put it on TikTok shop, but obviously you’re not selling on Amazon, so you must have gone a different route. So how did you get started on TikTok shop without having Amazon private label first?

Liz:

So I got started in TikTok. This is kind of a funny story. I was actually in China for one of Howard’s events in China, howard Tye’s events. It was about six years ago I want to say it was six, seven years ago and I was at that event and I saw the craziest thing. I saw these grown men on their phones. Just, I think you couldn’t even peel these guys off the phone. It was like peeling something off of of of. You know, the window couldn’t get off and I was like what on earth are you guys looking at? And they were like it’s Tik TOK. And I’m like what is Tik TOK? I had no idea what this was, but I was so just in. I was just I couldn’t believe that these guys wouldn’t get off their phones. So I came back to the U S so excited I was like oh my God, this TikTok thing is so crazy. I like I didn’t even realize that it was like going on in China and about a year later I was still so excited about it.

Liz:

I went to a mastermind it wasn’t at the time called genius network and people are going around the room like asking what’s the next big thing? And you know, at that point I had been. I was a pretty popular YouTuber and, um, they asked me well, what do you think? What do you see as the next thing? And I said you guys are never going to believe this. I was in China and I saw something that I couldn’t freaking believe, and that day was take your kid to genius network day. And I told them what I saw, and I told them what I thought was going to happen, and which is TikTok is going to take over, and a good majority of the people in that room laughed at me. They were like oh my God, you have lost your bananas. They were like you are just nuts. And I was like you guys won’t believe it. So at lunch I had this group of kids that were like oh my God, you are so right, TikTok is dope. And they’re, like you know, saying all these words that are brand new to us, and these kids were like my biggest fans.

Bradley Sutton:

So I knew when that happened that I was onto something. So I immediately jumped into TikTok and just started to learn everything I could about the algorithm. And then I this is way before it even TikTok shop started. This is just regular TikTok. We’re talking.

Liz:

Yeah, this is regular TikTok. So I got so good at it that I started to get a bunch of influencers to approach me and people that were not even known, and they were like, well, can you make us go viral on TikTok? And basically at that point that’s when I started to look at different strategies to use to be able to do that. And I’ve worked with some of the biggest influencers out there and gotten them billions of views from the strategies that I’ve kind of like learned and then naturally just jumped into TikTok shop from that.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so originally you were just like, hey, how to just grow organic reach and stuff as a TikTok creator influencer? And then how did you get into TikTok shop then again, without having perhaps set products that you were already selling on Amazon?

Liz:

So I had a client at the time that was kind of pressuring. They’re like we need to get on TikTok shop. We need to get on TikTok shop. So I was like, all right, let’s just figure it out, let’s just jump in there and figure it out. So I just jumped in there and then just kind of learned what was going on and understood what it required to go viral at the time, which was a very simple formula and as you know, things they kind of evolve. So at that time it was very different and things have already drastically changed. So that’s sort of I just jumped in there.

Bradley Sutton:

Obviously, TikTok Shop is still new, but it’s been out there for a couple of years now, so there are some people who actually know what they’re doing. So you referenced Howard earlier. There, Howard’s getting together yourself and a few of these TikTok and TikTok shop experts for this event in Vegas. What can you tell us about that event? What can people expect?

Liz:

Yeah, so this is our second event and at this event it’s just kind of the evolution of what’s happened in the past six months. It seems like the profits are going smaller and smaller and the reality is that they are because of all these costs that are just growing and the fact that, like, creators are now kind of becoming a little bit more diva. Before they weren’t as big divas. Like influencers used to be the biggest divas. Right, Everybody complained about working with influencers, but now it’s kind of the same thing with creators. You’re starting to see them evolve also and you’re starting to see them not as enthusiastic to do content not a little bit high. They want more money and the content the quality content is slowly going down, so it’s kind of like there’s certain headaches that people have got to learn to maneuver around. That is getting very frustrating for most sellers.

Bradley Sutton:

How many days is this event going to be and what are people going to learn outside of dealing with influencers and other strategies?

Liz:

So it’s a three-day event and in those three days, some of the major points that you guys are going to learn is things like the creators, how to deal with them and, more importantly, how to really shift your business so that you take control of everything. And what I’m talking about that is how to be able to build your own in-house content creation team. That way, you’re controlling what goes out, you get the exact amount of videos you want and, most importantly, it eliminates the commissions and it reduces the ads that you have to spend, because a lot of these creators now they don’t want to do. If you’re going to run ads to their video, they’ll argue with you that they don’t want to do it if they’re not getting their same commission. So it’s kind of becoming a little bit more impossible. So it’s a lot easier when you control the creative and now you can run ads to it if you have an in-house content creator that made it, and you don’t have to worry about having to pay these like inflated commissions and the ad costs. So it’s sort of like a couple of things that we’ll discuss on how to do that.

Liz:

And then, lastly, is just how to capitalize on AI, and this is something that a lot of people aren’t doing, because a lot of people come from this thought process that AI can’t sell, like AI influencers are not made to sell, and they say that there’s like no evidence that they can sell as well as a human, and I feel that, while that is somewhat true, I think the reality is that a human’s output cannot equal the output of AI. So that’s the thing. It’s more like a game of numbers right now for AI. So it’s this idea of quality over quantity as a human, but with an AI, quantity over quality. So that’s some of the things we’re going to discuss how to do all that and how to automate it to really kind of bring up your margins.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, cool. So if you guys are interested, this is not an affiliate link, there’s no, it’s just a short link I’m making here h10.me forward slash TikTok Vegas. So H10.me forward, slash TikTok Vegas. It’s going to be like right at the end of the Prosper show. So for those of you who are going to Prosper, if you’re a bigger seller, like if you’re brand new, I’m not sure this is for you. This is, you know, Howard’s events are super high end. This one’s probably like six $7,000 or something. So this is for hey, some established sellers and people ready to take action. Um, I’m trying to see if I can get this covered myself under my company budget to get out to you, but I would love to see you guys out there. H 10.me forward slash Tik TOK Vegas. That should take you to the event. For whatever reason that link doesn’t work, just let us know in the comments below. Are you one of the presenters there at the event?

Liz:

Yes, I definitely will be presenting there.

Bradley Sutton:

Correct and do you want?

Liz:

to know what I’m going to be presenting about Bradley. That was my next question. You read my mind. I was so excited I jumped the gun there. So I’m going to be talking about. I’m going to actually show people the proof of a brand that’s done millions of dollars in a single month using AI. So I’m going to show them exactly what they did and how they did it.

Bradley Sutton:

AI as far as like the content generation, or what part did AI play in that?

Liz:

It was content generation, correct?

Bradley Sutton:

So then it’s like, instead of relying only on influencers to make videos, you’re, you have your own brands, TikTok, and from there make your own stuff go viral.

Liz:

Correct. You have an army that you have to that you don’t have to worry about paying commission to. And then when you run ads to them, you don’t have to worry about the commission either, because you’re just running. It’s pure ad spend to make these videos either go viral organically or with your ad spend.

Bradley Sutton:

Just in general, ai or not. What are some tips? Like, maybe somebody couldn’t care less about TikTok shop but they just want to, you know, try to grow their own influence or just try and grow their brand’s presence. For whatever reason they don’t want TikTok shop, but they know that if they have a strong brand on TikTok it’ll probably, you know, feed sales to their Amazon because people, people go over there. What are some tips you can give on how to you know, like, if it’s cadence and how often you have to post. You know the length of posts, what kind of. You know TikTok is not all just about doing quick dances and stuff. What are some things that brands can do to mark a presence for themselves on TikTok?

Liz:

So that’s a very good question and it’s just this simple. People overcomplicate it. So number one is you can have multiple accounts. So that’s the number one thing that I would do is have multiple accounts. And number two is contrary to popular opinion, you can post that video multiple times, even on the same account. There’s just minor modifications you need to make and that you can make to post the same content over and over.

Bradley Sutton:

So that’s trying to get like to see if one of them goes viral or something to go not just that, but just to get views.

Liz:

So there’s plenty of traffic that you can get directed to Amazon by just putting as much content as you can Like. The more content you can put out, the better. And what kind of content is your recommendation? It could be really anything. It could be. If the brand owner wants to talk about the brand, that’ll work. If he wants to generate content with AI, that’ll work. The beautiful thing about TikTok is it’s so different than any other platform release, because TikTok will pretty much give you a free 200 views, and this is why so many people complain about we’re stuck at the 200 view. That’s because TikTok throws 200 views at every video. So let’s say, you have the most horrible videos on the planet and you put these out and these are just like, just horrific, like nobody wants to see them, just your mom. You’re still going to get 200 views. So it becomes just a game of numbers. Those views.

Liz:

Some of those people will get curious and click through on wherever you want to send them to Like. Some of those people will get curious and click through on wherever you want to send them to Like. You’d see a lot of Amazon affiliate links on there and that’s because people are making money, so it doesn’t really matter. The whole point is put content. The strategy on TikTok is just a lot of content. You don’t have to worry, you can be a broken record. You could sound like that. The last thing that I can say is this 93% of the people that see every single one of your posts are seeing it for the first time ever, which means only 7% of the people that follow you will ever see more than one post from you, so you could literally record the same video every single day and nobody’s going to hardly even notice.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you a six, seven or eight figure seller and want to network in a private mastermind group with other experienced sellers? Or maybe you want to take advantage of monthly advanced training sessions with Kevin King, an expert guest? Do you want to come to our quarterly in-person all day trainings at Helium 10 headquarters? Or do you want the widest access to the Helium 10 set of tools? For all of these things, the Elite program might be for you. For more information on Helium 10 Elite, go to h10.me/elite, switching more to like e-commerce and TikTok shop. You know, obviously there’s ways to be an influencer and start from scratch and you can make money on Amazon and TikTok shop. You know KDP, things like that Private label, amazon. You could start from scratch. You just do the traditional thing. Hey, let me make a product go to Alibaba. You know source it. You know there’s still people who do that. What about can I start from scratch? Hey, I want to get into e-commerce and I don’t want to start on Amazon. I don’t want to start on Walmart, I want to start on TikTok shop. I mean, I don’t have my product yet. Is there? Is there a path to start on TikTok shop? And even before a product like maybe it’s some kind of drop shipping or maybe I’m looking for demand on TikTok shop and I make a product based on the demand. I see I’m just throwing out random stuff here. What is a path, if there is one, to do something like that?

Liz:

Yeah, there absolutely is, and a lot of people have actually done this and have had very surprising results. I’ll give you two examples, and they’re probably two of the biggest brands on TikTok right now. One of them is, I Am, stormy Steele, who broke the single day live stream record. She did over 2.2 million in a single day live streaming and she started everything on TikTok just documenting her progress and how she started. And the second one is Simply Mandy’s, who was a Mexican immigrant that had failed at many businesses and then decided let me put this product on TikTok, and by her not only doing content for it but also doing live streams, that brand also has made over a million dollars in sales in a day on a live stream alone, not to mention how much content they create for the brand. That brings in hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars a month for their brands.

Bradley Sutton:

How do you get people to go to your life? Do you have to have a lot of followers, or how do you make it go viral, et cetera.

Liz:

No, you don’t have to have. You can have zero followers. TikTok rewards consistency. So what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to just start doing something it could be your product or it could be anybody else’s product and consistently carve out this time, every single day, to go live for a bit. I would recommend a certain bit of time. Like you see, a lot of these people go like 16, even like 38 hours. You don’t need to go that long. Just be consistent with the amount of time and the amount of days that you go live with any product and when TikTok sees that and when they see you engaging with the audience because the end of the day TikTok looks for and everything is engagement. So if you’re talking to people that are on there welcoming them, all that stuff, they will start to reward you with more traffic each time that you go on.

Bradley Sutton:

If you’re a brand, how often should you be going live?

Liz:

If I was a brand and really looking to build it, I would go live once a day.

Bradley Sutton:

How long each time?

Liz:

So I would go in spurts. Contrary to popular opinion, a lot of people think that you’ve got to go. Like some of these brands go for hours. Like some of these clothing brands are on there for eight to 10 hours.

Bradley Sutton:

I would shoot for one to two hours consistently.

Liz:

And you could be talking about the same kind of products, because it’s different people who are going to come on the live too. Or should you always be doing different things? It depends how many products you have. So some people only have one product. So obviously you can only speak about one product, but I would look to get a couple and then just test out to see which one does better and then focus on that one. Once you figure out which one’s the hot product, which one’s not, then possibly even do some, do some strategies so that you have like a front end one selling at a lower price and people get TikTok sees that they’re engaged if they’re buying and you’re talking to them, and then they’ll send you some more traffic.

Bradley Sutton:

You have a good uh kind of like. You know a decent product that you want to promote and TikTok shop and you know the kind of influencers who would move the needle for you. Some of these influencers who’ve got some decent sales under their belt. They’re probably being hit up or offered for free products or with a template from TikTok, probably 10, 20, 30, 50 times a day. How can you make yours stand out? Some of these influencers might get all these requests to collaborate. How would they even see yours? Is there a certain thing you can do in the messaging or certain kind of offers? What makes you stand out more?

Liz:

So, yeah, there’s a couple things you could do. I mean, obviously, most of these messages you get are from bots. So there’s two things I can recommend people do. Number one is always try and be personalized on that first message. So say, for example, you have a like, let’s say it’s a vaginal probiotics are really hot right now and there’s a bunch of them popping up out of nowhere, like some of them from China, and it’s like what are these people like doing? They’re putting out this probiotic from China, um, and so what happens is, let’s say, you’re recruiting creators that did the video for your competition.

Liz:

Whoever you want trying to like, be like, you can go and hit their creators up and be very, uh, personalized. In the message you can say hey, and then their name and say I saw the video you did for Europrobiotics and I thought it was terrific. Just by saying that a lot of the people that I work with, when we do that and we send out these messages, they’re like the creators come back and they say, oh, wow, you even like said you saw my video, that’s awesome, and they already kind of want to see what you’re about, just because you pointed out that little single detail. And the second thing is I typically will hit try to hit creators up. I’ll save emails through email because I feel that a lot of them are being bombarded by hundreds of emails in there like DMS, hundreds of DMS through Tik TOK, but not many people are utilizing email yet, and when you get an email and you see that there’s a person’s name on it and not a brand, you’re more than likely to answer them via email.

Bradley Sutton:

We can keep the topic on TikTok or anything like e-commerce related, money making. What kind of tips, YouTube, anything out there you can give some of our listeners.

Liz:

You know, I think that the biggest tip that I can give people is because, like I told you, I did YouTube for years and years. I’ve had some two big channels and I quit a long form a couple of years back I said a year and a half back and the reason for that is it it’s just so much easier to put out a short form content video and get 10 times the amount of traffic than it is all the effort you got to put into long form. So me, the thing that I always tell everybody, no matter what you do, if you’ve got a brick and mortar, no matter what you do, I would stop whatever you’re doing and if you’re not on TikTok, figure out how to get on there, because it’s so easy to whip out multiple videos that are high quality on a day-to-day basis that you’re missing out on so much traffic. So that would be my biggest tip. I’m like a huge TikTok fangirl and, like I told you, I’ve been YouTube for the longest time, made a lot of money on there and just it’s just not my platform anymore.

Bradley Sutton:

You talked about advertising. It’s like some videos that get traction and then you know doubling down and advertising. What kind of ads are those called Like? Do you have budget recommendations or kind of just some strategic things that you could say about that aspect of things?

Liz:

Yeah, with ads, what we typically look for is any creators that have a certain amount of sales will typically look at two or three, because we want to start fast out of the gate as soon as we have some that have two or three and we throw them all into an ad set and we just see what they can do. That’s usually our first ad. Let’s see if any one of these, like the algorithm, optimizes and it just takes off and it starts getting a lot of sales. And if it does, then we’ll separate it and then put it in its own ad set and then just rinse, repeat with other videos that are generating sales. So there’s really no like magic to our approach. It’s kind of like a shotgun approach and let’s just see which one rips and then move on and get some more in there that rip, and that’s kind of how we go about and do it pretty quick and simple strategy at the at the beginning.

Bradley Sutton:

What are some other strategies that people are doing as far as how they’re monetizing big reach on TikTok? You’re like obviously the no brainer is is sending to TikTok shop. You know it’s, it’s native and everything. And then another thing is like you had mentioned already today is sending people to to Amazon. Are there any other clients you have or people in your network who are doing other things on different platforms, like they choose to instead to send to to Shopify, or they’re trying to get on a mailing list or something like that, or is it pretty much just either TikTok shop or Amazon you should be promoting?

Liz:

No, you can literally generate traffic for just about anything. So one of my clients and this was one of my biggest clients that I’ve ever had from all the traffic that we generated for him on TikTok and the email list that he grew, he had a span of four days where he made 1.5 million on their e-com store off of one single product. And this was all because of TikTok and all the traffic that TikTok generated. So you can very easily build an email list very easily. Just from the fame that you grow on TikTok, People will start to realize who you are and literally you can become famous. You can create somebody’s fame from scratch on TikTok. You can manufacture the whole thing if you do it right.

Bradley Sutton:

How would I go about doing that?

Liz:

So the way that you’d go about doing that and this is the reason that people won’t do is because it’s very time consuming. You’d have to have dozens and dozens of accounts, in some cases hundreds of accounts, and you’d have to multi-purpose content and post it on there.

Bradley Sutton:

So you, as a creator, have all those accounts. What? What is each of those accounts doing? Like following each other, or doing what?

Liz:

No, just posting videos.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, wow, and then you’re trying to find the one account that starts going off, or?

Liz:

Yeah. So I did this. For I have a good friend of mine and I had an hour consulting call with Myron Golden and I taught him this. I was like on his jet and I literally taught him this strategy. And I said to him I looked at his accounts and he had had an account for a long time and it wasn’t doing that well. So I sat down with him and his team and I said all right, you need to start more accounts. Uh, an account that he started immediately after that call took off and surpassed his original account. That was two years. It had been started two years prior to that and the new account just went viral and took off. So it’s sort of like think of it like this Every account out there is sort of it’s almost like you’re playing, it’s almost like you’re gambling. It’s not guaranteed to go or get as successful as the other because of the different paths of all the people that see your content. So one piece of content, one account, could go viral just early on because of that content and from that point forward it has a huge favor with the algorithm. So the name of the game is really like rinsing and repeating the account creation process, throwing away the accounts that just flat out suck and are duds and then just multiplying the ones that are taking off.

Bradley Sutton:

So would this all like if I was a brand? I could do that too, but then if so, like I can have the, I would have to have unique handles or names for each one, right?

Liz:

Correct. Yeah, and the best way to do it, Bradley, is to not make it seem like they’re all from the original brand. You want to make it seem like it’s. You got fanboys and fangirls that are creating these accounts for you, you know. So that’s the best way to do it. Uh, and that’s the way. I see a lot of people do that, but I see a lot of people where they want to have too much control and like, let’s make all these look branded, which is really like, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. People are going to consume this content and they consume it Like they’re hypnotized by this content and they can be watching it for hours and hours.

Bradley Sutton:

You talk a lot about different strategies and stuff. How about a quick hitting one, like we call it, the 60 second tip of the day? So it could be about YouTube, could be about TikTok, could be about the best Tex-Mex food and El Paso tea. I don’t care. What’s a 60-second strategy? You can give people out there.

Liz:

If I give people the best Tex-Mex thing, they would be angry. It’s Chico’s Tacos in El Paso. That’s just hands down. But that’s not going to be my strategy Right now. What I would focus on if I was a brand looking to create my own in-house content is it’s called AI with green screen and this is just the ability to put an AI in front of the green screen and, like I said, a lot of people are going to say like that doesn’t sell. But I’m telling you it sells, and it sells so well If you put the AI just in front of a green screen and it works out, because you can just hammer out hundreds and hundreds of videos and if you play your cards right and you at least have a couple of accounts, you could put those videos on all those accounts.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, All right AI with green skin. Now I assume you’ll get more into details at the TikTok masterclass in Vegas about some of those strategies.

Liz:

Oh yeah, I’m going to show you how certain brands have been using these to make millions of dollars, so you’ll get to see all that and more.

Bradley Sutton:

So again, h10.me/tiktokvegas. To get more info on that event. I should be there and I’ll be at Prosper, obviously as well as there so you can meet myself and Liz and pick our brains about whatever you want, and also the professor of Amazon himself, Howard Tai. But if people want to reach out to you separately, how can they find you on the interwebs out there?

Liz:

Oh yeah, I’m just connected with Howard. I work with Howard and all his TikTok clients, so I’ll be. What is his website? The same one that you just said, elitesellerssociety.com also.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, perfect, perfect, all right. Well, Liz, I’ll be seeing you in a in a few weeks, and thanks for all the strategies you’ve been uh, you’ve been giving us, or some things. I think I might have to try for some of my accounts on there too.

Liz:

Awesome, Bradley. Looking forward to seeing your content out there.

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