Building a Brand from Zero on TikTok
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I’ve been teaching about personal branding for nearly a decade and probably have studied this subject as much as anyone on earth. But a new development has me flummoxed. Increasingly, personal brand is becoming synonymous with performers on TikTok. I’ve seen this connection creeping in, but it slapped me in the face when I saw sessions on “personal brand strategy at SXSW run literally by teen TikTok stars. I’m not against teen TikTok stars go for it. But is this building a personal brand or achieving personal fame There’s a difference.
The term personal brand was popularized by a 1997 Fast Company article called The Brand is You” by Tom Peters. He stressed the importance of curating your own professional brand (just like a corporate brand) to succeed in business. In my popular Personal Branding Master Class, I make the distinction between fame (like Kim Kardashian) and a personal brand, which means you have the to make your professional dreams a reality. You probably won’t be famous (and don’t need to be), but you will be known in your industry, and that’s a HUGE advantage.
Is it really a personal brand on TikTok?

By the way, I think you can create a professional personal brand, instead of personal fame, on TikTok just like any other channel. I’ve seen some great marketing and business content there. But today, TikTok’s meme-merchants with brand deals seem to be lumped together in the personal brand category by the popular media. I think that’s confusing. Am I splitting hairs In many of my books and speeches, I implore marketers to stop doing what people hate interrupting, intercepting, and spamming, for example. Here’s one thing that I know people hate: pop-up ads.
The research is overwhelming. In 2014, Ethan Zuckerman, the inventor of the pop-up ad, wrote a lengthy apology for his creation in The Atlantic. He called it “The Internet’s Original Sin” and pleaded with businesses to ditch them. And yet, I now have a pop-up on my site. One attentive reader called this irony to my attention, so I thought I would explain it. Subscriptions to my blog had been stagnant. Long story short, I am fighting the math of large numbers (the bigger the email list, the more I need to grow to keep up with natural attrition).
Word-of-mouth marketing is where it’s at

I needed to upgrade my email strategy, and one recommendation was to add a pop-up to gently remind people to subscribe. I resisted the idea for years but finally succumbed. I hope I have done this in a kind way. It only pops up after you have been on the site for a while, so it’s not on your face, and it only happens once. Bottom line, it worked. So I have a “gentle pop-up!”In my last roundup-style post, I had a number of sobering observations about AI and our future. One reader chastised me for not being more positive. I do think positivity is important, but the truth is even more so.
If I don’t tell you the truth, I am cheating you, deceiving you in the long term to make you feel good in the short term. If you believe projections from Accenture, Deloitte, and McKinsey, between 40% and 70% of marketing tasks can be easily automated. My friend Paul Roetzer, who studies this more than anyone, ranted in his podcast this week that job displacement is coming fast, and he’s worried that nobody is prepared for it. I do not think mass job displacement is inevitable, at least in the short-term. There are many financial, legal, ethical, and political hurdles for AI to overcome.
Why TikTok is a game changer for small businesses

As I wrote recently, I believe is always a place for human creativity. But change is coming. That’s what’s real right now. We can’t see the truth through a sugar-coated lens. Let’s grow together based on truth and lift each other up along the wayWord-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is probably the most important marketing genre. But it has been relegated to a marketing sideshow because it’s difficult to execute and even more difficult to measure. And frankly, it’s just not as sexy as a celebrity-filled TV ad. But I’m convinced in this deep fake age of mistrust, WOMM will emerge as an incredibly important strategy. It’s not that hard. Give people something cool to talk about.
It can be this simple. I dined at the wonderful Oasis restaurant on the Caribean island of Saint Martin a few weeks ago. At each place setting, there was a little card to give you a fake smile. Donning the fake smile was irresistible of course. Don’t you think kids would love this. The simple word of mouth marketing idea becomes complete with unique stories on the back of the card. About 10% of the population are uper-sharers who will take a cool story and share it with family and friends. That ignites WOMM. So, feed them the stories and it will spread.
Conclusion

Don’t overlook visual prompts like the smile card to remind people to talk about you. What are the stories you’re sharing about your business. How are you getting them out into the world so your business becomes conversationalSince it's launch, TikTok has skyrocketed to one of the most popular platforms out there – and getting noticed on TikTok is a sure way to get in front of your audience. TikTok not only showcases products effectively but also influences users' buying decisions – with a significant percentage of TikTok users indicating that the platform assists them in making purchase decisions.
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users spending an average of 53.8 minutes daily on the app, people really can’t get off it. And there are a lot of opportunities for small businesses to grow their audience and boost sales and engagement, too – either through creating organic content, running paid ads, or setting up partnerships with creators. TikTok has well over one billion active users worldwide. That’s a huge audience. And while it might be seen as an app for Gen Z, that’s a bit of a misconception – its diverse user base actually spans different age groups, interests, and locations.
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