All Things TikTok!

[Dasha]

Hey @gabeturner thanks for sharing your experience I think this will be really useful to other students out there!

[Andrew]

Hey Gabe, that’s awesome! Could you share how you’ve managed to create content so consistently?

[Gabe]

I guess the biggest factor is that this account was started primarily because the content is a passion of mine. It’s a Christian preaching account – I would do this if I got paid for it or not :). I checked out TikTok one day and found there were all these people preaching on there and I thought, “I can do that.” I gave it a try and after about 2 weeks of posting 6x/week (and getting 200-300 views consistently) I had a video get 25k views in about 24 hours. That’s nothing compared to some people, but it was simply amazing to see my follower count go up SO fast. I think I gained 2k followers in one day. After that, I was hooked!

It’s incredibly motivating when you know that there’s a good chance that one of your videos will get lots of traffic if you just keep posting consistently. Even if you get a few thousand views… it’s still cool. I can shoot a video in my bedroom and post it pretty quickly and then check the stats in an hour and I will have spoken to hundreds of people – sometimes thousands. That alone is super fun and motivates me to keep posting every day. I feel like if I don’t post, the algorithm won’t be as nice to me. I don’t know for sure about that, but that’s my gut feeling.

I will say that for the first several months I took way too long to make my videos (1-2 hours sometimes). My schedule allowed for it at the time and I was enjoying it, too. Now I’m faster – it depends on the video I’m doing but I can come up with an idea, record and edit and post in 20-45 min. Sometimes I batch record content and then edit those at a different time. I keep a lot of notes in my phone so that I never run out of ideas.

When I’ve got a busy week – or I just don’t have it in me to go on camera – I do a quote video (with a short background clip I’ve filmed earlier and put text on the screen) or grab a clip from someone on YouTube and add text with the Captions app. I also repost videos (or edit different versions of them) I’ve done months before and they do great.

So that’s a little bit of my experience so far!

[Andrew]

This is great stuff, thank you Gabe!

[Stever]

It is great when you are posting from your passion. Makes it easier to create the content. I am curious about how you intend to monetize. Who is your avatar? A Christian already? The Un-Churched? Who are you reaching out to? Are you going to set up a non-profit and ask for donations?

[Gabe]

My content is for Christians. I’ve made a page with a few affiliate links that make sense for the audience and they know that it helps me keep doing what I’m doing when they buy through my link. I do have a “buy me a coffee” page – this is a site where you can create a profile and people can buy me a “coffee.” A few people have done that so far. Quite a few creators have sites like that. Sometimes they give some type of gift when people donate. Eventually, I’ll have something like that to offer.

I have plans to create some T-shirts to offer for sale. I’d also like to publish some books on Amazon – that would be the perfect thing to offer this audience. But… neither of those things are that lucrative. I do link to my other tiktok account that’s more focused on business stuff. That account isn’t hardly as big because I haven’t been doing it as long. But… there’s bound to be some people in the audience of my main account that are interested in online business. I plan to be promoting more affiliate offers on the biz account.

[Stever]

I see, so are you modeling a para-church ministry? (Perhaps you should set it up as a non-profit?) Or are you more like a Christian book/gift shop? Sounds like you have all the wheels spinning for whatever direction you take this.

[Gabe]

Still thinking about how things will go… I’ve got some affiliate offers I promote a little bit. That goes straight to me at this point :).

[Gary]

Hi Gabe. My name is Gary. How do you post your call to action? Are you getting your viewers to your e-m list?? If so – how are you doing that? Thanks

[Gabe]

Hi Gary, Once you get to 1,000 followers on TT (on a personal account) you’re able to have a link in your profile. I use a landing page from Convertkit and when people check my profile out they click to check out my page. I have some free resources available on there and I send people to check those out in some of my videos.

Btw, you’re allowed to have a link right away with a business TT account but pretty much anyone who’s building massive accounts on there uses the personal account. I think there are many reasons why… but, in general, TT seems to favor the personal accounts more than the biz accounts. I’d imagine it’s because they want the businesses to buy ads? There are also a few features that aren’t available to biz accounts. So… you’ve just got to push to get those first 1k followers and then you’re set.

[Gary]

Thanks Gabe. That was helpful. I knew that TT favors personal accts (which is what I have). I’m totally new at this TT stuff. Plus I hate doing stuff on my phone. looking at a lot of YouTube videos on TT.

when you have any other break throughs – please give me a heads up.

I wouldn’t mind seeing your videos on directing people to stuff. How can I do that?

thanks again

[Gabe]

My two accounts on TT are @gogivergabe (business focused account) and @thedeeperlife (preaching account) – the second one is where I’ve done more call to action. I have a free resource page in my bio link and I usually tell people “If you want to go deeper on that topic, I have a lot of great resources on my page.” So… if the video has intrigued them and made them want more… they can get more. My business account doesn’t have too many CTA’s yet, but it’s similar to that when I do. Like… “If you want more organic traffic tips, check out my profile.” – when they check out the profile it’s pretty clear what I mean for them to do. It’s the only thing to click on… unless they want to watch my other videos. I think a big part of it is to be helpful… answer their questions… if they like you, they’ll get curious and find your link. I’ve seen others do a CTA that told people to message them in the private messages or leave a comment. Those can be very effective, too. Then you have to write back to a bunch of people – but that can be very good. Especially when lots of comments are piling up on your video… TT likes that.

[Gary]

Gaber – I was waiting for our phone meeting at 2:30.pm toeday. Oct 18. You ever showed.

[Gabe]

I’m SO very sorry about that, Gary. I always count on my Google Calendar notifications and I never got one on my screen or phone today. No idea why… I’ve sent an email about rescheduling.

[Dasha]

Thanks for sharing Gabe and great philosophy of taking those imperfect decisive actions along the way and getting your routine solid where you are maximizing your presence on Tik Tok.