Do you know that TikTok is THE fastest growing social media application? That’s only one of the many reasons why you should add TikTok to your podcast marketing plan. Hosts Tom Hazzard and Tracy Hazzard sit with Whitney Lauritsen, a podcaster, social media advisor and wellbeing content creator. Whitney shares how TikTok is a place to create authentic bite-size video content that’s fast-paced and binge-able. It’s one of the best ways for you to drive more people to your podcast. To do that, make sure to link to your podcast on your bio. Don’t forget to optimize your captions and call-to-actions. Join in for more actionable tips!

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Why Should You Add TikTok To Your Marketing Plan And How It Benefits Your Podcast

I’m bringing on a fabulous member of our team here at Podetize. I am bringing on Whitney Lauritsen. You may have seen her before because she has been a guest on the show. She has brought us lots of interesting social media content before. She is a part of our social media team. She heads it. We’ve asked her to talk about TikTok because we are hearing a lot of podcasters going on TikTok and doing things.  

We’ve asked her to talk about that. She has come up with the topic, “Why should you add TikTok to your marketing plan and how does it benefit your podcast?” I love that we’re tying the two things together because we always want to have a plan for what we’re doing. We want to make sure that it’s benefiting our show and our businesses at the same time. Whitney Lauritsen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I look forward to more of your social media topics as we go forward in the future here on our show.

Thanks, Tracy. I am so excited to present on this because this is one of my passions. As it shows, we are going to talk about why add TikTok to your marketing plan and how it benefits your podcast. This is a question a lot of people tend to ask because they hear about TikTok. If you are not a Millennial or Gen Z, you may not be using it yet or you may be hearing about it and not sure if it’s going to work for you. The big aim is to see if it will work for you.

 

What I’m going to cover is who I am, first of all, to give you some context, some stats on TikTok. We’re going to address misconceptions and then get into the benefits along with some content ideas, examples of things that could work, and some first steps for you. My aim is to help you think about ways to create promotional clips of your podcast without adding hours of work or stress to your life. That is another big obstacle a lot of people face with social media, especially when it comes to trying something new.

A lot of people feel like social media is a waste of time, but I believe that TikTok is a great use of your time. A lot of people feel frustrated by social media algorithms because it can be hard to get people’s attention. However, that is one of the benefits of TikTok that we’re going to go over. If you’ve been thinking that you don’t have the time or energy to produce content in addition to your show, we’re right there with you. Most podcasters feel this way but TikTok may be an option for you that doesn’t feel that overwhelming.

For some context, I’m Whitney Lauritsen. I am Podetize’s Social Media Strategist. I direct the team. I also host a number of podcasts. My main podcast is called This Might Get Uncomfortable, which started on Podetize in 2019 before I started working with Podetize. I met Tracy. I was incredibly impressed with what she was doing over at Podetize and decided to use Podetize as my host. I went through the whole episode production. I’ve done it all with that show.

 

That led me to working with Podetize as the Social Media Strategist. I have been using TikTok since 2019 as well. It was right around the time that I launched the show. A few months before, I started experimenting with TikTok and fell in love with it. My goal here is to help you think about whether you are ready to use TikTok yourself if you are not already using it or maybe taking it to another level, and explore this as a possible interest for you.

Let’s start off with a simplified overview of what TikTok is. We’re going to get into the misconceptions. Beginning here, think about TikTok as a place to create authentic bite-sized video content, fast-paced and bingeable, much like The Binge Factor. As you’re thinking about what makes your podcast bingeable, think about how can you make your video content bingeable. People refer to this as fun and snackable. People look at TikTok as very intimate.

It’s a phenomenal place for user-created content or user-generated content, which is a big focus in the marketing world these days. That means you are creating the content yourself versus a brand that would hire somebody to do it for them. A lot of brands hire people from TikTok because of their success there. Depending on your goals with your podcast, you could look at TikTok as another monetization stream or as another way to work with your sponsors. There are tons of benefits there, but it all comes down to being authentic and making things bite-sized.

 

There are currently over one billion monthly active users on TikTok. This is an impressive number. These people turn to TikTok to feel entertained, to find and share joy, to learn new things, and to create and celebrate important moments and movements. It is the fastest growing social media application of all time according to some sources. To effectively utilize it, it’s important to know these statistics and know who is using it and why, and how are people interacting with it, which we’re going to get into more here.

The average session length of TikTok according to some sources is just over ten minutes, which is more than double that of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That’s according to this platform called Statista. Other reference resources have said that an average user spends approximately 52 minutes a day. Sometimes it’s a difference between the session length. In that case, maybe people go on TikTok five times a day for about ten minutes each. For someone like me, it’s a lot more. I could sit down and spend an hour on TikTok easily. I try not to. My average usage is at least an hour a day because I enjoy consuming content there.

Let’s talk about some TikTok misconceptions. Number one is that people say that it’s just a dance app. In fact, TikTok content spans education, comedy, food, lifestyle, pet, sports, music, and on and on. It’s one of the major ways that Gen Z use social media to consume news. I’m not Gen Z. I’m a Millennial. I would say that TikTok is one of my top sources of news too because it is so timely. It is so authentic. I found a lot of trustworthy people. There are a lot of news organizations on there. Washington Post is a phenomenal example that is presenting it in a digestible way, so I’m not just there to watch somebody dance.

If you feel like you’re too old for it, that might be a misconception as well. It is a space where everybody and anybody can be exactly who they are, and want to be who they want to be and feel loved for it truly. No matter what your background is, your upbringing, your race, your creed or your age, you can enter into this space and find a great place for yourself. The age thing limits a lot of people. I hope that it doesn’t for you because I have seen people up to age 100 on there, and babies as well. They’re not posting the content themselves, but they’re on there every single age.

Many people feel like social media is a waste of time, but TikTok is a great use of your time. Click To Tweet

Lastly, another big misconception is that you need special skills to understand it. Maybe it feels confusing and overwhelming. I hope to help you move through that. Videos of all styles perform well on TikTok. Many different strategies work well too. It doesn’t have to be done one way. You don’t need any fancy equipment. You don’t need to understand hashtags or music. You can keep it simple. We’re going to get into that later.

Let’s talk about some benefits. In my opinion, the number one benefit to TikTok is the algorithm. That’s because it recommends content to viewers based on their watch and like history. As you and other people use TikTok, it’s getting to know you. It starts to show you videos based on your needs and patterns. It does it in a way unlike the other platforms yet. Imagine the other platforms like Facebook and Instagram are working to integrate things like this.

TikTok is measuring users’ interests based on all these interactions. The longer somebody is watching the types of videos, the more content of that type that they will show and the more you search for it. It gets to know people and shows them a variety of things in a topic category unlike any other platform. It feels like it knows you. This is why people are drawn to it. Because of that algorithm, you can get incredible engagement over and over again. The stats above are an example. In 60 days, you’re getting tons of video views and profile views without doing a ton of work.

It’s also a phenomenal way to reach the main users, which are the Gen Zs and Millennials. About under 50% of users are between 10 and 29 years old. Thinking about your audience, even if they’re not that age, you still want to create content that feeds into what they’re interested in because then that boosts your video for all different people to see. Understanding the algorithm and how it works to your advantage is important for TikTok, but it doesn’t take a lot of work. To me, that’s why it’s a big benefit.

 

Secondly, it’s generally quite easy to use. It has a lot of built-in features. The platform itself has things that you can do with text on it. You don’t have to use a secondary editing tool. You can do it all within TikTok. It can take you a few seconds to post generally short videos and perform well on TikTok. At least historically, that’s changing now. Keep in mind that if you’re going to do a fifteen-second video, you could make a video from beginning to end within a few minutes and do that easily on TikTok. TikTok rewards people who use their native features.

Because it’s easy to use, I would use the TikTok platform instead of something else. When you’re doing things like visual effects and onscreen text, TikTok notices that and that helps with the algorithm. It’s also a platform that’s always evolving. I added this as a benefit because you can learn a lot about social media by using TikTok. You can see what’s trending. You can see the different formats for videos and tones that people are using.

Using TikTok first in your video content is beneficial, even if you’re still using Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, which I would encourage you to do too. All these other platforms are evolving rapidly because of TikTok. For you to spend a lot of time on TikTok, it helps you understand the whole landscape of social media. Examples of how it’s evolving, TikTok is learning from other platforms. They introduced Stories, which started on Snapchat and became popular on Instagram.

TikTok now has stories. They also expanded their length to ten minutes. You can do up to a ten-minute long video on TikTok that is taken from concepts like YouTube. It’s evolving alongside the other platforms. They’re all supporting one another. Generally, the platforms are taking notes from TikTok, and TikTok sometimes takes some of their features as well like the length and the Story format. It’s a trendsetter for all social media. To me, that’s a huge benefit to using it.

TikTok is a place to create authentic bite-size video content that’s fast-paced and binge-able. Click To Tweet

Let’s talk about TikTok for podcasters. It comes down to experimenting to see how it benefits your show. It’s not a matter of does it benefit your show? It’s figuring out which way is going to work best to drive listeners. Driving listeners can be from your podcast to TikTok and vice versa, TikTok to your podcast. We’re going to talk about that too. Thinking about how it complements it and doing both, can you get your podcast listeners to follow along your journey on TikTok as a starting point?

As you build on TikTok, you’ll start to drive TikTokers to your podcast as well. That comes to my biggest piece of advice. To do well on TikTok, you have to be on TikTok. That starts with consuming content before you create it. Your very first step in exploring TikTok is to engage there. Start by building your community. You could do this by liking, commenting and sharing videos that other people are creating.

There was a statistic from TikTok itself in 2021 that said 21% of TikTokers feel a better connection with companies that comment on other people’s videos. When you spend time on TikTok, you will notice this. A lot of companies comment. Going on TikTok, creating an account if you don’t have it yet, and just focusing on commenting on other people’s content are great ways to start building a community where we talk about building trust.

There are features on TikTok like dueting and stitching. If these are foreign words to you, don’t worry about it. Virtually, what those mean is that you are taking somebody else’s content and building upon it. In addition to commenting, a type of sharing on TikTok is taking something that somebody else has already done and adding your own spin on it or adding your commentary on it, and highlighting it as something that you enjoy.

 

Spend time watching videos and understanding the trends. I also highly recommend saving videos that you like as you’re watching them. You could use them later as reference points for modeling them, for dueting and stitching them, and for coming back around to comment on them. Reading the comments section is huge on TikTok. Just think right now, can you engage for the first time or can you engage more if you already have a TikTok account?

I wanted to share three examples of accounts that you could follow now if you wanted to open up the app, although I don’t recommend multitasking. Maybe right afterwards. You can write these three accounts down. One is Drew. She’s a client of Podetize. I found her because I was reviewing her show description. She just launched her podcast. I went into her TikTok account and she has a clip from her podcast on her TikTok account. I’m going to share that as an example of content in a moment.

Go follow Drew Ryn. She has two million followers on TikTok. You can see the type of content she has done. She’s a great person to follow. You can watch her evolution as she combines TikTok and podcasting together. The very first clip that I saw from her podcast is with another TikToker that I follow. It’s a great example of doing collaborations, which you can add to your TikTok strategy in the future. Another example is GelloTV. I like his style as a podcaster. He’s a great example of someone that’s doing it simultaneously and simply but in a clever way. If you’re looking for more ways to create podcast-centered content, he’s a good example.

Lastly, I wanted to shout out Alexandra Hazzard who is part of our team here. She does a cool job. She’s up to date on trends. If looking for someone who is down to earth and approachable, or somebody that you might already know, please follow Alexandra. I love watching her videos. You can tell she knows TikTok. She is using it in fun ways, but it also looks pretty effortless. I don’t know if it is.

The number one benefit of TikTok is it recommends content to viewers based on their watch and like history. Click To Tweet

Drew and Gello feel on the polished side. Those two feel like they have been on TikTok for a long time. Maybe they have a team of people with them. It’s a great example from a professionalism standpoint. Alexandra feels very homemade and DIY, just like the average person who’s making content. That’s the approach that most people take with TikTok, especially when they’re getting started. It’s helpful to look at examples that don’t intimidate you. I find Alexandra’s content to be approachable. I love that about it.

Once you have looked at the content and followed some people, have a better idea of where you want to start and you feel confident. The next step is to create content that builds trust, that feels real, and that’s adding value to your viewers just like you would think about with your podcast. A great approach to podcasting is always thinking about, “How can I be authentic? How can I add value? How can I show off who I am?” It’s not to show off in the sense of bragging, but you’re telling the story about yourself.

Building trust is more important than ever before on social media. The word trust should be at the core of everything that you do. Some ways that you can do this is starting off by introducing yourself on TikTok. Who are you? Can you show part of your day? What do you do every day behind the scenes of your podcast? What does it take to put the podcast episode together? What’s a lesson that you’ve learned recently? Can you do Q and A, FAQs? These are very popular on TikTok.

Once you start creating on TikTok, you can also respond to comments with another video. This is a common tactic. Instagram introduced this too, where you can respond to people by making a video. Keep in mind that TikTok was created to bring people together. It was created for the community. It was created to have fun. You don’t have to take it too seriously. It’s all about experimenting.

 

At the core, it’s coming down to those keywords of trust, authenticity and fun. Doing this consistently is the big key. Some practical ideas for you as a podcaster are to create some snippets or some teaser of episodes. If you have video content already of your podcast, this is a place where you can start now if you wanted to. Similar to Drew’s example that I saw on her TikTok account, they’re clips of the videos that she made with her guest.

You could also do audiograms. I don’t think audiograms look as good on TikTok. They’re pretty rare. People like to see your face. They like to see videos. You could start with an audiogram if that’s all you have. The key is to start with where you’re at. Snippets are a great easy thing that you can do. Find a piece of your podcast just like you would if you were sharing it anywhere else on Instagram, for example. It’s the same thing you could try. Keep in mind that what works on Instagram might not and probably won’t work on TikTok as you’ll see the more time you spend on it.

TikTok has its own language. That’s why I say TikTok first. Looking at your content after you have spent time on TikTok will help you understand what might work best, but it is an experiment. In terms of length, historically, there have been recommendations to keep your content to be 15 to 30, 60 seconds long. For a podcast clip, you can go several minutes, maybe up to three minutes long. You can look for a 1 to 3-minute long section of a podcast episode. It doesn’t have to be recent. Find something that feels good and concise, and adds trust and value to people.

You can also do some Ego Bait™. Podetize is into this. Why? If you have guests on your show, you might want them to share it with their audience and you want to make them feel good by sharing the best things that you said. I do this with my show, This Might Get Uncomfortable. I rarely show clips of myself. I mostly share clips of my guests. This is for me and them because it creates something that they can easily share.

Focus on building trust with your audience and being authentic. Click To Tweet

Lastly, supplemental content works well. This is the behind the scenes style that I recommend as bonus content. You could record TikTok videos right after you finish making a podcast episode. It can be a one-minute segment. Find a key lesson from your recent episode and record it for TikTok. Do it in the app, just a summary of that episode. It could be something that you forgot to say in your podcast. You could also do outtakes. If something funny happened or if there’s something that didn’t feel suitable or maybe you wanted to keep the length of your podcast episode down but you still like that clip, you can put it in there.

It’s just like if you’re watching a movie or a TV show and they had outtakes because they weren’t a good fit for the final packaged version of it. The same thing can work well on TikTok. Thinking about content as you’re watching other people can give you ideas for the supplemental content. This can be something that compliments an episode or promotes an episode. It is something that is additional, anecdotal and insightful around the same topic or pulling a quote from the episode. Something that the viewer is intrigued enough to go listen to the full thing is a big aim here.

When you’re thinking about this, you can also keep in mind, how do you convert that TikTok viewer over to your podcast? There are a few best practices here. Number one, make sure that there’s a link to your podcast in your bio. I’m not sure what it is now. In the past, you might have had to get 1,000 followers on TikTok in order to include a link. I don’t recall if that has changed off the top of my head. You can still type the link to your podcast in your about section. It might not be clickable but the URL is still there for reference.

In your about section, it’s also important that you make it clear that you have a podcast. Don’t forget to leave that out. Say, “Host of This Might Get Uncomfortable podcast.” Anytime someone is curious about who you are and what you do, they’re seen in the about section. You’re reminding them that that’s your big aim. Making sure that your content is branded is helpful, using the same colors of your podcast and putting your logo somewhere in there. You can use branded hashtags like #ThisMightGetUncomfortable.

 

It’s keeping people in that mindset, “She’s a podcaster. This is a clip from her podcast. I understand.” Similarly, optimize your captions. You can use the call to action in your TikTok captions like, “Hear the whole episode in my recent podcast,” or “Go to This Might Get Uncomfortable to learn more.” Add something in there, “Curious about this subject matter? Me too. It’s in an upcoming episode.”

Come up with something in your captions that after somebody is finished watching your video or while they’re watching it, they can go to your caption and get more context for exactly what they’re seeing. They’re getting directions for what to do after they’re done watching. It is important to keep in mind though that your big aim should not always be to convert people away from TikTok. Building a TikTok following is valuable.

Drew, for example. She started as a TikToker, then became a podcaster, and now they’re working together. You might not always want to have a call to action. Keep in mind that TikTok doesn’t want people to leave the platform. You might want to mix up your call to action. You might want to leave them out. You don’t want it to always be about action. A lot of people want to scroll through TikTok and keep watching videos. That’s why putting a link in your bio for when somebody wants to learn more about you is a great tactic. Doing more subtle call to actions or subtle reminders of who you are and what you do may work better on that platform.

With all of this said, we have been experimenting over at Podetize. My last piece of advice for you is to follow along with our journey. We started a few months ago. We’re starting to brainstorm. We’ve been experimenting as a team. We’re posting different things. We’ve been doing a lot of clips. Tracy has recorded at least one video specifically for TikTok. I’m going to be encouraging Tom to do the same thing.

Tiktok is a great platform to practice without getting stressed out because it is meant to be fun. Click To Tweet

We’re taking all these things that I’ve mentioned and working that into our strategy, and you get to watch us do it from the ground up. That’s what’s cool about seeing a new account. We have 4 or 5 videos on there. We’re brand new. We would love for you to follow. That’s great support. We would love your comments. When you follow us, we can follow you back. We can comment on your videos too. We can all be part of this together and help each other grow.

That’s fantastic, Whitney. Thank you for sharing all of that. It was so valuable. I learned a bit about TikTok that I didn’t know. To tap onto a little bit of what Whitney was saying, Drew Ryn is a musician. She came out of The X Factor TV show. She was on that with Simon Cowell and whoever else is on it. She has a larger following already because of that. For her to make podcasting work coming out as a musician is interesting.

She’s definitely one to follow to see what she’s doing. We are relaunching her show. She did one season and then she moved to us. Now she’s going to stop the season. She’s going to keep going. She wasn’t sure she was going to like it and now she does. The podcast is called Laundry Day, which she doesn’t have yet into her About which was so important. It’s a good tip there, Whitney.

It was neat because the first time I went to her TikTok account, she didn’t have anything promoting her podcast. While I was prepping this presentation, she had a new video and I was excited about that.

 

That’s because we’re starting to produce her episodes. She’s got clips and some things that are coming in for it. If you’re here in the group, remember that if you have the social media asset program, you have the multimedia package of production. It includes assets for this particular purpose. If you need a different size, a different shape or a different length, and you need those things happening, all you have to do is say, “This is what I want for TikTok.”

Our team already knows what the dimensions are and everything that’s going to work and make it right for it. You do need to provide a little guidance, but we can take that for you. You say, “I always want a 1-minute clip or a 1.5-minute clip.” Whatever it is that you want, we’ll find that for you and take care of that. We do want you to have input though as to what you’re looking for from a content perspective. If you say, “Wherever I talk about these tips or wherever I ask this question of all my guests, that’s where I would like you to pull a 1-minute clip or a 3-minute clip. That’s an easy way for you to do it and a systematic way for the future.

How do you feel, Tom, after hearing this? Are you excited to create some TikTok content for Podetize?

I’m excited to create content for anything. I love creating content. I don’t have TikTok even on my phone. I’m not doing it. I don’t know about it. I probably would like other people to do it for me if I could, but I’m willing to learn.

People of all ages can thrive on TikTok. Click To Tweet

Record those videos and we’ll put them up on the Podetize site. We’re doing that already, Tom, with your clips from other episodes. Given that you love to create content, if you wanted, you could create supplemental content after your next episode.

Whitney, thank you so much for coming on and staying extra long. We got somebody else coming on next time. We look forward to having another member of the team next week. LinkedIn is coming. I got that planned for the 1st of May 2022. Whitney can dive deeper into LinkedIn as well in the future. Thank you again, Whitney. Thank you all. Take care. Have a great week. We’ll see you next time.

 

Important Links

• Whitney Lauritsen
• Podetize
• This Might Get Uncomfortable
• The Binge Factor
• Drew Ryn – TikTok
• GelloTV – TikTok
• Alexandra Hazzard – TikTok
• Laundry Day
• Statista

 

About Whitney Lauritsen

Whitney Lauritsen is a podcast host, digital marketing advisor, well-being guide and web3 enthusiast who shares lifestyle practices and product recommendations that improve the quality of body, mind, and planet. She explores mental health, mindful living, and sustainability on This Might Get Uncomfortable and WhitneyLauritsen.com. As an advisor, Whitney supports small business owners and creative entrepreneurs with digital marketing that amplifies their passions without overwhelm.

A podcast aficionado, Whitney regularly starts new audio shows on her own and with clients. In 2021, she launched This Hits The Spot; Essentia: Rise & Thrive; and The Live eCommerce Podcast. That same year, she entered the world of web3 via $WELL coin on Rally, which led to the live series Web3 With Whitney. In 2022, Whitney debuted the Beyond Measure show on Fireside app, streaming to YouTube and podcast platforms like Spotify.

To further support her clients, Whitney is currently training to be a certified podcast strategist and board certified emotional well-being coach.