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Summary

Helloooo friends! On today’s show, Jarrah Brailey and I discuss the latest news surrounding the US TikTok ban and what a potential permanent ban means for your business. My recent jump onto TikTok has me wondering whether it’s a valuable marketing channel for health brands or simply a waste of time. And then we answer a question from the community “When is it a good time for businesses to start running paid Meta ads”.

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Time Stamps

01:02: Introduction to Jarrah & @jampacked.agency
03:31: Flavour Of The Week: US TikTok Ban
10:10: The Impact of a Permanent Social Media Ban
12:19: Protecting Your Business from a Potential Ban
15:50: The Future of TikTok & Our Predictions
19:38: Navigating TikTok as a Service-Based Business
22:51: Understanding TikTok vs Instagram Strategies
31:45: How @kic.app Win With Founder-Led Content
34:18: How @healthybodhealthymind Builds Her Authority & Humanises Her Brand
35:55: When to Consider Running Paid Ads

Guest Information

Jarrah is the Founder and CEO of Jampacked Agency, where they lead a highly skilled team of marketers specializing in content creation, paid advertising, organic social media, and ad creative content production. Their approach is straightforward: strategic, data-driven, and focused on delivering results. Whether crafting high-converting ad campaigns, streamlining and scaling customer acquisition strategies, or building personality-driven organic social content, Jampacked works closely with brands to turn their goals into measurable outcomes.

Website: https://jampackedagency.com.au/
Instagram: @jampacked.agency
Podcast: Jampacked Podcast

Episode Transcript

00:05
Hello and welcome to Pour It Out, the marketing podcast for health brands who refuse to be bland. I’m your host, Rachel Hawkins, and today I’m joined by my lovely co-host, Jarrah Brailey. Hey, Jarrah. Hi. On today’s show, we discuss the latest news surrounding the US TikTok ban and what a potential permanent ban means for your business. My recent jump onto TikTok has me wondering whether this is a valuable marketing channel for health brands or simply a waste of time.

00:35
And then we answer a question from the community. When is it a good time for businesses to start running paid ads? But first, Jarrah, a warm welcome to the podcast. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, I’m so happy that you are here. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken actually. I think, gosh, when was it? Mid last year where we caught up? Would have been. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Now, for those who aren’t familiar with yourself and your incredible business, you are the founder and CEO of Jampack.

01:05
agency, which is a digital marketing agency that boasts a team of incredibly talented marketers that specialize in content creation, paid advertising, organic social media, and ad creative content production. You are also the host of the Jam-Packed podcast, which is another fantastic marketing podcast. And I was reading through your bio and it says you are also obsessed with all things social media. Yeah, shock horror.

01:33
I’m sure, I have definitely invited the right person to co-host this episode today. Definitely. I’m so excited to get into it. Yeah, for sure. Now, tell me, how long have you been running your agency for? Coming out to seven years now, which is just wild. Yeah. Wow. That’s incredible. And you just said you’re a team of eight people. Yes, which is, yeah, it’s amazing. I feel like having this many people on my team, I’ve never.

01:58
felt happier with the level of service that we’re able to provide. So yeah, absolutely adore my team. That’s incredible. And just let listeners know what type of clients do you work with in your agency? Yeah, good question. So we work with predominantly product-based businesses that are established and looking to scale. And when I say product, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an e-commerce business. It can be, say for example, we work with a dog sitting app where the product is the app itself.

02:28
We work with frickin’ mortar stores where they sell product as well. And yeah, we do work with e-commerce stores. That said, we’ve worked with a lot of service-based clients over the past seven years as well. But this is the year that I’m really honing in on what I feel we’re best at, which is established product-based businesses looking to scale and build their momentum. Okay. That’s awesome. I just wanted to sort of bring listeners up to speed because I know you have worked with some health brands as well in your agency over the years.

02:56
The topic of conversation today is very much heavily based around TikTok service-based businesses. And I’m super interested to gain your insights there. So should we dive into the first segment? Yeah, let’s do it. Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. Shut up.

03:18
This is Flavour of the Week, the segment where we discuss a trending brand or marketing topic and hopefully pull out some practical lessons and tips for you to apply within your own business. And today we are talking about the TikTok ban. Oh my gosh, what a topic. Oh, tell me, have you been having conversations with your clients about this ban? Honestly, not with too many clients, surprisingly, but definitely as a team, we’ve been watching it quite closely.

03:48
Personally, anytime I see any content about the TikTok ban, I kind of roll my eyes a little bit because I feel like this conversation has been around for so long now. It’s kind of like, is this even a thing? Is this real? But having seen that it actually did go down for a little bit, would have been almost a month ago now. It’s yeah, pretty obvious that this is a real threat to the platform and it’s something that we do need to consider within our strategies and take pretty seriously. I agree. It’s funny, like I feel like we’ve been talking about.

04:15
for such a long time. And ironically, when I was doing a little bit of digging into the research and pulling together a timeline, I was like, we’re sort of still having the same conversations that we were having like, you know, 12 months ago. But I feel like I need to do a little bit of a condensed timeline for those who may not be up to speed on what’s been happening. I feel like I do have to preface this timeline by saying that this is an incredibly complex story. There’s a lot of politics at play within it.

04:44
So I won’t dive into the background in too much detail because I feel like we would be here for an hour plus. But to give the condensed version, okay, back in April, 2024, April last year, Joe Biden, who’s the former president of the United States, signed a bill that required TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese based company called ByteDance to sell

05:11
their platform to American buyers by January 19, 2025, or face a ban in the United States. Now, it’s my understanding that the reason why they were being forced to sell by the US government was because ByteDance has links to the Chinese Communist Party. And there were essentially a lot of concerns held around the security of the data of the 170 million plus Americans that use that.

05:39
So it was essentially seen as a really big national security threat. So that’s that. June, 2024 rolls around and Donald Trump joins TikTok. Of course, the presidential election campaign had sort of kicked off by then. It was in full swing. Trump gains millions of followers on this platform. He uses it as part of his campaign. And he of course says, if I am elected, I will save.

06:08
this app. I should actually preface that Trump tried to ban TikTok many years earlier. But anyway, it obviously worked in his favor this time because he ended up winning the US presidential election. January rolls around this year and debate around whether or not TikTok was going to be banned in the US was at an all time high because that date of January 19 was getting closer and closer and closer.

06:38
People are wondering, is it going to, you know, be banned? Is it not? Trump was not getting inaugurated until the following day on the 20th of January. So there was this sort of like, what can be done, what can’t be done. And as you sort of said, Jarrah, January 19th comes and TikTok goes dark. So TikTok was actually shut down for a period of 16 hours. I think it was.

07:05
before it came back up, but it was actually pulled from, you know, the Apple podcast stores, Google podcasts, all of the places where you can download apps. Were you following all of the drama on TikTok itself when it went dark in the US? OK, can you tell me what was happening? Because I have the biggest foam. I wasn’t on TikTok then. Yeah, good question.

07:27
I think there was so many creators, American creators that were posting content being like, I’m going to miss this platform that some people were actually devastated as you would be if you’d spent all this time building up a community. So there was a lot of, yeah, honestly, people saying their goodbyes to their audience because it might’ve been the last time that they would see them. And then when it all kind of actually went dark, it was, yeah, it was very quiet on the platform. I think.

07:53
I didn’t notice a huge difference immediately in terms of the content that I was consuming. I felt like I was still consuming pretty similar content. But when we looked at our clients’ results and their ads, organic reach was definitely down and so was our paid ads reach significantly on the paid ad side of things. So yeah, it was interesting to see it all unfold. Fascinating. I heard mixed reports that said…

08:20
some US users, because they had already downloaded the app and they had an existing account, were still able to use the application on their phone? I did hear this as well. I don’t know if it was 100% correct, but I know that there was, I knew one creator that I’d followed quite closely. She was actually in Australia, but she set up her TikTok account when she was in the US.

08:43
years ago, she just happened to be there on a trip or maybe she was living there for a year or something and she got banned even though she’s an Australian citizen and she lives within Australia. And also the opposite in that a lot of creators that I followed that have moved over to the U S from Australia, they could still use the app over there. And suddenly they were getting a world, this one particular creator that I was following, she was apparently getting quite a few inquiries and people reaching out to her being like, can you manage our TikTok? Can you keep our TikTok running? So yeah.

09:12
It was crazy. Wow. Okay. Oh my gosh. So everything’s sort of gone into turmoil, right? On TikTok. Then on the 20th of January, just to finish this timeline, Trump gets inaugurated and he signs an executive order that instructs the attorney general not to take any action to enforce the TikTok sell-off bill for a period of 75 days. And this is to allow Trump and his team to quote, determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way.

09:42
protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans. So if we talk now to present day, which we’re recording this episode on the 19th of February, as we said earlier, there still remains a lot of uncertainty around what the hell is going to happen to TikTok and whether or not that ban will follow through. Let’s talk about

10:11
the impact of a potential ban on Australian businesses. I know that you sort of alluded to some of the results that your clients had seen, but what do you see as being that broader impact if it was to disappear? Yeah, I think from an ad’s perspective, obviously the targeting capability of not being able to reach the US is huge. And even if you are a business that you are Australian and you predominantly target Australian people, I still think

10:41
it will significantly impact your results because you’re reaching a much smaller pool of audience organically as well. So I think across the board, we can expect to see big dips in our results and potentially a few cultural and language shifts in the content that we’re seeing out there as well. I do feel like a lot of the kind of quirks on TikTok, the language quirks, I think

11:07
A lot of them originate from America and then they come over to Australia. So I’d be interested to see, you know, the cultural shift that we have on the platform now that the US is, is gone. But yeah, I think it’s safe to say that it will hugely impact so many businesses, whether you have a US audience or not. And it’s just another one of those reminders that we do need to diversify ourselves and our marketing strategy across multiple platforms. That’s a really interesting point that you said around the cultural impact.

11:35
of the app and the trends, because that’s so true. And it’s not something that I really considered actually, but we are so heavily influenced by American culture and particularly what we see on TikTok. They very much lead the trends and lead what is happening there. So that would be fascinating. Like what would the For You page look like with all of those American creators not there anymore? Yeah, totally. And even the pop culture shift in that.

12:04
you know, would we lean more towards the more well-known pop culture within Australia rather than in the US? Because I’d assume there is a few differences there. So yeah, I think there would be so much to watch out for. Certainly. What do you think businesses can do to protect themselves in the instance of a ban? Yeah, I think you’re going to see it changes within the platform if it is completely banned, as I said, organically from a pay perspective.

12:33
from the influencers and the creators that you’re able to work with. So if you work with any kind of UGC creators or influencer partnerships and they’re overseas or their account has been banned, that will of course direct you pretty much immediately. In terms of what you can do to protect yourself is, and it’s kind of like you should have been already doing this, but having a diversified omni-channel approach to your marketing where you have multiple marketing channels.

13:02
So it doesn’t even need to be social media platforms. It can be your email marketing. It can be even the in-person marketing, billboards, whatever it might be. So not just putting all your eggs in one basket and having ad spend across different platforms, organic strategies across different platforms. And yet thinking outside the box of how you’re gonna get more eyes on your brand rather than pouring all of your energy into one platform because yeah, it’s just a disaster if something like this happens.

13:32
Well, I think that people don’t think it could happen unless someone has had an account taken away from them, which I hop on about as happening literally all the time, like it doesn’t have to be TikTok. It could be Instagram, it could be YouTube, like literally any channel. If that is your primary marketing channel and most of your audience that you sell to is on that channel, if you were to lose that tomorrow, what does that mean for your business? And.

14:02
It’s funny, like it really takes these big events for us to sort of start thinking about that. But you’re so right, really, we should be working consistently and actively to diversify our marketing channels within our business if we really do want to safeguard and protect ourselves. I think email lists are so underrated in particularly in the healthcare industry. I just think they’re so underutilized and there’s

14:29
Very few businesses that I can think of that do email marketing really well, but yet there’s such an amazing area of opportunity to like really strengthen and grow your business with effective email marketing practices in place and having that email marketing alongside socials. I just think it’s such an amazing like duo to have. 100% and email marketing, this is usually the time that email marketing really

14:58
All the email marketers come online and they’re like, see, this is why you need to be investing in getting people on your email list. And they’re right, because your email list is one of the only databases that you actually own. So your Instagram followers and that database you don’t own, if that disappeared overnight, you have no way of reaching those people again. Same with any data that’s collected by the TikTok or Metapixel. All of that could disappear overnight.

15:25
something happened to the platform. Whereas your email database that is owned by your business and you can extract that and export it and use it as a database to find those people again, so that you don’t lose them. So yeah, I think it’s a really clever way to invest your marketing resources and something that everybody should be doing. Totally. I could not agree more. All right. Maybe we should finish this segment by talking about…

15:51
predictions and look into our crystal ball as to what we think is going to happen. Do you want to take a bit of a stab? I’m very optimistic that it won’t be banned. I think I’ve always had such a relaxed outlook on it. It’s just, it’s too powerful of a platform. There’s too much going on there. There’s too much money being generated through that platform in the US that I just, I would be absolutely shocked if it actually went under. There’s so many people over there that they’ve built their whole careers on that. They’ve built businesses on it.

16:21
So yeah, I just really feel like it would be so silly to get rid of the platform. So I don’t see it happening. Yeah, it’s funny. I have always said for years that I thought it would get banned. Really? Yeah, I just always thought that it was an issue from a security standpoint. And to be honest, I’m shocked that it has taken this long or something like this to happen. But we’re sort of at a point now where

16:51
It’s been operating for such a long time. And as you say, it has so much power and influence on culture that I now lean on the camp of it likely not getting banned. However, I’ll be fascinated to see how they go about navigating these negotiations, because I believe the sale or selling.

17:17
platform off to another owner, where it becomes really complicated is in the algorithm, in selling the algorithm, which is arguably the most powerful and valuable thing about TikTok. I don’t really know how you do that and what those negotiations look like, but it’ll be really interesting to see where we land come, gosh, what would it be? April? Around April? Where we’ll need an answer. So.

17:45
Maybe we’ll pop back on and we’ll do a little update then. Yeah, hopefully it’s still sticking around. This is Hot Take, the segment where we discuss and give our opinion on a pertinent brand marketing or industry topic. And keeping on theme with the episode, I want to talk about TikTok because I’ve recently joined TikTok.

18:13
And I feel like a 90 year old woman using the platform. No lie. I feel like my grandma when she was using her iPad, online shopping, I’m like, this is so similar to Instagram, but yet it’s so different. And what the hell am I doing? I actually uploaded my first video muted by mistake. Yeah. And I had this really sweet girl who I’ve never seen her before. And she.

18:42
like, oh, hey, doll, I just want to let you know that you’ve uploaded it muted. There’s no sound. Oh my gosh. First one as well. That’s I know. So naturally I panicked, deleted it and then didn’t post for like weeks after that. But look, I’ve always understood the benefit of TikTok for e-commerce brands and product-based businesses, right? I see that there’s a huge opportunity to reach.

19:10
large audiences to sell your products on the platform. I suppose not having been an active user on TikTok, I almost felt a little bit less clear around the benefit for service-based businesses, which is largely the type of clients that I work with, largely service-based business owners in the healthcare space, or perhaps they sell digital products as well. And so I’ve sort of been asking the question, okay,

19:38
Is TikTok a valuable marketing channel for health brands or are they just sort of wasting their time on the platform? I’d love to get your insights into this. Yeah, I think it’s a really valid question especially if you are investing a bit of time into TikTok and you’re kind of stuck in that 300 to 1,000 view jail as we call it, feeling like what’s even the point of me putting out this content? It doesn’t feel like it’s moving the

20:07
that’s a pattern a lot of brands are falling into is because we’re so used to Instagram and we’re so used to the strategies that we use on Instagram working, and we know that platform a lot better. When we come over to TikTok and we feel that the platforms are similar, we almost start regurgitating that same strategy. Even if we are tweaking the content slightly, it’s not quite good enough to move the needle on the platform. So I would say, like my short answer is that

20:35
It is worth investing in or at least giving it 90 days of your absolute all to see if it does anything. But you need to go in with the mindset that you need an entirely different strategy for TikTok. And if TikTok isn’t something that you have used personally or that you’re obsessed with and across, it’s going to be really hard for you to come up with those ideas because when you actually use the platform yourself as a user and you’re consuming content,

21:04
You are very familiar with the quirks of the platform, what kind of content you personally like, what’s going viral on your feed. So you’re naturally going to be able to think of ideas that you can use for your brand so much easier and see that success. Whereas if we’re coming in with, okay, this is what works for my Instagram audience or this is what works across my paid ads or whatever it might be, you’re just going to keep regurgitating things that aren’t going to resonate as much on TikTok. So kind of reminding yourself that…

21:34
Your community on TikTok is completely different to your community on Instagram and requires an entirely different strategy. Well, let’s talk more about that because that is like the thing that I noticed straight away because I am just approaching TikTok at the moment as a bit of an experiment. I’m just reposting content from Instagram. I will create the occasional new video on there maybe once a week. I’m not really putting any pressure on myself as yet, just while I figure it all out.

22:03
And to your point, all of the content that I’ve reposted from Instagram has really not gotten past 500 views, right? But then videos where I have lent into a trend that I saw on TikTok, or that seems a little bit more, I suppose, original or a little more off the cuff, unplanned, those videos have really good views. Like there’s one that has, I think, over 6,000 views at the moment.

22:32
which I’m like, oh, okay, that’s pretty good. Likewise, there’s a video that I shared on Instagram that had over 8,000 views that literally sat on two views on TikTok for a week, which was very humbling. Two views. Two, I was like, my TikTok’s broken. This is horrible. So what are the biggest differences between Instagram content and TikTok content in terms of the strategies? Because I could almost guarantee that

23:01
the large portion of people listening to this episode will have Instagram as like their hero marketing channel. Totally. We get this question from clients a lot as well. And the answer that I seem to be giving out a lot is that TikTok is really about creating content about everything that’s outside of your brand. So you rarely actually end up talking about your products. It’s rarely like, this is a shirt that we sell and this is three ways that we’re going to style it.

23:31
That kind of thing might resonate on Instagram, but usually on TikTok, it’s not. What people want to know about on TikTok is everything that’s going on around you. So that could be what’s happening within your business? How did you start? What challenges are you facing? What are you working on? Who are the people within your business building those personal brands? Instead of focusing on what you sell and you’re focusing on what’s actually happening.

24:00
in your life and storytelling through that. And that I feel is the thing that has also stood out to me on the platform. I’m like, okay, where’s the value for health brands? I just keep asking myself over and over again. And I see the value in brand building. I think it is incredibly powerful brand building tool. And I almost feel like, yes, you know, there’s opportunity for content virality and…

24:29
really large amounts of organic reach on TikTok, maybe more so than what you would see on Instagram. But when it comes to building a brand, I just cannot get my head out of middle funnel, like connection building, credibility building. And as you say, it’s almost like creates desire for your services or product without you even talking about your services or product per se.

24:55
And even say, for example, that typical day in the life content, something like that is only going to be interesting to somebody that kind of already knows you a little bit. So if I can ask your day in the life, but I had no idea who you are, I’m probably not going to stop and watch that because I don’t have any context about why your day would be interesting to me in the first place. Whereas on Instagram, everyone knows you, they, they know what you do. They’re going to be really interested, interested to see.

25:21
what a day in your life would look like. So I think a lot of people are hearing people say, it’s storytelling and personality, and they jump to those ideas that we do on Instagram, but you actually need to take it a step further and almost treat every piece of content like you’re introducing yourself to a stage of people who don’t know you at all. They’ve never heard of you, they don’t know what you do, and you need to give them that context almost immediately so that they know why they should be listening to you. So I still think fundamentally, the content pillars that work.

25:49
across both Instagram and TikTok are usually educational content, inspiring content, entertaining content and those pillars work but you have to think about them differently in that you have to sell why you’re entertaining, sell why you have authority to be educating on a certain topic before you can actually get to the education part. So yeah, it’s a bit of food for thought that you know that.

26:13
that personality and storytelling that works on Instagram, we actually need to think a little bit more outside the box on TikTok and that’s why it can be such a challenging platform. So is that a similar way as to which you would approach paid ad creation then? Assuming that people don’t know anything about yourself and your brand? Definitely. I think the goals that we have on TikTok when it comes to paid versus organic are very different. So if, if a client came to me and they were saying,

26:42
Our main goal is conversions and we just want to sell more of what we’re selling. I probably wouldn’t say, okay, TikTok organic is where that’s at for you. I would say, okay, let’s, we need a TikTok spend for that. I mean, that’s how we’re going to make conversions. But if your primary goal is building a brand personality, building authority for your brand, creating real authentic content, that’s bringing more inbound opportunities into your business.

27:08
That’s when TikTok Organic can be so powerful because you have the opportunity to really build a community and really get to know your customers and allow them to get to know you on a much deeper level. But that doesn’t always mean conversions and selling your services and products right away. It can be a bit more of a slow burn that you can then back up with a paid ad strategy that is actually getting them to that selling point immediately. So yeah, I think it’s about thinking of TikTok as a platform to grow a community.

27:38
It’s not really a platform to sell, but that said, it definitely should have a place within your marketing strategy because you need the storytelling, you need the brand building before you can get to the cell and you need multiple platforms within your marketing strategy to make it happen. Yeah. Okay. That makes so much sense. And just for anyone listening, who’s like, okay, yep, I understand what you’re saying, I want to give this a crack. Are there any, I suppose content?

28:06
ideas that are working particularly well at the moment, which would be great for service-based businesses to utilize on TikTok or maybe trends to jump on. Yeah, I think the content that always does best for us is the one that it’s done pretty quickly because we’re noticing what everyone’s talking about on the platform and we can jump in on that conversation and add our own spin to it. But that said, you wanna pick and choose wisely which conversations you’re jumping on and.

28:34
try and bring something a little bit unique to the conversation rather than just regurgitating what everybody else might be saying. So trends, I think there’s always gonna be a place for TikTok on that, but I don’t think it can be your entire strategy. I think in terms of content ideas and what’s working well, it’s personality and story-driven content. So a lot of the brands that you see doing really well on TikTok also have their founder usually has a personal page.

29:01
they’re doing a lot of the storytelling, a lot of the brand building, a lot of the behind the scenes, and they have a bit more free rein of what they can and can’t share because they’re not representing the brand as a whole. They’re more of a person, but they’re still so closely connected to the brand that just by kind of being themselves on the platform, they’re raising awareness of their brand and what they sell just by sharing their life and what’s involved in actually running that business. Yeah. Okay. Oh my God, my head is like…

29:28
with ideas at the moment. I’m like, okay, I need to go do some brainstorming after this for TikTok. I already know some changes that I wanna make. That’s amazing. And I think just to add to that as well, the way that I like to always think about TikTok is stop talking about yourself, stop talking about like what you do or what you’ve done. And remember that the user wants to be able to immediately see themselves in that content. So if you’re making a beautiful recipe, for example.

29:57
You want them to be able to envision themselves making them that for dinner, for their family or something. What I’m trying to get at is that you want to come back to your audience and them being able to see themselves within your content, not talk about yourself all the time. Yes. Which is the key to good marketing, right? Putting your customer at the center. Yeah, totally. And I guess another example of that would be, you know, if you do want to share case studies.

30:22
How you’d share that on Instagram, for example, would be very different. Usually people, they already have the context around who you are, what you do. And you share a case study and they’re like, great, this is what they’ve achieved. But if you can tell us case study in a different format on TikTok, where you’re actually telling the story, it does so much better. So it’s about language tweaks, I’d say the actual visuals within your content. And also, honestly, the editing of your content is where a lot of the magic.

30:52
ends up happening. So you could have a really bland video or really bland 10 videos, you chop them together. And it’s in the way that you edit it that usually that’s where the magic happens and where you can actually create a story just by being a skillful editor. So many amazing tips there. I think for anyone who is listening and not yet on TikTok, start with getting on the platform and really consuming the content and then come back and listen to this segment again.

31:20
I think a lot of the things that we’ve spoken about will make more sense. And no doubt you will walk away inspired with lots of ideas. Yay. You’re doing amazing, sweetie. It’s amazing. Name them, name them, name them. You’re a hustler. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Toastworthy Brands, the segment where we shout out the brands that are doing pretty epic things online. And who have you got for us today, Jarrah? I’m going to shout out Kik.

31:47
which is a wellness app that has recipes. I’m sure all of us have heard of it in the industry. Definitely. So recipes, workouts, it’s run by Steph Clay Smith and Laura Henshaw. I have been a follower of them since I think I was maybe 16. So these were, of course, the people that sprung to mind immediately, especially because I just am obsessed with everything they do marketing-wise. I think they absolutely nail it. They do a great job. And also, you were talking about

32:17
in an earlier segment, founder led content. They both do really good founder led content as well that compliments the content that we see from their business from Kik. Yeah, hugely. They actually have so much content going out. I think they have their podcasts. So there’s constantly snippets that they’re having of across social media from their podcast. They have the actual podcast itself, of course.

32:41
They have both their personal pages on Instagram, TikTok, and they’re also pretty active on LinkedIn as well. And then they have the actual Kik page and the content that’s going live on that platform. So they have a wealth of content that’s all kind of interconnected. And rarely do I ever see any content that’s actually selling Kik to me, that’s actually saying, this is what Kik is and this is why you should buy it. It’s like, they’re talking about topics that are very relevant to Kik, that they’re talking about problems that Kik solves.

33:11
without actually directly being like, sign up today, do this today. They’re constantly talking about the industry itself and providing thought provoking content that encourages us to actually do our own research and take a look at what Kik is and join the community that seems to be, yeah, almost there’s a bit of FOMO around. That’s right, they make their customer the focus of their content all the time. And to your point, I’ve only ever seen them share promotional content when they’re…

33:41
running a promo or a campaign like a Black Friday. Otherwise, they’re not pushing you towards kick at all. Yeah, the most salesy thing I might see is they’ll make a recipe from the app and they’ll share, look what I made, I made this from the app this afternoon. You know, like, I never feel like it’s getting shoved down my throat, but I’m so aware of what the platform offers, what’s in the platform, how strong the community is, what you get when you sign up. And I haven’t even looked at their website. I haven’t even looked at the app.

34:07
But I just know that just through their content alone, that isn’t selling to me, it’s actually super engaging. Yeah, bravo to their marketing team. The brand that I want to shout out is Sophie. She’s a dietician and keeping in theme with TikTok. She’s healthy bod, healthy mind on TikTok and Instagram as well. But I think she does TikTok exceptionally well and she strikes that really good balance between sharing content.

34:35
really humanizes her brand and shows that behind the scenes. And it makes me feel like I kind of know her as a person, but then also content that is educational in nature and that works to build her authority as a health practitioner. And I think she does a really good job of picking up the trends that are aligned with her brand and are aligned with her message and putting her own unique spin on it.

35:05
as well. So yeah, she’s had lots of videos go viral and I just think she’s super consistent in the message that she puts out too, which naturally makes me want to come to her page and sort of like binge all of her content. Yeah, I love that. I love what you mentioned about consistency because I think a lot of the creators and brands that do quite well on TikTok, they’re not only consistent in how much they’re posting, but they’re consistent in the formats, in the

35:32
types of value that they’re delivering in the personality that they’re portraying. So yeah, consistency is so important on that platform. Just answer this question. Receipts, proof, timeline, screenshot. Oh my God, I’m lit. This is Straight Shot, the segment where we answer a question from the pour it out community and today’s question reads, when is it a good time to consider running paid ads?

36:00
And thankfully I have a paid ad specialist with me who can answer this one. Yeah, this is a very common question that I get asked. And I think the best time to start ads is when you’re already feeling a bit of momentum organically and now you’re ready to start seeing that scale. You wanna see that momentum scale. So…

36:22
By momentum, I mean, you know, maybe you’re seeing really good engagement. Maybe, you know, the sales are starting to trickle through the inquiries, the bookings are starting to trickle through, but you’re ready to see that scale even more. That’s when I’d say you’re ready for ads. But my longer answer to that is that before committing to ads, there’s some really important variables that you want to consider to make sure that you actually can do ads properly. So that would be considering your budget.

36:49
your time and your resources. So what I mean by that is ads are so powerful. There’s no doubt about that. I wouldn’t have a job if they weren’t, but they’re game changing for businesses. But only if you have that budget, you have the time to invest in it and you have the right resources. So for example, if your budget is on the tighter side, and you’re spreading it too thin across multiple campaigns, your ads will never really move the needle much.

37:19
And even if you are in the position that you do have that healthy budget available to start ads, if you don’t have a solid amount of time and a solid amount of resources to invest in putting together the right creatives and the right campaigns and the right messaging, the right ad copy, your ads again, are not going to move the needle much. So these days on meta and Tik Tok specifically, like creative is the most important thing that you have in your campaign. So if you don’t have the time and resources to.

37:47
create that content, come up with the ideas for the content, analyze the content to see what you can make more of. Again, it’s just gonna be like flogging a dead horse. So considering whether you have the right budget and then the right time to invest in actually executing a really solid paid ad strategy. I think a lot of people perceive ads as almost being like a bandaid fix. You know, like I’ll just throw some money at it and I’ll achieve X results and we’ll be hunky dory, but.

38:15
To your point, there really is so much strategy that goes into developing a good ad campaign. And it’s almost like my experience anyway is learning a whole new skill of marketing. Like mastering organic marketing is one thing. And then you come over to developing a paid campaign and you’re like, wow, okay, stuff that I’m used to, yeah, doing in an organic content plan or an organic content strategy.

38:43
actually doesn’t translate to this space. So it’s that whole process of experimentation and trying different creatives and trying different copy and you really can’t just set and forget it. Otherwise you just waste so much money. Exactly, yeah. So it’s completely different ball game when you wanna make sure that you either have the time to learn how to do it yourself or the resources and the budget to be able to.

39:07
pay somebody else to do it for you properly. You’ve mentioned budget a few times. I know a question that people are gonna be asking is, how much money do I need to spend on my ads? What would your advice be there? It’s not my favorite question because it’s like how long is a piece of string? And I never wanna give out advice that people take as gospel. So I always like to preface that question with that. But if I was to give a very broad recommendation, I would say that for meta, so Facebook and Instagram ads.

39:35
You’d want to be sitting between the 1500 to 3000 dollar mark when you start per month to properly be able to test different creatives, have multiple campaigns and ad sets running. And then for Google ads, again, it’s going to really depend on your goals as a business and where you’re at already. But I’d say somewhere around that 2000 to 4000 mark per month. Yeah, perfect. And do you have any recommendations for?

40:03
great places to go to upskill, to learn about how to run your own campaigns. Obviously people can come to an agency like yours when they’re, you know, operating at a certain level, but for those who are at a more beginner stage. Yeah. I would say the first one that comes to mind is the digital picnic. I think they have some really great introductory courses that if you are absolutely brand new to paid ads, it’s a really good way to introduce yourself into the platforms, understand the basics, the foundations.

40:33
If you’re kind of more that intermediate to advanced level, I’m still on the lookout honestly for a course or something like that, that I can recommend to those people. I honestly am yet to come across one that isn’t, you know, $20,000. So I would say the best way that you can learn is by getting in the platform itself and running multiple different ads, testing things, trying things. That’s where I’ve gained the majority of my knowledge.

41:00
And I’ve never felt the need to kind of invest in courses when I’ve got it right in front of me and I able to process it myself. But that’s what I think, you know, I’ve already got a bit of a marketing brain. So I do have that on my side. So I wasn’t a marketer. I’d probably start with someone like the Digital Picnic. I know they have some amazing courses and then look at upskilling from there and through the connections you make. I can actually speak to the Digital Picnic’s courses on the MetaAd setup. It’s really fantastic. And they walk you through.

41:30
You know, like they show you the dashboard and this is how you set up a campaign. And so that’s an amazing place to start. I’ve also done a full day training with chain social, their meta ads masterclass. I’ve heard of that. I haven’t done it. It was really fantastic too. What I would say is that a lot of meta ads trainings that I’ve personally come across have certainly been geared more towards e-comm businesses.

41:56
However, the principles are still the same. So that’s just something to be mindful of depending on, you know, what your business sells and what you’re after there, but both were incredible. So good places to go to. Yeah, I think you’re right. The principles are definitely still the same, but if you go to a course and they’re always using e-commerce as an example, you can be a bit confused, but generally I think it’s pretty easy to implement very similar tactics and strategies across the two. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me.

42:23
Thank you for having me. It’s just so much fun. I could sit here for another few hours and talk about all of this. I know we could do. We definitely could do. We’ll have to get you back on once we know what the heck is happening with TikTok and if there’s anything more to discuss there. I’d love that. Now, I’m going to link all of your online channels in the show notes of this episode so that everyone can come and connect with you. But where is your your favorite place to hang out online? Where should people go first? Definitely Instagram and TikTok at jampact.agency for sure.

42:53
Beautiful. All righty, well, a big thank you to our listeners for listening to today’s episode. Of course, if you like what you heard and want to hear more, make sure you hit that follow button in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you are listening to us from, that makes sure that you stay up to date with any new episodes when they drop every week. And we’ve got some really good ones coming. Pour It Out acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land in which this podcast was recorded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.