Hello, hello, and welcome to a very special edition of the freelance Friday podcast. If you are an online marketer, online business owner, small business owner, social media manager, influencer, content creator, I am sure that you've heard the news that the law to quote ban Tik TOK, I'm saying that in air quotes has officially been signed into law by the president, which is pretty wild. It happened really quickly. I talked about this weeks, if not months ago, that this was being tossed around. It had passed the house. And I said, you know what? I actually don't see it passing this in the Senate. I didn't really see that happening, but it did. And almost immediately after it passed in the Senate, president Biden signed it into law. So I want to take today to just kind of talk about what exactly this law is asking of TikToker. Requiring of Tik TOK. And most importantly, how it's going to impact all of us, content creators, freelancers, entrepreneurs, social media managers, et cetera. And round things out with what I would do if I were a Tik TOK er today. You know, I do have a Tik TOK account. I begrudgingly did so, but it is not my primary platform. I have tons of friends and clients who it is the primary platform. So here's my advice to you. So first off a quick little recap of the situation. So I put ban Tik TOK in air quotes, because what the law is actually saying is it's requiring. TikTok or it's requiring ByteDance, the company behind TikTok to sell the app within a year. If it's not sold within a year, the law would make it illegal for web hosting services to support TikTok. And it would force Google and Apple to remove TikTok from app stores, rendering the app unusable with time. So a couple things there, we got to pump the brakes a little bit. First off, they've got a year. You've got a year if you are a TikToker. I think that when any of this stuff happens, it is so easy to get kind of fear mongered and to get really riled up about things without Really sitting down and taking a breath. And so I just really encourage us all to just take a moment. If your clients are asking about it, I know they are. I I've had so many DMS and people asking me about stuff already. It's okay to say, you know what? I'm not sure yet. This is a top priority for me. I'm going to do some research. I'm going to talk to some peers in my industry before we determine a shut down, tick talk or amplify tick talk or start a new platform strategy. So that is totally okay to do. And I think it makes you look like so much more of a professional. If you just say. Let me do some digging. You know, let me ask my network. Let me let this this news die down a little bit and digest it a bit because right now it's a lot of politics. It's a lot of pointing fingers and I want to say too, you know, I'm not gonna get into politics too much here. But this was a bipartisan bill. Like I said, I was really surprised it passed in the Senate. I didn't think it would. I didn't think people would be able to agree on it. But people did bipartisan bill means that both Republicans and Democrats voted for it, both Republicans and Democrats also voted against it, but overwhelmingly people voted for it. Donald Trump, former president Donald Trump had also indicated at least at one point, he would have done the same thing. I think he's changing his tune a little bit now because it's election season, but just keep that in mind. So TikTok has enormous cultural And social influence it's used by 170 million Americans, which is about half of the country that is wild. And it's where one third of young people get their news. According to Pew research center, we covered that story a couple of months back, which was very surprising to me then as well, and what. Congress is saying this is from a Senator. Her name's Maria Cantwell. Uh, she said, Congress is not acting to punish bite dance, Tik TOK, or any other individual company. Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U. S. government personnel. I guess I am going to say something else political and just that we don't know. Everything that they know, you know, I, I think in the world of social media and internet culture, it's easy to think like, Oh, well we see the bill or we see, you know, who's, who's behind Tik Tok or whatever. So we kind of know everything. And I think there's a blessing obviously to. Internet, um, knowledge sharing and connectivity, but there are also classified, you know, information that we just don't have. So, you know, that is just something to keep in mind as well. So 12 months, if everything goes according to plan. Now, it could be longer. The CEO of TikTok made a TikTok video pretty much right after this was announced saying that the Constitution is on their side and they are going to fight this. As you may have heard, Congress passed a bill that the President signed into law that is designed to ban TikTok in the United States. Make no mistake, this is a ban. Politicians may say otherwise, but don't get confused. Many who sponsored the bill admit a ticked out ban is their ultimate goal. It's obviously a disappointing moment, but it does not need to be a defining one. It's actually ironic, because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom. Rest assured, we aren't going anywhere. We are confident, and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail in court. There very well may be, um, legal proceedings and, you know, things of that nature. I don't even know challenges to this. I guess you could say that slow this down even further. So you have time pump the brakes. Let's all take a breath and think about what the right plan is. But with that said, I do think now is the time to think about it. You've got minimum a year. And that is a great runway of time to start amplifying your marketing strategy and really building out a full marketing strategy, because having a strategy on one platform isn't having a full, you know, holistic marketing strategy. So the first thing I would do if I were a. popular TikToker or just somebody who relied on TikTok a lot is I would build an email list. If you don't have one yet, it's always really shocking to me how many content creators do not have email lists. And here's the thing about email. Email is not subject to the same algorithms And volatility that we deal with on the social platforms. We can think about even Instagram. Instagram right now is having a mind of its own. Some days my posts reach like thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of people. And other days I can't even get. You know, a 10th of my followers to see my posts. And that is just not true with email. If I have somebody's email address, I have permission to email them. Now, you may run into server issues, deliverability issues occasionally, but by and large, if I'm emailing somebody on my email list, they're going to get it. So it's great for that reason. There are also a ton of other benefits of email, like being able to automate communication, being able to send out mass communication, you know, not just one to one communication and, and so many things, but the point is email is so valuable. And I would start on this right now. A challenge that I hear from a lot of people who are on Tik TOK is that, well, my audience, they don't want to convert over to let's say YouTube or to a podcast or to something longer form. And I agree. I think that's a big challenge because it's such a different format. It's like taking them from You know, 15 seconds to 15 minutes or much, much longer. And I think email can be a great bridge for that. If you start building that relationship now, building up that rapport with them, sending them out a weekly or monthly newsletter, giving them a little peek behind the curtain, sharing more about who you are as a person or as a business. When it does come time to build out a longer form content strategy, if that's something that you want to do, it's going to be an easier, easier sell to them. Now I do have a class all about email marketing. It's called email is for everyone. I'm actually teaching the last, uh, live round of it this week here, but if you want more information about when it's coming back, it will be within the one year that TikTok may be sold or purchased. Um, I'll leave a link down in the show notes for you. If you want to get on the wait list for the next version of it. I also have a free YouTube video that really pretty much walks down step by step my email marketing strategy. So I'll leave that down below for you as well. It's totally free. And the last link regarding email that I'll leave is my flow desk link. Flow desk is my email marketing platform of choice. It has been so helpful to me at being on a consistent email newsletter schedule at sending out really beautiful emails. You can even sell digital products through there. You can have landing pages through there. So I do have a link that'll give you 50 percent off your first year. And what I'll say about this is, you know, there are a lot of like tactics you can try, right? You can build out a lead magnet. You webinar. We talk about that a lot in the class that my email is for everyone class, but different things you can do. But honestly, in this situation, I say that authenticity is really going to rise above any sales tactics or, you know, strategies that you really come up with, because I think people are understanding of what's going on. And so I would just make a tick tock and say, Hey guys, I don't want to lose touch with you just in case something does happen. I don't want to freak anyone out. You know, I think we're probably good for now. But if you would like to make sure that you keep in touch, just head over to my profile and, you know, get on my email list and just add that into your monthly messaging for the next 12 months, if you will, you don't need to do it every day or anything like that, but just putting it in the schedule, you know, popping a lead magnet in hosting a live class or whatever it is that you do, just so you are building up those emails over time. So you're not left. Floundering. Okay. The next thing that I would do is repurpose my existing content. This pretty much goes without saying, and I think hopefully most people were doing this already. But if you're not yet, if you are strictly relying on Tik Tok to get your messaging out there, girlfriend. Boyfriend, human being, what are you doing? My friend, YouTube shorts. I have heard from many of the tick talkers in my life is doing really well for them. So that is just an easy win. Just start a YouTube account if you don't have one yet and start repurposing your shorts onto YouTube. The strategy is pretty much the same. I think the demographics of TikTok and YouTube shorts in particular are quite similar. And so you should. Get it pretty easily. Of course, just remove that watermark. If you're going to download straight from Tik TOK, you can use a website. Like there is a snap tick I know is one that'll remove the watermark for you. That's pretty much what you'll need to know. Of course, if you were super reliant on trending music or audio, that might be a challenge for you. And so that's actually a sub. Point that I'm going to add in, which I've also spoke about months ago is don't rely too much on that. You know, moving forward, keep posting your Tik TOKs, keep doing what you're doing, but make sure that you are not being too reliant on Tik TOK specific features like, you know, uh, visual elements, uh, Audio things like that, because it's just going to make it a lot easier to not only repurpose onto other platforms, but also it's going to make it easier to recreate that experience on a different platform, right? If you are super reliant and like funny cap cut, like, you know, the wild, like templates and stuff that they use. And if. That's not allowed to be used anymore, you know, you need to develop your own kind of editing style your own visual and audio style You know, that's true to you not reliant on a platform Obviously Instagram reels repurpose over to their same thing Instagram's been a little a little, you know doing its own thing lately So, I don't know how that's gonna go for you But something else That maybe you don't even think about, or we don't think about or talk about that often, depending on your industry, your niche, your personal brand, what you do, you might want to think about LinkedIn as well. I was actually just a guest on a podcast with Michelle J. Raymond, who is a LinkedIn expert. I'll link that down below, but she brought something up that was really interesting I had not heard about at all is that LinkedIn is actually rumored to be, or maybe they're confirmed. I'll put a clip in. Now, recently I've seen some posts going around on LinkedIn where there is a TikTok style feed. So thank you for you page. And it's all about these short form 30, 60 second type videos. So basically on LinkedIn, there would be a dedicated feed just for these videos is my understanding of how it works. That's what it ends up looking like in the finish. I'm not sure yet. It's. But ultimately a small group of testing short form videos on LinkedIn. Now, once upon a time, they tried stories, which they got from other platforms and that crashed and burned. Do you think these short form TikTok style, real style, YouTube short style videos We'll fly on LinkedIn now. Now is a great time. If you don't have a LinkedIn profile to create one, to start building connections, to start building up your profile. So when that feature does drop, you will be an early adopter to it. And you will be able to just dump all your repurpose TikToks and start building your, your brand over there. My last tip will probably not come as a surprise to anybody, but I think this is where we really think like we zoom out and we really think about that 12 month strategy. Now is a great time to think about an authoritative content format. TikTok has always for most people in brands. Now I know there are the outliers. I think specifically like product based businesses tend to do well. I know authors like book talk is a thing, comedy, entertainment, right? They're definitely, um, Industries are niches that do really well on Tik TOK, but something that I have found by and large with service providers, with consultants, people like that is that it's hard to translate, like it's hard to translate Tik TOK following into dollars. That's certainly been my, my experience with it. I just, I could get a lot of views on a video. I understood how to, how to do it. But it didn't really move the needle in terms of website visits. Definitely not bookings, inquiries, sales, anything like that. And, you know, this kind of a sub point related to the ban, the proposed ban or forced sale, let's say, is whether or not it happens, I think the damage is already kind of done. To Tik TOK. I was having this conversation with one of my friends, who's a pretty popular Tik TOK er as well. And I also had a conversation with an influencer marketer for a really popular brand that a lot of you know the name of, and we were just doing a networking call to just kind of chat about the industry. And she said. Yeah, we're not working with strictly TikTokers anymore. We, of course, are still doing TikTok campaigns, but they need to have another platform that they can repurpose and distribute that content to because we can't, you know, if TikTok gets banned tomorrow, we can't trust that that content's just going to be out the window. And frankly, even if TikTok does take that full year. Well, you know, a sponsorship, let's just pretend sure microphone sponsored me, why would they want to only pay for a year's worth of exposure? Most brands are banking on the fact that, you know, you're going to see this sponsorship for probably years or at least months to come. So I think in a lot of ways for creators, the damage has kind of been done. I'm not trying to be doomsday here, but I think, I think it's time. To work on something else in addition to Tik TOK, regardless. And for me, authoritative content is really the answer to both of those things. It's been the answer to why don't people convert from Tik TOK? Well, it's because they don't know you, you know, they haven't built a relationship with me. They just watch to get the five social media tips or whatever that might be, or listen to the fun music. And then they're, they're bouncing. They're out. Cause they don't know who Latasha James is and they don't care to get to know her. And that they don't owe me that. Right. So. Podcasting, YouTubing, a newsletter, going off of the email tip, starting a blog. Like these are all formats that get people to stick around for a little while and get people to get to know you. They let people in a little bit more than a 15 second quick, funny, entertaining clip would do. So start thinking about which one you don't have to do them all. Definitely not to begin with. Think, think about which one makes the most sense for you. And what I would do is I would start weaving that in to my TikTok story. What I mean by that, let's say that you say, all right, I have a vegan account on TikTok where I do like vegan recipes and vegan restaurant reviews and things like that. And I'm going to start a podcast, a video podcast about vegan stuff, vegan lifestyle, vegan, whatever, vegan influencers, interviews, things of that nature. Well, start testing it out, start building that email list, letting people know, Hey, I'm going to be launching this podcast soon. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter. So you are the first to know. And then I would also start posting Tik TOKs. Just like this, you know, face to camera of me recording the podcast, or maybe of me showcasing the behind the scenes of starting the podcast. Hey, I'm picking up my microphone. Hey, I'm, you know, I just got off an interview with this vegan handbag designer, things like that. So it's sort of weaving in this content and making it a natural integration. So people are going to want to. Join that email list, get notified, listen, and they start to associate you with that before you even close the doors on your tick talk. If you have to at all, because what I think is challenging is if tick talk just shuts down and you're used to doing, Hey, come out to LA with me to review this vegan restaurant. TikTok gets banned, you lose access to a lot of your community, and then you pop up the next month with a completely different format of a podcast. It's going to be really jarring for people. They won't have associated you with that. And you're, you know, you're not going to have that kind of. Integration, if you will, that seamless integration. So I would start now, I would start teasing it. Now I would start sharing behind the scenes now and just start thinking about what you want to do. And I've got a ton of resources specifically on podcasting on YouTubing. I'm also coming out with a live podcasting. Course slash challenge later, hopefully this summer. So stay tuned for that as well. Um, but there's a lot of resources on my YouTube channel and podcast. If you want to get started on any of those things. So those are the things that I would do if I were active on Tik TOK, if that was my primary platform and that's the situation that's where we're at. Now, of course, I will be watching this closely and I'll be sharing any important updates, like I said. I'm not going to be sharing a play by play because I think a lot of it gets really politicized and kind of knee jerk reaction responses. So we're going to let it sit, let it marinate a little bit, but I absolutely will share any critical updates. Don't be afraid to tell your clients. I don't know the answer yet. It's totally okay. Or I'm going to think about it or I'm going to ask around. And I really do want to say also, like, I do feel for you if you. Are a Tik TOK creator. I have been critical of Tik TOK before. That doesn't mean I'm critical of you. I absolutely am not like, yay. I'm so happy that people are potentially losing their platforms, but I think it's possible to recreate it and build it up. And that's why we're here. I just wanted to. To say that. All right. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. We'll stay in touch about this topic. And as always, I love hearing from you. So if you want to send me a message on Instagram, let me know what you think. Leave me a comment on YouTube. We can make this kind of like a discussion board and share our opinions and thoughts and tips on this topic. And, uh, I will talk to you in my next episode. Bye.