All About TikTok and Gary V: The Transcription of the Destiny Architecture Podcast

This podcast has current information on TikTok that will give you tips on how to start out on TikTok. You'll even become a better TikTok creator if you're already there but trying to gain traction.

This is the full transcript of the Destiny Architecture podcast you see here:

Heather Larson (HL): We're gonna be interviewing my friend, Ken Moskowitz. He has his own agency, which is absolutely great. I first met Ken working in radio in Phoenix. We worked at a station that's now gone, but it was called 98-7 The Peak. And it was a station created by my boss, Joel, because he read a marketing book, Seth Gordon's Purple Cow.

And then he created 98-7, The Peak to be this purple cow radio station. It was, it was a purple cow because it had a music library that was about 1,600 songs, which was unheard of in radio probably before, since, and that's where I met Ken. So Ken has an agency doing ad copywriting.

It's called Ad Zombies. It's probably one of the coolest copywriting agencies out there. I've seen a lot of people try to do what Ken does. And Ken has an amazing copywriting and production talent. And then one day I happened to notice on Facebook that Ken was posting about being at VaynerMedia, like Gary Vaynerchuck's company.

And so I'm like, “All right, what are you doing there? I need to know about that! Why? How? Explain this to me." So I booked him on the podcast and now you get to hear about what we talked about, what it's like to be. Working at VaynerMedia.

The interview begins…

HL: So I'm talking to my friend, Ken Moskowitz. He's got this great ad agency Ad Zombies, which is why he's got the zombie in the. Background and the reason I've gotta have you on is cuz I know that you just went to one of the coolest content marketing places of all time, the place we all dream of going to as content creators and copywriters, VaynerMedia.

I wanna know how you got evolved. What was going on? I need to know everything.

Ken Moskowitz (KM): So, first of all, I have I, I'm very fortunate to have access to Gary Vaynerchuck and the VaynerMedia team. And when I say I feel very fortunate, I mean that, you know my relationship with Gary goes back many years.

I was an early follower when he was doing Wine Library TV and was talking, and he was talking about wine that tasted like cat piss. And I'm like, wow, this is really brutal. I went back to see how, how many followers he had when I first started following him. He had less than a thousand followers on YouTube.

I'm not kidding. That's how long I've been following his stuff. So so fast forward over the years I had messaged him like, Hey, great recommendation. You're right. This wine did tastes like cat piss why did I buy it? But one day I sent him an email because I had built this company by accident.

And I didn't know what to do because I'm not an ops guy. I'm a creative, like, look at my freaking office. Right. And by the way, I didn't clean it up for you because. True to form, I'm a creative and I'm not even gonna show you my desk. Nice. And so I said to Gary, "Hey, next time I'm in New York, Can I take you out to dinner and just pick your brain on this because I really didn't know how to, how to grow this thing.”

He said, “Hey, my schedule's tight, but I've got this dinner thing going at City Winery. Do you want to come to that?” And that was it. So I went to New York, this was 2017. Had dinner with him, got some great advice and have remained in contact over the years and have been back to VaynerMedia, multiple times both for stuff that I'm working on within my business and for partnership meetings with them and their team.

So what was really nice is that my last trip there. I got to spend a day with part of his team working on brand strategy for my company. Which was super cool. And then the next day spent some time with Gary and other other business owners. So they do these things there called the Four D’s, which is a deep dive in discovery.

And I did that in the past, but I was there again.  Because I was in New York and it was just, my timing was good. And so I was there again and it was the second day back to the office for the entire team after the pandemic. So it was really weird because I was there on day one when they returned to the office and and got to see Gary and everybody, it was nice, you know, like to, to put your arms around a human being that you admire respect and love so much for the stuff he does in the world and, and gives to the world.

It was just a privilege to be back there. So it was really, it was really good, (I give some long ass answers).

It was great to be back there, but really the value for me was the conversation around the brand. And where the marketing world is going and, and the direction that I need to take my brand in and, and have started making those shifts accordingly, because at the end of the day, we all have to market what we do as a business and we don't all have the answers as to what is the cutting edge, what, what's the thing that's gonna take us from where we are to where we want to be.

HL: Right. You just got show up every day. Right. And, and yes, given that work and iterate daily, that's my philosophy. Anyway, I don't know if that tracks with Gary's.

KM: Yeah, you, you to me, I always reinvent myself and, and I think I, I started to take this strategy a few years ago and I think this works well for me because of my ADD I choose to use my birthday, April 6th, as my reinvention day.

And so. I allow myself to, to re-deploy who I am as a human, at least once a year. And because it's like getting on a clean slate and giving yourself permission to try new things.

HL: I love it. I've been doing that kind of, I, I started at the beginning of the year with that. So. What was the discussion. Now, if people don't know, you know, like those of us who started way back with Wine Library, TV was a long time ago. Like for example, I've been sober for about nine years now. So like, that was a very long time ago and he's grown VaynerMedia into this huge company that is global now.

KM: So he's $150 million, 1,800 employees.

HL: How many?

KM: 150 million. 1,800 employees.

HL: See, I looked at the VaynerMedia site. This is how I judge the size of company without looking up like the digits. I judged the hiring page and he's hiring for so many positions all over the world. And I'm like, okay, so this is a big company and it's growing.

And you know, clearly he started around the time. I would say. For the big recession from 2007 to 2009, like he was on my radar back then. And that's when I started becoming a Gary V fan. And it just, it kind of tracks that he's very community-oriented and that he would just take you. Out to dinner. So with that information in mind, knowing that Gary's obviously built up through the last recession and undoubtedly we're heading into another, what is, does he share his viewpoint of like, here's my philosophy on marketing heading into the next recession?

TikTok is The Platform To Focus on

KM: So really the, the conversation. Revolved around primarily one platform and the, the insights that he and his team have into that platform are remarkable. So let me, let me give you a little context. Mm-hmm  so the platform I'm speaking of is TikTok.

And and the reason that he, they have such great insight is VaynerMedia and Vayner X or, or Sasha group. No, I think it's Vayner media is the AOR. They are the agency of record for TikTok. Meaning they are the advertising agency that does the advertising for TikTok across television, OTT, billboard, social…

If TikTok wants to advertise the, the platform the app, anywhere in the world, Vayner media is the company that does the production of their content, their creative. That's the company. So they have unique insights into how the platform works. They know better than anyone, how the platform works.

And Gary said something to me that, that I thought was really critical.

He said to me, “Spanky,” He said, “We are at a really interesting time with TikTok. You have a finite window, 12 to 24 months. To catch the momentum of the organic reach of the platform.”

Right now, TikTok organic is favoring… The algorithm is favoring organic reach over paid reach because they're trying to crush Facebook.

They're literally trying to dominate. As a social media platform and the way you do that is you give amplified voices to your organic content creators, because that brings new people to the platform. And so right now the algorithm is favoring organic content like massively. And, and he said to me, he said, what you need to do is get on the platform.

“Four times a day, do a live.”

Once you get over a thousand followers, you can do a live. I've had two people that I told to get on the platform, gave them some direct advice. Same advice. Gary gave me. One of them is at 84,000 followers. With two-point something, million views. The other one just ticked over a thousand.

Get Your First 1,000 Followers On TikTok To Go Live And Get Link Access

She now has link access. And when you get that link access, not only can you give a link to your business, you can do live video.  and live videos are a magic bullet on that platform. No way. What they do is they trigger the algorithm to send lots of new people to your content based on the fact that you're doing lives.

Okay. And so even though in that moment, like yesterday, I did a live that was like 40 minutes and I had 400, 500 people watching that live.

But what that does is that energizes the feed. When I push my next video out after.

HL: Ah, that makes sense. Okay. Okay. Cause okay. I have two TikToks. Okay. So the, the aforementioned cats that I talked about before we started this, the cats have their own TikTok, which has enough followers to do a live, cuz they're over a thousand followers.

And then I have my own, my own like coaching. Et cetera at TikTok, right? That's about a hundred some. So I haven't even tried to go live and I just, I push content cuz I've seen every video in which Gary lately is talking about TikTok. He says, you have to push content. Like you just said three or four times a day, a hundred percent.

KM: And I'm gonna, and I'm gonna do this while, while I'm talking to you, I'm gonna like real-time… I'm pulling up my TikTok because I wanna, I wanna just show you the power. Platform. Okay. So we're going into my profile. Okay. I'm on my profile right now. @SpankyMoscowitz okay. All my socials are the same and I have a mere 54,000 followers, a mere 54,000 follows.

HL: How long have you been on TikTok?

KM: A couple of months and really, really strong since my, my trip to New York. Okay. So, which has been a month, I started posting videos of my voice impressions and I do these…I can do voice impressions. And I do one of the things people don't know about me is that before I started this business, I came from the broadcast creative production world.

I was a creative director for 30 something years. And so I do tons of voices and have done thousands of commercials. Some of them is me, but a lot of them as, “Hi, ho Kermit D frog here.” I could do characters, right? Hmm. I can do Yoda. I was doing commercials, right. I like I would do the voices and, and by the way, those sucks because I didn't give myself a chance to get into them.

But I did this video where I explained to people how I do the voice of Carmen from South Park. Now I didn't warm up. I just did a cold read on Cartman. And literally that video has to this day and this video was posted… Let me just see the date. This video was posted on May 18, so it's like been, oh wow.

TikTok Has Unprecedented Organic Reach On The Platform

Couple of weeks. Right. This video has 376,000 views. 116 shares, 151 comments, 5,900 likes. Oh my God. Do you wanna tell me, like, what platform do you know where your organic reach can give you that? Like immediately.

HL: The cats TikTok had a couple of weird days. I don't know if we made the for you page…?

I don't know what happened. I can't explain it, but there were a couple of days when we got a hundred followers a day just following my cats’ TikTok. And like, I don't typically follow a lot of the trends. Like I'll use the trending sounds like in the, the like cat talk sounds, but I can't explain how they just, they shot up for no reason.

It could have been a sound. I used, it could have been some dumb thing I did. And, and it hasn't happened since, but around Christmas time. And I don't know if it was just people were on the platform more because they were off work. Like there's nothing you can't on YouTube. You can't on Twitter. Like you, you cannot reach the amount of audience that you reach on TikTok. Like that much is clear right now.

KM: Correct. And so, no matter what industry you're in, no matter what business you're in this platform is like gold. So I shared with you this story about my friend, who I told to get on TikTok. Right? So, and I'm just gonna give him a little extra love, because I really think this is so vital that you understand the value of this platform.

TikTok Is a High-Value Platform For Creators Right Now

KM: His name is Dr. Tad Terry. He is a chiropractor, Dr. TA, you know, I don't think this will even show clearly unless I go like, ah, see, it's not gonna show clearly anyway, Dr. Tad. It's he's got 89,000 followers, 2.1 million likes. Now he literally started on TikTok eight weeks ago. That's now, I feel like I'm behind because, well, I'm not a chiropractor.

HL: I’m not very focused on my TikTok? The cats TikTok is focused. And then my, my other TikTok is not that focused. Like, and I find like I find chiropractors on there that are amazing and psychologists and like different doctors. I find a random guy who was an anesthesiologist in Miami and he quit to start giving people a Miami Botox and he has the best TikTok…

I mean, you see people who are just random average people with six figures or more of followers on there. Just putting out content.

How To Become Successful On TikTok

KM: Correct. And so when you get on this platform, here's the, here are the things you need to do on this platform to be successful. Okay. Try everything. Because you don't know what's gonna pop and you have to realize the algorithm of TikTok works differently than every other social platform out there.

And so let me give you some context for that. With, with every other platform, Facebook, Instagram name, the platform, the way they work is your friends. People who know you and follow you get served your content, a percentage of them, but discovery by new people is almost impossible on those platforms.

In fact, it is impossible unless one of your friends shares that in their network to new people, right? Mm-hmm  TikTok doesn't do it that way. TikTok’s algorithm looks at people, users across their platform and the things they like and the content that interests them. And they look for fresh audiences every time you post new content to deliver your content too.

So it's not only, it's not always going to people that like you and follow you. It's going to new people at all times. That's why if you go to TikTok and you don't understand this, and this is. Oh, my God, this is so critical because people who use the platform or get on the platform the first time, don't see this.

It took me weeks before I noticed this. When you get on the platform on the homepage to start, let me look. And there's Gary V…there's a little toggle here.  There's the ‘for you,’ right? And the following… If you have it on following, it's the people you follow, that's the content you're gonna see but the ‘for you’ is gonna deliver new, fresh stuff.

And then when you like them and you start following them, they go into your following. Right? Most people don't even think about that, but if you stay on the ‘for you,’ you're gonna always get served new stuff by the algorithm and not just stuff by people, you know? So you're not gonna be living in a tunnel, in a vacuum.

And which is what happens on all the other platforms you live in a vacuum, this, you don't live in a vacuum. So you're getting served constantly like, okay, here's an example of a piece of content. Like I have no idea why I would serve this content, but something in the algorithm thinks I wanted to see this content.

I was served a video one day of this young woman out of Texas who. A student pilot, who's building her hours to become a commercial pilot. Now, nowhere at that point on TikTok had I mentioned that I was a pilot that I flew that nothing, but it somehow knew that based on my viewing history, whatever, to start serving me, Fly with K content.

And so suddenly I get Fly with K content. I start liking some of her stuff, and now I'm getting served POVs of cockpits, right? Flying and landings. Because the algorithm knows. It’s smart. Right? So you like one thing once we're gonna give you more. Right. And if you like that stuff, we're gonna serve you more.

How To Understand the TikTok Algorithm

And if you don't like it, we're gonna serve you less. So it's a really intuitive, very smart platform. As far as the algorithm goes, one of the best out there as far as I'm concerned. So discoverability for your business is huge, but here is the caveat. Don't do it as your business, unless you are an e-comm and have the ability to do a direct transaction for a product service business.

(Those) do not do well as a business. They do great as a human. And so everything that I put up there, whether it's my stupid Oreo cookie hack or my Cartman impersonation, or me talking about business, like, I just had a blog go live. Today on our website, talking about AI copywriting versus human copywriting.

That will then become a piece of content on TikTok. I will talk about this and direct people to my website because I have a link super valuable tool, because you can do both business and personal and give people a little bit of flavor from both sides. I've been doing that with mine.

HL: It’s like, well, I can give a little bit about content marketing a little bit about coaching. I've done yoga videos on there. I've done meditation videos. Cuz my direction that I've gone in this year is I've, I've realized that in this, this personal development community that I've served for so for so many years, a lot of people now they want… They’re content creators who are into personal development and vice versa.

So I'm putting that whole package in there and the people following me are people I don't even know which. Kind of cool because it's like, I don't know who these people are. I don't even know if they're real people for all. I know. I just wanna get to that first, you know, thousand so I can get that live going.

Now, now that I'm talking to you, I'm thinking, man, I gotta get to a thousand. How fast can I do a thousand?

KM: Heather? You can do it in like two days. Seriously.

HL: Mm-hmm…I can’t believe it, I've never seen anything grow so fast as the cats’ TikTok. And I mean, not even trying, like I'm as my, as my own TikTok, I'm, I've gotta try, I've gotta make an effort.

KM: Right.

HL: But I'm not doing the dances. I'm not doing like the point to this, this, this thing. I'm just kind of like, I don't do any of that. Yeah.

KM: You don't do any of that. I don't do any of that. First of all. Look me dancing, please. I have the coordination of like an ox. Okay. So me dancing would be terrible.

Like the user experience. I can imagine all of the hate. Like you should see the hateful comments I got on my first Cartman impersonation because I didn't warm up my voice. Oh my God. That doesn't sound like him. That sucks. You're not the real Cartman. So I addressed it in another video and I did Cartman again.

HL: Oh, yeah. See,, my first video that did well was a hated video. It was around the time of the super bowl. And I said, some of you on this app are a little too young and you don't know, you're not ready for how your parents are about to get down during the halftime show. And I got all kinds of like, “Okay, boomer, get off this app!”

And like, But, but that's where the algorithm went. Like it served it up to them like big!

KM: Of course, it did because the algorithm knows. And so that, so there's a couple of things. Number one, if you're hesitant—and I'm speaking to your audience because I really want people to get this.

This is so critical. Everybody hates seeing themselves on camera, just like they hate hearing their voices. You gotta get over it and just do it like a version one is better than no version. And the only way you're gonna grow this platform on this platform is to create or do the content that you need to do to, to get your growth and, and get it moving.

You can't get growth unless you get on the platform. Now. It pains my daughter, my 16-year-old daughter, that all of her friends see my content.  so much so that like she's told them, please don't follow my dad. Please don't watch his stuff. Please like, stay away. And so, I did a video just for her friends and I thanked all of Sydney's friends for being fans.

And she's like, they're not your fans. I'm like, it appears they are. So just remember that you know, you ‘boomers’ might, might pick up some, some haters. From the younger gen that is. Okay. Oh, it's fun. They don't like that. We are infiltrating their platform at the end of the day. At some point, Heather, the truth is marketers are gonna fuck up this platform.

Just like they fucked up every other platform. But until they do, let's have fun with it, and oh yes. And let’s use it for what it's it's meant for, which is entertainment. And so, so what I do is I have a, like a weird ratio. There's no like scientific, I'm not like going to my whiteboard and writing down a calculation.

No, it's literally, I do like, I'm gonna do like four or five videos of like random stuff. And then I'm gonna pop out a piece of video that's business-related, like I, I have a blog I just wrote today, which is gonna go out next week about the recession and how to navigate the recession in a, as a business owner.

And that blog is a high-value piece of content for business owners. It's not always gonna be a high-value piece of content for the entire TikTok sphere. Right. But because the algorithm knows. Who to serve what content to, and by the way, hashtags are a big part of that. And we'll get into that next

How To Use The Best Hashtags On TikTok

Yes. The algorithm will deliver the content to the right people, some of the wrong people, but most of the time to the right people, because it's so smart. And if you do it with consistency, it knows what the hell you're doing. It's smart. It's gonna know what you're gonna post before you post it, maybe.

HL: And I play with hashtags, you know, especially with the cats, you know, there's cats of TikTok, Bengal, cats of TikTok versus Bengals of TikTok. And then I play with my own where like does marketing as a hashtag work, or does content creators a hashtag work? Does that get me to more people? Cause I don't want that to be a hundred percent of my audience, because I'm also gonna make yoga videos and meditation videos, et cetera.

KM: So the context of the hashtag is defined by the video that you're putting up. So the hashtags are gonna change with each video. Now you could have a baseline of hashtags that you use with consistency. That's totally fine. But here was one of the conversations I had at VaynerMedia that I think was so critical and like my ear perked up when you're picking hashtag.

To gain traction, you want to use hashtags that have at least 50,000 views and no more than a million.

HL: I’ve been picking the biggest, the over a million, the biggest, the hashtags with like the biggest numbers by them. I've picked by default for like this whole time.

KM: So think about, think about this, Heather, how this works in the TikTok.

Oh, excuse me. In the Twitter sphere. Right? The larger, the number, the faster it flies through the sphere. The less chance of discoverability. Ah, so the same applies tighter.  The same applies here. So you want 50,000 to a million. Is your optimal. Now I created a hashtag Ad Zombies. I wanted to see what I could create with that.

So every post I post, except for like when I was making lasagna for mother's day, or like maybe it was me with the horses in my backyard or my dogs, because we have horses and dogs. Like I live on a farm. I'm like, love it. You know, when you, when you have kids and the people who ride horses, you have horses.

I don't tag those necessary for the business, but I do tag those based on the content, right. Wines of TikTok yep. You know, Labradoodles of TikTok, horses of TikTok, but on the business stuff, I've created Ad Zombies. My own hashtag. That hashtag only has been used by me or so I thought. That hashtag has now got 427,000 views.

I haven't posted 427,000. No someone grabbed someone saw it was probably. Right. And it's being re-shared it's stuff that gets re-shared. So there's momentum and traction that gains on your hashtag. So could that hashtag eventually become irrelevant for me? I don't know. But the secret sauce for using hashtags out in the wild 50,000, is your floor a hundred thousand?

One million is your ceiling. So 50,000, if they have less than 50,000 discoverability chances go down because so few people are using it. Remember 50,000 is gonna be the number of people that have seen it. That's not a lot of people, a million people have seen it.

Soon as you get above that, it's almost invisible because it moves so fast. Ah, the discoverability is gone.

HL: Okay. So I'm gonna totally change my hashtag game after this that's this is incredible. And it, it seems like, okay, so I've noticed a lot of people I know who already are doing very well on TikTok have been on there for two years, which what you are telling me is.

KM: People are now excelling in a manner of weeks right now. Yes. The secret is you have to be consistent. You have to show up and do your reps every damn day, whether you like it or not. And if you don't wanna be on TikTok every day, that's fine. You can record a bunch of stuff one day, put it in your drafts and then trickle it out.

And so there are lots of different ways to do. But, at the end of the day, the only way you're gonna grow on the platform is to show up on the platform. And so I tend to do, you know…there days where I suck? Yep. Yesterday was one of them. I just couldn't get my reps. I had so many other things going on.

I was in my podcast studio and I did a live while I was in the podcast studio doing a sound check. I was on for 45 minutes. And I think I posted two TikToks yesterday. I just couldn't. I just, the bandwidth wasn't there. And that's not normal for me this week was a little weird. So far, Monday, Tuesday sucked, but…

I still have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And so doing a duet has so much value doing a stitch has so much value. It does work great.

HL: I did one, I did one with Halsey one day, because she was complaining about having to do marketing. Can you imagine somebody complaining about having to do marketing? Somebody in the music business, right.

Which is where we kind of came from through radio and, and she was like, "I hate having to do marketing! I don't wanna, I want the label to just put my song out. I don't wanna have to do TikTok.”

And so I stitched with that. Dude, everybody wants to excel on this app. You're complaining about it?  You already have a built-in audience!

I think it was like 4.5 million that day. Right. And you're complaining. Like you can literally push your song out right now to 4.5 million people. And you've gotta be like, fragile about it. No, like we see through this, girl, like we see through this, it's not that big of a deal, but whenever I said about that, got to people and people actually left comments and it got, it was the most viewed thing that week.

And I'm like, oh, I need to do more of that. I need to more the, the stitching and getting at people, you know, on TikTok and it's fun too. You end up with talking to random people. You don't even know these people. It's a lot of fun.

KM: You know, the thing Heather that I think is so interesting is the conversations we have as human beings with ourselves are really interesting. Like here's the conversation I was having yesterday and I'm just gonna let you into the secret of like what was going on in my brain.  so I'm in the podcast studio next door. There's I have a studio next door where I have a smart board and all sorts of stuff in our podcast room.

Where Do Live Comments Show Up On TikTok?

And I was in there doing this TikTok live and as I'm doing the TikTok live, I realized that I don't know where… When I'm doing alive to find the comments from people who are viewing the TikTok. And I don't know if they're gonna just show up. And so I'm having this conversation with the, I mean, 400 whatever people that saw that video yesterday, and I'm like, ‘Could somebody drop a comment so I can see where the comments are in this thing?'

We have these conversations that it's not okay for us to not know something. Right. And that like, oh, I'm gonna look like an idiot. Guess what? The 400 people that you look like an idiot to maybe two of them said, you're a dope. But the rest of 'em like, oh crap. Where, where are the comments when you're doing alive?

Because most of them don't have the ability to go alive. Good point. Right? So, so when you do that, like I could go live right now, here, while I'm doing this with you, I'm gonna tap the go live button. Okay. So I'm gonna, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this, like, let's see what comes up.

I'm gonna do this live and in-person doing a live pod doing a podcast and. Live. Okay. So now we're done, done doing a podcast, live 3, 2, 1, and just like that, I am now live on TikTok doing this live while I'm having the conversation with you. All the glare in here, I got so much glare… Anyway, but, but this is what happened.

So I'm doing the podcast, dry run yesterday in my studio. Now I'm doing live while I'm talking to you about this, doing this live. And I still can't figure out where the hell on the platform I will see comments when someone watches my live. So if, if people are watching and they see me and they start commenting, I don't know if I'm gonna see them.

But we, we get, we get in our heads and we're like, “Oh, I can't go live and do this. If I don't know where to look on the screen or how to get to it.”

I literally fumbled around one day for five minutes, trying to figure out where, when I'm doing live, I got to flip my camera.

It's these things that should be intuitive, but we are, we're like, I don't know what I'm doing and we're almost kinda learning together. And it's, so it's okay to stumble your way through something and feel awkward and just know that the more reps you get, the more natural it feels.

I don't know anybody out there who was great the first time they had sex. It might, it might have been a little awkward. Right? You get better as you go. Or at least you hope, you believe, you think at least hope. Nobody tells you if you're not right, but, but ultimately over time you get better at doing this at doing the lives.

Like right now, I've already got an audience building. I don't know how many people are on I'm looking right. But I have, I have a weekly rank of “fire.” I don't know what the hell that means. Does that mean I have hemorroids like I have weekly? I don’t think I've seen that thing though.

HL: There, like, cuz you have like there's roses, there's a gift box.

You can pay 99 cents to be able to give people like hearts, roses. I don't even know how the whole thing works. I've never given they have money, but I, I know that you can do this and it is actually hundred percent. You can earn money. So, so when you get on this platform, don't be afraid. Because it doesn't feel like the stuff, you know, right, right.

KM: Facebook when you're on this platform, by the way, if you've spent a lot of time on Facebook or LinkedIn and you come over to TikTok, it's going to feel really foreign to you. It's gonna be awkward because this is not what you're used to, but I will tell you this, once you start using TikTok regularly, those other platforms are gonna feel really old to you.

HL: You realize the evolution of the app is so incredible compared to where we came. So, and TikTok keeps changing frequently too. Like last week I, I have the ability to, now I have a friends scroll that's on the left side where I can just correct. It just shows me people who are friends with me.

Like I've like, I've become their follower. They become mine. And then I can just scroll through those people too.

KM: And this is terrible for my ADD because I'm literally having a conversation with you. And now I'm, I'm seeing, who's joining my conversation and, “Hey, could you drop a comment? I wanted see where it floats up in the screen here while I'm doing this live."

And I appreciate you joining me today. You, this is like a total yeah, this is like happening real time. I like doing this because it is like, this is so awkward for so many people. I'm really trying to not get the day. Oh, I know how I can get rid of the glare. Alexa lights. Nope. Still made it worse. Oh, made it worse.

I can't win the experiment of it… “Alexa, lights on.” There we go. So, you know it's, but, but don't be afraid of, of how weird it looks. Okay. I'm gonna end this TikTok live so I can continue this podcast. Great to see you guys. It sucks that I still don't know where the hell the comments are. One of these days…

I'd like to see the damn comments while I'm doing a TikTok live.

HL: I think they're in the bottom left. I think they roll upward from the bottom left.

KM: Well, so I'm again, because of the glare. I can't show you, but they're rolling up, but I just need somebody like I've got all these people joining right now.

And I just need someone to drop a comment. Like I don't care if the word is vomit, drop the word vomit in the comment. Give me an emoji, send an emoji. Yeah, gimme an emoji. Right? Show me a peach. I don't care. I just wanna see because. When you're in the live platform. “Hello, Hector Guerrero.”

Thanks for joining. When you're in the live, you just don't know where they are. And, and so I'm all over the thing because there's so many buttons, especially when you're in a creator account and I have a creator account…And once you get into this thing, you're gonna love it.

Okay. Bye TikTok. See you guys.

HL: So is a creator account the same thing as having a business account?

KM: No. Okay. There's personal there's creator and there's business. Now you can go from a personal account to a creator account and a creator account back to a personal, and you can have a separate business account.

And I choose the creator account because some extra tools are available to me, but I do not go into the creator marketplace.

HL: Now, can I switch back from a business account to a creator account? Cause there are limitations on the business.

Update: I’ve tried to change the Destiny Architecture TikTok back to a creator account or personal from business, and either it’s not possible, or I just can’t figure it out. It may be stuck as a business account with limited music available.

KM: That’s a great question. And I don't know the answer to that. So I have a business account for Ad Zombies and I have a creator account for me as a personal brand.

And that's it. Now, at some point I might create a third account just so I can see the difference between right. The tools that are available. There's so much to learn about TikTok. Like you can dig a deep dive into it, into the platform. And it can take you all day and believe me, I haven't done it a couple days in the last couple weeks where I'm like, I'm just gonna learn a little bit about TikTok today.

HL: Sprout just added it to Sprout Social. You can control your business account from sprout social…Like I normally I do B2B, so I'm like, oh, I'll check this out. And I, before I know it, I'm like deep diving… An hour later, I've gone down a rabbit hole.

I've gone from Sprout’s thing to somebody else's thing to somebody else's thing. And I'm like, damn, where did the time go? How does TikTok do this to me?

KM: It is the time-space continuum that gets like somehow twisted one Friday night. This is before I was heavily using the platform. I was just a consumer, not a user.

Okay. So big difference. Consumers can like go down rabbit holes. Well, one Friday night. My wife and I, there was nothing on, we were just sitting on the couch, had a glass of wine, each of us. And I'm like, what are you looking at? She's like, “Oh, I'm just some Tik Toks. Oh, what are you looking at?” “Just some TikToks.” Two and a half hours later…

Our phones were like dead. And like, I guess it's time to go to bed, but we both went down a rabbit hole for two and a half hours of TikTok. It was like a TikTok Friday night. Yeah. But what, what I found was interesting to me was…She felt like we wasted so much time on Friday night. And for me that was the best scientific research for understanding this platform for my business.

HL: Yeah. And it it's the, the thing that gets me about the business account though, is like, I realize that the business account gives you probably some things that you can't do as a personal. Or a creator account, but one thing it takes away is some of the rights on the music. So you don't get to use some of the popular music

KM: You can't use wiggle, wiggle on the business account.

HL: No! The possibilities for music just go away. Like it turns to this funnel of like, well, here are the few things that aren't cool and they're not popular, but you can use these, like these, these have the copyright, like these are okay, but you don't get wiggle, wiggle jingle jiggle.

KM: Yeah. And I totally get that. And that's where it sucks. Now, the creator account has some limitations only if you monetize the creator account through paid ads. So I tested it. I turned off paid ads on the creator account because I didn't want that to limit my ability to use certain songs.

Should You Join The Tik Tok Creator Marketplace?

So you can unwind certain things in the creator account, but I've heard. That the creator marketplace is causing disasters for people. So don't jump into the creative marketplace. Oh. Because it's causing a lot of like view counts to drop. Now I don't have, this is all conversations, I'm reading and hearing and people having different chatter about this and that. I don't have any evidence to back this up.

This is just what I'm hearing from people, that it's messing up their view counts and discoverability. I don't know why. I don't necessarily think that that's what's happening. I sometimes think that people read into shit because the algorithms serving a different audience that day that maybe their discoverability went down.

And I saw this with Dr. Tad. Like he had one day, he was like, oh my God, it's broken. It's not working. And then the next day it was fine. Right. It's different people log on today than did yesterday and new people are coming on the platform all the time.

HL: Well, see, that makes sense to me, just from my own, you know, back in December, around Christmas time, you know, a hundred followers a day for the cats, which is just a regular account.

…We went from a hundred followers a day to like nothing and then, you know, back up to like random numbers. And it's, it just kind of depends on what's going on.

KM: Right. It's where, where does the, where does the cat magnet drop?

HL: And there's so many (cats) and like, I have, I have fancy cats, you know, they're bengal cats. So they it's like when I make a video with them, they just get likes and follows and comments. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, you know, but I see other people who don't have fancy cats who just have your regular old, like classic tabbies and like, they're not fancy cats who have like huge followings

KM: So, I mean, there's kind of, that's kind of the fun thing about it is like you can be any person, any cat there's no rhyme or reason to it in, in some way. It's kind of like the cream rises, you know, if you're entertaining and they like you, you're going to excel.

How Should B2B Marketers Approach TikTok?

HL: And I think a lot of people overthink it cuz right now, like I work in B2B marketing.

And so a lot of people in B2B are talking about it right now. We should we be on TikTok? How do we be on TikTok? And it's like, I think we're overthinking it because like you could literally get on TikTok, do a stupid video that lasts five seconds with a trendy sound and you could blow up and you just rocket to the moon, you know?

KM: But here here's what happens though. And I, and I know that I you've heard this same conversation because I've heard this. So many times. Yeah. But how does this relate to my business? How does this turn into a transaction? Mm-hmm  how does this platform put money in the bank? I need to see sales, I need, and so, so let me, let me paint a really vivid picture of how this happened for me.

Because I saw it happen firsthand and it was with that stupid carbon video. And so as we. Client orders come through our system. We have a lot of automations in my company. And so I don't see, like right now, while we're talking, things are happening. There are jobs coming through, people, writers are writing, things are happening, right.

But I pop into our customer service queue couple of times a day, just to see what's going on in there. I like to check, keep an eye on things, put it, put my fingers on the pulse. Right. And so occasionally I'll see new orders come in. , I don't know every client we have, we have like over 40,000 clients worldwide.

So mm-hmm,  I, but I, I remember names and I, and when I see a new name, I'm like, oh, I've never seen them in the system before. So I, I did a quick search and I'm like, oh yep. This is a new email address. “Hey, glad you found us can here, founder of the company. How'd you find us? I just wanted to know.” And the guy responded within about a half-hour.

“Dude, I saw your video on TikTok of do you doing Carmen who, and I don't know why I was served that video, but then I went to your profile. I saw what you did, and I'm like, holy crap. I need this guy's business.” And next thing I know, he signed up and is doing business with us.

HL: Are you B2C B2B or both?

KM: So I think the whole world is B2C, right? My belief is every other business is a consumer of your business. So I always say that it's B2C. But we are B2B and B2C, so, okay. You think about like we service agencies around the world and we service mom and pop businesses. The mom and pop businesses would be a B2C.

Because they're the consumer of the stuff that we do, the B2B is the reseller, right. The agency. So we service both of them. But, but it's, it's interesting how the algorithm finds that path and makes the connections and puts the right people in front of your content. Right. Or puts you in front of the right people.

HL: Cause you offer a very focused service at Ad Zombies, you know, you're writing ads. Am I, am I right?

KM: We write ads, emails, web copy. If it right. If it needs words to sell what you do as a business, that's what we do. That is cool. So, and, and just people are finding you off this Carman impersonation video on TikTok.

See that's that's everything. It wasn't. It wasn't my best. That's the thing that really sucks because I, Heather, I'm getting so much fucking hatred from this video and I don't deserve it. Like I literally, I, you know, it's the perfection, so I, oh, totally, totally. So yesterday, so yesterday I posted, ‘why do people shit on others?’

And, and literally it was me. It's amazing to me. Now, this is the video I did this same people are on the internet, literally. I shared a video, which has got hundreds of thousands of likes or views now. And I did an impersonation of car. I never said I was the voice of car. I never said I'm the guy who voice. I never said of that.

It’s 'You sucked. You don't sound like him. You're not the real fucking Cartman!’ Like it's crazy. So if you've got such a miserable that's so here I am talking to people who are so miserable, that all they have to do is shit on people on the internet right now, by the way, I'm so grateful that they're shitting on me because they're part of the 300-something thousand views, which helps my discoverability, which puts me in front of the right potential audience.

Like, so guess what insult me, like every comment you lose. You lose, Dick!. Every engagement. So a hundred percent. So I'll take, I'll take your hate. Bring it.

HL: That is too awesome. Well, I, I don't wanna take up too much of your time. You you're so generous of your time, just like Gary V is, is generous with, with his time.

So, cool. A, any last thoughts about what it's like to work within the Gary V office? Just besides all the TikTok stuff, which is absolutely amazing. I absolutely needed to hear all of that. I know everybody else does.

KM: I want to say this. And I know that every, everybody who sees him or follows him has an opinion, is this guy for real? You can't win with love and empathy and compassion?

And they think he's bullshit. He's not for real… Let me tell you something. And I defended him the other day on, on LinkedIn. Somebody said, he's so full of crap and whatever.

What is Gary V Really Like?

Gary is such a genuine, real human being. And like, what you see is what you get with him. And I wish people…and this has less to do with Gary and more to do with just kindness.

I wish people were less cynical and more kind to one another. We, we tend to think of the worst. Before we think of the possibilities of good. I'm learning more of that as they get older, you know, the more I age, the more years I put on this body, the more I go, God damn it. People are really negative.

Like why, why do we default to that? And, and Gary's hope is to just crush negativity with positivity and I get it now. Like I totally get it.

HL: So I think he gets hate because he's just, he's now very known. I think the more known you get, the more you pull in that negativity too.

KM: Yep. Because there are people who are so miserable that that's all they can do, but, but my wife is really good at helping me with this because once in a while I get really like, ‘God damnit, why do you have to be such a jerk?’

And. You know, and, but, but here's the thing, realize that that individual, that person is having their life, their experiences, their miserable existence, and you don't have to react to it. That's a choice you get to make. And so my choice to react to all the hate was me being able to deliver another piece of video content.

HL: I think I saw Gary say this in a video I was watching the other day of like, he says, “Come at me. It doesn't bother me.” Like he has a way of, I'm gonna butcher whatever he said, so I'm not even describing it, but he has a way of saying, “Hey. This looks ugly, but it's an opportunity to me. I don't care. Bring it, like, bring it on, you know?”

That was his attitude about it. And I was like, you know, he's probably right, because you know, you never see a hater doing better than you. And usually people who complain online, they they're just grumpy and they're projecting. I did a TikTok about this the other day, like Quora is exactly the trash heap where that stuff happens.

And like, like the other social media, they do that too. But it just, it, it draws people who are so focused on this thing in their hand and not on reality. And, and, and not on the fact that there's a person on the other side of that screen that actually you are communicating with a human being, right?

KM: Most, I mean, there's a lot of bots on Twitter, but most of the time you're, you know, It's social media, you are talking to human beings, you know, why do you have to be shitty? I don't know. Right? Well, we, we seem to become keyboard warriors. And feel like we're, it's okay to say the things that we say to people, because we have the anonymity or the protection of, you know, a screen between us, but these, some of the things that people say online, you would never say to someone in their face to their face.

So I wish that there was more kindness. And, and empathy to steal a line from Gary. There's a lot of room for… Today and, you know, forever, there's a lot of room for that. And I think the world needs a lot of that. The world is pretty angry right now. And so I think being there at VaynerMedia, that was one of the things that you notice immediately is there's a level of compassion, of passion, of empathy, of team, camaraderie, and of kinship.

Like, I mean, for goodness sakes, there’s Claude Silver. Her title is Chief Heart Officer. Her job is to touch each individual employee. As they come through the Vayner ecosystem and to make sure that they're cared for their needs are being met. They're nurtured. It's an inclusive community, right? That's the kind of, of organization we all aspire to have.

HL: And you see the success of that. Quite frankly, the, the organizations like VaynerMedia. I know that the company that I work for were. We push for that kind of empathy too. And I know there are a lot of companies that do this now, and I think a lot of that has to do with the younger generation. That's coming up, asking for empathy, asking for inclusivity, asking for just to be treated as humans and not just cogs in the business wheel, you know?

And I think you look at a company like VaderMedia, that it's just, it's grown so much. And that's the proof right there is look at how big and successful this company has. A hundred percent and now they're working with TikTok.

So we're gonna have to talk about TikTok again. I think we're gonna have to talk about something again, because you were such a multi-talented guy coming from radio, doing all the voices way back in the day, working with me at 98-7 The Peak…

KM: And we're gonna talk to you again soon. All right. Thanks Heather.