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Curious if TikTok could be your secret marketing weapon to quick growth? On today's episode, Celisia Stanton, the host of Truer Crime podcast, talks about how she was able to grow the podcast's TikTok account to more than 150k followers in just a few months.

Celisia is the host of Truer Crime, a podcast which seeks to add more nuance, more context, and more questions to the ways we tell true crime stories. Aside from podcasting, Celisia is a wedding + portrait photographer, high school debate coach, and mother to three cats (Piedmont, Jean Jacques, and Newton).

Website // Truer Crime Instagram // Personal Instagram

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hello everyone. And thank you for coming back to the Badass Business Squad podcast. Today we have Celisia Stanton on and she's going to be talking to us all about TikTok and growing your business and your podcast on TikTok. So I'm very excited to have you here. 

Celisia Stanton: Yes, I'm super excited to be here. Just to tell you all a little bit more about myself, as Katrina mentioned I'm a podcaster. I'm also a wedding and portrait photographer. And I've owned my own business, doing those things for several years. But I actually fell into the podcasting space in a really unexpected manner in the fall of 2020.

I was the victim of a really large financial crime, which was a super crazy experience. That's a whole long story. But ultimately, immediately after that happened I ended up consuming all of this true crime. And really felt like as I was listening to this true crime content, I had this newfound perspective as a victim of a crime, somebody going through the criminal legal process.

And I was just like, "Oh my gosh. There's so much missing from the true crime space in terms of what causes crimes to happen, what are the real impacts on victims? Like all of these other pieces that kind of get left out. And then sensationalized true crime that we're kind of used to hearing."

So that all led me to create my podcast, which is called Truer Crime. And it's really the true crime podcast that I hoped that I could have listened to, or that I was looking for in the space. So yeah. I've been working on that for about a year exactly. Put out a first season in 2021 and then working on subsequent seasons now. But TikTok has been a major avenue for marketing the show and I'm really excited to chat more about it. 

Katrina Widener: Yeah! From what you've said, you were able to grow to over 100k followers in just a couple months. Everyone listening is going to be like, "Yes. Yes. Tell me your secrets." 

Celisia Stanton: Yeah, it's been really wild because I think, when I was first putting out the show, my goal was really just like getting the show out there, making sure it was a great quality. I wasn't as focused on outside marketing at that point. So I actually when I originally released the show, didn't do any outside marketing beyond just marketing to my own network on Instagram and things like that. And then once the season one was done and they had a little bit more time to devote to really finding new listeners for the show more than just word of mouth, that's when I started delving into TikTok. Season one started in May and wrapped in July of 2021. And then really started working on TikTok at the very end of July, really the beginning of August. And so between the top of August and the end of September, the account grew from zero to 150,000 followers.

And that wasn't even putting out videos every single day. I know that's like a huge piece of advice you get from people who educate on TikTok. And there's nothing wrong with that. And you probably could grow a lot more. But I actually don't have that many videos on the account. A lot of the focus is really putting out videos that were really highly strategic, until some of those kind of caught on and went viral on the platform and that really helped grow the account a lot. So it'd be cool to dive into some of those things. 

Katrina Widener: Yeah. That all sounds really, really cool. Obviously everyone's on TikTok for the most part, right? People are using it, they are consuming it. But exactly what you're saying, we hear all this advice that's like, "You need to post a video every day. You need to use all of the trends. You need to do these things." And I think that still leaves people being overwhelmed and a little like, "Oh my gosh, how could I possibly do this?" So to be able to really dive into the strategy and how you picked which ones you were going to create, and what topics you wanted to focus on will be super, super helpful for people. So maybe we can just kind of start there. Obviously it makes sense why you wanted to focus on TikTok, but how did you decide what you wanted to do on TikTok? 

Celisia Stanton: Yeah, so I think part of it is hearing what TikTok educators have to say about the platform was really helpful just in terms of, you know, obviously the algorithm is a sort of like nebulous word that scares people. But learning a little bit about how it works. How is the app designed to work. And what kinds of videos is it going to promote? I think ultimately at the end of the day, just like any other social media platform, the goal of the creators is to keep people on the app as long as possible. So it really isn't a surprise that the longer you can keep a viewer engaged in your TikTok video, the more that TikTok is going to like that video, the more they're going to push that video out. And so that doesn't mean necessarily that you have to use the three minute video every single time. And in fact that can be a little bit too long in a time when our attention spans are short. But it just means that however long your video, is if you're keeping a viewer watching for like a good percentage of that time, like 80- 90% of your video length, that's going to be ultimately pretty positive.

So all of that to say a lot of what I started with and I work on TikTok a lot with the co-producer for my podcast, Olivia. A lot of what we focus on at first was just, "Okay, what is the landscape which we're working on? How does TikTok work?" Learning some of those key pieces like what I was just describing. For that you could invest in courses and things like that, but realistically all we did was go watch some YouTube videos and read some articles. There's some great people on YouTube putting out free content, giving you great tips. They'll usually put updates out on big changes in the algorithm every month, things like that. And then from there, and this is the piece that honestly is going to vary the most I feel like between person to person, or business to business is really that market research of the people like you on TikTok in your niche. What kinds of content are they putting out that's doing really well? 

I think a lot of pressure on social media comes from feeling like you have to produce something extremely original. And it's very hard to have an original thought or put something original out there. So you don't really have to do that. So at first you know, I think trends were a bigger thing on TikTok in terms of, if you would repeat a trend and put your own spin on it, that video could do really well. I still think that could do well. Although I've definitely found more success on more niche specific content, which I can explain more about in a second, but that's kind of what we started with was putting out videos, which were a popular trend. And then what is the spin that I could put on this that has to do with my podcast or true crime content? And from there, you know a big thing was paying attention to the commenters. Seeing what kinds of content were they most likely to engage with and really putting out more content like that.

So for me for example, we were trying different things, lots of different types of trends. And then the videos that seem to catch on, that people seem to respond the most to were ones that were like critiquing the true crime genre. Right? So asking people like, "Ah, isn't it really annoying when you're listening to a true crime podcast or watching true crime content and they're doing these things, which my podcast tries to counter?" Let's say. And those would be the videos that we'd get a lot of reactions to, messages, that kind of thing. So whatever people are responding to, it's great to continue making that kind of content. 

But in terms of a really viral video I hadn't found that happening for me with trends. I'm sure that happens to some people, but you're competing against a lots of different creators. So what I started doing then was researching the other people who are creating true crime content on TikTok and seeing kinds of content were they putting out there? What's really important is you want to change your search filters to look at the videos which were the most liked in the last month or even the last week. It kind of depends on how many creators and your space. And the reason that you want to narrow your parameters that way it's just because you want to know what's performing well right now. Just cause algorithms change and people's preferences change, and also society changes. And that changes how people consume content. So you want to see what's doing the best right now and then start searching terms related to your niche or your topic.

So in my case, I be looking up true crime, true crime podcast, you know? And then you'll find hashtags that are niche specific. So in my case, there's #truecrimecommunity, or #truecrimetalker, #crimetalk. So you'll have your own sort of hashtags that are relevant to your niche. And so I would kind of look at those hashtags and see what videos are performing the best.

And then what I noticed was videos which were telling a story, and this I'm sure it's true for pretty much any niche, were doing really well. And then those stories had to be really engaging. And there were several ways that these content creators would make them engaging, right? So one is a lot of change happening on screen. So by that I mean and if you're just talking at your at your camera for a minute straight, it's going to be really hard to keep people's attention. You have to have something really special, or you have to be very lucky in terms of the algorithm to get something pushed out. So that means like maybe your green screening and you have photos on the background, and the changes are pretty quick from photo to photo. Or you're doing a lot of cool transitions or interesting angles that are switching up. And then one of the best ways I found to do it is the true crime content creators would start with a video. A video that they screen recorded or something on their phone that was relevant to the topic, the story that they were going to tell. And then they would usually have some writing above the video that hooked in the viewer, some kind of like title or something like that.

And so a video that's not of your face, but of like movement. Maybe of a documentary or something like that, of something from the story like original footage. You know in my case, it's maybe footage from 10, 20 years ago. That's automatically interesting to people and it's changing really fast, right? So you're hooking them in those first few seconds. And then the idea of the writing, the text, the hook is that's additionally going to hook them in. And really the hooks that I noticed that worked the best were hooks which made you want to watch till the end. You could call it clickbait and call it whatever you want, but really it's just this idea of "I really want to know what's going to happen."

So, I saw that and I was like, "Okay I would love to try this out, see how it works." So the first videos that we created that were kind of in that format was a story about a woman named Susan Smith. Susan Smith is a great example of something that influenced a podcast episode I did. So it's not just retelling one of my episodes and I can direct people there. But it is its own distinct story, which also fits within the types of content that my podcast is creating.

So because also this story had a lot of like outside footage, the first video was her pleading with people to bring her children back. And it's some kind of a caption that gets people being like, "You won't believe what ends up happening in this case." From there after only doing like maybe 20 seconds of that, then it switches to me telling the story, talking about the nuances of this case, the systemic issue is I'm involved in the case, switching between lots of different photos.

That one I also split into three. I believe it's three parts. And that's another strategy too. If you can create something in parts, you want to do that. Just because it gets people over to your page, it gets them engaging with more of your content, they're going to follow, you that kind of thing. Because they want to hear the rest of the story, it gives some element of suspense to things. And so that series we put out and that video is still growing. I think right now, the first video is at like over nine and a half million views. That one video alone probably is responsible for a large majority... that one video series I should say, a large majority of the followers on the account. So once you find something that works, you can repeat that format and it works really well. 

I will say though, when I say "Engage with the comments, listen to the comments, cause they're going to give great feedback," TikTok is a hard place for comments. It's like reminiscent of YouTube or something like that, where you're going to get a lot of comments which are not kind. Or people don't like to feel like they're being marketed to. So one of the big things is if they feel like something you're doing as click-baity, if they feel like you only split it into parts because you want people to engage with what you're doing, they're going to tell you that. And they could be mean sometimes in the comments, but it is what it is. We all market things, obviously we all have reasons for marketing things. So that's the one thing I would say to be a little bit cognizant of. Yes, take in the comments it's important for growing the account and learning what's working. And also at the same time, it comes with the territory. If you have videos that do well, you're also gonna get a lot of negative comments. 

Katrina Widener: That makes a lot of sense. And I love that you gave an actual example of this is one way or a couple of ways that with our niche, how we turned it into videos that work for us. I know one of the questions that people often have with something like TikTok or social media is, "How do I get that audience and get that engagement off of the app," right? So how does that turn into actual podcast listeners for you? Or for a lot of people it would be, how does that turn into actual clients? So what advice would you give those people? 

Celisia Stanton: Yeah, for sure. I mean just like you need a hook to hook in your viewer, get them watching to the end, you also need a call to action at the end if you want that to go anywhere. So it depends on kind of what you're looking to get out of the video or out of the people who are watching your content on TikTok. You can obviously have a call to action that's as simple as "follow or like", or something like that if you want people to continue engaging with future content and you're going to try to convert them later on.

What's nice too, is I'm not sure if all accounts can do this, or if you have to have a thousand followers first, maybe you have to have a thousand followers, but you can have a link in bio similar to Instagram. So you can direct people to that link. You can put a Linktree in there as well, so you can have multiple links going different places.

So we've had a few different calls to actions. Obviously, sometimes they're just like follow and, you know, I want people to keep engaging with me on the app and then hopefully eventually they'll come off the app. Pretty much on all the videos we'll have calls to action. Think we got this advice from another YouTuber, which is just always be the first comment on your own video, because why not? It's a free comment. TikTok views it as a comment. And also it's another place for you to put a call to action. So we might comment in there and be like, "Hey if you want to hear more stories which examine systems and whatever my pitch is, you can check out Truer Crime podcast on XYZ platform. Link in bio." Something to that effect.

And then the same thing with the caption of your TikTok, you can use it as like a secondary hook. Say something in there that makes people be like, "Oh shoot, I want to hear to the end." Or, or it could be a call to engagements. Asking people "What would you have done if this had happened to you?" Something like that to get people to comment and engage and have a conversation. 

So really sky's the limit, there's a million things you might be wanting to get depending on your specific product or situation. And I really think it's as simple as asking in an interesting way at the end of the video, or putting it in one of those two places: the caption or the comments section.

Katrina Widener: This has been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all this information.

Celisia Stanton: Yeah!

Katrina Widener: I know that so many people do get overwhelmed by the idea of "I'm going to really dive deep into TikTok. Or I'm really going to try to make this a main marketing platform for me." I know a lot of people who are like, "I'll dabble here and there, but I don't really know what I'm doing, so we'll see if we can make this work." So I think that this episode is going to be super, super helpful for anyone who's like, "All right, I've really been wanting to do this, but I'm just kind of floundering and don't exactly know what I'm doing." So thank you so much for coming on here and sharing all of your information, I think it will be really helpful.

Celisia Stanton: Yes, definitely. And I think for anybody who is nervous about it's getting started, we put it off for so long because that just feels like such a commitment and another social media platform. But I would say just quick two things to that.

One, TikTok is so unique because it's sort of evergreen in a way that Instagram or Facebook isn't. Once you post it, it's gone to the universe after unless you repost it. TikTok is still promoting videos we posted months ago. So it really is nice to know that work you put in isn't just gone after that first week. 

And then the other thing too is like I was saying before. Really, you don't have to post every day. If you do? Great. And you might grow lot faster. But if you put time into making really high quality content and you do it once a week, that can have really great success as well. So I definitely encourage people to get in on it. Who knows how things will change with TikTok and if it'll be as easy to grow a following on there. But it is really still a open place to get equal footing no matter your resources. 

Katrina Widener: That is great advice. Thank you again for sharing this. My last question for you is just where can everyone find you after they listen to this episode? 

Celisia Stanton: Yeah, definitely. So I'm on all the social medias! Obviously for TikTok, you can find me at Truer Crime Pod. Just like true crime with an R at the end of true. Truer Crime Pod. And then that's actually the same handle for Twitter and Instagram. My personal Instagram account, I post lots of things related to that and my photography business and my personal life it's @CelisiaStanton. And then lastly for photo stuff, it's @celisiastantonphoto or www.celisiastanton.com. Obviously, if you want to listen to the podcast, if you look up Truer Crime, it's on every podcast listening platform that you listen to podcasts on. Direct links are on all those social media channels as well. We have 10 episodes out of first season and would love, love, love if any of you want to listen, if you're into true crime. 

Katrina Widener: Yes. Go listen to the podcast. All right. Well thank you so much this has been great, and I really appreciate it. 

Celisia Stanton: Yes, of course. I'm looking forward to hearing the episode and it was nice to chat with you today.

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