Molly: Going back to the two camp content y’all were talking about short form video, TikTok and the slow decline or the rapid decline of society as we know. Okay, I might be a little dramatic, but, you know, we’re chatting this morning about TikTok. TikTok. I just aged myself.
Anthony: No, it’s a TikTok. It’s an entity.
Molly: It is an Anthony gang as a sobering stats about, like, what’s how many get you. We’re talking about short form videos. And that’s something that we often Heartcast media because we know is a great business tool. But we also see the dark side of TikTok and short form videos, right? And so, yeah.
Anthony: Yes, we were talking about the difference between how China uses the app and how we use the app. Right. So a couple of stats that a lot of you guys probably know is that China does not allow their children to use the app. There’s a time limit that they can be on the app. It’s a different version of the app and they have scrubbed the Chinese version of TikTok of all the twerking videos and licking toilet bowl videos and stupid nonsense. Everything that is on the Chinese version of TikTok is informational and educational. They use it for schooling. They use it to learn stuff at 10:00 at night. They’re not allowed to use it any more. There’s a time limit to the amount they can use it for the day. And so. The way the algorithm works on TikTok is totally different in America, because the goal of American TikTok is very different from the goal of Chinese TikTok. So the goal of American TikTok is to get you addicted to TikTok so you never leave. And so their algorithm works a lot differently than the algorithm of Facebook or the algorithm of Twitter or the algorithm of Instagram. Those algorithms take the information that you put into them and use that along with your behavior, your posting, the things that you comment on to get this kind of big picture. As we talked about in a previous episode, there’s multiple different algorithms at work and they’re learning about you and what you do. Tiktok’s algorithm is very different, as you can tell, because you don’t input that much information into TikTok, TikTok. The algorithm is only behavior based. It’s studying your behavior, it’s studying the videos that you’re watching, and it’s going to flood you with more of those videos and it’s any videos that you’re not watching, obviously you’re not going to see. And so what ends up happening is the kind of content that people like us want to create, content that is educational, content that is good for your brand, for your business, for, you know, either telling your story or establishing yourself as a thought leader or whatever your goals may be in the creation of your content. Your content is most likely to get buried on TikTok because TikTok is an influencer heavy algorithm. More people are going to watch the vapid, soulless, stupid videos than the educational ones. And even if you want to learn education and we were just talking about it in Myanmar, we had the exact same experience this weekend where we went on to some social media app website to learn something. We learned the thing, but then realized a half hour later that they had fucking caught us and we’re still looped into watching now vapid, soulless bullshit. So the more you’re on there, the more you’re going to go. Okay, I’m done with my learning work, and now I can watch a couple of stupid videos. What’s the big deal? What the big deal is? The algorithm just keeps going and going and going. And you’ve now watched 25 minutes of bullshit videos and 5 minutes of informational videos. So all you’re going to see is the bullshit videos. And so it’s hard to break through and get the kinds of videos that we want to to raise to the top of the TikTok algorithm. Like, I don’t know if that’s possible. You know, you guys are much smarter than me when it comes to this kind of stuff, but like, I don’t know how to crack the code.
Molly: Well, it is there. So I will say this because the algorithm is watching what you do, and I’ve spent less time on TikTok and more time on Instagram and Facebook, more Instagram. Although Facebook with the reels, they’re there. They rapped me back in. Right. But I will say this: Like recently I started saving or sending to myself like healthy recipe videos and workout videos. So now when I’m scrolling, actually 90% of my feed now is workout videos and healthy recipes, right? So it’s actually like really catering to me. But when I was in my sad void phase after my last relationship, of course I would hang a little longer on there like you didn’t deserve me. My, you know, all that shit with the sappy music in the fucking right? And I fell for that shit because I was feeling it right. Like and I see people’s posts on Facebook and stuff. They’re like, How does TikTok now I’m sad, boy. Like, why? And it’s because it’s like, but I think the flipside is true. Like if you’re just going on there and you’re getting it’s like anything, it’s like on Facebook, when you’re going on Facebook and you’re like, you’ll never guess how much weight these celebrities lost and you click it and it’s like a 17 page article. Any time you slow down or click on it, the algorithm is going to say, Oh, you like that content, we’re going to give you more of it, right? So it’s really our own fault. And so the best way to eliminate that is to only follow certain channels. You know, don’t watch any of the other videos, right? Because I love Alex and Lila Hormozi. So like, I get all their content served to me when I open up my social media platforms. Right. And those are great. And sometimes I listen to one of his and I close it and I’m good. I’m like, motivated. So I think it’s like anything you have to really control. It’s like.
Anthony: I agree.
Molly: I don’t want a Krispy Kreme donut until you drive by and that fucking light is on also. And you’re like, Man, I really want a Krispy Kreme donut. Right?
Anthony: But that’s going to help improve your social media experience. And I think those are great ideas. I think everybody is not doing enough to counteract their cell phone addiction, which we all have an Internet addiction, which we all have and nobody talks about in the effects of it. But also it’s from the other side, like, okay, we can make ourselves healthier by shutting this shit off once in a while and being more intentional about what we look at. But if our goal here and a lot of our clients goals and a lot of people’s goals in the space is to get other people to see my instructional video, my information, like I can’t control all the millions of people and all this stupid nonsense they’re watching, which is going to make it impossible for them to find. My TikTok video where I’m not trying to choke myself, which caused a four year old 14 year old kid to die a few days ago. They were watching videos.
Matt: When I was talking about what Molly was talking about. I was laughing at the article you sent us 3 minutes for.
Anthony: Yeah, we should. We should post.
Matt: Like what you were just saying. We’re trying to get people to see our content in a good light. Not like this quote where it goes or people engage in specific acts of idiocy in the hope it will make them TikTok famous acts, including licking toilets, snorting suntan lotion, reading to a chicken cooked in NyQuil and stealing cars. And then right under it, it was a picture of two ladies eating ice cream out of the toilet bowl. And it says to unfortunate victims of TikTok induced brain damage. And so that’s not what we’re trying now.
Molly: Well, I’m here to see you. You’re content, right? Like, especially like, okay, so if we’re talking about Instagram and YouTube and even YouTube real quick, depending on what you watch on YouTube is going to affect who’s right. So even your watch history. So like at one point I realized, oh, I should have a personal YouTube channel, not use the Heartcast media one because of its impact anyway. But right. The main goal is your content has to be consistent. So if you’re trying to be a business person, right, and have business content on there, whatever it is, but then you also do dancing videos, you just shift the bad there because now you’re confusing the algorithm. Are you dancing fun lip synching content or are you business content? So consistency in the content that you create, like really, really matters because that’s how the algorithm is going to sort you. And so you could dance or do some little things that you could do some sort of, you know, TikTok thing, right, and get new followers. But then it’s going to show you to other people, right? Like we were talking the other day about a friend of mine who did a bunch of advertising on TikTok. And she got 100. Sorry, My dog is being annoying. She got 100,000 leads. Right. But. They weren’t the right leads. They were all like young people, you know what I mean? Who doesn’t make a ton of money. And it doesn’t matter how much money. They’re never going to hire her because they’re not her client. Right? They’re not even an ideal client or even a far away reach for a client. Right. So the content that was made was probably not really speaking to. So it might have done really well. It might have gone super viral, it might have gotten in front of a lot of people. But if it wasn’t like you want people to know you’re a dancer or do you want people to hire you to create their content, Do you want people to hire you? Like what do you want people to do? And that’s the kind of content you create. And so I do think that as long as you don’t get swayed by the, you know, the shiny new thing and doing the dancing and the lip syncing videos, you know, then then you might have a smaller audience, right? But like I was saying, never, never underestimate the value of a smaller audience, Right? Like that. That chick, Rachel Peterman, who I got that social media hack, I did it. I saw a 32nd video. It worked. I followed her other stuff. I just did a five day mastermind thing with her. Got some more gems, right? Like.
Anthony: You know what Molly’s talking about. Your idea is that you don’t need to be in front of a million people. You need to be in front of 100, 500 of the right people. Right. And it’s going to lead to a better return on your investment or, you know, success of your business leads, whatever your goal is. Then then just, you know, getting into the million people. So, yeah, that’s where it’s at. It’s like, let’s not be focusing on who and how do we get to 50 billion followers? Like that’s not the business aspect of these apps. And if you take your business and you try to use the influencer strategy, like Molly said, you’re going to get shorted that way or you’re not going to get shorted at all because you’re just going to confuse the algorithm and it’s never going to show anybody your stuff.
Molly: Yeah, I mean, it is pretty wonky. I mean, but it is crazy how fast I was able to change my feed and what I’m getting right. Like, I am not like slowing down on the sad boy stuff. I am, you know, And what it really did was and I think that there I’m sure there’s information about this by saving the video or sending it to myself, like Rachel was talking about that like when people save your videos that like the insta algorithm knows and they’re like, Oh, this is valuable content. And so they serve it to what that’s like.
Matt: So speaking on that fact, just real quick, the saving thing, like how many? There’s so many tiktoks you go through and what these influencers do like these girls, they’ll post like a trending song and they’ll be like dancing in front of the mirror. And then for a split second it goes flat. It’s not quick enough for you to see while watching the TikTok, but you have to save it. It’s like a check and it’s like a split second. It goes to them and like they’re on the way. So it makes these people on TikTok save that video so they can go through and scroll and stop and like just see it. But it makes them save the video every time it’s all over the place. Because it’s like this little like that where you can’t see it on TikTok. So it forces you to save it and go through on your phone and look at it that way. It’s insane. Like there’s TikTok that only does that and you’re like.
Anthony: So is that like porn?
Molly: But they’re brilliant on an algorithm level, right? Like it’s brilliant. Yeah, it is. So which one of you is going to be in your underwear on our TikTok? Brilliant, because they are going to be.
Anthony: Thrown around a lot these days.
Molly: Oh, man. Well, so I have been. I guess so. I think maybe the takeaway here is if you want your feed to be a little different, save a few videos or send a few videos to yourself. Right. That is more in line with the kind of content that you want to actually see, You know?
Anthony: Yes. Stop engaging with the posts that you hate because that’s another thing we’ve seen and me and Molly have talked about this before, is that, you know, the reason why you may think you’re seeing all this stuff you hate is because we tend to comment on things that we hate and not things that we like. Right. You’re not going to write a dissertation under somebody’s tweet that you loved, but you’ll write a rant on somebody’s tweet that you hate. And the algorithm thinks, wow, look at all these long comments you wrote on all of this stuff. You must love it when really you hate it. So less engagement with what you hate and you’ll see less of what you hate.
Molly: So I think the three takeaways here is like if you want your content to change, number one, save or send yourself the messages you know, or the content that you really like and then you’ll get more of it. Comment on the videos that you like because it will also, you know, we can kind of chip away at the algorithm a little bit too, by commenting on the positive things, engaging on the positive things, like people don’t understand, like even in your company. And we see this actually all the time and it’s kind of shocking. A lot of people like large companies, right? And they put out social media and their employees aren’t even liking the posts. If employees go in and we’re guilty of it too. If we put something up on the Heartcast media Instagram and everybody in the company goes and hits it with a like an Instagram is going to show that same post. So many more people just because six people liked it in the first 24 hours it was up. And so you can literally manipulate, which is a whole other conversation, right? Like talking about manipulating the algorithm. Right. Like I was watching some documentary and I can’t even remember what it was anymore. But they were talking about there was like this huge hate campaign and it impacted all kinds of stuff, but they broke it down and it was like 47 accounts. 47 accounts, like worked in conjunction with one another. Right? It might have been one fucking person managing, like for real, right? And then one would post something and then seven more would retweet it like it was very, very strategic. But it was insane how a very small amount of accounts actually generated millions and millions and millions of views and made something seem so much bigger than it actually was. And so you can kind of manipulate for good, right? You can superman this shit and use your powers for good. And so you can comment and like on the posts on the internet that you see that are positive or helpful or you know what I mean? Important to your business. And you can not comment or, you know, yell at the posts that aren’t good, save the things that you like, and then also be very consistent with your own content because, you know, it is confusing. You know, you go in some people’s pages and like, listen, you might be funny and stuff, but that doesn’t mean I’ll hire you, you know what I mean? That and I think Rachel Peterman is a really great example. Petterson is a really great example of that because, you know, she had a mental breakdown on social media, right? And she was like speaking on stages with Gary Vee and all these people. And she had them, you know, she’s supposed to have 3 to 5 TikTok a day, and she was abused as a kid in a religious family. And she just was like, I want to hold people accountable. I tried to find the videos, but I couldn’t find any of them. But I was like, Good for you for your transparency. But my point is, it was for that she was doing all kinds of dancing videos and kids and lip synching and stuff. Now, all of her videos are right here. She’s practically whispering. It’s all helpful information on how to run your social media, and her stuff is growing even faster than before. So I think the biggest lesson is be true to yourself and don’t fucking dance if you don’t want to dance because a million views is not doesn’t mean anything. You know what I mean? I’d rather have three discovery calls than a million views personally. Right? So. So on that note, you know, be careful what you consume kids. You know, it’s not just iPods that are coming for you. It’s the whole.
Matt: Inner. Yeah. And you’re seeing it. I mean, there’s that. But I mean, there’s, what, 50 states? Guess how many of them have guessed how many states have banned TikTok on like ten terms like their government and state government like banned on all devices. Guess how many states? How many out of 50?
Molly: Ten.
Matt: 27.
Molly: Oh, that’s pretty good.
Matt: It’s a frantic talk.
Molly: You know, usually states don’t coordinate very well with one another, as we have seen with marijuana laws in the United States. So that’s you know, it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out, though, for sure.
Anthony: My takeaway is like, let’s take some time during the day to disconnect from the screens, from the blue light. Let a little of that stuff watch that sunlight, let a little of the sunlight light in your eyes hit your skin. And you know, it might not be kind to each other online and in real life, too, while you’re at it. I mean, it could only make the world slightly better. Which Jesus fucking Christ.
Molly: I know, you know. And you know, we don’t mean to add to the noise, but you can listen to us outside. You can put the podcast on and listen to us outside and maybe 17 minutes of I know you’re right on.
Anthony: We got to see Anthony’s face. But no, every episode, this is always going to look this way.
Molly: Yeah, literally,
Anthony: You don’t need to watch them all! You don’t need to watch them all!
Molly: Well, on that note, we’re excited to see you. The kind of content you guys make and, you know, targets on social media. Man, nobody ever taxes and social media here to serve. If you make reels and content tag us and we’ll leave comments and we’ll like it for you and we’ll uplift that algorithm. So on that note, happy content creating guys and yeah, man, have.
Anthony: A good day.
Molly: Have a good day. Get off your phone.
Matt: Have an unbelievable day but put your phone down
Molly: Yeah put your phone down
Matt: Put your phone away unless you’re going to book a call with us.
Molly: That’s right.
Anthony: Yeah.
Molly: That’s right. Heartcastmedia.com
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