#464 – Hooks, Affiliates, and UGC: TikTok Shop Tactics That Convert with Stephanie Tramicheck
Step into the vibrant world of TikTok Shop and social commerce with our distinguished guest, Stephanie Tramicheck. With an impressive track record that includes pioneering one of France’s first fashion and craft blogs, and helping establish Etsy and Pinterest in Europe. She shares her journey into the social commerce sphere, offering valuable insights on the explosive potential within TikTok’s ecosystem. Discover how brands and creators can harness data and analytics to excel, as she discusses her work with a Korean conglomerate and her agency.
Influencer marketing takes center stage as we explore the nuanced strategies that resonate on TikTok. Stephanie introduces an influencer masterfully blending product promotion with genuine lifestyle content. This approach not only strengthens trust but also enhances product interest organically. We navigate the evolving relationship between brands and influencers, emphasizing the importance of aligning values and tapping into audiences on a personal level. This shift from traditional advertising underlines the need for a modern mindset in today’s dynamic digital landscape.
Our conversation expands to cover the innovative terrain of affiliate marketing and live shopping on TikTok. Stephanie sheds light on the power of compelling, shoppable content that drives impulse buying, supported by insightful data analysis. As we contrast the cultural nuances of live shopping between the US and China, the call for engaging, story-driven experiences becomes clear. With discussions on spark ads, creator collaborations, and TikTok’s significant economic influence, we paint a picture of social commerce as a transformative force poised to surpass traditional e-commerce. Tune in to gain a treasure trove of insights and strategies for thriving in the ever-evolving world of TikTok.
In episode 464 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Stephanie discuss:
- 00:00 – TikTok Shop and Social Commerce
- 00:35 – E-Commerce Opportunities With Stephanie Tramicheck
- 04:53 – Exploring Social Commerce Opportunities on TikTok
- 12:59 – Influencer Marketing on TikTok
- 15:57 – Building Brand Influence on TikTok
- 18:53 – Different Roles in Social Commerce
- 19:59 – TikTok Shop Affiliate Marketing Strategies
- 22:36 – Tracking Affiliate Performance on TikTok
- 34:24 – Live Shopping Strategies on TikTok
- 41:58 – Innovating Live Shopping Across Borders
- 45:07 – Maximizing TikTok Shop Affiliates’ Efficacy
- 47:53 – Emerging Social Commerce Platforms vs TikTok
- 58:04 – TikTok and Social Commerce Future
- 1:01:12 – The Future of TikTok Commerce
Transcript
Kevin King:
Welcome to episode 464 of the AMPM podcast. This week we’re talking more TikTok shop and social commerce, because that’s where you need to be paying attention to right now. We’ve got Stephanie Tramicheck on the show today. She’s been around for a while, started three different companies. She’s helped Etsy and Pinterest launch in Europe. Now she’s big into the TikTok world, got her own newsletter and got an agency and very well connected in that world. So, I think you’re going to really enjoy this episode. There’s some actionable tactical stuff that you can do, so enjoy this episode with Stephanie.
Kevin King:
Ms. Stephanie Tramicheck, how are you doing? It’s so nice to have you here in the podcast. You don’t know this but I’ve been like reading some of your stuff online. I’m like following you for a little while and so it’s a pleasure to actually have you here.
Stephanie:
Thank you, Kevin. I’m more excited than you. I’ve been following you like. You’re a kind of like mentor in my head. I love what you do with your newsletter. I know what you’ve done in the past. I love everything you do. You’re an inspiration. So, I’m very excited to be here and have this discussion.
Kevin King:
Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you. So a lot of people you know there’s, there’s certain people in, uh, this industry, in the e-commerce industry, that everybody knows their name because they’re at every conference, they’re at everything they do little sessions, they’re speaking, but a lot of people probably like who, who the heck is this? Uh, Stephanie, uh, and they have no idea. So, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and how you got into this.
Stephanie:
So, as you may notice, I’m not a 20 years old, so my story is maybe a little longer but in a nutshell-
Kevin King:
We have time.
Stephanie:
Yes, yes. So, in a nutshell, I’m a three-time founder, mostly in tech. I’m right now the editor-in-chief what I say, chief talk officer of The TOK, T-O-K newsletter. That is everything about TikTok shop for sellers that wants to move into TikTok shop and live shopping. But my background I’m an engineer from training. I worked for seven years in telecommunication when the glass ceiling, just like, was too heavy on my head and I decided to create on the side a blog, and it was in 2004. It was the first blog in fashion and craft in France. I was in France, as you can tell from my accent back then, and it’s most likely the first the worldwide number one blog at that time for fashion and craft. So I’ve been around creating, like I’ve seen the whole evolution of content creation, social media, social media let’s remember it’s 2007 that Facebook started. So I’ve seen all this evolution and I was part also of this evolution. So my blog transformed into a business, a physical magazine, a paper magazine, an agency for retailers and a copycat of Etsy that I launched in France. And that’s how I got into working with Etsy and launched Etsy so now very famous. At the time no one knew it in Europe and I launched it in Europe. I was the first international employee for Etsy and first non-US employee for Etsy and launched and we grew it to 20 million in three years in France. And I’m not done there, because I repeated, my first time non-US employee with Pinterest and I launched Pinterest in France and we grew it in two years and a half into one million of audience in France alone.
Stephanie:
And in 2016 I’ve been. I moved to the US, so I’m in San Francisco. You don’t see it, but it’s like I’m in a Victorian house in San Francisco. I love San Francisco. San Francisco is back. I love to be an American now. I went through the green card and all the process, but now I’m a proud American citizen. I’ve been working a lot on tech. I’m like, I say, a three-time founder in tech, but now I love to be in the social commerce space. I was, I’m always very curious. I started TikTok when it was Musically. I think my first video was in 2016. And then I’ve been on and off TikTok because let’s not hide ourselves you can lose so much time and mental space being on TikTok. It’s fun, but I am very good at installing, disinstalling, installing and last year, around May June of 2024, I installed it back and I discovered TikTok Shop. I discovered how all those creators were like you can make 10,000 amounts. All those creators wanted to help and make money and in this affiliate program that TikTok shop was organizing and I saw that not so many sellers were selling at that time, but they were making a lot of money.
Stephanie:
So, I decided there is something to be done and I was looking for my next venture at that moment. So I decided, okay, let’s go into TikTok shop and instead of, like creating my own product or doing dropshipping, I actually had find an opportunity and had a contract with a big Korean conglomerate that wanted to launch on social commerce and so we make a deal and I started to help them selling on TikTok shop and so I’ve been learning everything TikTok shop by doing, by asking myself other questions, doing like I love to learn, so I’ve been going deep into learning. I’m very data driven and so I look at, like the data that you have, like all those analytics at FASMO ScaloData, you have access to a lot of information and you can, looking at those data, you can inform a lot of strategy and learn from the best. And so I created Supersell, Supersell.me with an S, not like a C with the gaming company and I decided to help brands to sell on TikTok shop and to nurture that business. I created a newsletter, which was just like for the business to gain visibility and to make sure that once I connect with someone, they can follow me. And actually now, like my priority is to continue to learn with this Korean brand, but to focus I’m focusing on the newsletter and really leaning into the education and helping brands to launch on TikTok shop.
Kevin King:
TikTok Shop has become. I’m from the Amazon world. I’ve been doing the Amazon stuff for like 30 years and so TikTok Shop I remember it was Musically when Gary Vee actually back like 2015, 2016. He’s like everybody. You need to pay attention to this. Musically, it’s going to be the next big thing. I’m investing in it. And then it I didn’t, I it just wouldn’t. I kind of checked it out and then I didn’t hear anything else about it. And then I was at an event in like 2018 and I think it’s at a golf, uh, one of these golf places where you do like a top golf or something, and someone’s like, have you seen this TikTok thing? I’m like TikTok what? Yeah, no, I don’t. There’s a clock on the wall over there. I was like no, no, you got to pull it up on your phone and so I looked at it and I was like that’s pretty cool, but I didn’t really get into it. And then, around the when the COVID hit is when I started actually paying more attention than when TikTok shop, is when really a lot of people start paying attention. And, just like you said, TikTok, that algorithm is ridiculously good. I’ve always told people like, if you want to. If you’re going on a date with somebody you don’t need to look at, do any research on them online or look at their Facebook, just say can I borrow your phone for a couple of minutes and just go to their TikTok, scroll and see what comes up. You’re going to know everything you need to know about that person, what they’re into.
Kevin King:
But I use it every night when I go to sleep. I need like an hour to wind down because I work late into the night and so I need like an hour to wind down. Sometimes I’m watching America’s Got Talent on TV or something just mindless kind of entertainment. Other times I sit there for an hour and scroll TikTok until I get tired enough to fall asleep and I end up buying some stuff from time to time because it’s very well-tuned in to what I want. And now, as I cover it, like you know, in my newsletter and a lot of sellers, I hear mixed things where people go to it and they’re like, oh man, I’m crushing it. I just on another podcast I do, called Marketing Misfits with Norm we just had a girl doing 21 million a year selling jeans on TikTok and zero presence on Amazon. And then I know another someone here at Helium 10 that was doing like 6 million on TikTok and then it raised all of her Amazon sales and so, and then you hear other people like no, I can’t get anybody to promote anything for me, and this just doesn’t work. And I think a lot of people don’t understand what TikTok actually is and they treat it like they would treat selling on Amazon or selling on Walmart or selling on Etsy or something, and you can’t.
Kevin King:
In my opinion, there’s three core things that every e-commerce seller should concentrate on, and that’s AI. You need to be up on AI as a tool, not just to write your emails and analyze the keywords or something, but as a proper integrated tool. Social commerce and marketplaces. Those are the three big things that I think everybody should pay attention to. And why social commerce is because it’s top of funnel right now and the funnel is getting mixed. Where is it really top of funnel and you slide them down, or is it top of funnel and middle of funnel at the same time? And that’s kind of what TikTok is, in a way has become, and it’s a great discovery platform. And so what do you see when you’re talking to some people with your company or newsletter subscribers for your newsletter that when they’re coming from, say, an Amazon or e-commerce world. What are some things that they just don’t understand about how TikTok and TikTok shop works that they just you got to get through their thick skull like no, quit thinking that way, think this way.
Stephanie:
Yes, I think when you come from the world of Amazon, everything is PPC, everything is search and PPC. When you come to the world of social commerce, everything is about the creators it’s about volumes volume of video and commerce video, which is a very specific format that we are talking about, and so it’s about the number of affiliates and, down the line, how many videos. Commerce video that is talking about your product that you manage to produce. So it’s not about controlling what you can, it’s about influencing, and the tactics are very, very different.
Kevin King:
Yeah, I agree, I think a lot of people come and they just try to sell, sell, sell and I find that some of the best for me personally, when I’m watching a TikTok someone that just comes on and actually tries. There’s a format with the hook and the. You know the whole process and there’s a psychology to it and that’s where a lot of people that want to be creators I don’t think they understand the psychology of actually selling and but I know that there’s. There’s a TikTok example I like to give. Is there’s a girl, Abby, something. I forget her last name. She to give is there’s a girl Abby, something. I forget her last name. She’s in New York and I think she does. She’s an influencer for a lot of, like beauty brands and Korean brand, Korean brand, um, and she just recently got a little dog, uh, and she shows the whole story about her dog. But all her stuff is subtle. It’s not like putting on some lipstick and like, oh, this is the greatest lipstick and it doesn’t smear and I can kiss my husband and it still stays, or whatever. It’s not about that. It’s like she will show playing with the dog and her story of the dog to capture you and bring you in like oh. And then she might be like oh, I got to go do my makeup, I got to go do it, and she’s in there. And it’s a quick three, five second thing and I clip after clip after clip of her just putting her foundation on, putting on her blush, putting this, and then she’s like oh. And then the third one is like oh, this is my favorite lipstick, such and such brand, it’s my favorite and that’s it. But that’s enough of a plug-in product placement that then people like it feels authentic. It doesn’t feel like they’re selling her, but they’re like, well, she uses it, she looks good. So I think that what do you think of people that are taking that approach? Versus the sell, sell, sell. Is that the better way, in your experience, to do it?
Stephanie:
I think so. First, it depends on the category. It depends on the product and the category and I will say there are different. You need to have a mix of type of creators. I think at the core you still want to have commerce video. You want to have that call to action of the why, why to buy, and it’s really linked to the fact that you need to have to really make volume. You need to have niche relatability. I will relate less to a 20 years old explaining me why the lipstick is better, but I will relate to a I will not say my age person lady talking about the lipstick. And maybe for you, you will relate, because it will be Mother’s Day or it will be another St Valentine and there will be a video special, specially for you, um, and so there is a real relatability but at the same time selling, so at the, at the act of conversion, but some creators also and like there is a moment where we will be fed up of all those commerce video and it needs to be about building a community for the brand and having a way to talk about the brand in itself.
Stephanie:
What are the values of the brand? Having influencers and UGC creators that are not affiliates. So there is maybe not the link on the video that is directly linking the video to the shop, but they are expressing what are the values of the brand. What is a community? What is the ideal user, consumer of that product? And what you’ll describe about this Abby is like part of the narrative that the brand needs to build on an influence on TikTok, and it can be done that the brand, but most likely is done by also influencers, which are different from affiliates.
Kevin King:
Well, so that’s yeah, we’ll talk about that. So, like in the case of this Abby, where she puts the lipstick on it’s three or five seconds, she’s not doing a call to action like, oh, you can get it on this shop or links below, she’s just showing it. But that creates an awareness and then maybe she’s part of a campaign that this Korean company is doing. Then another creator comes on because you just watched that video for four minutes with her and her dog and they know you like her and you’re like, so then most likely at some point pretty soon after that, TikTok or maybe the next day depends on they’re going to show you another video for that same product when this one’s actually selling. And then you’re looking at it going, oh, wait, a second, that’s the one that Abby used. Oh, that’s the one that Abby used. Holy cow, I need to get that. I think a lot of people that are coming in from, like, the Amazon world don’t think in that way. They think it’s just the sell. Like what you said, you need a whole variety, like a portfolio of things, and it has to be at that avatar, and I think that’s a mindset shift for a lot of people that aren’t experienced in advertising or psychology or whatever you want to call it, that they make massive mistakes.
Stephanie:
Yeah, it’s really more about the user and the consumer, how he will use a product, why he will choose his brand, more than the product in itself somehow-
Kevin King:
It’s the trust, you trust that person.
Stephanie:
Yes, you trust that person and, in the case of Abby, it was smart for the brand to work with her because you tap into her community. But it’s like the playbook that you have kind of like in Instagram, working with influencers, tapping into their community, their own image, what they’re positioning and the message they have, how it is supporting your own brand. So it’s kind of like they have a personal brand. All those creators, influencers, have a personal brand and you are associating your own brand to them and their community.
Kevin King:
What’s the difference between an influencer, a creator and an affiliate in the social commerce world?
Stephanie:
I would say influencer, UGC creator and an affiliate. So, in the world of TikTok which will be different in the world of Instagram, in the world of TikTok and TikTok shop an influencer is someone that has some influence. It could be nano, micro, big influencer. You have different sizes of influencers, but they are tapping into their own community. They most likely have a personal brand and you want your product and your brand to be associated with them and it’s more like really about branding that lead to sales and then you complement that with ads. So, as you say, you’ve seen the video, then the ad algorithm will promote the product to you. UGC creators is more. I pay you not to tap into your community. I mean you do it also. It depends on the creator. But because you will do more specific video and I want you to really create that video for me, and I’m paying 200, 500, 5,000, uh for one video. Um, that is more. We build that video somehow together. Um, there is no, no affiliation link. It could be an official coupon on a coupon on um, on um, on Instagram, but on TikTok usually there is no link to the product. And then there are the affiliates TikTok, so we call them. They have two names. They have TikTok shop creators which is something very specific or affiliates, and they are like a traditional in a sense of traditional old school affiliates. They earn money, they earn a sales commission on every sale that they manage to create through their video. And the video that they do is a very specific video. It’s called a shoppable video, a commerce video, and so it’s this video where I say, hey, look like this is perfect for Mother’s Day, the packaging is like so nice, it’s perfect, it’s staying, it doesn’t stay on my fingers, on my glasses and whatever. And then there is on the video, there is this link to the shop directly. So if, as a consumer, I like what you say, I click and I arrive directly on TikTok shop.
Stephanie:
The beauty is like what you were alluding to before is like you are in this mode of like relaxing, winding down after your day, and you are entertaining, entertain. And then suddenly you see this nice video, like this lipstick and like you feel so relatable, you love the stories. This is really talking to you. You just click in seven seconds. You check out because I really like, Tiktok already has your credit card, your address, and then you’re back to entertaining. So it’s impulse buying like at its heart, and it’s almost buying for fun, and so it works. The machine is heavy. Some people spend so much on TikTok shop and so they are affiliates, and every time, what I love with the beauty for sellers, the beauty of the model made by TikTok shop, is that affiliates are really only making money if they sell, so they have this motivation to make it work. It’s different from an influencer or UGC creator that, okay, the video doesn’t work, I’ve done my video. I will not say they are all like this, but it happens, and so everything is also on TikTok shock trackable.
Stephanie:
I, as a brand, I know exactly which video, which creator is bringing me, what GMV you have, the conversion rate, you know what the volume of video like, of views they will have. Everything is trackable, and so it gives you so much data about who is buying and why that it helps you to create a very good feedback loop and a fast feedback loop with all your creators, with all your affiliates, that you can give them. Oh, this creator has been so imaginative on creating something new. This is a new angle, this is a new hook we’ve identified. You can copy that and do your own thing around that, but that it will increase the conversion rate. And so the model of the affiliates on TikTok, TikTok shop is very like. It’s fun, it boosts discoverability, it boosts sales because of this seven second loop of mixing commerce and entertainment. But for the brands, I can track everything and I can iterate very fast. That’s also very new.
Kevin King:
Yeah, there’s a company called Pattern. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them. They’re in Salt Lake City. They’re $1.8 billion in sales the largest seller on Amazon and they’re in like 65 marketplaces. I was just back in May. I was at their convention. Their CEO was up on stage showing what they do on TikTok, where exactly kind of what you’re saying. They’ve written some custom software and some custom AIs that will go and look at competitive products or find every single influencer, analyze, pull out the hooks, pull out the links, pull out the angles, pull out all the positioning statements, throw that into this big AI and like figure out, okay, this is what we need to do, and then they go to. Then they go and they get there. They have an army of affiliates and they also will reach out to people. But they’ll say this is what we need to do. We need this type of hook. And they mirror or modify it slightly and basically do that and they know that it’s going to. This is going to perform within this range of conversion if done properly, and they’re crushing it on that because of that. Data is there. So TikTok gives you a lot of this data, like the GMV and all that. But then there’s tools. What do they layer on top and I know Helium 10 has some tools now as well. Is that just more the outreach kind of thing, or is that also some additional data that TikTok has not voluntarily given that they’re parsing? Or what kind of stuff do you get by layering on some of these outside tools versus just the TikTok creator center and the backend of TikTok for sellers?
Stephanie:
That’s a vast answer, vast question, I would say. From the top down you can see which categories are overcrowded, which one are working fast. You can see then on the category where-
Kevin King:
These are with the outside tools?
Stephanie:
Yes.
Kevin King:
Like in your example, if it’s overcrowded like I know someone that looks for they’re like look, what are the keywords or the subject matter, and they’ll go and they’ll say, oh, there’s only 107 videos in the last month about this subject matter, but this other one that you’re thinking about positioning as there’s 6,200 videos, that’s a much harder to compete, so go after the one that’s 107. Is that kind of what you mean by that?
Stephanie:
Yes, and TikTok is also TikTok shop on the seller center has some like what they call product opportunities, where you can identify what people are searching in your product category or in new categories so you can know exactly what from the search perspective. What are they looking for into products? You can look at the shop level and at the shop level, if you’re interested in a competitor, you can really understand how many creators they are, like affiliates they are working with, how many videos they’ve made in the last three weeks, months. What are the videos, the top one videos? Who is the top? Who are the performers? Who are all the affiliates they are working with? What are the top performing videos? You can download the scripts of those videos. You can really inform down to the playbook of how to do it, what the competition is doing.
Stephanie:
Uh, and so it’s. It’s for me like when you want to start on TikTok shop, start by having an account on analytic platform and start to look at your competitors or product in your category. Like what have they done? And you can change the dates and look back. Like okay, now they have like a full catalog, but when they launch, most of the time they only had one product and that’s the best practice is only launch with one product. Like what affiliates, why? Like how they evolve into the narrative, how the hooks have evolved, like what are the angles, as you were saying, what the patterns guy are doing. Like you can, like, I would say, learn so much and then you start by copying. There is a caveat to that. It looks like super simple when we say that the problem now and it was not true maybe six months ago is like now, the affiliate program is the hunger game. It means it’s super difficult when you are a brand starting on TikTok shop to get and sign affiliates.
Kevin King:
Yeah, that cold start is really hard.
Stephanie:
It’s very hard, and so that’s why I would say, out of five shops, maybe there is one that will make it, and very often it’s because they either believe it’s like Amazon, they don’t do the work of creating content by themselves, finding creators at the beginning, creating that visibility on the platform and then finding those few creators you can manage to work with to create a, I would say, a playbook for other affiliates. So, you have to show affiliates that with your product, they can make money and only contacting them saying, hey, I have a sales commission of like I bumped it to 30%, which, by the way, maybe you cannot do it as a brand, I bumped it to 30%. It’s not enough. Like they have, like their inbox is full. Now TikTok shop made one mistake they open up their API and they have, like you know, a store, an app store for the sellers, and they open up all their API to maybe too many tools that are AI affiliate platforms where you can send 5,000, 1,000 of message, personalized message with AI, to affiliate every day, and so you have the response rates to those emails is 0.01%, so it’s like you cannot contact.
Stephanie:
So now you have to start with UGC, you have to start with your own account, your own team, maybe that is, creating the content. Do what you say, having the story, the brand, but at the same time you need to show to affiliate that they can make money. It needs to be visible on the platform because they will not listen to your own message. Inbound doesn’t work. You want to be visible from them. And then you need to have that hook, that playbook of that creative I would say brief that you can share with other creators. And until you have found what are the hooks, what type of video works for me? What is a conversion rate? It’s difficult to scale, but the goal is to scale with affiliates.
Kevin King:
So I know affiliates look at your GMV as a brand and the brands look at the GMV and the conversion rates, like you said, of the affiliates. And if I’m a brand new affiliate, that’s zero. If I’m a brand new brand, that’s zero. I know there’s tools like Selloco that will actually kind of like seed that, where they will get some people to go buy your product or get some affiliate and it kind of like at least gets you going to make it look like you’ve made some sales, even though they’re. In the Amazon world we called it search, find, buy. So you used to rank out Amazon products where you would, if you want to rank a new supplement to the first page on Amazon, you would actually use a company, pay that company like 15 or $20 service fee per unit. Then they had an army of people that would go and buy the unit with their own credit card, have it shipped to their address and then leave a review or it would just show up as a sale. They would tell them which keyword to search under. So it would use the algorithm and then they would pay them back for the. If it’s a $30 supplement. It was costing them $50 in cash out of hand out of pocket. They get some of that back in their Amazon profits, but it’s expensive and that and that’s what kind of Selloco, and there’s a couple other tools that kind of do that until TikTok says no more of this, but that’s that’s makes it difficult. But I, like you said, though, maybe you just got to create some UGC and the other affiliates will see it, and because that’s a cool product, I would like to promote that one, or I would like to do that. That looks cool and maybe that’s the game that you got to play, instead of messaging a thousand people and maybe getting one of them to respond that’s not the one you want and then you do like Goalie, did you? They’ve done it twice now they did it last fall and they did it again this last summer where they do these huge contests and they get attention because they’re giving away a million bucks and they’re willing to give high commissions.
Kevin King:
Like you just said, that maybe the affiliates they want to make the most they can. If you’re offering them a 10% commission, the good ones are probably going no, I can get 20% or 30% from somebody else. I’m not going to do that. Versus, if you offer them this 30% or 50%, maybe all for your profit, but it depends on your goal. And that may be okay because you’re getting it going, and maybe you only do that for the first month. And then you dial it back after that, after it gets going, and then you get the halo effect on Amazon where you’re getting another 50 to 70% and that’s where you’re making your profit with zero advertising spend or something over there. And I think a lot of people just don’t look at the big picture of it all and they don’t understand. They’re trying to be profitable. It’s just like if I want to go on the shelf and be on the end aisle with my cereal at the local grocery store around the end, I got to pay a premium for that. I’m paying slotting fees and I’m paying premium fees. And that’s where a lot of people, I think, don’t understand. It’s a long play. It’s not a everybody just wants to go viral. Like, oh, they hear these stories about going viral and everybody just wants to go viral and-
Stephanie:
It would be nice if it were that easy.
Kevin King:
And on the GMV too. Just speaking of that, you might look, be looking at a creator and you’re like, oh wow, they’ve done a in TikTok shop. It shows they’ve done $72,000 in GMV. Well, you got to go look at their listing, because what if that was just one video and all their other videos never done anything? They just had one happen to go viral. You got to take those kinds of things into consideration too, right?
Stephanie:
Yeah, it’s very different from Amazon in the sense that everything is at scale on TikTok shop. You need to work with a thousand or 10,000 of affiliates. You need to influence them at scale. You need to be able to look at the data and the performance of the video at scale, because it’s like thousands, hundreds of thousands of video that you need to look at. Hopefully, now we have AI and then we have more tools, but everything is not yet in place and, most importantly, you need to learn and everything is evolving so fast. So you need to find your playbook. You need to understand what is your roadmap with your own strengths, because, for example, if you’re a creator, founder, it’s much easier for you if you’re willing to be on camera. Because if creator like I’ve noticed, like all the brands that are creator-led I call them uh, have like, go like this, like cold start is faster, uh, quicker, is shorter, uh, because they are willing to put themselves and tell the story of the brand, show the behind the scenes, uh, be in that building public, like they are the best advocate for their product. Usually there is a value behind and so they engage with the community. They get visibility much faster than any brand. And if they go live, like Canvas Beauty did or other brands, live was for a long time the trick because, uh, going live, TikTok wants to, TikTok shop wants to promote so much live, live shopping and wanted to make it work that you have so much eyeballs. They are helping you also. They give you like a time in their studio, they teach you how to do it, but they give you the eyeballs also. For how long it will be that way, we don’t know. It starts to be more competitive. The market is not so great for them right now with everything. But live is also the trick because there is less but it’s also more difficult. But there is less competition in live.
Kevin King:
The thing about live is it’s huge in China. You go to Douyin in China, which is a TikTok in China, and over there I think live is like massive and a lot of people in China they won’t buy, they won’t do like you just said in the US, where you just click the add to cart button, continue to scroll, they want to talk to somebody. They want to have an interaction, DM or physically talk to them before they buy. Versus the US, we don’t want to talk to somebody usually. We just want to like do it, and live just hasn’t taken off. Amazon’s tried to do it. I mean, they still have Amazon Live. It’s a cultural thing. That’s a huge difference. So, what makes a live work here in the US on TikTok? What are some strategies that people that want to do that or, if the creator is willing, the owner, like you said, is willing to go on and do that. What makes it work?
Stephanie:
I think for me, the most authentic and best way is to have the creator or face of the company really talking to the audience, but a community, and not being hard selling. And so this is one part of like what exists. The other part that you see is those Outlandish booths. Have you heard about that Outlandish? So, this agency working with affiliates and live, they have in Santa Monica. They have an old store warehouse where they have, I don’t know, 50 or 25 booths. They all are alike but they are in the color of the brand and you always have someone selling live like eight hours, nine hours. I don’t mean it like. And so this is a becoming a format, um, the American format of live, uh on, on TikTok shop which I found like I don’t like it. Personally, like as someone that is very careful about the brand, the positioning, the message, I find it like really too commercial and there will be a fatigue because they all look the same. They are branded but they all look the same. So, it’s kind of like okay, I’m in a market and I have someone, a seller, that’s coming to me aggressively saying do you want to buy this one? So, it’s kind of like closing the deal. But I think what’s missing right now is we are in America. America is very good in producing blockbuster movies, telling stories you know with like the hero journey, and I would like to see live shopping that tell a story. I would like to have more higher production type of live shopping that is more linked to interviews, like showing the brand the behind the scene, and Zara, for example, has done some of it. I don’t remember where they’ve done it, but they were doing like the preparation of their fashion show and you could see like how they were thinking about preparing for the show.
Stephanie:
And this is, I think live shopping should not be only about selling, but it should be tell the story also of the brand. That’s why when it’s creator-led, it’s better, because it’s not just like the selling, it’s not just like buy this product, it has this feature, it’s like there is more meat to it, and I’d like to see more brands doing that themselves, because then it’s about a story about the brand in itself. It’s very difficult to outsource. I would say to, I mean, you can work with an agency, but it has to be your own story, it has to be produced, I would say, but not like in an authentic way, the iPhone way or the relatable way. It doesn’t have to be. When I say it has to be produced, it doesn’t have to be also like in a studio. It could be in a store, you can imagine, for example. Someone gave me that very good example. You know, when you go to Sephora you always have those ladies that are like explaining do you need something? They show you the product. Actually, they are paid. Most of them are paid.
Kevin King:
They get a basket for you when you hit your arms or your hands.
Stephanie:
Yeah but most of them are paid by a brand, and so there is always a moment in the discussion where they say, oh, we have also that type of product in this brand, like, maybe you’ll like it, but they don’t have the badge, that they are like working for that brand. Imagine when it’s downtime they could take their phone, do a live and start to talk about their brand. They are good at talking, they are good at presenting the product. So, imagine you can be in the store, you can have an army of sellers that are already in all the Sephora and that, in their own way, with their own words, with their own way, with their own words, with their own age, with their own perspective, talk about your own product. You already pay them and then they can make maybe more money because they have the sales commission on top of that. But the brand needs to innovate. Give them maybe a specific phone or an access, train them somehow. So, there is a lot of creativity that needs to happen in live shopping and I think right now we try too much to duplicate what’s happening in China and I think we need to take ownership of like. We are different. Here we have our environment of e-commerce is very different, and so let’s use that environment, the retail network. You know there is so many things that we can leverage to make live shopping work, but it’s up to the brand to spend the time and find what’s worked for them.
Kevin King:
Yeah, like you said, the place that’s in LA, the building that has all these different booths, that’s big in Indonesia too, they do some. I think that’s maybe where they even got the idea. A lot of people don’t realize TikTok. The US is not TikTok’s biggest market, it’s China. It’s called Douyin there and then second is Indonesia. Indonesia is huge, and then the US, and then they’re branching out into Europe right now. When it comes to the cost, I mean when TikTok first started they were subsidizing shipping for the sellers, they were subsidizing some of the promos and the percentages were super low just to get things going and they got a lot of organic reach. But they’re starting to move in that direction. They’ve announced this in the summer. They’re starting to move in the direction like it’s going to be more of a pay to play and the organic is still there, but it’s going to get cut and cut and cut, and now it’s more about paying to play, finding this affiliate, letting them see that something works and then putting ad money behind it to actually blow it up, and otherwise they’re not going to really extend it out. What are you seeing in that regards and what are some strategies for that?
Stephanie:
I think you still have organic in the sense of virality is not about like how many followers you have, but like the story and the angle and the creativity. So, you need to have in place a like this feedback loop we were talking about earlier. In that feedback loop is very important to have creativity and let creativity be your kind of like way of finding organic ways to still have like earned. I will say um, uh, instead of just having paid. But with everything the evolution of ads, especially on TikTok shop with AI and GMV Vax, where it’s inevitable that you will have to more boost a video that works. But I think it’s also smart for a brand when you have this feedback loop and you see that one creator is starting to blow up because you have to be very reactive and look really at the needle in the haystack which video is like really now, like right now blowing up then you just put more ads and so it’s not about like having an ad budget, it’s about the reactivity and like reinforcing what works, and so it’s uh, it it’s again you have to work at scale. You need to have a capacity to analyze fast and create feedback loop and when you do those ads, like we call them, spark ads. You have a spark code that the creator gives you, so you need to be. You can also negotiate that. It’s not the same sales commission, it’s a little lower. So actually doing the ads might boost your margin at that moment. So, it’s all about the data, the reactivity and the feedback loop and the capacity to engage with affiliates in volume but also to influence them with that feedback loop very fast. It’s not just a one-off with an affiliate. You want it to be regular but you want to help them to do a better job at talking about uh, talking about your product.
Kevin King:
So should sellers and brands be jumping on trends like uh back in the summer, I think back in late May, early June there’s a big trend on TikTok of uh people creating AI baby photos what uh baby things? Where it’s like take two people and it’s you upload a picture to this AI tool and it would create these little. Take your head, like me, and your heads, and then have make us little babies sitting at a desk doing the podcast and people were putting those out and putting and that became really hot and then some brands started jumping onto that and like trying to do that to promote themselves. Is that wise to do that or does it depend? Or is that short, short-sighted?
Stephanie:
No, I think it’s like you. It’s not short-sighted and it’s not also critical to your strategy. I think when you have to create so many content over and over every week, every day, as a brand, you need to post on your own account. You need to make sure that you have the story of your brand. It’s good to use a trend for that. It gives you ideas, it gives you more modernity, I will say, on the platform, relevancy, and maybe the algorithm is using the music and boost a little more your video. But also people relate more if you are using the trend because it’s funny, we engage more. It feels like you understand, you are in this platform and you understand me as a person that loves TikTok, so it’s good to do it. But it’s like you need a system and it’s more difficult to do it with the affiliates. You do it more with influencers or your own account that you’re managing. So there are different levels, I will say where you can influence and do videos.
Kevin King:
Now, with the success of TikTok, there’s been a lot of other social media I guess not knockoffs, but similar platforms tried to emerge that do what TikTok did. Amazon tried it with Aspire and it didn’t work. They had to cancel it. There’s all these other little ones that, oh, you only get to request a product if you have left a review with the seller or you’ve sold something. They’re trying to fix all these little gaps that people complain about on TikTok, but none of these have taken off really. And is TikTok just so entrenched and so much in the top of mind like Amazon is right place, right time and they just got such a lead? Or do you see that there’s some other platform out there in social commerce that may be an up-and-comer that you’re like? Well, we need to watch this one and see what happens.
Stephanie:
Um that’s a very good question. It’s true, when you are a TikTok user, the loyalty, the time you spend on the platform is crazy. The volume of time, the sheer amount of time you spend daily is crazy compared to any other social media. That said, you have platforms like what’s not in the live shopping space. That has an amazing growth and right now it’s not really for all the brands. It’s a lot of more what I call live sellers. It’s like Etsy at the beginning. It’s like more small sellers, drop shippers, having their own stock of products. Usually, you have the stock in the background and they show you the product, and so it’s a very different nature. It’s close also to what eBay is doing with live commerce, but their traction, their growth is like incredible. So I think this is coming on the space and maybe they will add the version of the Amazon-like or the marketplace in their platform, allowing bigger brands or more brands instead of just live sellers selling on the platform. I think it will be a natural evolution. I’m not talking to them so I don’t know, it’s my own hypothesis, but it would make sense. So, there are contenders and you can think also about Facebook, and especially I mean Meta, with Facebook Marketplace, or back in the days Instagram was trying and it’s kind of like doing things in e-commerce. But they will change, like everything. I think we have to look. I always talk about TikTok shop and live shopping, but actually you have, because it is what’s now. But you have to look at social commerce in its own beast and all because everything is moving very fast. Every three months, the playbook has changed, uh, you, you need to do things differently, um, in some part of your playbook, uh, and there will be more platform coming up.
Kevin King:
QVC on the live shopping side now they have 24/7 on TikTok um with QVC, because like hey, this TV stuff ain’t doing what it used to do. We need to be where the eyes are, and now they’re doing it on TikTok. So I don’t know how that’s doing for them. That’s a relatively recent thing where they went 24/7. But I would imagine it’s probably doing all right.
Stephanie:
I think it’s doing all right. I don’t remember the numbers, but they are doing all good.
Kevin King:
When you’re seeing people come into this space. I saw some stats. There’s like a million and a half people trying to make a living as an influencer slash creator, on social media in the US, and most of them I think the numbers are pretty dismal. Most of them aren’t making any money and, like you said earlier, when a new shot comes up, one out of five might actually breakthrough. What are, what are some things that a seller listening to this like, okay, I keep hearing about this TikTok thing. I need to get on this bandwagon. What are some mistakes a lot of them make and what’s something that maybe a couple of tips that they should do to actually have a chance at that cold start or have a chance at actually doing. We talked about a little bit create the UGC and we talked about, but let’s like just give them like some bullet points or like a few things that they can, they can do and they shouldn’t do.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I think the first thing they need to remember is like a successful brand will have roughly 80% of their revenue GMV made through affiliates. So that’s the power of affiliates. So, it means you need gradually move from I’m alone, I’m opening my shop to I will have like hundreds of affiliates working with me, and so how you do that first step is like you need to do your own content. You need to learn like what is the user that is buying my product? What is my consumer? Sometimes some shops don’t even do that job and so I’m finding like those people on the platform follow them. So create an account. You have your shop account but create another account and start to follow people your competitors follow people that are buying the product of your competitors, but interact with those videos so that you have a feed that is completely the feed of your audience, and then you understand TikTok will start to see oh, you are that type of person, so they will show you like the video that you are supposed to like as the audience of your product and the consumer of your product, so you can better understand and put yourself in the shoes of your consumer. And then you start to get ideas of, like, what type of video I should be doing, what type of influencers, what type of angle in stories and I’m not even talking about the hooks yet, but, like, what is the story angle? Is it unboxing? It is day of the life of, is it a testimonial into a dry shampoo or what it is you learn about, like, be on the platform.
Stephanie:
I would say second tip is, like, go on analytics platform. Look at who are your competitors, what has been working for them in the past, because what they are doing now is maybe different of like when they started. Now they have more budget, it’s easy for them to get affiliates, but you still learn from their video the angle and then try to replicate. You learn by doing either yourself. So, if you are creator-led, that’s better, and in this case I will say you need to be comfortable to be in front of the camera and speak. Speak in short form video, but also in live, and you should be spending some time in live every day. So that’s another learning curve for everyone and things you need to do and then, after you understand better what type of affiliate, what type of creator I can work with and you start to outreach cold outreach. You can use platforms. You can spend a lot of money working also with agencies having a network of creators. So, depending of like, the scale of your company, if you’re very small, cold outreach to a few of them. Maybe take some people that are like good on Instagram and bring them to TikTok.
Stephanie:
People that are like working abroad but you have your own accounts and then have them talk on like with what you learn and show them what they should be doing, trying to find your own playbook of the video, the stories, the hooks that works. And once you have that, then you can scale. Then you can go and like, buy the platform, go and work with a creator network. But until you have that brief, that creative brief, that’s what will be working and converting. Like you have to do like what is more manual, like my son at YC right now is 17, is a youngest uh founder ever at YC and when you launch a company in zero to one, they always tell you like, do things that don’t scale. You think about like. You need to learn, you need to try by doing and it’s not profitable. But that’s okay, because you learn and you need to learn fast. The fastest you learn, the fastest you will pivot, the fastest you will find what’s work and then you scale. TikTok is the same.
Kevin King:
Yeah, interesting, you say that on the feeds. I know someone has five phones and each phone they keep for like different avatars and they only scroll certain things on each one, so they can see what it shows them and they don’t. They don’t confuse the algorithm, uh, with their own personal stuff or with something of another client. So they’re, and it’s working very very-
Stephanie:
You can do it on your own phone. You can switch easily from one account to another. Uh, you can create like a ton of accounts, but it’s very important to create your own feed, uh, for your own avatars, so you understand what they see. What are the, the trends? What is a video like? What a 20 years old, like TikTok, knows? Like I’m not 20. And so it will not show me the same thing, and so I need to put myself in their shoes because it’s about, at the end, it’s about the emotional connection, the relatability with the avatar. So you need to get that to at that point. That’s empathy with your consumer, your avatar. You need to get that.
Kevin King:
Can you talk about the importance of hooks?
Stephanie:
So when you look at the data, you see and TikTok is very good at giving you that data of like within the first you see that within the first two seconds people are scrolling. So the hook is about two seconds to six seconds, but I would say more two seconds and the drop of like the view is like crazy. Like you have the data. It’s funny to do a lot of experiments on that. The hook is like really has three components. The hook is like the goal is to make sure that you stop scrolling, that you oh, there is something that make you watch the video. Start to watch a video. Hopefully you stay for the whole video. And there are three components to the hook. It can be visual, so a very good thing is like people are moving and then they start to speak. The visual hook it can be I open a door, I move, I do something. It can be that you have like you know those tiny ends. There was a moment where people had the tiny end in their hand. That’s a visual hook. There is a uh text hook, so you have like a sentence and or a few words, where it’s it’s like on ads, on Meta, you want the people that should listen to you to identify themselves very quickly.
Stephanie:
So you say me, if I were doing for my newsletter a video on TikTok, I would say DTC brand like or something like this, or Amazon seller, and then the what you say and you don’t start oh hello, guys. Like no, that doesn’t work. You go directly to the meat of the thing, of what you want to say, what you want to the key like something it could be something. It doesn’t have to be shocking, it just has to be very clear and directly to the point. And so it’s a skill. You learn to do that. You copy by. You learn by copying, by doing. There are always people finding new hooks. You have accounts on TikTok that are just talk about hooks, how to do them, what’s working. So follow those accounts. Have like one account that is like learning about how to be a creator, so that you can guide also your own creator yourself. And it’s evolving because it’s might change. It’s changing also.
Kevin King:
So what do you think is going to happen long term with TikTok? I mean, we’re still going through some stuff right now, but the big issue, that the big knock is oh, this is the Chinese. It’s a privacy thing. They know everything about us and they can influence our society by the way they screen things or the way the algorithm works, but that may or may not be true. But Facebook and Meta and Google they all got actually more data on us. I guess they’re based in the US, so there’s some sort of well, we can actually regulate them differently or control them. But what do you think is going to happen here? I mean, it’s such a big business and it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry on the creator-influencer side. Is this going to get down the road? Do you think this is going to change hands? Or do you think it’s going to be status quo and they’ll work it out and it’s just kind of go away and be like oh yeah, remember that one year in 2024 and 2025, when they’re talking about this, where do you think this is going?
Stephanie:
I always, whenever there was those discussions about the TikTok ban. I think it’s really clickbait for the news outlet because when you are inside TikTok shop and you see the impact that this platform has on every American, either by influencing, either because they make a living through affiliates and creator, or because of the brands making so much money and it could be like a live seller or it can be like a bigger brand. The economic impact of TikTok shop is real and so the money that is there. Like no one, like there are obviously people that wants to grab that money and that opportunity. Like I don’t see a world like, a vision of our world, in like if we think about the matrix where TikTok shop is dead, um, and then obviously the money will go to a better like national interest, I would say, or national commercial interest, it depends how we see things, but definitely it will not. Like I don’t see it stopping. The thing we can question is like what the form of it? Will it stay like TikTok, TikTok shop or something a little different, but that economic power that exists in social commerce is not going anywhere. Social commerce is here to stay, is here to become the number one way of selling. It’s like there is no way. It’s inevitable that in the future you have social commerce in general making more money than traditional e-commerce, I would say.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, Stephanie, I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing. This has been great. Some good stuff on TikTok. If people want to reach out to you, maybe get your newsletter or learn more about what you’re doing helping people out what’s the best way for them to do that?
Stephanie:
Yeah, so they can follow me on LinkedIn and reach out directly to me on LinkedIn. You will put my name which is complex, I guess in the notes. But also they can sign up to the newsletter at thetoknewsletter.com, where they can sign up.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, thanks again, appreciate it and good luck in the social media world, ever-changing social media world.
Stephanie:
Yes, ever-changing.
Kevin King:
Social media commerce is not going anywhere. It should be one of the major hubs and spokes in your system of selling e-commerce. Not just Amazon marketplace, but social media and AI. Those three should be a core and then you could do other things off of that. Your Shopify, your Walmarts, your other things, but that should be a core. Just as Stephanie said, it’s not going anywhere. It’s just going to get bigger and bigger and more more powerful. We’ll be back again next week with another awesome episode of the AM/PM podcast. Be sure you subscribe to my newsletter, billiondollarsellers.com, and we’ll see you again next Thursday.
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