Charlotte Moore from Studio Sonder and Girl on Film walks us through how to up-level our website, blog and social media copy to talk to our audiences and push our personal brands in the most natural and authentic way.

Her insight is GOLD - listen in now....

How do I manage to make a full time income from blogging and creating resources for a community? I break it down in this episode of The Grow & Glow Show. This is a bonus episode we're calling, 'Behind The Biz' where we share the inner workings of what running an influencer and membership business is really like. I hope it's helpful!

Honestly give it 5 minutes on TikTok and those songs will be stuck in your head all day too!

Yep, we’re back with an episode on my new favourite app - TikTok!

So why TikTok? Everyone is 12, no one can get any business from it and it certainly won’t drive traffic or help build a brand, right? WRONG?

In fact, in today’s episode I’m going to tell you why - whether you’re a blog or a brand - you need to be on TikTok!

Whilst you’re listening to this episode, and thinking, alright Vix, I’ll bloody download it but then you open it up and you’re like why is everyone dancing? Why is the Washington Post doing Kardashian quotes? And you’re feeling totally out of the loop… we’ve made a free guide for you to get you started! Head to tiktokwoah.com and download the e-book for all the beginner tutorials and strategy you need!

So let’s dive in on TikTok - I won’t bore you with it’s origins, you can read about that in the e-book BUT there are some things I want to share with you.

Firstly, it currently has 1.5 billion registered users with that number growing rapidly in recent climes.

Of those 1.5 billion registered profiles, 800 million of them are regular users. And those users spend on average 52 minutes a day on the app.

Yes, 60% of those users are 16-24 (and younger I imagine) and you might not think that age group are your target audience or customer, but they will be in a year or two - and that’s why it’s so important for brand building.

Also we’re looking at reports of 26-35% of users being 30+ - that is a huge chunk of audience you could be reaching.

As a creator though, you might be thinking you haven’t got time for ANOTHER app to be getting on with.

But here’s why I think you should spend a little less time mindlessly scrolling Instagram and a lil more time creating on TikTok…

Firstly, TikTok is THE platform for under curation - some of the most popular and viral videos take less than 1 minute to make and post meaning no photographer, editor, photoshoot location and poring over blog like captions - it’s way more instant and the ability to post, go and still grow is exciting.

Secondly, the REACH. With just 100 followers I created a video that has gone on to get 90k views. TikTok doesn’t work like Instagram in that reach is limited (right now), it’s super simple - make engaging content, have it shared further and wider than you can ever imagine.

At 1k followers, I created a silly video guessing the gender and age of the viewers watching with amassed 7k views over night and 35k views within 24 hours, gaining me an extra 1.5k followers in a day - when was the last time you experienced that kinda growth on any other platform?

But even better than that - followers aren’t THE metric to get caught up on! I’ve seen fashion influencers with under 10k on Instagram and 1-4k on TikTok do brand collaborations - SPONSORED - on TikTok.

That’s because the most important metric on TikTok is ‘true reach’ aka how many people have watched your video! And to get more views, your video needs to get early likes, comments, shares and saves to boost it along - but don’t worry I go over this more in the e-book.

So Ok you’re probably thinking - cool another app to collect followers on but how does this translate to traffic, partnerships or growing my brand right?

Well just this month, TikTok began to roll out link in bio for all users - whilst we haven’t gotten enough data to prove that traffic can be referred from this app in a meaningful way - it means it’s coming - just like Instagram in the early days (plus we shouldn’t be relying on TikTok for traffic - that’s what SEO and Pinterest is for)

So how does it help with partnerships? Well I’ve just added it on as an extra service with a package I’m working on with a brand in the next few months - more and more brands, already established on Instagram but wanting to prep their TikToks ready for their next generation of customers are turning to TikTok - that means they’ll need TikTok influencers to partner with.

And how does it help grow your brand? That’s a little trickier to quantify but there are a few brands and personalities absolutely KILLING it right now. The Washington Post is now seen as the COOLEST newspaper because of their presence on the app. Local bakeries are seeing a surge in customers due to sharing their cake making skills on the app and even crafty Etsy sellers whose videos of making things have gone viral, have seen an upswing in interest and sales.

On a personal note, with around 1k followers I was messaged on LinkedIn by a guy who found me on TikTok who wanted to book me to come into his company and consult on influencer marketing, digital marketing and TikTok - this kind of discovery is so exciting.

But you know, maybe you’re thinking now isn’t the right time, you want to wait for more people to jump on, more people your age or in your niche, right? But like Gary Vee once said, do you want to be the first or be the best? Basically, if you’re not the ‘best’ at YouTube or Instagram, you sell have that window to be the first on TikTok - but that window won’t last. Don’t we all wish we were the first at YouTube or Instagram? We still have this opportunity on TikTok.

Hopefully you can see why I love this app so much and why it’s my new favourite! I’d love to know your thoughts and experiences so far…

SO go download the e-book, jump in our free TikTok Facebook group - search for TikTok Woah - and I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

Vix sits down with OG blogging queen Megan Ellaby to talk to highs and lows of her blogging career so far. From collaborating with her sister, to starting her own brand and the trolling that comes in-between. 

Did you know that theming your blog content really helps with SEO?

Let me walk you through the benefits of a blog series in this week's episode, help you plan one and talk to you about how it can improve your blog's ranking.

Are you guilty of being on the content treadmill? Write, photo, record, edit, publish, promo and on again?

In this week's episode I'll discuss the importance of getting strategic and taking a step off of the treadmill so you can work ON your shiz, not in it.

Plus I'll fill you in on how I do exactly that, so you can have a go yourselves.

Spoiler, your captions aren't really 'shit', they're just not doing the bits you need them to be doing for you.

Listen to this week's newest episode to hear about all of the terrible captions I've previously written, why they're so terrible and come away with actionable tips on how to writer better Instagram captions!

Welcome back to what was The Exciting Emails Podcast and is now THE GROW & GLOW SHOW!

The content stays the same, I'm STILL teaching you everything you need to know about launching, running, growing and GLOWING a successful blog - we've just had a sexy makeover and a whole load of new episodes to come!

In this episode I'm taking it RIGHT BACK to where a lot of you get stuck when it comes to establishing yourself online, and that's finding your niche, your USPs and the space for you to glow in.

Let's shift our mindsets and by the end of the episode, come away with fresh ideas and the motivation to stake your spot in the online world.

In this bonus episode I have some exciting news AND I interview some current Grow & Glow members to find out why YOU should join our exciting, thriving and ever expanding hub of creators!

This is one of those blogging guru type things that I should really trademark, because I make up words and terms but actually probably shouldn’t because it’ll sound like bollocks but in today’s episode, I’m sharing my approach to content creation - how to create content that Google loves, how content that builds relationships with readers and content that brands will love. That’s all you need right? PS this is what I teach my coaching clients and you’re getting it FO FREE.. Are ya ready?

When I first started blogging, as I’ve mentioned many many times before, it was a total hodge podge of favourite lipsticks, awful date stories and dry AF holiday diaries. I had no intention. No strategy. No frigging clue.

It was only when I started having ‘working lunches’ with other bloggers, where I’d teach them the strategies that had been working for me, did I actually even realise I had strategies. Y’know those moments where you feel like you’re blagging total bullshit - omg interlude, I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and my sister and I watched How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days in our room and they dubbed the word bullshit with bullspizz or something and I’ll never forget it - so yeah you’re blagging bullspizz and then you’re like, wow ok that’s not bullspizz that’s actually informationally correct goodness? Yeah it was one of those.

I realised that the content I’d made that had performed the best and had one form of success, fell into 3 succinct categories. I then got my lil teacher brain on and wrote it all out and made it a thing which I then taught.

So lemme teach ya!

Blog content essentially needs to serve 1 of 3 purposes - sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t.

1 - they need to be searchable

2 - they need to be relatable

3 - they need to appeal to brands for future collars

The names I came up with were searchable, relatable and brandable and I know the last term is bullspizz but stay with me as I’m going to break down what each one means and what results you’ll get!

÷÷ This episode is sponsored by Grow & Glow, a community for creators who want support, transparency and skills to establish and develop their online presence.

LOL obvs it’s my membership hub but I wanted to drop in and tell you a bit about how the hub can help you with content creation! Not only do we have a v fancy and useful social media planner that you can swipe, AND a huge brand database to tap into for that brand able content but we also have a thriving community of over 100 founding members all ready to become your new blogging BFFs. Doors open again in August, but I’d love to see you on the wait-list where I’ll share more info about what you can look forward to inside the hub. Go to growglow.co/wait-list to join in!

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The content that is searchable brings traffic to your blog from outer sources such as Google and Pinterest.

The relatable stuff is what gets your audience to fall in love with you and share it amongst their followers or nearest and dearest.

And the brand able content is your portfolio to show brands that they should work with you - these two last content types totally translate to Instagram too, right?

Searchable content is the stuff you SEO and keyword research to, the, eye balls. And I’m going to do a whole separate episode on keyword research so dontcha worry, I got you.

Relatable is the stuff that will let the reader get to know you. And everyone has their own scale of relatable from ‘here’s the contents of my bowels’ to ‘my real name is actually Ethel Von Burstensturg and I secretly live in a Romanian fishing village’ and you get to decide how much of yourself you want to share online. But I will say I 100% don’t believe I would’ve had the journey I’ve had so far, if I didn’t let you into my life!

And then the brand able content is the stuff you create either in partnership with brands OR where you organically feature the brands you love so you have it as a portfolio piece to show them how much they definitely need to work with you.

There’s not hard and fast rule to say - write 3 relatable, 2 searchable and 1 brand able post a month - it’s down to you, your goals and your schedule.

Perhaps you can only blog once a week and your focus is to land a collaboration with Oliver Bonas - make that your priority. Or you don’t get really any audience engagement or love AT ALL, so it could be a good time to focus on creating that content that lets them know more about you and builds relationships.

Like I said, these can cross over too! Perhaps you want to write a post on your miracle morning routine… you can make that relatable by discussing how and why you need routines, you can make it searchable by doing keyword research and formatting the post appropriately OR you can make it brandable by talking about your favourite brand and how you include it into your routine - does that make sense?

So grab your planner, paper, a pen and draw out 3 columns, name them relatable, searchable and brand able and note down some post ideas you have! Which ones can cross columns?

I’d love for you to email me, DM me or pop into the Exciting Emails Facebook group and share your post ideas!

Until next time, byeeeee