Now more than ever, social media has been playing a huge part in brand awareness, and the myriad ways regular folks interact with brands that they have access to. With the soaring popularity of new, playful platforms like TikTok, it’s no surprise that both individuals and brands are getting in on the action. Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen are the Co-Founders of Wellevatr. Together with Michael Silvers, they discuss how to harness social media as effectively as possible. Indeed, now, more than ever, your social media game has to be on.
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Listen to the podcast here
Harnessing Social Media: TikTok On The Clock With Jason Wrobel And Whitney Lauritsen
We’re having another great episode. Jason and Whitney have created a tremendous company with Wellevatr. They were stars on YouTube. They’re about creating health and wellness and making a difference in the world. Their bios are in the group. You can see their bios and they’ll tell you a little bit more. There have been several big events in the personal development industry. As part of a three-part series and the information you’re going to learn is going to be tremendous. I want everybody to know that is going to be moving to a membership site format. We’ll be having holding content and information within that. We’ll also have affiliate programs for anybody interested to help us with our mission and take the Vertical Live around the word. Without any further ado, to the most amazing power team on the planet. The two of you are amazing. The information’s going to be stunning. Let me turn it over to Jason and Whitney.
Thanks for having us here. This is Jason Wrobel and my business partner and best friend, Whitney Lauritsen. We are the Cofounders and Co-creators of a brand called the Wellevatr, which offers high-performance wellness resources to individuals who want to optimize their life in terms of their mental health or emotional wellness, their personal relationships in their professional lives. We have one arm of our business that focuses on getting people clear about what their purpose is, getting them more consistent with taking positive actions in their life. We also do have a branch of our business where we have coached and continued to coach wellness entrepreneurs in terms of optimizing their impact and their message on social media.
I’m Whitney Lauritsen and Jason gave us a good intro. One thing that he hasn’t spoken about yet is that we are in the midst of launching our podcast, which is called This Might Get Uncomfortable. We’re still figuring out all of the logistics of it, but it’s already available to listen to on iTunes. If you’re eager to check it out, you can go and if you search for this, Might Get Uncomfortable, you’ll find it or you can go to our website, which is Wellevatr.com. A big focus of the podcast is about mental well-being because we’re very passionate about helping people overcome things like self-doubt, anxiety, and stress. Jason talks about his experience with depression. We talk about our professional careers and how we have used different mindset practices to achieve more high performance in our life. We’re on a mission to help people optimize their well-being personally and professionally. The podcast is a complement to the coaching that we do, online courses, books, and things that we have on our site. We’re excited and Michael is a big part of the podcast team. It’s been an exciting process getting the ball rolling on that.
Our thing too in terms of our podcast is it’s a brand extension that builds on what Whitney and I have been focusing on individually. We’re both early adopters in terms of social media, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and then Instagram. We’re always trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of what the newest social media platforms are and trying to create a memorable and enduring message before the flood of people finds about the particular platform. I feel like, Whitney especially, has been masterful in identifying what the next up and coming social media platform is. Making sure that we have a solid message and presence before things get too diluted isn’t the right word.
When you jump on a social media platform in the beginning, it’s a prime opportunity to take advantage of a captive audience because there’s not a lot of other creators who have stormed the gate. Over the years we’ve focused on building our individual wellness brands on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and most recently TikTok, which Whitney and I will talk about. That’s the one that we’re seeing a great opportunity to do. For us, we wanted to have a podcast because it was a gap in our offerings in terms of our presence on social media. We had these great brand extensions on the other social media platforms. The podcast is an opportunity for us to continue to grow that brand.
The reason that we did it this way is that we had so much momentum on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter that we feel it’s setting a solid foundation for which the podcast can grow on the brand that we’ve already established. That was by virtue of us putting a lot of years, intention, and money into growing our presence on these other platforms first. In terms of strategy, we chose to build on those platforms first before launching the podcast not the other way around. We saw it was important to build momentum with the other platforms first and get that brand equity built so that we could have more listenership and subscribership for the podcasts that we’re launching. To give an insight into how we’ve used social media over the years, we see it as setting foundations and platforms to build to the next thing build whether that was launching a book. Whitney has got a book coming out. I launched a book a couple of years ago. I had a TV series on the Cooking Channel. Whitney’s had some great TV appearances. We look at the podcast as an extension of the equity we have built on all the other social media platforms.
I would also add that on the other side of that, one thing that we’ve learned a lot since both of us started our careers on social media. It was a bit of a luck type of situation because both of us were drawn to social media early on. I got my start at the end of 2008 with a blog and then I got into social media in 2009. Jason’s been running his channel for a long time, the social media. We may have lucked out by meeting the right people that encouraged us at that time. We’ve both also studied film production in college and high school. The two of us had a lot of building up to that. We had a lot of nurturing. I’ve done a lot of coaching and consulting around social media. What I’ve noticed a lot over the years as a coach is it’s not everybody has that history or background. Some people are getting into social media are starting to take it seriously. Some people have dabbled on social media and are starting to feel the pressure to be on Instagram, to be creating videos for YouTube, to make a podcast. Another side of it that is important to mention is that one thing that Jason and I had been putting more and more emphasis on over the past year is building our newsletter lists.
Social media is a solid foundation for the podcast to grow upon the brand you've established. Click To TweetAs wonderful as social media has been for building our brands, giving us exposure, leading to phenomenal opportunities, when it comes to making conversions, there’s nothing been quite like a newsletter list. For instance, we are in a coaching session, so we have a few business coaches. One of our business coaches was showing their numbers. They did all their analytics to see where their traffic came from and where their sales conversions came from. They had determined that only 2% of that came from social media. They were discussing how it’s important to build up the website, the blog, the podcast, the newsletter lists to create that funnel. Whereas I would say from a business standpoint, social media is supportive of that in our experience. The newsletter list, website, and podcasts are starting to have a much bigger impact for us as entrepreneurs than social media has in terms of conversions.
Part of the reason that Whitney emphasizes this and I’m on the same train as her business partner and best friend is you can build an incredible impact and massive followership on a given social platform. There are two examples from our history because social media has not been around that long. I know it still exists, but I still think it’s a relevant example of this. I’ll get to the point of why building a blog, a podcast, and a newsletter list to piggyback on what Whitney said. I remember in 2005, 2006, and 2007 even, Myspace was the biggest thing. This was before Facebook started to take a foothold in late 2007, early 2008 when Facebook started to come up on that. The point here is that people who wouldn’t invest tons of money, tons of time building their Myspace account but hadn’t built their presence on any other platform. Once we saw that tilt in that power shift toward Facebook and Twitter around 2008 and Myspace started fading in the background, we learned a great lesson there. If you don’t have yourself spread, your presence, your brand equity spread across multiple platforms, if proverbially speaking you put all of your eggs in one basket, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. There was a short-form video app called Vine that went away years ago and shutdown.
That was getting to the point where there were Viners. They called them much like what they call them YouTubers that had tens of millions of followers. When Vine went away, a lot of people were scrambling to re-establish their presence on YouTube or other social media platforms. All this is to say that these social media titans can shut down people’s accounts whenever they want. They can get bought out by other media conglomerates and they can go away overnight. If you have a list of people, a list of names and email addresses, that’s gold because you can retain that and shift that to multiple newsletter providers. Our whole thing is we find that retaining an audience and maintaining as much creative sovereignty as possible is important in brand building. A lot of people will focus on Instagram or YouTube and not build a good website, not build a sticky audience on their newsletter list. For us, we want to encourage you to put your tentacles out to as many arenas and spaces as possible with your brand and your message. We don’t know what’s going to happen with social media in the future. I bring up Myspace and Vine as examples of huge social media ventures that have no relevance in our culture anymore and they were massive at one time.
On the other side, there are some people that are extremely successful because of Vine. There’s this one person that sticks out, her name is Liza and she owes her entire career to being on Vine. What was smart about Liza is that she started getting on YouTube while she was on Vine. When Vine ended, she had already established herself on YouTube. She already leaped frog over to that. That’s led to her having deals with major TV networks. She hosts TV shows and she’s always doing bigger and bigger things. A lot of amazing things happen to people. There’s Justin Bieber, who got his start from YouTube. There’s this woman named Lilly, who has a late-night TV show on Network Television because of YouTube. Jason got his television show largely because of his time on YouTube. It’s certainly not to say that those opportunities don’t happen. Jason’s point is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s important to make sure that you have ownership over your audience as much as possible because you don’t have much control over what Facebook or Instagram does. At any point, you can lose. They’re taking away the likes for example so they won’t be showing that or they might purge the audience and you find out that you have a lot of your followers turn out to be bots.
There are lots of things that happen on social media that make it unstable so building that foundation is key. I would imagine that many of you reading may already be in the opposite position. Perhaps you’ve already built a foundation with a website and a newsletter list perhaps a podcast, or that’s something you’re working on. We want to give you a pat on the back for that because what happens for a lot of people that haven’t started social media or don’t feel they’ve had a lot of success with social media. They start to feel they’re not doing enough, they’re not doing things right, or they feel this pressure of social media, “I’m not on YouTube, so I’m not as important.” “I’m not an Instagram or successful on Instagram, so I don’t have relevancy.” I want to remind you that that’s not true necessarily. There are plenty of people that barely use social media. There are people that don’t use social media at all that are extremely successful. We see social media as a complement to the work that you’re already doing.
It’s an interesting point too because people always say, “What do I start at which media?” It’s two things, we always talk about passive streams of income, but you want multiple because you never know what channel is going to go away. That is a critical piece. If you look at Myspace, they were 250 million. A couple of years ago, they would still at 65 million and they’re at 2 million, which is still not bad if you’re still part of a group. That’s not a bad day if they’re engaged. Taking a look at what you said, if you were to start again, you covered this a little bit and you were limited on time, where would you start your focus to build a social media empire or at least to start moving traffic?
My first answer was going to be the podcast. It doesn’t count as a social media platform. Watching a lot of the trends, podcasting seems to be a great choice. In terms of the traditional social media platform, I would say it’s always changing. What I can recommend to you which will be a platform like Instagram is still dominating in a lot of ways, but TikTok is rapidly growing. There are massive opportunities with TikTok that you can’t get on any other platform. I would say do TikTok. The only challenge with it is that it tends to draw a very young audience. Unless you know how to create content for a younger audience, it can feel daunting. It can feel you might not be as successful.
The good news is I’ve been studying TikTok every day and there are people of all ages there. There are people creating all different types of content on Tiktok. If you’ve heard anything about TikTok and feel intimidated because it feels very young and superficial. The good news is that TikTok is slowly starting to become a lot like the other platforms where there are all sorts of diversity in terms of the creators and the type of content on there. I’m a huge proponent for TikTok. To come back to the answer from Michael is the best way to know what platform to beyond is to follow the trends because social media is constantly changing for better or for worse. You need to check in with it every few months, six months, a year at minimum and see what’s working.
For example, there’s a ton of reports coming out about what the big platforms are going to be for 2020. TikTok is one of them but in a few months, it could be something completely different. The second piece of advice I would give is to find a platform that you enjoy and you understand. The biggest reason that people tend to not succeed in social media is because they give up. They’re not consistent. They create a few pieces of content and if they don’t get the results that they want with the numbers, the likes, the follows, the comments, a lot of people give up. They say, “I’m not getting results, so why should I keep doing this?” Most of the social media is a long game. Most of the social media is doing things for at least a few months to a year and then starting to analyze it. It can take years for there to be a success. A lot of very successful people on social media didn’t see traction for a while. If you give up after a few weeks or a few months, you’re not going to be able to properly analyze it. I would say if you feel drawn to YouTube then create some YouTube videos and do it consistently at least once a week and give it a year and then see how it’s working for you.
We’re in Vegas for business meetings at the Hard Rock, which is interesting because the Hard Rock was bought by Virgin. Hard Rock Hotels are going away. Virgin is expanding. It’s the same thing. Why does Richard Branson do what he does? It’s because he has multiple streams of income. He’s got his cruise line, airline, Galactic and hotels.
They also announced that he was doing the Big Music in Los Angeles. I feel Virgin is making a big return all of a sudden.
It’s interesting though because from a business standpoint, if you look in social media, it’s still tying across boundaries. What he does is one thing feeds into another and feeds into another. In a way, with the platforms that you two are on and built with, did you find that one platform flowed better into another? As I’m building, I would start with the one that I enjoy in like, but was there a sequence to what you did?
I would love to know Jason’s perspective on this too. I wouldn’t say that I’m planned it out because back in 2009, it was truly the Wild West. It’s still is the Wild West and it always will be with social media. It’s rapidly changing. I got on because other people were doing it and it seemed interesting. I was using Facebook for my personal life and I thought, “I’ll try it for my business as well.” I got on Twitter and then I put a lot of attention to YouTube. I was following the trends and what people were doing. I was listening to word of mouth and I was curious. That’s exactly why I got on TikTok. I was simply curious. There is a Gary Vaynerchuk. He does a lot of work on the social media space. He is a huge proponent for TikTok specifically. I saw a video of his and I thought, “I’m going to give it a try.” That’s what Gary says. He says, “Get on TikTok and give it a try. Nobody knows what they’re doing there. Everyone’s figuring it out.” He was right. The momentum with TikTok is unlike anything I’ve seen in years on social media. It was because I followed some of the trends that were happening and the advice I was hearing from people I trusted. That’s how I make my decisions when it comes to social media.
For me, I want to say two comments. Number one, to be honest, in the early days that I was being somewhat reactionary to what was the next big thing. I wanted to get on with the next big thing. In 2004, it was Myspace, 2007 it was Facebook, 2008 it was Twitter. YouTube had been around since 2005, but it was, as Whitney said, listening to the buzz of what people were talking about and also looking at each of those platforms and asking myself, how can I deliver a message or position myself in a way that no one else is doing it? When I joined YouTube, I remember looking in the food space because I was working in a catering business. I remember looking at YouTube and thinking there’s not a lot of people doing recipes. The ones that are doing recipes are boring as hell. They were like, “Here’s when you blanch the green beans. You combine the almonds with the green.”
TikTok is all about pure organic reach. Click To TweetI thought, “What if I can take comedy and characters in my wacky personality and being myself and make cooking videos more interesting on YouTube?” For me, it was not only identifying what’s the hot platform everyone is talking about but how can I leverage my personality and build brand equity in a way that no one else is doing it. That’s why I had a lot of early success on YouTube is because I was very strategic about it. I thought I’m going to do cooking videos, but I’m going to do it differently than everyone else is doing it. That was my strategy. I want to comment on TikTok to piggybacking on what Whitney brought up with Gary Vaynerchuk. At the beginning of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, it was all organic reach. This happened to Whitney on Facebook. She had an uptick of tens of thousands of followers out of nowhere. I remember we were both watching it like, “What is going on?” Out of nowhere, her following on Facebook skyrockets over 100,000. Neither one of us could explain it but those were the days where organic reach and having viral posts was a thing. Now, on the biggies, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, it’s pay-to-play.
If you want to have your audience see and view your videos and your content, you would need to pay for ads. It wasn’t that way in the beginning. One of the exciting things about TikTok is its pure organic reach. I resisted a little bit. When Whitney told me to join, it took me a good month and a half to do it. I posted my first three videos and the organic reach on that platform is out of control. It’s like the old days when you would put out a Facebook post and you can get thousands of likes and shares out of nowhere and be like, “What is happening?” While all of the biggies are essentially pay-to-play, the idea of having an organic viral video, I’m not going to say it’s dead, but it’s pretty dead. TikTok is pure organic reach, which is a big reason why we’re suggesting you get on it because for the most part, none of the other platforms have anymore.
Brandon asks, “With so many podcasts out there, how do you market to your target audience?” We’re brand new to podcasting and we have a lot to learn. With ours, we did some research. We were working with Podetize. Michael also works Podetize and they have been an incredible support system for us. What was great about them is if you sign up for their service, they will lead you through all of the steps for setting up your podcast. One of the things that they had us do early on was to go and look at different podcasts in the same category. Searching the keywords and going into the actual categories in iTunes. Looking at what other people were doing, reading their descriptions, looking at their cover art. With our podcasts, it’s coming from a place of authenticity because we already have built an audience. We don’t feel super dependent on it. We’re mainly doing it because it’s something that we love to do and to speak about. The podcast is very organic.
We’re pairing the authenticity and the organic way we’re doing things with strategy. Part of the strategy was researching what other people were doing and creating an artwork that was appealing. We analyzed what we like to see. We went through hundreds of podcasts, screenshotted them and looked at them and said, “What is it about this artwork that pops? What is it about the colors and the title?” We spent a week sorting through hundreds of names for our podcast. We pick a name that was appealing and unique and we cross-reference it to see if other people were using similar terms. Podetize wrote this incredible description for us, that’s SEO-rich. That will also help in the search. When people search certain keywords that we’re talking about, we’re more likely to show up. Podetize also does transcripts for all of our episodes. We’ll also show up in Google’s SEOs.
When somebody searches for those keywords on Google, they’ll come across our podcasts. Those are going to help us reach that target audience and market it as well because SEO is a big part of marketing. We’ll be using our already existing audiences to promote to them to get them to share with their friends. We’re doing a big giveaway to support the launch of our podcast. We have a podcast party to tap into our network and ask them to share. We’ll be evaluating lots of different strategies. We have heavy promotion time with the launch of a podcast. That’s where we’re starting. After launching, we’re going to dive into all different types of tactics and happy to share it. We’re learning along the way.
I love it because as we all grow together to which is the exciting part. This always comes up. It’s the question I always get. Can you talk a little bit about Facebook Lives?
I saw a tremendous amount of growth in Facebook Lives back in 2016 and 2017 because no one was doing it. I want to harken back to the point I made about jumping on YouTube when I didn’t see a lot of people doing it. Whitney and I were at an event by Brendon Burchard, who is an incredible high-performance coach, one of our favorites. We love his message, his authenticity and his heart. This was in early 2016. He was adamant about doing live video. He said, “No one’s doing it. You need to get on Facebook Live.” If I go back into my Facebook history between 2016 and 2017, I was on almost every single day. What I saw was this, not only the number of likes for my page but more importantly, I started to see the same faces and the same names come to every single one of my broadcasts.
What this led into was not only growing an actual community of people via these Facebook Lives but when I launched my online course in February of 2017 called My Healthy Hustle, a lot of those sales were names that I recognized from the community of Facebook Live. Facebook Live not as much impact as it did years ago because it’s saturated and there are a lot of people doing it. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do live video. I still do see a lot of good engagement from Facebook Live and Instagram Live. YouTube Live is not so much. I did a lot of YouTube Live videos and it was hit and miss. You still do see an impact from doing live videos, I find on Facebook and Instagram.
I did read that there is more data coming out that people are still watching a lot of live content. Live is still incredibly important to Jason’s point, finding the right platform. The good news is TikTok also has a live feature, but you have to get 1,000 followers on TikTok before you can go live. I’m not there yet. I’m at 800 followers. I’m getting close and I’m looking forward to experimenting with TikTok Live when I get there to see what that’s like. We’re also going to experiment a bit with doing some live at podcasts episodes at some point and seeing how that goes. Recording them live so that people can listen live but then also making them available to listen to later. The power of what we’re witnessing, anybody sees the impact of it because it feels so much more personal.
You can ask the question like Brandon did and we can answer you in real-time. You can feel more connected. That’s an incredibly important part of social media because we can start to feel very isolated with all of this technology. Part of the reason people are drawn to live video is that it feels much more interactive. It is the closest that we have to have an in-person conversation with somebody because the feedback is there live. Also, it’s unpredictable and very authentic. You’re not editing yourself in most cases unless you have a crew with you with the switchboard, you’re just talking. People can feel they’re seeing the real you, which will help them know, like and trust you more.
That’s part of the reason that Jason found a big return of investment by doing live videos. It’s frustrating we had that heyday of Facebook Live. I remember it too. I would go on there and within seconds of going live on Facebook, hundreds and hundreds of viewers. I did periscope with Twitter when that first came out and that was super exciting too. Barbara asked, “Did you do your lives at regular times daily?” I did. On YouTube Live and Facebook Live, I would do it at least once a week at a very specific time. For a very long time, I did that. I felt that helps that you would see the same people showing up live as Jason would say. There were very predictable people that would tune in right on time every time. It was great for them. It was a little tricky to measure a lot of it for me because I wasn’t creating a funnel out of it. In hindsight, I wish that I had more of a funnel. Meaning a purpose, not just showing up live to make content but encouraging people to sign up for my list and telling more people about the courses and creating offers based on the live videos and all that that would have worked well.
It’s always hindsight. It’s always the things we would have. What you are creating and what you’ve created has been amazing because you’re going in a way, you’re early adopters. You took and look at where the market is going and you’re also very aware of what’s going on. That’s how to stay fresh in businesses. If it’s not something that the audience knows, you find people who do when you work with them. Can you tell us a little bit about your launch, where it is, a little bit more about the company, what you’re doing and how people can get to know you a little bit better?
The podcast is something that we have spent an incredible amount of energy and focus because we wanted to have a stockpile of episodes with which to launch. As Whitney mentioned, we’re wanting to make sure that our artwork was dialed in, our metadata and our SEO description. Also, teasing our audience and planting seeds months in advance. This has been us playing a very slow long game up to this launch. We’re excited. Our podcast is called This Might Get Uncomfortable. It’s an exploration of passion, purpose, meaning, love, loss, relationships, health, wellness, and mental well-being. We’re digging into what does it mean to be a healthy, balanced, aware human being on this planet. How do we live lives of meaning, contentment and joyfulness?
Sometimes that’s not easy and there are a lot of challenges in life that make it very difficult for us to feel balanced, joyful, and sane. It’s an extension of our wellness brand Wellevatr into having radically honest to authentic conversations between her and I. Also, having guests on for these conversations unlike a lot of podcasts that are out there, we have no script and we have no preset questions. We know what we want to talk about in a general sense. Part of the free-flowing aspect and one of the reasons we were so invested in this podcast is we feel that as you guys listened to it, it’s being a fly on the wall, listening to a couple of good friends or a friend that we invite in as a guest. To have a radically honest conversation, you would have with someone, a good friend over a glass of wine, a cup of tea or a good dinner, talking about life, love, business, relationships, everything and what it means to make us well.
If you can delegate it to somebody, get someone to record videos for you. Click To TweetTo jump into that too, one thing that I’m incredibly grateful for and I would recommend for each of you, especially if you’re thinking about doing a podcast, is there are two approaches. One is that you dive in and you figure it out as you go along. In most cases, that’s the best recommendation because a lot of us get into analysis paralysis. We’re so focused on trying to make things perfect. We’re not making any progress. In most cases, especially when it comes to TikTok, you have to dive in and let go of excuses, nervousness, over-analyzing, and fear of getting it wrong. The big advantage that Jason and I had in launching a podcast versus years ago is that live videos helped us tremendously with this podcast. Most of our podcast episodes, we do in one take. It’s just us talking, we have honed in our abilities as a speaker. Whether we’re doing a live event or we’re live on camera, we have continuously practice and practice speaking. Not only are we able to flow through these conversations without an outline or a script, but we’re also able to get out a lot of the awkward moments and the filler words and all that.
We’ve become very aware of doing things live video. We’ve also had practice on other people’s podcasts. That’s a huge thing. I would recommend to each of you whether or not you want to do your own podcast, get on other people’s podcasts. It’s a phenomenal way to promote your brand. You can talk to us and see if you’re the right fit for our podcast. Michael has this incredible network of podcasters that are looking for people yourself. If you can get on to somebody’s podcasts and offer value of any kind. Whatever it is that you specialize in, whatever you’re most knowledgeable or passionate about, people are looking for that on a podcast. Jason and I have done countless podcast interviews over the years and that set us up for making it much easier for us to do our own podcast.
We already had the confidence, the momentum and the experience that flows naturally for us. I’m grateful that we’ve done all of that. If you’re trying to figure out the next steps, find a platform where you can do a lot of practice continuously, especially if that practice can involve collaborating with other people, perhaps you’re going to co-host their live video or be a guest on their live video which all these platforms have the ability to bring in guests from any part of the world. You can dial in and appear on camera on their live feed and get exposure to their audience. It’s a great way to grow your audience and also to get all that experience.
The only thing with podcasting that’s interesting is you can see yourself on YouTube. Even if you watch, there’s more. In podcasting, you never see yourself. It has a little bit of that boring is the word. That’s the thing we’re doing and we’re building. I’m very excited by that syndicate, that group of podcasters who will work together, keep each other in a roll. We’re the raving fans for each other and that will make a difference. You’re right, not that everybody’s going to fit on everybody’s show, that’s not what it’s about. It’s still about even on the call we’ll do once a month together, getting together, and drive in a direction. I have not seen that before in the social media world in that way. I’m excited by doing that. The difference we’re going to make in everybody’s lives and it will make a big difference.
One other question that I have is from the standpoint of social media. You also are business people and social media is a great way to reach a larger fan base, but it’s also very frustrating at the same time. I don’t know which buttons to push. I don’t know who to hire. I don’t know any suggestions around that or how to get more information if I’m not an amazing Whitney and Jason. Whitney, with the technology, you’re very comfortable. What is your suggestion when somebody who wants to dive and get in but is not comfortable at all with the technology starts to pop? Like in TikTok, I’m even like, “I’m going in. I’m excited by that. I know when I heard about it and I hope people are using it.” Do I have to hire a ten-year-old? Can you say anything about that?
Hiring or getting a volunteer and intern of some sort that’s younger is a great avenue in all seriousness or if you have children or any children that are in your life. A lot of kids are excited to teach people about platforms like TikTok because that makes them feel the experts. It’s fun. You see Reese Witherspoon, she got on TikTok with her son and there are all these humorous videos. For a son teaching her TikTok is adorable. The other avenue is one of my favorite resources is called Social Media Examiner. It’s been around for a long time. They are good at breaking down the basics. They’re also good at keeping you on top of trends. They always have the best practices, tips and tricks.
If there was one resource I could suggest, it would be that. They have a podcast too. If you subscribed to their newsletter, went to their website, subscribe to their podcast, one or all of those things, you would learn so much there. Their blog posts have step-by-step instructions for a lot of things or they’ll link to tutorials. YouTube is also fantastic. If you want to learn TikTok for example, type in YouTube how to use TikTok. There’s somebody that’s going to be there showing you a screen share of their phone exactly which buttons to press and how to do it. That’s a great way. There’s also no harm in having a team member especially if it’s someone that you want to hire.
You can delegate it to somebody, they can record videos of you. In fact, Jason and I have a very dear friend who runs an incredibly successful jewelry store in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. She has hired incredible people that take photos for her business. They record videos of her and then they upload those to the social media platform so she doesn’t have to know how to do it. She can be there in front of the camera because that’s what she loves to do. If being in front of the camera isn’t your thing, either find ways to not show your face. TikTok for example, you could record everything from the rear-facing camera.
You could document your life making a recipe or showing how to do something, whatever it is that you love to do. The other beauty of TikTok is that it can be all music based. You don’t even have to speak if you don’t want to. People use music and text on the screen a lot. That’s very popular. It’s pretty neat that you can still create videos without having to be very comfortable on camera. That’s my best advice. If you’re going to take the DIY route, follow Social Media Examiner or similar platforms. If you want to invest some money in it, get a team member, get somebody that can help you out. It doesn’t have to cost that much money to accomplish that and you can get some great results.
Jeff asks as a follow-up question, “My three-year-old and ten-year-old are on TikTok of full videos. Is there an area for serious videos? OB-GYN health is my focus.” Jeff, there are some amazing doctors on TikTok that I follow and that come up in my feed organically. Yes, it has been historically dominated by people at twenty-ish and under. Anywhere from 33 years old and their early twenties, those are the people that have been on the platform having fun with it. The people that are taking it seriously and using it for business tend to be older. You’ll see anyone from age 25 to 90. There is a couple of grandparents on the platform that have a million followers and they’re making silly videos. The serious videos, I’m seeing a lot of 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds making content to promote their businesses and all different types of businesses. Doctors, especially they’re great. They share days and the lives of their videos. I’ve seen OB-GYN people on there, sharing tips about things that people didn’t know, common questions, and sharing myths. It’s taking little tidbits of advice that you would give people and putting it into a fifteen-second video. People are doing that on there and becoming very successful with it.
Any last tidbits we should know if people would like to contact you two? I’m a little bit more about your launch if anybody needs to know. Anything that they can work on or do before we talk again?
If you want to email us with any questions or curiosity about our training, our programs, our coaching, or any of the things that we’re doing to empower people, it’s Hello@Wellevatr.com. We both check that inbox. We both respond personally. We do not have a robot doing it. It is us you will hear from. Our website is Wellevatr.com. We have a great program called The Consistency Code, which is a four-week live coaching program. We also have a great online ten-week course called Wellness Warrior Training. There are a lot of free resources. We’ve got some great PDF guides on our website as well. The big thing though we keep saying is the podcast. That is something that we are having our official launch party in Los Angeles. We’ve got a great group of influencers and business owners. We’re excited about that. To inquire about our programs, our teachings or to ask us any direct questions, that email addresses the best way to reach us.
I would also add that amongst our free resources, we also have a four-part video training that goes into our perspectives on social media. Given that we talked a lot about that, I would recommend checking that out. When you go to Wellevatr.com at the very top right corner, there’s a button and it says Free Resources. If you click on that, you’ll find the page and it’s got the PDF guy that’s got the podcast. It has the free video training on there. You enter your email address and you’ll get it right away. The video training talks about our perspectives on social media, how to be more productive, how to feel less stressed, and how to set yourself up for success. I have also created a lot of resources on my website, WhitneyLauritsen.com. I have a number of different courses on social media. You can reach out via email and we’ll point you in the right direction. We can either send you to our resources and/or other people’s resources that we recommend. To tie it into Michael’s final question about what we can leave you with. Honestly, we’ve already drilled into your heads, but if you can do anything great and brave for your brand, it would be a get on TikTok. Sign up for it. Go on there. It’s a free app. You download it on iOS or Android. Create your accounts and you’ve got your username. I always recommend using the same user name on all social media platforms as long as somebody else hasn’t taken it.
If it is taken, make something similar and make sure you clarify on your website the difference between your Twitter handle, your Instagram and TikTok. Make an account on TikTok and then start watching videos. My big caveat is that it can feel intimidating to watch videos at first. You might feel overwhelmed. I did it first. I got onto TikTok and I thought, “I don’t know if I want to do this.” I took the step one day and recorded a very simple video. I posted it, I’ve got some views, felt the confidence, and then I found myself thinking about it a lot. I would go on TikTok, I would watch some videos and then I would think, “Maybe I can give that a try.” I would do my own version. One of the most amazing things about TikTok is the higher platform revolves around people sharing ideas, whether they’re sharing information with each other or they’re sharing concepts that other people will copy. At least 50% of the content on TikTok is people making their versions of something that somebody else did. You can use that to your advantage.
If you watch enough TikTok, you’ll see what is trending, what videos people are duplicating. You could do your own version. It could be using the trending music or you go and you follow some OB-GYN people and see what they’re doing and then go, “That was a great idea. I’m going to do my own version.” TikTok is very open to the idea of people copying one another. It’s not looked down upon. It’s almost encouraged on TikTok to copy other people. As long as you have your little twist on it, whether you’re changing your outfit or the music or changing the words that you’re saying slightly, people will appreciate it if you are doing something that’s familiar to them. Get on TikTok, don’t be intimidated, just do it. Try it out for at least a few weeks to a month and then determine if it feels something you want to put more effort into.
Everybody who’s reading this, I want you all to test it out, let us know how it went. You know how to contact these two amazing people. They’ll let me know what you send to them and how it turned out for you. They’re there for you and we’re there for each other. I wanted to thank both of you for being on. This is been great because I also heard about TikToking. I haven’t even touched it yet because you pop it up on the screen, there are all these videos coming at you and I’m like, “I’m going to address that part of myself. Let it go and see what the tool is and how we can have fun with it.” From myself in the Vertical Live and Mentor Studio, you two were amazing. We’ll have guests, we’ll have fun, we might have a TikTok watch party coming up. Any last things before I let everybody go?
Since I spend so much time on TikTok, if any of you are wondering like Jeff was about the OB-GYN, I’ve seen a very good diverse amount of content. If you email us at Hello@Wellevatr.com and say, “Do anybody who’s doing videos like this? This is my specialty and I’m curious to see some examples.” I can think of some examples or show you how to search for it on TikTok, so at least you can see what other people are doing in your fields. You don’t have your take to reach out for any of that.
We’re not trying to plug TikTok, that’s funny. Maybe on one of the calls, we share your screen and you can do a little five-minute deep-dive onto it. That way becomes an educational piece that more people would be interested in. We can even record it off TikTok. We can figure out that. You will tell me what to do because you guys are the masters. Let’s have fun with it and let’s make the audience could reach. If you want to be part of those bodies, you could always go to www.TheVerticalLive.com. We will be migrating over to the membership site and everything else we’re doing, but we’ll let when that happens. This was great. Thank you so much, Vertical Live audience. You’re always amazing. I know a lot of you are going to read the blog. There are a lot on planes, there are a lot still in courses. From the Vertical Live and the Mentor Studio, from Wellevatr and all of us and even Podetize, have an amazing day. Let’s do what we always do. Let’s let it go with a word. How about you two tell us a word?
It’s going to be consistency.
You can thank them very much. We’ll talk to you soon.
Important Links
- Wellevatr
- iTunes – This Might Get Uncomfortable
- Wellevatr.com
- Podetize
- Brendon Burchard
- My Healthy Hustle
- Social Media Examiner
- Podcast – Social Media Examiner
- Hello@Wellevatr.com
- The Consistency Code
- Wellness Warrior Training
- Free Resources – Wellevatr
- WhitneyLauritsen.com
About Jason Wrobel
My purpose is to contribute my passion, experience, talents and wisdom to a world that desperately needs more healing, compassion and unconditional love. To co-create a community of conscious, effective global citizens who embody positive communication, intentional self-actualization, creative contribution and the practice of presence.
Basically, to support you in becoming a big-hearted, badass, healthy, happy superhero who unabashedly shares their gifts and realizes their ultimate potential for contentment.
My mission is to provide the tools, resources and strategies to help you live a more balanced, free, joyful and truly nourished existence on all levels of Being. To provide inspiration, motivation, humor and heart to light up your soul and let you know that you’re not alone in your struggles and ambitions. To make affordable and accessible products and programs to help you create a deeply satisfying, uplifting and passionate life that you feel proud of. To remind you who you really are and that “all is well”.
About Whitney Lauritsen
I’m the creator of Eco-Vegan Gal, co-founder of Wellevatr, co-host of “This Might Get Uncomfortable” the podcast, co-author of “The Vegan Ketogenic Diet Cookbook“, maker of online courses and ebooks, and all-around wellness enthusiast (just to name a few things). My videos, social media and written content focus around making it easy to live in harmony with the body and the planet.
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