 What's up everybody once again is brand man Sean and this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because I saw myself. Now I have a snippet from a very special interview with an artist by the name of Trey Little. Why is it special because he is blowing up on TikTok at the moment. He got on TikTok in a short period of time probably only a few weeks. He got to about 15k. We start talking about certain things and then when we decide to do his interviews he had another like I don't know 5 to 10 thousand followers and even when I'm recording this video right here since the interview he probably got another 15 to 20 thousand followers. He is moving and he's having a dope experience. Check this interview out to learn a little bit about him and how he's approaching TikTok and get some tips from him as well. This is an episode of Inside the Network You Don't Want to Miss. How did that come about? What made you even get on TikTok in the first place? Okay, so the first thing that got me interested was I partnered with this organization called Positive View and they're like an organization that travels around Michigan and they're going to branch out eventually but they brought me on as an artist and we just started last in a bunch of schools like all around Michigan like the whole region and all that. And then when I pulled up to one of the schools I did a show and right after it was like this huge group of kids came up to me they were like middle schoolers and they were like are you on TikTok and I was like no so I was like I'm not the creative account just for y'all like I had a musically account but it like it just got buried down somewhere and like but I created the TikTok right in front of them and I got like my first like 30 50 followers because like it was like a small group of people after the show it was determined to put me up on game so yeah that's how I initially got in on it and then once that's dope it was it was slow there like but it wasn't and it really picked up when Gary V started talking about it and that's when it really I got serious about it you know that's when it when it picked up as far as you wanting to do it more yeah yeah and then I see you and Cory do a couple videos about it and I was like man it's this thing because you know all of those things blew up on it maybe that was just a one-time thing but when Gary V talks about something that's when I take it serious so like he started saying get on TikTok get on TikTok and I was like let me try this thing and then I literally just went all in on it man like as I was still doing Instagram YouTube and podcast and all that I decided to go full force on TikTok and then literally like a couple days I just started going viral and I was like oh my gosh you know yeah man it's crazy like TikTok is such a new space still people don't understand how new it is because some people might feel like they even missed the wave but it's not that that old yet I mean we're talking about only a year in really as far as when they merged with Musically there are a year in the US that is right they exist in the other markets before what why do you feel like no actually I'll ask you this what was your experience when you first got on TikTok now of course I know you got people to join I mean follow you immediately just because of that middle school situation but what did it feel like to you were you confused were you did you really feel like using it a lot or did you like Instagram better still so first of all Instagram is a beast really good like that's the that's number one you know like for artists I feel but when I first got on TikTok it was the thing you see a lot of artists do we get on there we post one of our videos of us rapping and then you know get like three views or ten views and then you get discouraged and that was like the thing that happened I got on there and I posted one video then three days go by I post another video and it was like man and then I would hear the oh TikTok is for kids and for middle schoolers and then people were counter-clowning on TikTok you know and at first it was like hey man I posted a couple videos and nothing happened and even back from the Musically days I had like one video on there and it just didn't do nothing like ten views 20 views and I was like man this isn't this isn't working for me like and that's what I initially thought okay got you um so what made you after what made you keep going after you decide okay yeah Gary v's taking this thing seriously so I probably need to take this thing seriously what was your what was your action from there and made you feel like okay I'm starting to figure this thing out so the action from there was like a combination of seeing these different things like all at once it was like seeing other artists talk about it seeing artists like blow up from TikTok after like Lil Nas X even though they didn't get as big as him and then seeing the Gary v and then I see you do something about like how you can go live and how you can monetize that I was like really and that's one like the mr. crabs dollar signs went off and I was like I was like we about to get it you know so I like I want to know people that I go when I hear about something I go all in and see what happens so what I did was you said something about some hashtags so it was something about okay like don't nobody really know I got this account but these middle schoolers somewhere in michigan so I can post whatever I want and all I want and don't even have to show people them because once I get verified accounts follow me on instagram I get nervous because I'm like I don't want to post nothing it's like you know it's like start overthinking it you start producing you start to have mastermind yep and it was tough so tiktok I'm like man nobody knows me over here and then I seen a video show up on youtube it was like trying to be a tiktok famous in 24 hours and then I watched that and I started watching binge watching them and it was like these young teenagers literally getting tiktok famous in like 24 hours and some of them failed but then some of them made it and then some of them did a week a week seven day challenge and I was like I'm about to try to challenge so then I did the 24 hour challenge and I literally just went crazy I'll upload it back to back to back to back clips would you do yeah what is back to back to back to back how many clips is so like man like six to seven clips a day it was like it was just as many as I could pop out and then like I seen in one video this girl was like oh I just hit like a hundred thousand views and I was like I'm like let me see man because I'm like I'm gonna try for myself before I believe anything so then I started posting like six videos one of those videos I can't remember what was the first one but I know one of my videos popped off and it got like 10 thousand views and I was like oh my gosh and then my followers literally just started booming and I was like whoa out of six videos one blew up so every day like I put the challenge on youtube I didn't go I didn't blow up overnight but then I kept doing it because the traction was like crazy like I've never seen before so every day I was posting like six seven videos and then it was like game over like I had like till like till today I have like 10 videos like going viral all at one time so my account last time me and you talked I was at like 15k now I just cracked 20k and I heard it's time to be able to do the interview software like the time that's dope and that was a that was only like like three four days ago maybe I'm like yeah yeah and I was at like 15k I think yeah and I know a couple of other people like I had an artist where I was like yo man get on get on because and he did it and he he hit probably 10k and maybe his first five days on there yeah right and my and my thing is a lot of artists if you're if you're on instagram this is what I try to tell people right if you're on instagram and you're still struggling you don't have a lot of money right and you know so to really add pay for ads to pay for people to post like all that stuff and you only have like 3000 followers 2000 followers you know what I mean you can get so much more on TikTok than that in a short period of time like why not take advantage of that and keep building um yeah because like you said you you got 20k and you've been seriously going at it for how long uh like two weeks two weeks yeah and then a funny thing is like man like I've invested I looked at my break down and for me like it's not a lot of money but as an indie artist I spent like maybe $1,600 on like instagram ads like within the time of me doing it and then I've got shoutouts from like big pages and I've had my instagram since like for like eight you know seven years you know what I mean I'm only at like 6k you know and to some people that's a lot but to me once you start getting into like that that that higher ladder like 6k isn't that much for people to really take you serious you know um so like that's kind of why I was like man how about me hop on TikTok and then try to get some people from TikTok over to Instagram you know way better because it's all about getting attention that's all it is yeah and then once those once those people really mean like once they're there those are real people like and then you can do whatever you want from there you know yep all right so what's your advice for people who want to get into TikTok and and how to really navigate the platform from your perspective what did you learn okay so I'm gonna break it out a little bit so one thing is to be patient also a lot of people that I'm talking to they see me on my instagram they shoot me messages and they're debating getting on there and they're like spending so much time debating and my advice is to create an account under a separate name you can change it after 30 days if you're scared about what people think create an account don't even share it when they want and you can literally get 5k 10k fans and they don't even know who you are they don't have anything to do with nobody who knows about you right now so like don't overthink it just do it and get on there even if you got to create an alias do that change the name later after you build a fanbase you know um and then don't get on there and be like selfish with it because I see a lot of artists see me on there and then I see some other artists that that pop on that I know and they're trying to get on there check me out listen to my music listen to me but it's really about just being a part of the community first it's like there's certain trends that might not make sense like my I got a video that's over 800,000 it's literally me I like grabbed my wife's phone where she was sleeping I was being silly and I flipped it I seen this trend this dude was like flipping his phone over a pool and I was like I know I'm not gonna drop this phone let me make it look like it so I have my wife's phone I was flipping it over a pot of boiling water which sounds ridiculous but that video blew up and then I commented it's like so many comments but I was commenting back and all those people like oh this dude actually respond so then um I like literally took time to watch trends to be a part of the community before I started posting and and and not just saying go check my music out listen to me because my goal uh and my advice is to build a community and then start putting your music out there and trying to create trends and hashtags under your music and stuff after you you can do it in the meantime while you build that but once you have like a good 10k a good you know my goal is to hit 100,000 in like a month which is like ridiculous but I'm I'm eager you know so once I hit that 100k I know it's a good base to build some momentum off so number one like don't overthink it just go after it and then number two like don't just think that people are going to listen to your music because people don't care create the if it's like a random because TikTok is random man it'll be like this dude uh who's like a famous YouTuber he's he did a bunch of professional videos and did one where it was a voiceover of a kiss and he don't want to do his homework and that blew up you know like over his professional videos him literally said I don't want to do my homework today why am I why am I doing this and then that video so it's it's literally yeah taking time to study it and then recreating stuff like um for example one thing right now is this is big for artists there's this thing called check state check so you can go online if you want LA be like LA check and then be like if you're in LA comment on this and then that's a good way like I did a Michigan check and I got tons of comments of people saying I'm next to you I'm 30 minutes away from you and being a part of those little trends first before you try to do your own thing you know so those are a couple you know a couple things in the interruption but I forgot this in my original recording of this video so I'm just gonna place this snippet somewhere in the video but this is extremely important if you have less than a thousand followers on instagram really if you have 10,000 or less followers on instagram but especially if you have a thousand or less followers on instagram there's no reason you should be focusing heavily on instagram you need to be on tiktok you can probably have more followers on tiktok than you have on instagram in two to three weeks if you go hard and you do it right if you use some of the tips from this video and especially a lot of the tips inside brand man network that's it make sure you focus and stop wasting your time on instagram now before I get into the rest of this video make sure you follow and reach out to trade because not only is what he doing actually dope and worth watching from that standpoint it'll be a great way for any artist to watch how other artists are leveraging the platform and figuring out how to grow and it'll be a great process and as a reminder if you want to watch this full interview and get deeper to the other tips where we actually talk about certain content strategies he's using and other really practical skills and tricks that you can leverage yourself you can check that out on brandmannetwork.com but I want to talk about some other things that artists are facing because he he touched on a little bit on there when a lot of artists are hesitating right they're having troubles and he even had that at first where he was like yo I want to blow up a meal that first video feels a little awkward feels different it tiktok is a platform that you have to learn first there's a little barrier right it feels a little weird being on tiktok because it's different than instagram but the big thing that Trace said is try to give value and be part of the community first I find too many artists trying to just get out there and be like yo like follow me when it really should be a 70 30 that's what I'm finding a lot of success with a lot of artists where it's 70 30 right you bill you get your platform you you understand how to stuff actually works and then you can start switching it up where you post 70 percent of engaging content and community involvement and 30 percent of a little promo because there are artists several artists that I'm either running a campaign with or that I know personally that are actually finding legitimate growth and translation from tiktok to instagram and tiktok to Spotify it's one of the most impactful and engaging platforms it's been around for a minute I understand once again that it's different and you might not know how to apply it but that's because a lot of artists are trying to be like yo how can I make this useful for me immediately but what do we talk about so much give value give value be a part of the community stop trying to just say hey promo look at me figure out how to actually bring value in that community and be involved because there's a lot of underpriced attention in that space and we don't know how long that allows here's an example of instagram versus tiktok at the moment right I've started some profiles for people and just posted something in one profile this is like super early on with tiktok I was just trying to figure out how do I use this platform right how do I use it and I started to push the camera record button and it was looking at the ceiling it wasn't looking at me and it got the light for like three seconds all right and that was it and I did it by mistake posted the video I'm literally trying to figure out how to delete the video I can't figure out how to delete the video at the moment and the video just stays there no hashtags no captions no nothing and gets five to six hundred views and like eight likes eight likes five to six hundred views on a first post and eight likes now I could tell you right now on Instagram all right because that might not sound beautiful but on Instagram if you do that with a brand new video no likes no caption no hashtags no attention from the outside you're going to have zero views zero engagement right so that gives you a slight difference zero versus six hundred that gives you a slight difference on how much Instagram is no longer in that organic phase where they're giving you organic traffic you're doing hard work right you're working for yourself and you're working for Instagram at this point where TikTok you're working for yourself and TikTok is also helping you right at the moment because right now their incentive is to help you out because they're trying to get more and more people on the platform help the content grow help it move you have to take advantage of it now because it's not going to be the same as when you come in in a more competitive landscape and if you get a position now once things get better you'll be in position to to receive the best right the rich get richer in those moments because you're in position to get richer and those other people who are starting from ground zero then they got to face that struggle and climb a hard amount it won't be hard to do well I'll take that back it won't be impossible but it will be hard to do just like someone could very well you know go to a million followers on Instagram there are still people here and there that are growing pretty quickly on Instagram but it's just less of the case so please keep this in mind take advantage of TikTok learn the platform get to know it even if you're not on it right now or you don't see and use for it right now if you learn it enough if it becomes truly mature and it actually becomes something that more of the world comes to that people on it are getting older TikTok is trying to make it um make older people get on the platform then you'll be in a position where you can actually take advantage of all that stuff because once again if you wait you'll lose so that's it for this video right here once again follow Tray Little and follow at brandmanshawn on TikTok I'm going to start this TikTok thing I'm going to start TikToking um a lot more personally I've been helping so many other people I haven't got a chance to really get into it myself even brand man network on TikTok of course if you want to get a TikTok campaign designed for you then check out the link in the description below we can help you out with that and of course this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because aside of myself we help artists build their brand their infrastructure and grow their fan base if you're interested in something like that there's a link in the description for that as well go ahead and check it out other than that if you like this video go hit the like button if you like it you might as well share it if you're not subscribed you you know what to do hit that subscribe button