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TikTok Is Owned By China But Teens Don’t Care

01/07/2020 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Marketing Charts TikTok Spend Increasing, Graphic for Marketing Expenditures"

Do you TikTok? Honestly, I tried to join in on the fuss, but I’m obviously not of the age group that watches stupid pet tricks on 15 second repetitive videos. Remember Vine? Yeah, that was short-lived, too, but TikTok may have more staying power with marketers now paying attention.

And, why do marketers suddenly care about TikTok? Because it’s all the rage with teens, exactly as the data say: early teens and even my 18-year-old daughter spend hours guffawing at the ridiculous simplicity of the stunts people pull to get a claim to fame.

I applaud Heidi Thorne for putting up a TikTok to promote her videos. She is reachable on Instagram and TikTok @HeidiThorne. I love this woman for putting herself out there to tell her story and marketing tips.

Back to business…

Marketing Charts says 1 in 3 agencies will increase spend on TikTok in 2020.

Is TikTok Worthy Of Your Time?

Granted, we can dissect every piece of data like this. The fact that an emerging channel like TikTok is making the grade enough to even chat about is noteworthy. Case in point, TikTok’s owner is ByteDance of China. That raises so many red flags about privacy, hacking and tracking of our teens that it’s something to think about.

This week, I attempted to find an international conference calling app to set up a meeting with China. In one year, the U.S. and China no longer communicate on conference calling tools like Skype, What’s App, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Free Conference, and many more. I found DingTone, but to get the app to work, you need to earn free points.

Further, the U.S. military seems to think that TikTok is a danger to armed forces. This is likely due to data collection from the video app accessible to the Chinese government. The Committe on Foreign Investment in the United States initiated a national security review of ByteDance in 2019. It cited concerns about TikTok in espionage, censorship and foreign influence, according to Slate.com.

I went to find Heidi Thorne’s handle for TikTok and noticed my comment about she being a TikTokker. She asked whether I was up there and what my handle was. I replied, “Well, what is the value of me talking to teens…on a platform owned by China?”

Heidi’s blog post on her foray into TikTok experimentation, references Vox, stating that in 2018, TikTok downloaded 1 billion times with 27 million U.S. users.

Ask About Marketing Value

And that, my friends, is the crux of the matter. When considering social media platforms in integrated marketing, look at the value each brings to that mix and audience reach. Determine whether your audience includes Gen Z, the teenagers, in this case, as that is the demographic of TikTok.

As with any social media, you need to be consistent with your content. If you don’t have content suitable for that audience, then you may just be talking to a wall.

So, what do you think? Does a social media app owned by a Chinese company bother you? Privacy concerns are rampant, and I know my email is on many breach lists by now. The bigger question: when will Americans feel threatened by damaging privacy attacks to make everyone take notice and then action?

Blog Distribution Channels To Earn More Traffic

04/28/2016 By Jayme Soulati

Blog distribution is rarely thought of, and I’m here to tell you that has to change! Your blog posts, the most valuable pieces of owned media you have in your archives, should never just be published on your website and forgotten. These stories need to be distributed on a wide variety of channels and in a wider variety of repurposed creativity.

Let’s explore further, shall we?

Blog Distribution Channels — A Long List

1. So easy and obvious, is the very first place a blog post is published and greets the world. Ensure your website is owned by you; it’s your created domain name, and it’s on a hosting platform you’ve selected.

1a. A blog post comment section is key for links to others’ content to get added. Sometimes a blogger asks for shares, and these can get added manually. If you sign up for Livefyre, a blog comment platform, your latest blog post is automatically added to your bio descriptor.

2. LinkedIn posts are another obvious pseudo blogging channel. In fact, I had elected to craft this post and publish it on LinkedIn FIRST. Then, as I kept writing and writing, I realized how dumb that would be. I need the content and link juice for my own blog! Remember, that when you publish original content elsewhere first, you miss out on the strength of that content for links and traffic. Do build up your own archives first. Because I’ve been blogging since 2010, I have archives of more than 650 blog posts to my credit. A blogger’s life is never over; there is always a fresh audience seeking content with a twist. Stand out! [Read more…]

May Is For Small Business, Soldiers And Graduation

05/27/2014 By Jayme Soulati

The grad kissed the pig! via soulati

May is the month for Memorial Day, graduation from school, and a week to commemorate small businesses. What’s the common thread among these three?

Everyone knows someone in school. Every American knows someone protecting our country. Small business owners are so prolific and growing daily by the minute.

Entrepreneurs Are A Necessity

So often we small business owners get short shrift for what we accomplish as the engines of prosperity in America. There are days I feel that way, too, alongside the 600 brothers and sisters in small businesses surveyed and reported by Cox Media in the 2014 Small Business Barometer.

Cox Blue is a proponent of small businesses; you can see that theme throughout its website. In this sponsored post, I want to share some results of its study that hit home with me.

Cox Blue 2014 Small Business Barometer

[Read more…]

The Happy Friday Series: Be The Biggest Fan of Another

09/13/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Credit: Jayme Soulati

Happy Friday! This is an essay on how to weave business in to social communication.

What if rather than writing a blog entirely focused on you, and sharing links on your Facebook page directing fans to your blog.
What if rather than using Twitter as a platform to pontificate.
What if rather than using Instagram to share pictures of your product.
What if rather than spending the majority of your time on social media trying to figure out the best way to get people to pay attention to your business.
What if you turned everything around?

It is interesting to note that when you spend all your time talking about yourself and how wonderful you are, you are essentially telling people that you are your own biggest fan!

And, that is embarrassing.

No Cares About You

The truth is, no one cares about you or what you have to say about yourself in a business or marketing context.

If this sums up your social efforts to this point: Please stop. Just stop.

Unfortunately you are more likely to become one of those people who “gave social media a shot” but claims “it didn’t work for me” than to see any level of success.

Consider this:

What if you took every last minute you have been using to promote your business socially and instead you became another’s biggest fan? Just think about that for a minute… what would this look like for you?
What if you wrote a blog post that featured a local business professional who had a complimentary product to yours?
What if your Facebook wall, Twitter timeline and Instagram feeds were flooded with endorsements for quality local businesses?
What if at every opportunity you tried to make someone else look good instead of shamelessly promoting yourself?

from Soulati.com takes every Friday to feature a new blogger or contributor in something she calls “The Happy Friday Series.” The whole goal is to offer her platform to another in an attempt to broaden their social reach. What a great idea!

A Story From Personal Experience

I “joined the conversation” in 2010 and began my social media experience by listening to conversations on Twitter for months before engaging.

In that time, I identified 2 things:

The people I liked following the most were those who added value to my timeline. They engaged with other local people, they shared information and were generally just all around approachable people.
The people I really didn’t like were the people who spammed my timeline with self-promoting garbage.

My initial engagement strategy was to follow my city’s hashtag and engage with at least two new people each day.

Then it came, the tweet that would get me hooked on social media for business:

“Hey, I am new to #YQR, can anyone please recommend a place where I can buy Italian Syrups for my coffees #HELP!

As a man who is passionate about his coffee, I knew just the place.

“Absolutely, you have to go to Ambassador Coffee, the owner is a great guy, they will take good care of you”

I then sent along a Google map, followed her on twitter, she followed me and that was that. Two days later, she hits me with:

“Thanks so much for your help, I went to Ambassador, they were great, really appreciate it”

I replied with a “no problem” and out.

Now why is that exciting?

Well, as a mortgage broker, the DM I received 2 weeks later was social proof that being a nice guy actually makes for good business strategy.

“Hey, my husband and I aren’t ready to buy a house now, but when we are, can you help us arrange our mortgage”?

How do you like that? Never once did I mention mortgages or business or anything else sales-y. She obviously read my twitter bio or clicked through to my website from my profile.

Six months later, I closed their [substantial] mortgage simply because I answered a tweet and recommended a local business.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no value in content marketing. Actually I believe wholeheartedly that content marketing is the future of business communication.

Further to that… if good business communication is all about “people should do business with people they know, like and trust”. Ask yourself:

How are people getting to know, like and trust me?

Before you start throwing your own content out there, what if you developed an audience that actually wanted to hear what you had to say?

What if your social business strategy was to become a trusted source of information on every local business EXCEPT your own?

About The Author

is the principal broker for in Saskatchewan, Canada and the executive editor of the Jackson has a passion for marketing and carries weight in the Canadian mortgage and real estate industry. Jackson is a serial entrepreneur who is always looking for better ways to do things. His twitter bio reads: @kiltedbroker – I am wearing a kilt right now. I have consumed coffee today. Family Man. Innovator.

Social Media, Girls And Corporate America

07/17/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Look out corporate America, the girls are coming to a social media channel near you. Little girls, some as young as 9-years-old, have taken to activism with online petitions by Change.org against multi-national corporations the likes of McDonalds, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Hasbro, Jamba Juice, and other unsuspecting entities.

This Crain’s Chicago Business story June 17, 2013, Girl Power; Big Business Faces A Formidable New Force: They’re under 18 and All Over Social Media, provides the scoop:

Pre-teens and teens with evolving female emotions (high-touch/high-care) about right and wrong, healthy eating, food toxicity, the Earth, animals, and more are taking issues to heart and attacking corporations via social media channels, online petitions, at corporate events, and in tandem with activist groups.

And, the floodgates are nearly breached. This generation (what label does it have as they are younger than Millennials?), was born with social media engagement. They watch their parents take snapshots on Instagram, tweet, Facebook, and basically live and breathe every social media channel.

When something goes awry in customer service, what’s the first thing an adult does? Complains on social media and takes images of the entire experience. Where are the kiddies? Watching, clicking buttons, hitting send, and reacting to their parents’ social media zeal.

Look at some of these young people and what they’ve done under 10 and 20 years of age:

Hannah, 9, of British Columbia attacked McDonalds in Oak Brook, Ill. In May 2013 at its annual meeting. She accused CEO in person of “trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time.” Hannah was backed by Boston activists Corporate Accountability International.
Sarah Kavanagh, 16, Hattiesburg, Miss. used Facebook and Twitter to get brominated vegetable oil out of Gatorade and Powerade sports beverages. (Hey, Pepsi and Coca Cola, she’s now of age; hire her!)
McKenna Pope, 13, Garfield, NJ lobbied Hasbro to make a gender neutral Easy-Bake Oven.

Yesterday’s Kids v. Today’s Kids

As said, the floodgates are nearly breached. How many pre-teens and teens are there watching people use social media to get what they want? Back in the day, my brother and his friends used to hit McDonalds, order cheeseburgers, eat half, take it the counter and tell them they found a hair or it was overcooked. They’d get another one and then turn around and ask for fresh fries because the ones they bought were dried out.

No more.

Teens are smarter than adults in the online world, and schools are teaching students to think differently, use online tools and take action sooner.

Corporate America is what the kids target; it is ripe for the pickins’.

What’s A Company To Do

Corporations need to listen!
Never attack a kid anywhere – in writing, in person, or via a third party.
Don’t use corporate speak, but don’t treat these kids as if they were adolescent.
Make the girls into ambassadors; invite them to company functions, ask opinions, hire them, give then a scholarship, recognize their maturity – especially the kids acting alone without help from the activist organizations.
Respond on social channels…graciously.
Social media teams who answer posts must be trained to be fully aware that children may be responding. There’s no way to determine age of a consumer especially if the avatar is an animal or shape.

No one said it was easy being on the frontline as a multi-national corporation. Smaller companies need to sit up and take notice from example, too.

One Chicago girl took on the municipality of Grayslake to ban single-use plastic bags. She is 13-years-old.

When any company believes they can ignore social media; think again. When you don’t engage, you cannot respond. When a pre-teen girl gets a brick wall in answer to a smart social media attack, look out…you’ll be on the defensive for years from not just one girl but all her friends across every single social channel.

That train? It left four years ago. If you are not taking social media seriously by now, then hop into your horse and cart and enjoy the ride.