IT’S SEASON FOUR, EVERYONE! This year we are doing quarterly themes – and I’m so excited to bring you the theme for the second quarter: Business Strategy. I feel like as we go into the second part of 2023, it’s so important to be able to take a look at what you have done so far, and then look to the future as we prep for the rest of the year. Business Strategy is going to encompass social media strategy, hiring practices, internal business structure and more.

Today’s episode is with Aubree Malick, and we are discussing a highly debatable platform right now: TikTok. It’s so important to stay up to speed on the trending platforms to decide if they’re right for your company – so Aubree is teaching us why businesses are using (and thriving) with TikTok, what it looks like to batch create content, and her top tips on being successful as a business on the platform. Find Aubree HERE.

How To Use TikTok To Create New Content with Aubree Malick

Aubree Malick is a boy mom, former teacher, freelancer and host of the Freelancer to CEO podcast. She helps moms and teachers design a freelancing business with the skills they already have. When she’s not supporting clients, Aubree enjoys looking for her next DIY project, binging her fave reality TV shows, and snuggling on the couch with her boys.

LISTEN HERE:

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Show Notes:

  • What does ‘hustle like a mother’ mean to you?
    • It’s definitely changed for me over the years. If you were to ask me prior to starting my business, I probably would’ve had a completely different answer because I probably would’ve said like doing all the things and doing all the things well and you know, like managing it all. But I think now, ever since really starting my business, it’s not about doing all the things. It’s about doing the simple things really well.
    • What I have learned from stepping into this online space is that you can relinquish control, you can let things go, you can have others support you so that you can really be in the places that you need to be. And feel like you can show up in a really powerful way as opposed to feeling like I’m giving, you know, like only 30% to all of these areas. So that’s what it means to me.
  • Tell us a little bit about your story. Tell us how you got started with entrepreneurship.
    • I was an elementary teacher. Before I became a teacher, it was like, I wanna be a mom. Like that’s my dream job. But I know that I have to pay the bills. So I decided on teaching because I love kids and I was like, this is kinda like the best of both worlds. I didn’t realize until I actually started having kids that that wasn’t how it was going to be. Because there was this constant struggle that I had of like, I wanna be the best mom that I can be and I also wanna like, make sure that these children in my classroom that like their parents are trusting me with them are, you know, like well taken care of too. It was a ton of stress. It was a ton of guilt on my part and I really just wanted to be able to find a way to use my skills and talents that I had because I did enjoy working. I just wanted more freedom and flexibility.
    • It wasn’t until September of 2018 that I finally had that moment of like, I need to find something right now. I was pregnant, I had my first son at home and I was looking at putting both of them in full-time daycare after I had my second son. And it just was something that I really struggled with. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with that, but for me, I wanted to raise my kids. Like, I don’t wanna go to work to make money just to pay for somebody else to watch my kids. After many deep dive searches, I heard about becoming a virtual assistant and that was like the first thing that I was like, this could actually work. I really just dove head first into that and I worked like a crazy person.
    • So the last day in my classroom was the day before [my son] was born. And that was four years ago and I haven’t been back since and grew and scaled that business, replaced my income and then kind of hit that point where I was wondering like, what’s next for me? I had [a] passion for teaching, so I just naturally leaned into teaching others how to do the thing that I did because I had a lot of people who were like, I’m a mom, I wanna be at home with my kids. Like I want more flexibility. How can I do that? So that’s what I do now is I help other women start their freelance business and then help them to grow and scale so that they can hopefully leave their job if that’s something that they want to do.
  • So where does TikTok play in? 
    • I started on TikTok almost two years ago. So it was in February of 2021. I was on there as a consumer. Like I downloaded it at the beginning of the pandemic, would watch all these like fun dances and try to recreate them in my living room for my husband just to make him laugh. Um, not really recording myself, I just loved being on there as a consumer and I was like, this is such a fun way to show up online that I wasn’t seeing on other platforms. 
    • I was on Instagram for my business, but I just felt like it was the same old song in dance.  I wasn’t connecting with new people. I wasn’t feeling like my business was growing. And I also like, just wasn’t excited about showing up on there anymore. So I was like, I’m gonna give TikTok a try. I went into it as a 30-day experiment at the beginning of February of 2021. I said, I’m just gonna show up and put out content teaching other people how to get started as a virtual assistant. Just like even opening their eyes to that being a possibility for them. And I was on like day 28 of this experiment and then nothing was happening. And so I’m like, all right, well at least I’m gonna give it my 30 days cuz I committed to this. It was right around that time that I had my first video, go mini-viral, with maybe 20,000 views. And I was like, all right, I might be onto something. And so it was just, it was a really fun way for me to show up. And I think I found that spark again in me that I thought maybe had died a little bit. 
  • Now that you’re on TikTok and you have a consistency of posting, what does your process look like for content creation for your business when it comes to getting stuff out on that platform?
    • It pretty much looks similar and it’s definitely a lot faster now than it was in the beginning cuz of course anytime you’re doing something new, like it’s gonna take you a little bit of time. One of the really great great things about TikTok is like I could put a piece of content up and it doesn’t do well and I could be like, okay, maybe I could have done it a different way and I can basically recreate the same thing, just flip it on its head or try a different style and that’s okay.
    • From the beginning when I started, I had already had my podcast for close to two years. So I just went back through that already. Content that I had that I knew was really great cause I had taken the time to put it out there and I just started to break that down. A lot of the content that I create comes from the people who are following me, what they wanna know. So I’ll go in and, and search like what are the questions that people are asking? 
  • What are your top three tips for somebody getting started on TikTok to make it less overwhelming: who wants to do this really well, who wants to make this part of their marketing strategy?
    • I think if you don’t have the app yet, I would download it. And I think one of the things that helped me, I wish I wouldn’t have waited so long, but I was on the app for about a good eight months just being a consumer and spending time, yeah. Taking notice of like, what are things that are stopping my scroll? Going in and, and seeing what others, who have business accounts, like what are they doing? How are they presenting their content? And just starting to get a feel for that because it is very different than Instagram.
    • The next piece of it is to pick a goal that’s attainable for you. Don’t bite off more than you can chew because you don’t want to go and post like 10 videos for a week, you know, a day a week and then fall off the face of the earth and people don’t know what to expect from you.
    • With TikTok it is going to take some time. It takes time for TikTok to index your content to figure out who this content is for, who do we need to show this to? I think just be willing to put yourself out there and try something new. Spend some time on the app, start small and be consistent, and be open to pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone.
  • Where can we find you on the internet? How can we hang out with you?

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