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Are You 2 Old 4 TikTok?!? , Creators Make the Best Ads, TikTok Trends

• Kyle Kaplanis / 2 Old 4 TikTok • Episode 58

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In this episode, we join forces with the hosts of the 2 Old For TikTok podcast, Melissa Rosen, and Dena Greenbaum and we talk all about TikTok, creator culture, and the latest TikTok trends.
 
Come learn how these two 30 something year olds jumped on the TikTok bandwagon and created a successful podcast all around TikTok. It was a no-brainer that we had to collaborate!

Guest:

Melissa Rosen and Dena Greenbaum
Hosts of the 2 Old 4 TikTok Podcast

TikTok - www.tiktok.com/@2old4tiktok_podcast
IG - https://www.instagram.com/2old4tiktokpod/
Website: https://2old4tiktok.com/


Social Media:

Follow Kyle on TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@kylekaplanis

Follow Kyle on IG: www.instagram.com/kyle_kaplanis

Reach out to Kyle directly at kyle.kaplanis@prjtztalent.com

Follow Kyle on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-kaplanis/

Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.biztok.co

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Kyle Kaplanis:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the BizTok for TikTok podcast. I'm really excited about this episode. Is. All about teens, kids dancing, and you know what maybe before, but right now where things are going with COVID and everything has really spiked up some numbers, I'm going to share some statistics in a bit about what those look like. But on this show, I have two really amazing people that come from another podcast that's all about TikTok. It's called the 2 Old 4 TikTok podcast and today on the show are Melissa and Dena from the 2 Old 4 TikTok Podcast . I'm really, really pumped to have them on, to talk all about their TikTok journey and how they started their podcast. And also give us some more insight and credibility that TikTok is not all about kids and dancing. So Melissa Dena , thank you so much and welcome to the show.

Melissa Rosen:

Thank you for having me here.

Kyle Kaplanis:

This is going to be fun. Before we dive more intoTikTok and all those things, I really, really have to know the journey on how both of you decided, Hey, let's launch a podcast about, being too old for TikTok? Tell us more.

Dena Greenbaum:

My TikTok journey started in December, 2019. This was before the quarantine. I had a friend whose sister was in college, so much younger. I'm 33. Not my demographic at that time. And when I downloaded it, I was on TikTok for four hours.

I stayed up till 4:

00 AM and it was the first time I was inspired to actually create content too. I'm not a big social media person. I really miss the Instagram bandwagon. I never posted. And I said, there's something really special here. At that point, none of my friends were on. So I was the annoying friend trying to get them all out and sending them videos. And they were like, can you please stop? And then I will say the one amazing thing about the pandemic. If we ha you know, if there is a silver lining is more people from our demographic join. Just out of sheer bum and then they realized it wasn't all for kids. Then I had some luck creating content on the app. I, kind of figure it out, how amazing it was that complete unknowns could just be discovered and have viral videos. That kind of launched into me wanting to talk to him or people about TikTok and just getting more information, talking about trends. And luckily Melissa, who was the first friend I convinced to join TikTok became equally as obsessed as I did. And, we started the2 Old 4 TikTok Podcast.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's so fun. So this was 2019.

Dena Greenbaum:

That I joined TikTok. Yeah.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's awesome. I literally joined, TikTok when it merged from musically to TikTok back in August of 2018.

Melissa Rosen:

Wow.

Kyle Kaplanis:

And it was a complete different experience at that time. The funny thing is dancing. Wasn't it? Uh, thing at that time, it was all lip sinking, like just lip sinking and doing the fun trends to the sounds. And it wasn't really until the end of 2018, we're dancing just started becoming more of a thing where people were sharing more of their talents on there, and teens were able to do all those things. And that's when you know, a lot more talk starting into 2019 people and teens. Started using it when I was using it is because my daughter she's 20 years old now, but even they, as teens were embarrassed to say they were on TikTok, which is funny. I don't know if you remember those phases, but my daughter was like, I joined it as a joke. She was embarrassed to say I was on that, platform. And now it's a flex, Hey, I'm on TikTok now, where do you guys doing? Melissa, what about yourself?

Melissa Rosen:

It's interesting. Cause that was my view of TikTok. Right. I was like, why am I going to watch a bunch of kids dancing? You know, that's not interesting to me. And Dena kept trying and trying quarantine hit. I was bored enough. I said, all right, let me give this a try. My first introduction to TikTok, new user, I opened the, yeah. And it was all dancing and it was people who were a lot younger than me. And I remember feeling weird. I was like , I feel like I'm in somebody's living room, watching them rehearse the dance. This is super strange, but more and more they started curating my content. The algorithms started understanding who I was my age and my interests. Dena start sending me more and more videos? And then I became obsessed with it as far as. Content creation goes. I think the coolest thing, both Dena and I have a background we met in college. We both studied film prior to that. We were like the weirdos in high school, making movies, on our weekends. We always loved creating stuff. And so this just really captured my heart as a teenager who loved creating little silly stories. This is what it was when it's awesome. People can create stories. They can just talk to the camera and say something funny. They create a whole new worlds on tic-tac. They can use the filters. it gives you. Every editing capability you could want on your phone. And it is just such an amazing tool for storytelling. That's where I got into it. I was like, whoa, these people are taking 60 seconds and completely capturing my attention and making me fall into love with what they're doing. So,

Kyle Kaplanis:

yeah, I feel like takes our kids change the game? Not only as a platform, but just the culture. So my last guest I had on my podcast, he talks about that. There's multiple languages out there. English, Spanish and everything like that. But. As a culture has its own language now, and that a lot of people don't understand. So once you get to know it and you've learned that culture, it doesn't matter how old you are. You realize that this is a fun place to just be able to curate content in a way that is not like before on Instagram, YouTube, and , you kind of. Curate content based off of what works for that platform. So meaning like on YouTube, the higher Polish, the more production, the more lighting, like the better studio quality you have, that's going to be the best way to go about that on Instagram. It's like that picture perfect life, those best photos and like quotes and it's really fake, but on TikTok, it's just about being a human and sharing it in a fun way, natively with your community. It's just so powerful. And I think that is why the culture is emerging and shifting and the funny thing is everybody's starting to catch up and realizing creative culture now is the future for the world. And advertisers are starting to catch up being like, oh, we've got to change our way. Our advertising is because this is how the world wants, everything like that. So it's very interesting.

Melissa Rosen:

Yeah, it's funny. I will say for the first time I'm seeing some ads on TikTok that I don't know our ads, which is, for somebody who studied advertising, I studied media. I can tell when I'm watching an ad. It's really interesting, because like you're saying, it's so authentic. What they're doing, that it takes me sometimes a few seconds into real, oh, this is sponsored. Oh, okay. Because it's so just innate to the type of content they're creating anyway.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly. And I think that's so powerful. If your ad can fit natively within the culture of TikTok for one go to the comment section and you will see. All the comments are like, this was the best ad I've ever seen. More of these I'm actually engaged. I just purchased this product because of how good this ad was like to me right there. If I was an advertiser sitting there reading that I would be all over this because for one, a great example is,@KallmeK ris, you probably have heard of call me grass. Right., Does a lot of advertising for Vestey's for the shoes and her ads for that particular shoe company are just so good that it's easy to starting to become part of the culture. Like meaning people talk about it, like, you don't want to get your shoes wet at the water park. You should wear some besties. Like people are starting to create that intense. Their talk like their culture talking. That is so powerful. So when you can connect to your audience to something authentic and engaging and make your ad fit within the culture, now that is part of the language and that's huge.

Dena Greenbaum:

Yeah. Something else I love is when it's not even an app. When it's a genuine person who just loves a product and wants to help other people. They, I saw the other day, I was scrolling through my, for you page and someone was talking about an ingrown hair treatment and it had like a million views. And then all the comments were it's sold out now, like, uh, you know, and it wasn't. But, this company should be super thankful to just some random person. Who's like, if you have this problem, this product to use. And so we saw that also with cranberry juice, ocean spray selling out and things like that. It's just so native to, like you said, the culture of TikTok and product.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Absolutely. I see that more than in the ad spaces, people creating authentically. And what I love too is like ingrown hair. What I love is people are just so open and they will talk about bodily functions. Funny things that we just deal with as humans that before it was like, no, that's embarrassing. Let's not talk about this. And now they're like, yeah, you got to anger, ingrown hair. Like you should use this. Like, I love that though. And then people, because we're human beings, the reason why it's sold out. As humans, we all deal with those issues. And when it's something fun and you feel like you're sharing something vulnerable, people relate to that, so it's just so cool. Okay, so you both came to take talk and then you were like, let's start a podcast. How'd that happen?

Dena Greenbaum:

We were in quarantine. So we started July 20, 20. And, , we both hubs, but we wanted to be creative and we did spend most of our time sending each other tick talks and talking about it. And I listen to podcasts that are about, TV and film as well. So why not make a podcast that talks about the content on TikTok? And then it was also a way for. To dive deeper in it. And then we, found some great creators to speak to. So it's just been a really great way to get to know people and to dive deeper

Melissa Rosen:

in talk.

Kyle Kaplanis:

When was your first, podcast launch? When did you guys kick this off? So

Dena Greenbaum:

it was July, I believe July 12th, 20, 20, sometime in the beginning of July. Yeah. So it's been a year now.

Melissa Rosen:

A

Kyle Kaplanis:

year. Yeah. Wow. And how many episodes do you have? 57. Wow. Congratulations. What's interesting is I think that this podcast might be my 57th, like when this one goes live as well. Yeah. Which is interesting. Yeah. When you first started at a really was, there was a lot of people on the platform that were not in your demographic still. Yeah.

Melissa Rosen:

Yeah, it definitely still felt like, you know, Dina had hooked me, so she got one, but we were then still trying to convince the rest of our friend group to get in on this to keep watching it. And I, would go off on long tirades of how. Are being created on TikTok. This is a real art form. You guys need to check it out. And so finally we were like, all right, there's gotta be other people out there like us. And we just, they're not in our friend group. Don't worry. We eventually got all our friends. At the time we found the podcast was a great way to connect with people and even more. So we started to find creators popular creators on tic-tac, who were posting content about how they felt too old for TikTok. You know what I mean? There was that whole trend of like millennials on TikTok.. , . We just want to. Talking to those people. We want to chat to them. We want to hear what their experience is like. We interviewed a lot of them and it was so fun to hear, we have similar for you pages. We're seeing similar content and we're on a completely different side of TikTok then wherever the dancers are, you know, so in the same way. Being on TikTok has been fun to connect with people and relate to people that I didn't know, the podcast has done the same thing to us, or we've been meeting people and connecting with people who are into this strange world as much as we can. Yeah,

Kyle Kaplanis:

for sure. A lot of my guests that I had on as well, most of them mentioned when I asked them about their tick-tock journey. They said in the beginning, their friends and family were like, what are you doing ? They were making fun of my guests saying, why are you. Talking about your business or anything in that space. That's just cringy, like don't. And they're grateful now that they didn't listen to those people. And I think that's a really valuable lesson as well if you feel comfortable on a space regardless, have we seen this with all platforms? When Facebook first started, it was geared for college students, and now it's like the place to be for everybody. Brands that are constantly, you know, , pages for their businesses. And there's a lot of selling and ads in that space, but when it first started, it was for kids. So there's a lot of people that are innovative thinking I'm going to get in this space now, because if it's gearing up, it's going to be the next wave. And, I wanted to share a statistic as well. That goes along with that. Cause this is very interesting. Statista they do a lot of statistics and everything like that. The tick-tock demographic, interestingly enough, in 20 20, 60 2% of the tick-tock users were aged between 10 and 29. So that's where a lot of brands and businesses were like, oh, our demographics, not there. We're looking for people in the third. Blah-blah-blah well, as of March of 2021, when this whole pandemic really kicked off, teenagers only counted for 20% of the entire app, which is crazy to think. So when people are talking now, , are you too for TikTok? The answer is not even close. Like now it's reversed. The correct demographic is here. And the problem is that advertisers and brands are still trying to catch up to this trend, which is funny. Yeah. It's yeah. It's so

Melissa Rosen:

true. It's funny that we both are on the same timeline with our podcast, because I do feel like about a year ago was the time where we were like, There's something happening on TikTok. This is bigger than just a silly little social platform. I feel like it was probably around that same time too. You were beginning to realize there's business opportunities here. There's advertising opportunities here. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was when it really started to prove itself. And it was like, we want to get it on the ground floor of whatever this is about to

Kyle Kaplanis:

become. Right. And in terms of content creation, I feel like it's harder to be seen and things like that. But as far as advertising and brand and marketers say, I think that's still on the ground floor. In terms of. Of where it's going. There's so much opportunity still in this space. Where do you feel the future lies with TikTok?

Melissa Rosen:

Oh, that's a good question. definitely since we've joined. I'm seeing way more monetization, it used to not be that you would open the app and you had to look into an ad first, there weren't ads, every few videos. So I am seeing it move towards, like you said, Facebook's a great example. Instagram has happened again and again with these platforms where they move to monetization. What I hope though, is that. At its core TikTok remembers what makes it so great there's been a lot of talk. I don't know if you saw recently, I think, wall street journal did an article on the TikTok algorithm and like how it works and how it gets you. And I saw a tick talker actually respond to that saying it's simpler than this. The biggest deal on Tik TOK is people are creating their own content. Facebook, Instagram. Way more voyeuristic. People are just watching other people you're following celebrities, maybe, but I'm TikTok. It's just real people. Most people are creating their own content, silly little things. They're taking videos of your cars, no budget, so I think that's what makes TikTok so different. And I hope as long as they just continue to lean into that. I would love to see ads by content creators on TikTok, more so than just like here's a Marvel movie preview, you know? Cause it doesn't feel right. But I love the authentic stuff that's coming out of there. I understand the need to monetize and I'm happy to support these creators. I think as long as they keep it authentic to the platform, then it could really have a big future.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Absolutely. I think, you hit a lot of nails on the head there, and I think I personally believe TikTok. We'll go in the right direction. Every platform, they're designed to make money and ads, is what drives value for a platform. Right. So there's going to be, but luckily, TikTok has that slogan of don't make ads make, take talks. And that is something that there constantly educating the market businesses and brands and saying stop, like you cannot use your traditional marketing efforts from these other platforms. You have to create culture. It has to be culture driven. You have to figure out a way that is going to look seamless. So that way when you're at is displayed, it looks just like a video that people will want to watch. And then it doesn't make TikTok look to add, like it's fine. Your ad fits here. If it looks like the culture, it is totally gonna flow. People are not going to be mad about it. And I love what you said about. Curating and using creators to help with ads. I work for a really large agency and the head of talent, we work with creators like Mike Lee, who's just Maaco on the app. we exclusively represent Spencer X and we work with families like , the schlub family, the teller of her family. And I am now gearing a whole home and garden space as well, working with people in the trades community, which is really, really interesting so what we see is advertisers are. Upping their influencer marketing, meaning they realize, oh, wow, we're really crap at being creative, targeting this style of content. So how can we do best work with it? Well, let's work with creators who know how good and how things need to work within the culture, you know? And I think we're going to continuously see that more and more and more. And that wave of advertising is really going to just increase. For years to come.

Dena Greenbaum:

Yeah. What I love is that TikTok is really shifting everything towards the creator. And I think, Instagram just announced, they're giving a billion dollars away to creators now because they want to up their real estate game. This all started because of TikTok, because it's so focused on the creator or on the influencer. And like you said, brands realize they need to work with influencers. Get their product out there in an authentic way. And I think TikTok was responsible for that. And I think it's responsible for making that happen really fast. So what I love is that it really has become a creators worlds in a way where if you want to create content and, be authentic, then there is a way to make money. And that's great. That's we're passionate and what you want to do. There's just so much opportunity. Yeah.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Creators and content creators, and everybody would go to places, like Hollywood and try to make it in the industry. And now there's a saying Hollywood's coming to the creative because they come to where you are, it doesn't matter where you are globally in the world, which I love. So you can be a creator in these small towns and make it and be seen and be noticed. And the driving force is the communities around you is what. Who you're going to be, so you don't need to be in these places. And we're seeing that so much of content creators leaving Hollywood, a lot of them are moving out and realizing, Hey, for one there's better tax advantages in these other, the state. And my community follows me regardless of where I live. Right. I think that's so cool. And I love that culture. It's happening now. So many people thinking like where's digital media going well, it's here. So we have to, shift our gears. So you're, an agency worker brand business or anything listening in like the time is now to start investing in figuring out what this looks like. But you should have been thinking about this last year to be honest, but it's not too late to start thinking about it. And today's the day. Your podcast, which I love is really geared on talking about fun things that are happening on the platform, like with trends and things like that. What are some of your favorite trends that you've been seeing recently?

Melissa Rosen:

My favorite one right now, I've been seeing a lot of that blue and red filter. And the filter whenever you blink, it changes colors. And the red color gives you a girl face with full makeup and the blue color gives you a man's face with a beard and whatever man features. So it's really fun to see how creators. Have used the parameters of this filter. It's almost like an improv game. They're using those parameters to figure out what creative content can I make with this. I saw one where a girl recreated, one of the songs from Hamilton and it was just so perfect. Like every time she blinked, she would do Lin Manuel Miranda lines. When she blinked, she would do the girl's lines. One of the coolest things to watch. I loved it.

Kyle Kaplanis:

What's funny about that particular trend. Add that filter, before that filter people were using that trend, with their actual led lights. So for instance, my daughter, my 15 year old daughter came upstairs with green, marker all over her face, like a beard. I was like, what the hell are you doing? She's like, you gotta watch this. Tick-tock I made because when the red light was on cause all the teens have LEDs. Like you can tell a teen lives at a house when their room is glowing from the outside. All of a sudden, my house has glow like different colors, but, I was like, what are you doing? So when it's red that you can't see the green and then when it's blue, it highlights it like to make it look black. So the kids were doing that before. So whoever created the filter like TikTok obviously saw, wow, this is something really powerful. Let's create a filter around this. So people don't have to draw on their face and more people in the community can join in and create . I love that. The app continuously pays attention to the creators. Right. That's so fun. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. What about you, Deena? What's what's some of yours, there's a great

Dena Greenbaum:

new filter that does the photo cropping. So basically you have to place yourself within the crop or otherwise it doesn't freeze when you're in the right frame. I just sent one of our favorite creators. Michael Burke did a really funny one with his dog and every creator seems to be doing it because first, like when it freezes on the right frame, there's just such funny content that you could get. So I'm definitely loving that.

Kyle Kaplanis:

It's a workout too. I've tried it. I haven't, no, I didn't meet. My wife, tried it like many times and we, then we tried it on 0.03, which is fast forward. Right? Like, and then when you play it back in slow, Mo, but if you try it on that, it is like the boxes, like crazy. So we tried it and it was really funny. We tried to create our own little trends. Hey, try it in this, but it didn't work. We actually got featured on TikTok page when we jumped in the trend where that line, was going down. What does that mean? Oh, yeah. That's trend. It featured us. We did one where I was holding like a play knife and, it looked like I was holding your head in a bowl. We tried that. Yeah. And, we got featured in and people still technique is obviously like Facebook is really diluted. Certain things as well. So some of my friends that have not converted still, or some of my older family now I saw you in this Facebook video. Yeah, that was actually like months ago, you should join the app. So you can be up to date and I'll look like an old school, like coming in and seeing this stuff late. But it's so funny. You mentioned something great on creators being involved and I work with, personal brands. So there are people who are looking to be noticed more. And I always say, you really should add trends into your content creation. It's really important to not only represent who you are and do original content, but being involved with that. Shows that you understand the culture and it makes it more fun. And people like to see those things. There's a really good trend that I like is I forget the song. It says something about born in, the song says born in and then people are showing a picture of what they used to look like. And then now I noticed how there's sometimes it's kids or when they were like, if they felt like they were a little bit ugly back when they were kids and showing where they are now. that's just a great one that brands, or people, can use to show a new site to them in a fun and people find it very interesting. You learn a lot about somebody.

Dena Greenbaum:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that trend and I think even brands are doing it. So a really good brand on tic-tac. I like is sour patch kids. They do all the food trend and they just make them with sour patch kids. And some of them are really funny. Like pasta chips was trending on TikTok. Sour patch, kid chips, the same way. And it's so great because it shows whoever's running. That account really knows TikTok and it's natively racking up millions of views and followers,

Kyle Kaplanis:

Ryan Air is another example of using them. They're an airline company. Oh,

Dena Greenbaum:

Ryan air love their

Kyle Kaplanis:

TikTok. He just said, oh, we love their TikTok sour patch and Ryanair who are brands who I don't normally say, oh, wow. I love this airline company., I've never, ever seen that in my life ever they're creating hilarious content, but it is true. You can see what works. Is significantly stand out because they get the culture. And that is so powerful. For instance, another great example is KFC jumped on the trend with making those albums. Oh yeah. They had to make with the album covers. And so somebody made it in the comments saying, Hey Casey, you should try this trend. And they did. And then they converted that video into an ad, which. Was huge for them. And if you go back and find that add video and look at the comments, people are like, I'm going to KFC today just because you guys did this trend. So natively to take dog, mad respects. And so many people are appreciating the fact that they're listening and they're wanting to create like the creators. That is so huge.

Dena Greenbaum:

Just going to say about Ryan air, that people in the comments were saying it's okay. I'll pay to go to the bathroom on the airplane now because you guys are entertaining me. If you could convert that, I think, any brand can be able to

Melissa Rosen:

convert.

Kyle Kaplanis:

A hundred percent. and a lot of the U S users are like, please open up over here. We need you. And if I was an airline company looking at that, I would be like, we need to do what they're doing, but it's funny how. Advertising. Now you have to be a little bit more bold and a little bit more risky with what you're doing and that's what stands out because that's who we are as a culture. Now you have to be real and vulnerable and share moments that might have not seen so professional. For instance, one of my favorite ones, right there is like they're texting back and forth. And it said my TikTok side piece or whatever. And she's like, I really like you and then it shows the airplane leaving. I was like, and they, like, they wrote like catch flights, not feelings. And I just thought that was cool. And that

Melissa Rosen:

plays into the language too. Like just like, oh gosh, I've learned like a whole new language, like catching feeling. Like I know what that means.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Is there some times that you have conversations with. Don't understand the language and you maybe mentioned something in there. Oh yeah.

Dena Greenbaum:

Most of them. I talk about this all the time, because we'll find it. I was talking to each other and take which basically, and we're like, if anyone else heard this, they would think we were talking Chinese not understand or a lot of times we break out into song because there's something TikTok song trending that fits perfectly to what we're trying to explain and just the song and the culture of that song on ticked up. Just captures the mood in a better way than you. Speaking about something,

Kyle Kaplanis:

right. I was so proud of my mom because she's starting to use TikTok more. And the other day I said something like, oh no, one's going to know. And then she's like, nobody's going to know. Oh, that's okay. Good. And you know, and like other people might be like, what, certain statements they say, and you almost laugh because there's certain people you meet and you're like, yeah, I know they're not TikTok people. And then you just laugh inside of your mind, like that goes along with these top songs or anything like that, do you have kids by any chance? No.

Melissa Rosen:

But this

Dena Greenbaum:

keeps me young.

Melissa Rosen:

That's why I love it because it keeps me.

Kyle Kaplanis:

The only reason why I was asking is if you compare to other parents, like for us, we have a lot of friends who are not on take, took their kids. But they're not, and I'm always telling them like, why get on there? And they're like, no, it's weird. I'm like, it's not, uh, it was like, when songs come on the radio I don't listen to the radio that much anymore, but if my kids are listening to it on Spotify, And we sing along, it just looks so cool. Like our teens, their friends are over and a song comes on and I'm like, oh yeah, dojo, cat, let's go., and they're just like, what? You guys are so cool. You know, this song I'm like, yes, all of these songs. Sometimes we'll put on tick-tock playlist because now TikTok has their own playlist and Sirius XM is actually dropping and take talk radio soon, coming up, they're going to have their own station. Yeah. That's launching, , in August and, , it's going to be really fun. But when we have TikTok radio on just like our apple music, And songs come on when it gets to the part of that really trendy part in the TikTok, we like just belt it on those 15, second parts, and then we're quiet again. I actually don't know the rest of this. Okay.

Melissa Rosen:

Yeah. That's happened to me a lot with TikTok songs. I'll be listening to a song having no idea what it is. And then the TikTok are, will come on this song.

Kyle Kaplanis:

But yeah, my whole playlist is really geared now to take it. Cause I find so much music that I never would have really found without it. I think that's a huge, culture driving thing is not only just brands and things, but music is completely revolutionized because of TikTok and , it's huge,. Dena Greenbaum: Absolutely. And beyond music, the whole part about making musicals like TikTok musicals and the collaboration, part of what music can do. We had the Ratatouille musical bridge or tin., there's just so much opportunity for that., it's

Melissa Rosen:

the best

Kyle Kaplanis:

and sometimes you see the best duets, like how people come together and either created a song or they're like a piece of it, like they're holding a broom or something like that. Just it's so funny. And I love how people are able to collaborate worldwide. Now, regardless of where you are in the world, you can join somebody. Trend or idea from wherever and collaborate. And sometimes you see some really awesome duets. People are doing acting they act out part and singing, and there's so many new ways. And I think it's just brought the world together, , in so many ways. And what a perfect time TikTok, I really feel like saved us mentally in ways during COVID.

Dena Greenbaum:

Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know where I'd be without TikTok during COVID not in a good place.

Melissa Rosen:

Right. I mean, I thought it was so interesting. Like again, yeah, you've got Facebook and Instagram where I select who I'm following. Right. I don't just get a list of random things that I think they'll think I like, and so that was one of the biggest things that attracted me to TikTok. I was getting accounts from the Netherlands. I was getting a girl in Japan showing me what her quarantine looked like. It was stuff that I never would have otherwise seen. It really opened my eyes to so many new cultures, so many new countries. Different ways of living. I have learned so much on this app. I mean, people joke about it all the time. Like I've learned more on Tik talk in a year than I did in 18 years of school. Like

Kyle Kaplanis:

it's sort of true. Yeah. Yeah,

Melissa Rosen:

it's really opened my eyes. So many different things.

Kyle Kaplanis:

And just like to cultures, like you said, I knew you guys had a recent episode about the Olympics., I think what's really fun about that is when you watch it traditionally in your country, they only show really like pieces from your country, but take talk, you see so many different ways and I've never rooted for the Philippines more when, and, I forget the athlete's name when she won, w the weights and stuff. She was the first one to win a gold medal for her country. And the comment section, there was a comment in there that really stood out and it said something like that. I love that, TikTok has brought us together now where we can root for people outside of our country. We're just so hyped up to see people win regardless of where they are. So it's really helped bring us together globally versus being stuck in wherever you're from. And that's only what, you know, now we can route people on from wherever they are in the world and come together and share experiences together, which is so fun.

Dena Greenbaum:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And besides the global aspect to it, it's the different sports that I didn't understand watching. Like we talk about Alona Mayer. Who's a woman's rugby player. I had no idea and all the comments and our videos are too, or like, I wasn't a rugby fan. I knew nothing about rugby, but now I'm cheering you on. Now I watched the game. I was like, oh, I actually. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm learning about this new sport and it just having the personal connection to someone and you're watching them, try to complete a goal is so much more meaningful than just watching and not knowing who these personalities.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Absolutely. That right there is the truth, right there a hundred percent and not knowing their personality before there was a huge disconnect, massive, biggest disconnect, regardless of like your traditional celebrity on TV, you only know them as their character, who are they as a person take talk has filled in that gap to figure out who is a personality, because I agree. I saw a video with the rugby team, and I think it was what's the. Alana Alona mare. Okay. I think it was her account as well, where they were on the bed and they were seeing like, what can they do on their bed? It was hilarious sharing that piece of that personality now connects people to them to want to learn more about something that they had no clue about or were not even interested in. So filling in that gap of that personality now opens up your audience to learning something more. Like you said, people wanting to learn more about rugby. I'm actually going to watch now because that personality related to them as a person., that was so relatable to all of us. That is so funny. Who wouldn't try those things or be silly or stupid and it makes you realize, wow, they're real person. They're human beings. They're just like me. Exactly.

Dena Greenbaum:

Yeah. I also spoke about a lot of the Olympians do a day in my life and they'll show what they're eating at the dining hall. And Melissa had said this, but like, you know, we thought maybe it'd be super regimented and only yeah. A piece of grilled chicken and vegetables. And I were so surprised because they were eating every thing from all over the place, you know, it could be, tempura soup or anything. So just even getting that little tidbit of information was so cool.

Kyle Kaplanis:

And, the traditional, NBC's or ABCs or whoever, like displays, those things and never showed the behind the scenes of what that looks like. And that's the stuff that everyone's so interested in. Right. And I always teach brands and businesses. This too is show, a glimpse of what people never get to see, show behind the scenes of what it looks like to make those commercials, or what does it look like to make your product. And people are very curious by nature. And I think that's, what's driven it as well as we're sharing everything that encompasses this brand or your personality., and it's just so. I know all three of us probably can agree that we can sit here all day. You probably can talk hours and hours and hours have a world record podcast episode, but, those of you that are listening, in the description notes, I'll have links to everything. So you can go follow,, Melissa and Dina and find their podcast to old for TikTok. That's the podcast name. And the fun thing is I reached out to them and we're actually collaborating. So. You hear them on mine, I'm actually going to become a guest on their show so that's going to be , really exciting. And I'm , really pumped because we get to talk again. Yes. So this is really fun. Is there any final things that you'd like , to leave with the audience today?

, Melissa Rosen:

I will say one thing you hit on before that I was thinking of, you talked about engagement and I was going to say how I think again, that's one thing that really separates TikTok from everywhere else. And that I think brands and marketers can really learn from too is not. Here's this ad go buy our thing. But like you've mentioned actually looking at how's the audience responding to this? What are their comments? What are they doing on TikTok? How can we get involved with it? I think putting the customer first, putting the audience first and then building an idea around that that's the way to go. And you hit on that and it just really got me thinking more and more. That is TikTok in a nutshell, it's more about what's everybody else creating and how can I contribute versus here's my thing, you know, in a void.

Kyle Kaplanis:

I love that. That's a great final tip. Don't create content that you think works, figure out what actually is working and then create based off of that. That's huge and that's where I think we'll see people succeed and if they don't. Doesn't matter how big you are. You'll start losing that credibility with the community because somebody else would come in and take your spot. Deena, do you have any last final things or anything you want to. Yeah, one

Dena Greenbaum:

last thing. And I think we had a guest, her name is Zarna Garg. She's an amazing comedian. And she said, TikTok is really the new Netflix. And in my own experience, I find myself watching way more hours of TikTok then Netflix or TV or movies. For the future, I think that's really where it's headed. And I'm so excited. See what happens and what the future holds for it. Thank you so much for having us on, and we're excited to keep calling you on. Come

Kyle Kaplanis:

on, ours too. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Those of you that are listening, I am so grateful for all of you that are listening today. If it's your first time, welcome to the show. And please I have 56 other episodes for you to go back and listen to, to learn more from. Join us on the communities. Come find myself, come find Melissa and Dina on their socials, which will have all the links and drop us a comment. If you've come from this podcast and be involved, we'd love to hear from you and love to help inspire you to, jump on board TikTok or answer any questions you have. So thank you everyone for listening in today.

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