Digital & Content Marketing Success Story

Stephen Humphrey:

What I’d like to know is, well, you’ve got 95 and a half thousand and counting. I’m probably sure there are another 5,000 since we started. But who are these people that are following you? Who is your role? How do you profile, or do you know the profile of your audience? Who’s listening to you?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Okay. So my audience is mainly actually Italians because I really saw the gap in the Italian market. So what I’m doing has been done and is being done in the US, in Canada, in UK as well, but there was nobody covering it in Italy.

Stephen Humphrey:

Okay.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Well, I really thought that it could have worked and well, it did. So it’s 99% Italians and it’s mainly girls, even though sometimes I get some guys commenting, “What about us?” So I try to make it as broad as possible. And I can see all of that from the analytics. So every and each platform has its own analytics. And I really think that the worst thing you could do is just try to look at them all. I think that you should really focus on some of them that make you grow in your own way. Because most of the people, or at least that’s what I get from the questions I get, look at them all and they just get scared because they don’t know really what to do with it. So they just abandon it, and then it’s just useless.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

But actually there’s some key things that one has to look at, and one of those obviously is the audience. But to get a deeper understanding of who’s listening to me, I opened this Instagram account and I started having a one-to-one conversation with my audience. And obviously the ones who followed me on my Instagram were the most loyal ones, because obviously I didn’t get the whole 95K on Instagram. But I think that those really actually went and followed me on Instagram obviously, or those who really wanted to know more about it. So I started talking to them directly and I found out by quizzes and by conversations through stories, mainly. So the age range is between 18 and 25. I also get younger people, and older people. I have a few over 40.

Stephen Humphrey:

They’re old people are they?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

No. Older, older.

Stephen Humphrey:

No, I’m just kidding.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Not at all. TikTok is for everyone. Yeah, so that’s what I found out. But mainly it’s people who … So there’s one requirement actually. I think that most of those who listen to me, are on Instagram. Because I talk on TikTok about Instagram. So I think that very few people who text me, “I don’t have Instagram, what should I do?” Not everything I do is about Instagram, but I think that if you don’t have it, it’s just kind of useless to keep on following me, because most of my videos are about how to use TikTok and Instagram.

Stephen Humphrey:

Right. So you use those two platforms, are complimentary and have a collaborative power, when you talk about them together for you. Right?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

One of the most powerful things about TikTok is it’s cross channel, let’s say, power. Literally-

Stephen Humphrey:

It is, yeah.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So yeah, I talk about both.

Stephen Humphrey:

Okay. Can I ask you a follow up question about your audience? When you set out, did you mindfully think that actually you wanted an Italian female following, or did that naturally occur?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So it was definitely going to be Italian because I’m speaking Italian in my videos. But I did it on purpose that all of my stories that I show, you can see this breakfast story right here, have … So there are key words in English like love or love is in the air. Those things that you can write on your stories because, well one day, if I want to translate my videos in English, I’ll just have to redo the voiceover and that’s going to be it. So it’s not really that hard to, let’s say, start the business in English as well, which I’m going to talk about it later if we have the chance to.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

But yeah, so it’s just my voiceover. So I edit the video and then directly on TikTok I put the voiceover. So I talk over my video, and it’s in Italian. So it was going to be hard to have different types of … A broader-

Stephen Humphrey:

Makes perfect sense.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

In terms of geography. But then it just happened. I really, I can see so many different types of people, different backgrounds, different ages. It’s a lot of people. I can’t even realise now, it’s a lot of people. So obviously there’s going to be a really broad spectrum of … Well, audiences in the big audience. But yeah, I think it just came naturally actually. I don’t really … I didn’t really aim at any age, that’s for sure. I wanted it to be very free on that. And then the girls part is just … I don’t know how to put that, but I am very creative in what I do. And I think that guys are less prone to spend some time doing that. And this is what I think based on my experience. But then again, as I said, I have a lot of guys who text me going, “Can you do a more genderless kind of video?” And I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” So I try and do this as well.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

For example, sometimes I give tips on my favourite gifts, because I don’t know if you know that, but on Instagram, when you search for a keyword for a gift, you literally search for what you’re doing. But actually there are some creators, content creators, who create gifs and give themselves a keyword. So by researching those keywords, you can get the D page of the person who’s creating all those gifs. And so I give my favourites like once a month, they do a video on like new gifs that I love this month with my keywords. And yeah, this is just to say that a lot of guys were like, “Give us some more male gifs and stuff.”

Stephen Humphrey:

Yeah. Okay, great. That’s interesting because that’s responsive marketing. You’re responding to a customer need as they suggested, by giving you feedback, blah, blah, blah. It’s good marketing. It’s essential marketing, and you responded quickly to that. And it’s interesting that your audience have asked you for that too.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I don’t only look at my audience. I think one of the most powerful things I’ve done is going to my competitor’s videos and look at the comments. So I look at the comments and I understand what my competitors are not doing, and I do it. And I think that this is one of the advices that I always give all of my clients, followers, whatever. I always say, “Go and follow the top 10, and then obviously even less famous people who do the same thing as you do, and just go and check their company.” There’s homework to do behind the whole thing. So I think that this is really important, just looking at what other people are not doing and doing it and doing it better than them. And so not only responding to my audience, but other competitor’s audiences.

Stephen Humphrey:

That’s a great piece of advice. And we’ll come on to more about that later. That’s a very salient point for our viewers and our listeners.