Digital & Content Marketing Success Story

Stephen Humphrey:

What are you trying to achieve then? Angelica? What’s your goal? What’s your goal there? What’s your short term? Medium term, long term goals.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

My TikTok or non-TikTok related?

Stephen Humphrey:

Oh, sorry. I beg your pardon. Well, let’s interesting in TikTok first and then maybe explore some of your wider goals as an individual later. Yeah. Great. Thank you.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

To be fair, I never wanted to be an influencer. This is not my goal. I don’t want to, I don’t show my life. I don’t show it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I just don’t think it’s a good thing at this stage for me. Maybe later in life. Right now I don’t really want to show, I don’t show my friends. I don’t show my personal life. I don’t show where I am. I just literally do what I do and I try to make it as appealing as possible. This is definitely not what my goal is. I started thinking like, what else is it? Right. I wanted to basically teach people to do what I did. Teach people too. The main requests that I get from my followers is can you just manage my account? You know?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I’m like, “No,” I mean, I could never do that because I would have like so many accounts to manage that only one person. Right? People are fundamentally lazy on that. They don’t want to be there and just care about their accounts and that’s why they don’t grow. The most common question is I want more followers and I’m like, this is not what you should be focusing on. You should be focusing on the followers that you have.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

You should be focusing on giving them what they want and giving them a reason to keep on following you. Right? I’m trying to teach, I’m trying to teach. No, I don’t want to be like the voice of it. I just want to pass it on to other people. I think this is kind of like the main goal that I have. I definitely think that having this kind of following is so powerful for that. I can feel that I have a voice and that people kind of like will see me as a credible, let’s say, well, yeah, person, teacher, if you want to call it that.

Stephen Humphrey:

That’s right. Yeah.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So many people usually start by their niche and then they diverge into like lifestyle influencing. This is not what I want to do. I don’t think so. This is not my goal.

Stephen Humphrey:

Okay. Okay. You alluded to some, maybe some of your wider goals. What are you trying to achieve perhaps more personally or more professionally?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So well, this period obviously changed a lot of things for everyone. I lost my big goal slash dream of getting in this graduate scheme at..

Stephen Humphrey:

Yeah.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

To be fair I mean, I think one should never stopped. Like obviously I was sad, but I mean, I would just stop and not go anywhere if I just … I would never have created the this TikTok account. I would never have learned about the many things that I learned. I think that really it’s important to, as I always say, adapt to other situations that come to your way. So now I’m quite open to, well getting really deeper into what I’m doing now. I am actually looking into behavioural marketing a bit more. I really think that that’s kind of something that I want to learn in a well working environment, or even by myself studying a bit more about that, because I really have understood that the smallest thing like making that word Vogue in your caption is going to make a difference. That’s really interesting for me personally,

Stephen Humphrey:

You know, behavioural marketing, stroke, behavioural economics, those two things linked together, utterly fascinating for the reasons you’ve said. The tiniest change here, the word, the phraseology, the perspective. Even a camera angle and lighting and all of these things, is that subtle yet important influences. Fascinating to you.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

True, especially on TikTok actually. Basically what I understood after a while is that my audience really liked my content, but they really liked the way I was presenting the content.

Stephen Humphrey:

Okay. Tell us about that. Yeah.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Every single let’s say TikTok guru, who is going to tell you that the two most important things on TikTok, whatever you’re doing, whatever video you’re doing is the quality of the image. The lights. There’s so many ring lights selling on Amazon right now. You have no idea like everyone that has a TikTok account has a ring light at home. I’m sure. Then the quality of sound, but personally, what I really saw is that so many people comment that they like the way that I edit the video. The fact that, for example, I use an external app. I don’t use TikTok. I don’t really like personally the way that TikTok … Well, the editing on TikTok. Because I think it’s very basic, but by using an external object can really make amazing things.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Especially when you’re doing a tutorial, like people can’t just stay there for an hour, especially on TikTok where videos are averaging like 15 seconds per video. Because you really need to hook the person in three seconds. Otherwise they’ll just swipe up and you be gone. But yeah. The way you structure it, my tutorial, for example, I just speed up some parts because you don’t want to be there waiting for me to colour the whole thing or to explain for an hour how this is done. I cut some parts, I speed up some parts and the whole like editing the video in the end is just even nice to watch like nice to … People are just staying longer to see the video. This is very important. Like I have a lot of people who tell me, why “Oh, why don’t I get views?” I just like a quick look at their account and it’s just dark and you can’t even see anything. It seems like it’s basic, but it’s actually not. Like one has to think about many details.

Stephen Humphrey:

You do. I mean, I have a background in TV and film for many years as well. I subscribe to Netflix and various other things. Or when I watch a TV series, I’m engaged in the TV series because of the camera angles or the lighting or what’s being said or how it’s edited. I watch my favourite TV shows because of those things, as well as the content. Of course, exactly the same within these kind of the TikTok and Instagram environments and all these other things where I want to watch you, or I want to watch someone else, but I need to be engaged. Which app for, just for our listeners, which app, which external app do you use for editing?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Splice. Splice.

Stephen Humphrey:

Sorry?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

S-P-L-I-C-E.

Stephen Humphrey:

Splice. Okay, great. Thank you. I misheard you. Excellent. Okay, great. Let’s move forward. Just again, you’ve alluded to this a little bit earlier, just remind us of what drove you to start. I know that a global driver, like COVID-19 has driven lots of people in different directions, but more interestingly, how do you keep going? How do you keep at this every single day? Because you said to us earlier, once you start posting, you can’t stop. I hear that many, many times, and I firmly believe that too. Tell us a little bit more about this.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

No, I have to say that definitely. If you’re a business or a company, you have to have someone on TikTok, like someone who is looking at it every day and someone who’s always on top of it, because it’s really changing fast. Personally I struggled a bit because I also have my job on the other side. Then I had a lot on my plate at some point and I was really stressed and it’s all a matter of organisation. I really think that if one wants to start looking into TikTok, they have to have this period of let’s say learning about the platform as I did. Just starting to play with the app, like just opening an account, just to open it and looking into what like the most famous TikTokers are doing and how the app works obviously.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Then how you can just translate where you want to communicate with short videos. From there, it’s all a matter of organising yourself. At first I was doing like one video per day and in between finding it yeah, shooting it and then editing it, posting it voiceover. It was a hell, especially because at the beginning, I wasn’t doing one video per day. Well, I’ll tell you later about the frequency of posting. At first I was posting a lot. I didn’t have a lot of video, but I had a lot of people coming to me and the demand was huge. I really had to like, just create content, but I really didn’t want to make content just to make it and not really be proud of what I had done. At the same time you have this like quantity, quality balance that you have to find.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Because once you start to get traction, you can’t just post to post just because you have to post. You have to keep up the quantity of your content as well obviously. It was really stressful at first, but then again, I started like really having my times for different things. On Sunday I shoot my videos. On Saturday, I research. On Saturday I spend one hour even to on TikTok. It’s very addictive. You’ll see once you get on, you can’t get off. Obviously not looking at anything and everything, just looking at my personal niche and what people are doing. If people discovered something and this makes me think of something else and I kind of brainstorm on my own. Then one day after, I just start shooting and I have all my videos ready and then every day, I will choose which video to post, depending on what’s going on and then edit it and post it.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

It’s also like, it goes hand-in-hand with the challenges as well, that are on TikTok. TikTok has these challenges that people put out and it’s mainly like dances, but not only. It’s like fun stuff. I don’t really know how to explain this. It could be dances, but it could be, I don’t know, like a song or like an audio that people have to use to recreate a certain scenario. Then obviously it will be different based on like the person who’s posting, but the concept is the same. It’s just a viral challenge that everyone is trying to use and readapt based on what they’re doing. I think that everyone should follow challenges. I don’t personally do just because my content is very specific, but I usually like sometimes I do put one or two challenges if I can recreate it with my touch.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I think that everyone should follow trends and challenges and stuff. That’s one of the drivers of the, of the platform. Using, well now I’m going into another, another point, but using viral songs, for example, that’s key. Like you can’t just use another song. A song that you like or a song from the ’80s or a song that I don’t know, no, you have to use viral songs. That’s really like a plus on TikTok. I mean, people are hooked and the platform likes it. If you use songs that are viral or songs that are … There’s also like categories like beauty songs or cooking songs and based on that, you kind of like choose yours. I speak on my tutorials, but I always put a viral song in the background.

Stephen Humphrey:

This is utterly fascinating to me. This is great learning and these are great advice points for anyone that’s listening that wants to use TikTok. Very interesting. To keep going, scheduling is important. We’ll talk a bit more about scheduling later, but scheduling is really quite key to keeping you going. You’ve set your particular days to do particular things, and this is a repetitive activity, but it keeps you posting content.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Yeah, absolutely. But most of all, it’s as much as it’s like scheduled and kind of a routine thing. At the same time, like everything could change just because there’s a new challenge going on. Or today you’ve seen this new trick in your … Like a girl in the U.S. was doing the same thing as you’re doing. You kind of want to copy that and just bring it to your … It changes, it varies. That’s actually what keeps me going, because that’s the sudden thing that happens. You’re like, “I need to cover it.” You know?

Stephen Humphrey:

You like to be able to respond to something. That’s gone, something different, something cool, something viral, something’s changed.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Yeah. In fact, the other day. I had a lot of videos that I prepared in the weekend, but the other day, so I have quite a few Instagram accounts right now because I’m well managing some clients’ accounts and I opened one of those. I go on the stories and something happened. I need to give a little background. Instagram, when it changes something about its algorithm and about the aesthetics of introduces fonts or another feature. It only gives it to certain people, completely random chosen. I think it’s random. Like, I don’t think it chooses people, but it’s just, it gives it to a certain amount of people. Then based on the response, it decides whether to give it to everyone or not. For example, they introduced new fonts. not everyone has it. My friend has it. I don’t have those fonts, but then they’re going to expand to all the accounts if those people like it.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Right? I go on my stories of this, a client of mine. I have five, let’s say five Instagram accounts. One of those has that. The others don’t. It’s basically something in the stories page called Reels. It’s TikTok. It’s an Instagram TikTok. I swear. When I saw that, I immediately did a video and I posted it on TikTok and everyone was like, “Oh my God, what’s happening. Same thing as when Snapchat died, because Instagram introduced Stories.” You know?

Stephen Humphrey:

Yeah, okay.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

That was pretty sudden, and I had to post it because it was crazy. It was the first time I saw that. It’s basically … I don’t even know how to explain it. They call it Reels, but there’s the speed. There’s the timer. There’s the effects. It’s basically the way TikTok is structured, but inside the stories of Instagram. They responded quite quickly. I’m not surprised. Because obviously I thought something was going to happen. Because if TikTok boomed during these past five … Well, even more. Well, the past year. Obviously I thought that something was going to happen, but this was shocking. This is for example, something that I had to cover. It was sudden, but it was really interesting for me. So I think one should really be passionate about what they’re talking about. Otherwise you’re just …

Stephen Humphrey:

Yeah, I was just going to say, I can hear the passion in your voice. I can understand much more about what keeps you going and keeps you active on this platform. That’s great.