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- [00:00]
A
Last year, over 3.9 million TikTok shop creators posted a video and tried to make a sale. Only 0.49% actually made above 10,000 in revenue that month for any of the brands they were promoting. This is a huge problem in most brands balance sheet, but this is also a huge problem for most creators. So I want to give some of the behind the scenes to fix this problem. When I was at Nibble, my TikTok shop agency, which I sold last year, we worked with 87 different brands to help grow that channel for them. We're going to dig into four formats that every single content creator should be using. Talk a little bit about the negotiation process, the workflow as well, and how we're graduating any sort of winner into the meta ad account for scale. All right, let's get into the episode. I think what creators need to understand is like, there are patterns that go viral, right? So one of the biggest patterns right now that we're seeing, and this is cranking for no matter what brand it is, is guinea pig content, right? So I'm trying the viral whitening strips so you don't have to. That is such a powerful concept.
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B
I like how you label that too.
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A
I saw the viral air purifier, so I bought it. So you don't have to. And then the bro will use some sort of crazy visual, right? Like he'll literally start a fire, cover it, and then put the air fryer, air purifier in it afterwards. A lot of these people are doing this whitening strips with skin care bundles, like whatever it is. And so it's this concept called guinea pig content. How you do it is you just say, you know, everyone's been talking about this thing. I want to get to the bottom of it. I'm going to be your guinea pig. I'm going to test drive this thing and give you an honest review. Doesn't matter if you got that product attached and it's an ad, like people are still going to stick around. A couple of ways to make that video super strong are you want to anchor the experience with time, right? So you want to say, all right, I just put on the whitening strip. I got to wait 30 minutes, so I'll be back in a little bit, right? All of a sudden you give the illusion of you're just building truth at the end of the day, like, this is a true experience. This is a true review. Same thing with the air purifier, Same thing with the skincare bundle. Whatever it is, like you're always going to want to anchor the transformation that the product is giving you, whether it's cleaning the air, whether it's whitening your teeth, whether it's making your skin look clearer in a timeframe. Right. Because then as the viewer, I'm like, oh, if I buy this product, then it's only. It's only going to take me 30 minutes to get wider teeth.
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B
The second good expectation setting.
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A
It's very good expectation setting. And the second thing that people should be doing is introducing visual contrast. Right. So this is the easiest example. Again, we're going to keep with the doctor Dent Teeth whitening or high smile is another one that's pretty viral right now is they're. They're like these purple strips basically, that you put on your teeth and you leave it on for 30 minutes. And when you pull it off, your teeth are purple and you literally have to, like, scrub it off. But it does whiten them. Right. And what all of these creators have learned to do is how to show impact is only do it on the top, so you keep the yellow teeth on the bottom, and then you only do the transformation on the top. A lot of the skincare brands that are doing this, she'll be like, this is my forehead before Medicube. This is after. This is my eyes before I met a cube. This is after.
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B
Now that you say that, I actually thought about. Somebody made a video, like, testing out my girlfriend's. What is it like the drainage.
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A
Oh, lymphatic drainage.
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B
Lymphatic drainage tools to see if it actually works. And he did half his face. Yeah, this half is cracked.
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A
Right, right.
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B
Terrible. And then this. This side looks amazing.
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A
Yeah. Because ultimately what you're selling is transformation. Right. And you're selling transformation. But the format of being a guinea pig is the thing that creates trust. Right. So, like. And I mean, I even think about, like, in the consumable space, like, you know, one of our biggest clients for a long time at Nibble was this company, Taste Salud. And they had flavors. Like, they're just a flavor. They're flavored electrolytes. Right. So they're not necessarily, like, leaning into, you know, this electrolyte is going to solve your. All your life's problems. They're like. You like electrolytes. We got the best flavors. And so when you get into.
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B
And they kind of tapped into, like cocktail mixes.
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A
Right? Yeah, we. We had a viral trend about corn core protein shake plus Orchata.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because it tasted fire. And shout out Andy Shops. She was the one Responsible for that. She's a hit maker. And like, basically what you want to do with that is. I'm trying the viral trend.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Is the trend viral? I don't know. You. You make it viral, right? Like, just. I saw this thing on TikTok, so I had to test it out. So guinea pig content is number one. All right, so over the last two years of building nibble, shipping nearly 8,000 UGC ads, and getting performance data on every single one of them, it became super clear there are two types of brands. Those that understand creative volume and those that don't. The core difference was what they focused on. Brands that focused on volume plus hit rate were never complaining that Meta changed the algorithm. Their stuff just worked. And anytime we did work with one of those savvy brands, it was always on the same platform. Motion. Motion is by far the best tool to optimize your creative pipeline. Provide structure, visibility, and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions. I like to think of it as like, what Meta would actually show you if they cared about your success. All the key metrics like 3 second stop rate, winning angles, formats, competitor research, it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions. They even just launched their new AI agent, Runneth, which functions as a 24.7creative strategist, providing recommendations to your ad account. Y' all make sure to go check them out@motion app.com. all right, let's get back to the episode. Number two is story time. So this one is, you know, fairly obvious, but it's a little bit deeper than a testimonial. Right? You don't want to just come on and say, I'm Brian and I was able to fix my skin because I tried this thing. You want to say, you know, I just turned 30 last year and the wrinkles under my eyes were really starting to show up. Okay, now there's like, you know, some relatability. There's a clear problem statement like, what's he going to tell me that he solved? Right. I looked over and over again and I couldn't find anything on the shelves that was made for men. So I was able to, you know, I wasn't able to really find a solution. I eventually tried this thing and I think a lot of time in the storytelling world, what people look over is the concept of a failed solution. So you shouldn't just like hook somebody and tell them what solved it. You should actually. And this is something we talked about with Sam on the copywriting episode. It's like problem agitate solution. It's not just problem solution, it's problem agitate solution, which is a copywriting framework. And that agitation can be done through what's called a failed solution. So a failed solution would. The easiest way would be like, you know, I tried, I tried like, I mean, Tarte Cosmetics or like, I don't know, we'll keep using Metacube, right? I tried Metacube and you know, this stuff just didn't work for my. I have soft skin, so it just didn't work for me. It didn't remove anything. And it's because they had this ingredient, this linoleic acid that didn't interact well with me. But then I saw this guy on TikTok or then I saw a doctor on TikTok. You always kind of want to use like, you know, little social proof line, little bit of authority figure, like don't make it seem like you discovered it. Make it seem like serendipity discovered it, right? Like somehow this solution just came to you. And you know, I saw this guy on TikTok talking about if you have soft skin, then you need to use this form of acid, right? Like you need to use magnesium or whatever it is, right? And now all of a sudden you've told a story where there's a relatable problem, there's a little bit of trust through that failed solution. You tried to solve it. This person that's watching your video has also probably tried to solve it. So they're looking for a new thing, right? And then use a little bit of third party social proof use, you know, whatever. Maybe it's the, you know, the doctor, maybe it's a nurse, maybe it's your boy, it doesn't matter. And then you say, I discovered the solution.
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B
So like an example could be
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A
for
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B
the last 14 days I've been wanting to get whiter teeth. So I used Cole, the Colgate whitening wash. And this was day one. This is day 14. It's still not working, even though they said it would. Until I heard this doctor on TikTok say that, like I should use this X product. This is day one, this is day third or day, you know, not even day 30. Like this is an hour later. Look at the difference, right? Using the Colgate as like the failed solution and then moving it transitioning into.
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A
And I would also probably get a little more specific with the problem statement in the hook. Be like, I'm someone who drinks three cups of coffee a day so my teeth are cooked for sure.
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B
Add like the qualifying, right?
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A
Because what you want to create is like a very specific way for someone to relate to you, right? Like you want to call out a very specific wide reaching problem instead of just kind of getting into like, and, and day 30 of, you know, trying something is like very good, right? Because you want to demonstrate, like, it only took me 14 days to white my teeth. That's a really easy hill for someone to climb if they're looking to purchase that product. They're like 14 days from now, I can have a white smile. That's great. Okay, so the next one that I want to talk through, and this is arguably like one of the most powerful formats I've seen emerge over the last couple years is the UN Gatekeeping format. So I wouldn't do well with this format.
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B
Well, I gatekeep.
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A
Yeah, you do, you do. You cannot ask this man a single piece of information about his fit. He wouldn't tell you.
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B
Me and Brian have a huge and audacious crazy goal of trying to get to a hundred thousand subscribers by the end of the year. We're far from it in our reality, we're far from it. So if you're right here, you hitting subscribing, adding a plus one to this, to this goal is actually huge for us. As you could tell, we're in New York right now doing a bunch of guest episodes, trying to up the, the production quality, the clips, all of it, just so that we can make this a better show for, for you. So please subscribe.
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A
No UN Gatekeeping is super, super powerful because people feel as though like they've been misled. That's very much so. Something in our society, like, you can look at macro trends, whether it's seed oils, whether it's microplastics, whether it's toxins in your home, like, no matter what, people feel like they've been deceived by the modern world, whether that's news, whatever. And so you got to capitalize on that with the concept of on gatekeeping, right? Like, I can't gatekeep my solution to looking 35 at 50 anymore, right? I can't gatekeep the reason that I have abs. It's not because I diet religiously or I work out well. It's because I'm taking yerba mate and that shit makes me not eat, right? So, like, there's different ways to kind of use on gatekeeping, but the core principle is you want to say I can't gatekeep anymore or I'm not going to gatekeep this thing. Y' all deserve to know it. And then you mention the problem, right? You don't say, like, I'm going to. You don't. You just never go right into the product. That's like the core through line of all this stuff is you have to build desire.
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B
There's such a good setup.
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A
You have to have set up. Right? And if you don't do that, I mean, a lot of people, it's so funny, you probably get briefs like this all the time from, like, these software companies. And they're like, mention us within the first seven seconds. I'm like, all right, I can virtually guarantee you that that's going to flop and not do anything. Because if I mention you in the first seven seconds, like, boom, boom, boom. It's going to be an ad ad right out the gate. And I've actually done on gatekeeping on the B2B side quite a bit where I'll be like, this is how to build a best in class creator program. Right? I'm going to drop you all the sauce on how I did it for all these brands. Can't gatekeep this anymore. And then I talk about how to build it. And then at the very end of the video, I was like, yo, I use Social Snowball to do this.
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B
Yeah.
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A
900 comments of people being like, send me the platform. If I had just been like, social Snowball is the best tool to build your affiliate program. No one gives a shit. They're like, oh, okay. Like another, like, B2B ad, right?
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B
It has to feel organic from the beginning. Like, it has to feel like almost one of our pieces of content. Nothing's changed. Just the last five seconds actually has a CTA or a plug.
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Right? Right. And you know, another thing about, like, on gatekeeping content is you really need to leverage, like, the specificity component, right? Like, who you are as a creator. You're going to have to really own up to, you know, like, you have to talk. Like, the most common example that I've been seeing is this older ladies, you know, they're like, I'm on gatekeeping. My solution for how I, you know, stay fit, like. Or, like, I'm not. Like, there's a couple of crazy ones in the shapewear world.
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B
There was also the. The crazy ones of, like, my mom was a Victoria's Secret model back in the day.
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A
Right? I mean, those AI headlines were crazy. Or they're trying to silence this guy and then they, like, put up, like, an image of a guest on Joe Rogan and they'll Be like, they don't want you to feel like you're high testosterone or something. And this guy would be like, you know, take this Nigerian shrub, whatever it is, right? But basically, like they're trying to silence or, you know, this person is like getting, you know, taken out of the newsmeet, whatever it is. Like, there's a million different ways to un gatekeep, but it's so powerful because of people's lack of trust in the mainstream. And you got to think about where you're meeting them on the feed. You know, like they're like scrolling by a cat video that's scrolling by, like, know the most entertaining meme you've ever seen. Like, everything amplified to the for you page is very, very entertaining and captivating. And so for you to also get their attention, you can't just be an ad. You have to be revealing something. You have to be providing novel information.
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B
You have to be as engaging as a cat video.
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A
Now, y' all already know we are super skeptical on this show about most AI tools promising the world. They have flashy demos, huge promises, and ultimately underdeliver. But I do have to tell you about one that has blown me away and saved my team countless hours of time. And that's rich panel. Imagine a 24.7customer support engine that handles all of your tickets, seamlessly escalates anything requiring human intervention. And here's the best part. Upsells your customers in the process. Their onboarding process is frankly one of the craziest things I've ever seen. You input your brand and within 15 minutes it has full context on the latest, drops product information and plugs into all of your apps. That's not even to mention the cost savings. They're like three times more affordable than their competitors. I couldn't recommend this enough. So if you're a brand looking to turn support into an asset, go check out richpanel.com and tell them we sent you again. I think you know a key component of this is that failed solution piece, right? Like, as long as you can relieve the viewer of the guilt of their failure, you tell someone it's not your fault that you haven't been able to fix this problem. Not your fault. You just didn't have the right information. I'm ungate keeping that information right now. Like, oh, you have cravings all the time. Like, it's because you're drinking this. It's like you're just not. You're drinking coffee. And everyone says that's an appetite suppressant, but it's not because of the way it interacts with your stomach, but if you drink yerba mate, which has berberine in it, then that's actually going to quiet, you know, the glucagan. Gluc. Glucogen.
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B
Glycogen, yeah.
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A
I think it's glucagon or something. But, like, I just. That was from the telehealth days, but, like, basically it would. It would quiet your appetite, right, because of the way it interacts with this very specific molecule. And that's where all of a sudden, it's not my fault I'm eating too much. I'm just not doing the right things because I was never told this stuff, you know? And I think as we grow up, no matter what, everyone has some version of that in their mind. And so that's the own gatekeeping format. And the fourth one is the competitor call out. So this one is so powerful. And you want to kind of do some similar stuff in terms of. Not conspiracy, but like, you know, one really common format right now. And to use another skincare example is like Korean versus American skincare. Like, I'm going to test drive American versus Japanese mouthwash. And so this guy, he did a American versus Japanese mouthwash face off, basically. And he's like, all right, I'm going to try the American one. We know it's probably loaded with all these chemicals because our system's all messed up. Whatever. Like, the Japanese don't play that. Like, they have, like, all these strict laws, regulations, whatever. So I got this Japanese one. And so he's like, all right, we're going to do the both of them. See which one does better. Visually demonstrates. He does the American mouthwash. Comes out clean. Like, it looks clear. And he put. He spits it out into a plastic bag. He's like, all right, now we're going to try the Japanese one. And he does the Japanese one. It comes out, like, brown, as if he, like. Which is gross.
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B
Got everything out.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And. But basically, like, again, we're talking visual contrast, clear transformation. And so once he has demonstrated the effectiveness of this product, he called out the competitor, which is the American Listerine or whatever it is. Bonus points right here. Like, when you're doing a competitor call out, go after the big dog. Like, like, he went after Thera Breath, which is like, the number one mouthwash on Amazon. He didn't say Thera breath. He just said, you know, I'm going to, like. Because if you say there are breath, you'll. You'll get flagged by Meadow Whoever it is. But like he's like, yeah, this is like one of these American mouthwashes, you know, one of them, right. It's the biggest one, it's the most recognizable one. And once he has your attention, he demonstrated the quality of the Japanese product. But he then introduces, he's like, this is also surprisingly affordable, right. It's like I would have expected it to be so pricey. I would have thought it was going to be so expensive because they use such good ingredients, but because it's from Japan, like they don't have the same supply chain things. And so again, you're basically like providing novel information. You're demonstrating the quality and the impact of the product and you're using these different kind of like illusions and associations to really make it clear to somebody, okay, Like I recognize their breath. Like I recognize, like American products are probably lower quality. Like I recognize all these things.
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B
So yeah, and it was like trust, trust jacking too.
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A
Trust jacking.
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B
Taking the trust that people have around this product and bringing it over to yours.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Which is huge.
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A
Yeah. And so you know that those are four formats that like whether you're a creator or whether you're building a creator program, like you should have creators making these videos every single day, like just trying a different hook, but doing the guinea pig style, doing on gatekeeping, doing competitor call, it's doing a story time. Like introduce those different elements that we just described. Make it modular so that you know, you do different hooks, you do a different bridge, you do a different way, like you know, maybe a different angle. Whatever it is, you can quickly get to that. 30 pieces of content a month as a creator. Get your fifteen hundred dollar retainer. The biggest thing that I've seen shift and why this opportunity is so powerful right now on both sides is because the fixed cost to a brand has shrunk. Right? Like if you wanted to go get 200 UGC assets, you know, in 2024, that was going to cost you 60 racks, right. It's going to be very, very expensive. Now you're getting 200 assets for like under 10k, which is huge.
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B
It's such a different ballgame.
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A
It's a completely different ballgame. And the biggest brands that are doing this are getting 10 to 20,000 videos a month and they're building these massive creator programs. But it's because if you can incentivize a creator on 10 to 20% commission, then you're mutually aligned, right? Like the creator can make a bag off of one video. You know, girl from Salud. Who made the tattoo video? She's been printing on that thing since February of 2025. It is currently April of 2026. She's had passive income off of one video for 14 months. Right. Like, that is the longevity of this. Now that's on TikTok shop only. The whole thing has shifted to Meta is running these same Playbooks. It's not Meta Shops, like Instagram shops is totally cooked. The last thing I want to touch on is that people are talking about AI UGC as something that's going to disrupt content creators for some reason. And if you're a UGC creator, think about how powerful it is to be able to make AI avatars of yourself and then use these different formats. Like, no matter what, you're not learning how to be an actor. You're learning how to be someone who can drive growth for a brand. You're learning how to be a video salesperson. So if you use those four formats and you're filming yourself, you can also use those things to film AI ugc. Like, you can replicate these different formats across different avatars, different settings, different formats, different products. It doesn't really matter what the actual video is. You are the person creating the asset, right? And so whether you're worried about your own UGC career, your own TikTok shop career, like, try using these formats if you're a brand. You know, try introducing these as a brief to your creators, see which ones, you know, really stick with them, and you can actually play with these AI avatars. As a marketer like you, you don't have to be a UGC creator. You don't have to be a TikTok shop creator. You could be a brand and use these different formats for your AI avatars as well. All that's just a sample of the stuff that we go over every single week in our new community. Hitmakers. So Hitmakers is a platform for UGC creators, TikTok shop creators to build predictable, consistent income from their brand deals. The biggest thing that people need to understand is the volume game has changed. It used to be you wanted to get a retainer for five, 10 videos a month and try and stack three of those to maybe make five, $6,000. That's no longer a thing, right? Brands like Comfort Clothing, Mary Ruth, Neurogum, all these different folks have built massive creator programs on the basis of volume. You have to get 30 videos out as a creator to really be valuable to a modern brand. And so where does that come from? You have to get 10 to 20% commissions on your retainer deals. All that negotiation, all of the how to batch content in an afternoon, how to never run out of content ideas, how to research winning formats and angles. All that stuff is what we cover in our community. So if you're interested, we got a link in the description, get in contact with the team, you know, see if it's a good fit. We'd love to have you if you're someone who's interested in pursuing this as a career. But no matter what, we're going to keep giving Free Game on sweat equity, talking about all these different UGC formats that are printing money for creators and for brands in their ad account. So make sure to subscribe for more content marketing tips. If you love the podcast, you know, leave a comment, let us know which aspect of it you found valuable. Otherwise, we'll see you next week. Peace.