EP 22 Meet the Creator: BTS of Building an engaged 200k following with @careercoachdarci
Darci Smith of @careercoachdarci has joined the chat! We sit down to discuss the moment that it *just clicked* on TikTok, the business strategy behind her polarizing content, repurposing on Instagram and how she keeps her story views so dang high.
Resources:
Upstarter Podcast Network:
www.upstarterpods.com
Instagram: Upstarter Podcast Network
Timestamps:
[1:35] How did you get into TikTok?
[4:10] How much do you talk about within a single video?
[7:21] Tell viewers about the problem.
[8:34] Who are your people? Instagram or TikTok?
[12:38] How Darci comes up with ideas.
[15:18] Authenticity in marketing.
[19:25] How do you avoid feeling boring when working from home?
[23:43] Biggest piece of advice for content creators?
--
LINKS:
Follow Darci:
IG: @careercoachdarci
TikTok: @careercoachdarci
Find Harley:
IG: @theharleyjordan
Website: theharleyjordan.com
Find Sonia:
IG: @Sonia.elyss
Website: soniaelyss.com
Follow The Brand Meet Creator Podcast:
Rate, Review, Subscribe & Share: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brand-meet-creator
We are brought to you by upstart our podcast network, a podcast production company that manages all aspects of your podcast completely virtually. They can help anyone anywhere turn their passion into a podcast. If you're interested in learning more check out upstart pods.com or upstart or pods on Instagram. Welcome to brand meet Creator Podcast with me Harley Jordan and Sonia Elise,
a place where we pull back the curtain and the trashy filters on the influencer marketing industry. So pull up a chair and grab a notebook. It's time to shed some light on the ever changing it's diverse.
Boy, do I have an interview for you today and it's actually part of a two part series so get ready to meet a creator. I have the lovely Career Coach Darcy here, who's most obviously a career coach, but also a longtime friend, viral creator, Airbnb host coffee and wine connoisseur. And most notably, she's laughing at me, most likely to do the worm will at a local bar. That's what I've decided she's shaking her head true. Yes. So to give you some business background, Darcy holds an MBA and started in the corporate world where she spent time as an office manager and a recruiter. She has since stepped away from the corporate world and created her own business as an online career coach and has grown her online presence to over 200k followers like wow. So Darcy, let's skip past all the mumbo jumbo. How do you even decide to jump into Tik Tok?
Yes, that's a great question. And first of all, I just want to say thank you for that intro. Because when a girl is feeling down all she needs is an intro from Harley so that was great. Thank you.
You need that you most likely do the work.
Yes, bar and wedding so if you guys need someone to do the work at your weddings, I'm your girl. I won't be having my own apparently. Still waiting on that ring. Anyways. I'll make my boyfriend listen to this. So yeah, how did I Okay? First of all, Tik Tok is like, just one of those places that you're you don't know when it's gonna happen. But you can go viral. Like you have no idea you put out a video it there's no real rhyme and reason behind it. Once I started making a lot of TiC tock videos, I started getting a trend of like, okay, what should I do? What should I what trend? Should I jump on? What should I not, but when I first started my and this is like the advice I want to give on tick tock, the more the merrier. Just put out like three to 10 videos, I'm not even kidding. 10 videos a day. And if you can do that, something's has to hit something will hit. So that was my like, first I just pushed it as hard as I could. And once I got that, like little feeling of like viral, I was like, okay, I can do this. I'm just gonna keep pushing.
So what was your magic? Okay, I've got this, this is it, I can run with this kind of moment on tick tock.
I can actually pinpoint a specific video in which I felt a little bit of that viral feeling of people are gonna grab onto this. And it's when I told someone or I say someone as being my audience, because I usually speak to one person even though I know it's masses that are going to be watching rolling in these tips here. Listen, listen up. So I use the word like you and I make it very specific to the person watching. So one video I did was I said, There's no way you are submitting your resume as a Word doc. That's insane. And people were like, like, so anyone that was doing that was like, We got to watch this video. What am I doing wrong? And then of course, I didn't tell them what they should be doing. So of course, they are mad at me. But guess what? It got them to comment and ask questions. And therefore I can say answer questions with another video. So that's when I first figured it out. I didn't even mean to do it if I'm being honest. But I figured it out that like having people having to come back to your content, because they need something more was where that sweet spot was and even might upset people. But hey, engagements engagement.
So how much do you talk about within one video? Like, what's your sweet spot of? Okay, this is just enough to where you want to know more. But also, I haven't given you nothing. So you're not going to be angry about it.
I actually have a perfect answer for this, because it's something I've written down because I have to tell myself not to go too far. Oh, yeah. Meaning that you'll go too far with the free content. And then now yeah, what, what are they left with? Right? Are they going to come back? So what I do is I write down the what, like, what do I want to talk about? And then I write down the how, like how you actually fix it, and then I only tell them the what and so they don't really know, okay, if I want to know how like how do I know well, I have to come back to her for something or I have to go for something. So I'm good. Giving them kind of the problem and not the full solution, maybe like a spring goal, a sprinkle of solution.
interesting that you say that it's all about this, like problem awareness and stead of tips and tricks. Because I think there's this whole, like add value, add value add value thing on Instagram, but I don't know if that is sustainable. And I think I run into that problem so often, too. And we talked about this so often, where people just come to us really like diving into the free content and want all of our time for free as well. And I wonder if this is why because we've just set ourselves up with right I give tons of free content and I need to reel it back. Right?
I've noticed lately that I think people see a following especially on my Tik Tok, I have about 160 or 160 5000. And they assume I'm making tons of money. So they think, Well, of course, she's gonna give me free content. She's making money on her platform. That's not the case. I make about $20 a month on tick tock.
Right. Okay, we will wait, I need to pause right here. Okay. You make $20 a month using the Creator fund? Correct? What about Rails? bonuses? How much? Are you making?
$0?
Are you you're not a part of it?
Um, I thought I was I have no idea. I literally, I don't know how those things work. And this is my whole thing. It's like, I never was a creator. I never I say creator in the sense of an influencer world. Yeah, I create things that I like to create content. But I don't know the ins and outs of the platform's. I just was like, What can I do to make my life as easy as possible in terms of not having to create an email list not having to, oh, my stuff on a marketing billboard, right? I'm obviously exaggerating, but where can I market myself and I feel the most comfortable, I'm just gonna get on. And like you were saying tips and tricks, there is tips and tricks to what I do. But the underlying factor there is the tip is, this is what you should be concerned about, not how you should do it. But that's the tip, right? Still getting value of, hey, I need to be concerned about my LinkedIn headline, I need to be concerned about my resume being one page or a half a bit, whatever it is. So there's still value and then they're like, Okay, the people that want to buy from me are going to come to my profile, and do so. And the people that aren't are always just going to be those people, they're always going to be the people that want stuff for free.
I think honestly, that's such an underrated tip of tell us about your problem more, give me the problem over and over and over again, because people so are not aware of their problem. Or it's completely different than the problem that they think they have. I run into this all the time where, you know, people just want the hacks or the like, they're looking for follower growth. But underneath that, it's it's not about, you know, something you're doing online, it's about figuring out like who you are, what your niche is being one thing, it's just so much more complicated and personalized than that.
Right? The The one thing I will say is, so I had a sales background before getting into this world. And the first thing I learned in sales is before you sell anything, you have to know what the problem is. So I'm not going to sell you what you've heard that whole thing about a pen, right? I'm not going to sell you a pen. If you have nothing that you need to write, I'm not going to sell you a blonde hair solution. If you're a redhead, right? What is the problem? What do you need, and then I'm going to sell it to you. So you can't just go out here and get hacks and tips and tricks, they aren't going to be valuable unless you have a problem to fix. The the root of the problem is the how we help and how we add value.
Right? So you're a tick tock creator first. That was your first and foremost, which is your people tick tock or Instagram. Well, Instagram people
buy things from me. So I'm gonna say Instagram. This is
an amazing conversation. Tell me more about that. Tell me why you say that?
Yes. So I say this specifically because I met with someone yesterday who booked a one on one coaching session with me. And I always ask people where do you Where did you find me because I want to know where I should be spending my time on my platforms. And every single person says Tik Tok. I first found you on Tik Tok. But it wasn't until I started following on Instagram that I actually bought something. So warm doesn't provide a great strategy for people to keep coming back to you because most people hang out on the for you tab and not the following tab. Whereas on Instagram when you follow someone's because you actually like them and you want to get involved in their content. You're watching their stories. And don't get me wrong tic TOCs trying to go there. But nowhere near comparison as far as their stories go and all of that. So they're trying to morph into each other but they're still not the same. They're not at all the same. The Tick the comments are different. I get way more hate on tick tock than I do on Instagram. Even when an Instagram goes like viral I still get more hate on something that doesn't that has like five views on tick tock so people are just ruthless on tick tock.
So do you think it's worth I mean, you obviously do Will repurpose on both platforms. But if you were going to jump into one is that? Would that be something that you recommend? Or would you say go for all repost everything on both and see what happens.
So I actually didn't use to repost on both. Because I was like so prideful for some reason, which makes zero sense. I would make specific content for tic toc and for reals, and they were kind of different. Sometimes I would jump on trends on one platform and go back and forth. It wasn't until the past about three weeks that I started cross my crossing over. And it was because I listened to a podcast and some girl was like, why are you not posting everything you have everywhere? It takes one second? Who cares if you post with the logo or not like the Tick Tock logo or not? I mean, I still don't because I just want to be careful about that. But yeah, I was like, yeah, why am I not? It's different audiences. And if people follow me on both good for them, they get more of me.
So you just post the same content, you don't even care about like repurposing or no, you don't care about it not being exclusive content, or someone seeing it multiple times.
Just go not at all. No, I, the only thing I say I will do is there are certain trends that come up on tick tock that I think are funny, and they'll go viral on Tiktok. And if I think it's a very niche audience of like, this is a tick tock sound. I don't try and promote that on reels. I just leave it on tick tock. But if it's something where I'm creating the content, its original sound for me, and I'm speaking, I'll post it on both. Maybe I'll wait like a week. So it's not the same time on both. But I'll still post it to both at some point.
What's your line of like, Instagram humor versus Tik Tok humor? What's the difference? The scribe it to me? Yeah,
I think people have such a hard time with like, I'm a tick tock person or I'm an Instagram person. I think whatever is makes you feel happy and in terms of like, creating the content and putting it out there. And for me, I solely do tick tock and I stay away from the comments and I literally posted there because I it's not good for my mental health. No, we it's everyone keeps telling me they first see me on Tik Tok. So I'm like, You know what, I'm gonna keep posting there. I'm gonna keep getting these like videos to like, you know, drum up business. But don't sign me up for hanging out. Where I do hang out is on stories. I go to Instagram and I watch like my same like five people. I watch their stories. And that's my like, I love to consume that content. I don't even scroll my Instagram feed as much anymore. I don't know if you do that either. But I'm I love I love Instagram stories.
I so I remember piggybacking off of your comment about the culture, and I'm a big I'm a big tick tock hater. To be honest, just because of the culture. I just can't. It takes too much of my time the algorithm like is too good. So I get real stuck in some like dark, weird humor. And, like, the comments section is uncomfy. And I just don't feel like I don't feel connected to it. But one of the major moments I remember from you and your content was a video of you pouring a jug, like a summer, lemonade glass, huge jug of coffee over your head. And I remember a lot of hate comments. And I remember a lot more views from this video. Tell me more about this strategy. Like I want to hear about the birth of this idea.
Yes, yes. Okay, of course. Have you guys heard of like guerilla marketing, right? It's kind of just like, as crazy as you can be and like as big and loud as you can be dropped value. Yeah, sure. Value. Yeah. So I it was it the time when, like coffee Tiktok was blowing up. So I knew like if Okay, I'm gonna make this funny. So I brought out like, literally a giant, like if you can picture like, I don't know, probably like seven hands because they in this jar, giant jar. And I filled it up with like, iced coffee creamer all the things and I was like, just doing it as like, as I was talking, thinking this would be a fun Tiktok I'm pretty basically like doing a making my coffee for the week. Right? And so I'm doing it. And Ryan, my lovely roommate, also boyfriend, also, business partner friend was telling me he's like, You should dump that on your head. And I was like, funny. Like, that's so funny. He's like, No, I think would like laugh and you'll get views. I was like, actually, you might have something there. And so it's more of like, I want to see this torture that you have to go through. And I was like, You know what, this? Yeah, this is this is going to work. So I poured it all at the end of my video after I gave good value about like prepping for an interview. I literally just took it without like, no straight face and just dumped it on myself. And yeah, it went viral millions of views. And everyone was commenting. Like how could you waste coffee you're calling me. And I'm like, Thank you. Thank you for commenting. I appreciate you and then I got so many bookings of people paying my one on one coaching and I would ask them like, hey, How did you find me? Well, there's a video of you pouring coffee. And I was like, and so you wanted to pay me $185 an hour because I poured coffee on my head and I had dumped coffee on my head. Yeah. And they're like, Well, that's what got me to your page. And then I noticed like, you have really good information. I'm like, this is exactly what I wanted to happen. Perfect.
Okay, here, I guess so many thoughts here. First being I feel like people want to buy from you for your personality. So like, why not include it, like people get scared about adding in that like, personal humor. But the more you see that the more you feel like someone's your friend, the absolute more that I want to buy from them. Right. But number two, and I feel like this comes across with a lot of coaches is the shock value that comes out in just their marketing strategy, instead of what they actually think. I feel like I'm seeing this a lot on Instagram lately, where somebody will make a big bold capital statement. And I'll go to the comments and I'll like, say something, and they'll respond and it'll be super level headed and like, super, like I see both sides of the story. So that kind of makes me feel like okay, we wait. You didn't actually, you didn't actually think what you just wrote. It was more just wrote what you just wrote as a marketing ploy.
Yeah, 100% I mean, you have to like lean in at some point, there is a shock value, there is number one word and marketing is polarizing. If you can be polarizing in some way, you're going to get people to either buy from you come to you listen to you, even if it's your if I'm saying something the exact opposite of you, but I say it in such a polarizing way. You might not like if you're going to listen, because it has, like shock value. And I'm not saying it's great. And to be honest, I struggle with this because coming from the side of like I am a career coach, I want to provide the best, best value possible. I it's really hard for me to like, not give the full right and and career coaching. It's like all truth. Yeah, like you have, it's so specific to your industry, to your job, everything. So it's really hard to like someone that comes to you for like, let's say posing for a picture, right? Like you've done some of those people's bodies are different. They might want to pose differently. They might like certain angles, it's really hard to speak to the masses, but you just have to do what you can do with your mom warmth and try your best, you know. And so sometimes I put little disclaimers like, hey, this advice might not work for you. And I hate myself for even doing that. I'm like, I shouldn't have to clarify that. But I feel some sort of like, yeah, I feel like I have to at some level.
Yeah. Yeah, you get like an ick factor about, but how do you avoid that? Like the algorithm is going to shoot your your stuff to everyone in their mother? And like, that's what you want?
Yeah, well, here's the thing. My niche is career coaching technically, right? Like, I'm in this like, career world, but I don't coach career coaches, like, I'm not trying to push my stuff to them. So like, that's really not my niche. My niche is people that are between the ages of like, 28 and 35. And they're transitioning their careers, right, like, that's what I'm selling. So why would I go and like, follow in, like, like and comment. I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't comment on anyone stuff I've never done it never will do it. If I like it. I'll comment it. I'm not going to comment for engagement. And I have a girl. Oh, my gosh, I think I've told you this before. There's a girl who's in the career coaching world. She doesn't have a following. She doesn't even follow me. But she comes to every single one of my videos. That yeah, she's hoping that people will go follow her. She's like bald, some of my friends. It's so cringe. And I'm like, if anyone's listening to this, and you're doing that, like weird engagement back and forth, please stop, please stop. Especially
if you don't follow like making friends is one thing. But yes, jumping in just to like network with my audience or pitch my audience can't hear how to hear.
My friends are like private, like, you know, just a request to follow them. So like, she's her career coaches in her name, and she's going to people that follow me, and she's just mass following all those people. And so they're texting me like, do you know this girl? Like, is she a friend of yours? Because like, that would be a little bit normal. I'm like, Nope, never met her. She doesn't even follow me.
Oh, I hate that. Okay, pivot to good things. I have a couple more questions for you. So fun fact, speaking of friends that follow you. Actually, a lot of my creator friends follow you. And it's it's really funny because I feel like you've made friends with a lot of my friends, ya know, in real life. And this has happened to me multiple times where I've brought you up, and they're like, you know, he's so funny, like, and just gush about you. But I think what's most notable about that is Is that you work from home, and you are doing your own thing. It's not like you're like, out and about all the time. And everyone is so invested into your stories, your personal content your life. And so I need to know, what's your best hack for not feeling boring throughout your day of work from home?
Right? That's, uh, oh, gosh, I do feel boring. And that's the problem is like, sometimes I sit in my office literally from 7am to 7pm, if not later, and I don't move or do anything. And so I just feel like I have to get out creative juices. And so what I do is I just the video as I'm doing it, like yesterday, I was trying to figure out a way to like transition from like, jumping up to being in the bathtub. So I was like, videoing like myself in the bathtub, and like showing like behind the scenes of how I create stuff. And I feel like people really liked it. And then, but I think people get invested like you were saying, I Harley, this. I think a lot of people say this, right? But I mostly heard it from you is like you attract Your vibe attracts your tribe, right? And I love this so much. Because I don't want to work with people that I don't like, right? If they're like, not genuine and nice. And I don't want to work with them in my courses and my one on ones. And I will tell you, every single person that spoke to me is like my vibe. And I feel like hey, it's because of the content. If it was just career coaching content, how am I supposed to attract everyone? I would get everyone so I have this like very much a little bit millennial a little bit like yeah, work from home, like fun culture. I dive into my personal life of like, I call my boyfriend, my roommates, because we're still not engaged after seven years.
It was it was really the Photoshop of a ring onto your finger. She's like out at a bar. One of her story slides is like canned out, copy and paste, like, bad Photoshop of our diamond ring on her finger.
Terrible. I was like, Do you think anyone will notice?
Like, that's what you've created with your community inside jokes. Like, we all feel like you are our friend because we think we have inside jokes with you.
You have to I mean, that is actually a great point. And they can be so minimal, like things that you just always do. So again, me calling him my roommate, right? This became a thing and people like messaged me about it all the time. Like you with like, recently, you've been like doing like the lattes in the mornings. It's like people can expect like a fun little. It's so simple. But it creates a culture and like, you know, like, there's people that do like the rich mom walks or like things that people can get involved in. And it's like, yeah, like it becomes a culture. And it's kind of crazy. But that's what influencing is. That's what social media is. And if I'm not feeling creative, or happy or like if I'm not feeling I can give that energy. I don't get all my stories I don't force it hurts. That's when that's when it becomes miserable. That's like crying that yeah, I'm like, that's never going to come across good. You want to have like I heard of a creator one say she has masculine and feminine days. Then the way that she like explains that is like her masculine days are more operational, more analytical, where she's doing all the typing and admin and her feminine days is she's walking around, she's creating, she's bringing a journal, she's doing like all these things, and letting all that flow. And so very different, you know, when she gets on and creates versus when she's like, doing admin work. So I've kind of taken that with me.
I love that. I love that. So let's, let's wrap this up here. I want to know, my takeaway message here. What is your biggest piece of advice to service providers to creators that want to jump into social media?
My biggest piece of advice is when you are doing a video or doing any sort of content, I want you to a speak to one person. So pick your your niche, right your person and talk to that one person. Obviously you want it to go to the masses. So like in tangent with that. I also want to say when I was videoing myself, when I first started, I had 200 followers, and like some of them were my mom and aunts and uncles. So like, it's not and this was about a year and a half ago. So I had 200 followers, and I told myself, I'm going to bring the same energy that I would bring if I had a million followers. I've just watched that since day one. And yes, you get three views. But guess what? That's still someone. So you've got to put on a damn show.
Put on a damn show. There we go. Tell the people where they can find you putting on a damn show.
Oh yeah. If you want to enjoy the circus, it is Career Coach Darcy I am on Instagram and Tiktok don't DM me for free advice.
So that's what we got from Career Coach Darcy, thank you for tuning in. Coming out with us next week we're actually going to dive into negotiation because Hello, Career Coach, she knows how to do the thing. See ya