Two YouTuber CEOs Revealed How the TikTok Influencer Bubble Popped

And if you’re a TikToker, up-and-coming creator, or aspiring influencer (or even entrepreneur), you need to take heed.

Imagine this: You’ve just hit the all-elusive millionaire status on TikTok; I’m talking followers, not dollars. Still a great feather in your cap, right? You’re ready to cash in on your viral rise to digital fame with your first fan meet-and-greet, you bag a few sponsors who’ve sent you oodles of products to gift your attendees (and perhaps a nice wire transfer in exchange for your trouble), when you arrive to…

Crickets.

Your promo post must have the location wrong, right? Or maybe you got the time wrong. Or everyone’s just fashionably late…Or so you hope.

If this sounds like a mythical worst-case scenario that could never befall a creator with millions of followers and tens of millions of views, I hate to be the first to burst your bubble (pun intended), but it could use a prick. That’s exactly what started to unveil itself at this year’s TikTok-sponsored VidCon, and it’s just the beginning of the wake-up call creators desperately need. While this isn’t a sign that influencing is dead altogether, it is a sign that newbie creators don’t understand their conversion power, and many may be building flimsy bridges to nowhere.

If you’re wondering why I’d care or keep my finger on the pulse of this industry, it’s simple: It’s no secret that in one of my earlier startups, I had the first-hand early bird experience of watching the influencer bubble burst — to our micro-celebrity partners’ (and their managers’ and agents’) surprise.

This time around with TikTok, it’s a little different, but it is happening: Two YouTuber influencer-preneurs with major success across multiple platforms (both CEOs of multi-million-dollar brands) recently shed light on exactly what TikTokers today are doing wrong, based on over a decade of experience in this industry. Here are their tips to avoid building your brand on a house of cards.

1. Short isn’t always sweet

If you had to take a gander, what do you think is the highest-converting social media content medium to sell books? According to a #1 best-selling author and 7-figure influencer marketing coach (who’s also the founder of The Influencer Podcast), Julie Solomon, it’s podcasts, largely due to their length. While conversion statistics and success will vary from person to person and brand to brand, Julie makes a good point that’s been echoed by countless creators, studies, and the two YouTuber CEOs who gave me a peek behind their curtain: The longer the content (and the longer audiences remain engaged), the higher the conversion.

Well, kind of.

Boring, long, rambling content with low retention rates aren’t the answer. However, short-form snippets that go viral aren’t either — and it isn’t because of the limited amount of information you can pack into the bite-sized clips. Instead, it’s something a lot more obvious: Connection (or the lack thereof).

There have been entire scientific studies dedicated to discerning the correlation between time spent with a person and the closeness of a connection or relationship built. These studies attempt to arrive at a minimum number of hours spent together required to solidify a friendship or romantic relationship. Social media and marketing aren’t necessarily all that different.

How much trust do you think you can invoke in a 30-second video? How much empathy can you really engender in a chaotic 2-minute clip? It doesn’t take a genius to reason that short-form content short-changes you the ability to build a strong connection with your audience, at least in comparison to longer-form content.

The shorter your videos, the lower your conversion power. You simply aren’t giving your audience enough time and opportunity to form a deep bond with you, and that bond is where your power lies as a creator, influencer, or marketer. The power to influence and the ability to entertain are two very different things.

That’s not to say you can’t sell products through short-form content or TikTok videos, but if you’re starting from zero, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to acquire the influence required to impact a viewer’s decisions on short form content alone — especially decisions that cost them precious dollars.

2. No, it isn’t about what you know

E-learning has been the breakout industry of the past few years, and it seems having an expertise is the get-rich-quick secret of the internet these days, right? As someone who’s been in the education technology and e-learning industries for the past six years, I’ve gotten a deeper glimpse behind the scenes of this industry, and you might be surprised what I’ve found — and what up-and-comers have corroborated.

We all understand that a crowded market makes for a more difficult conversion experience. However, that isn’t the biggest shocker for today’s social media experts. Instead, thanks to the democratization of free content, many TikTokers who’ve been building brands around their subject matter of expertise have been startled to find that conversion to sales is incredibly low. Conversion to sales for personally-branded products or those outside their area of expertise? It’s virtually non-existent.

I know of giant social media celebrities who’ve just begun to monetize with a Patreon, a paid newsletter, or a meet-and-greet to receive…3 sales. Out of hundreds of thousands or millions of engaged viewers. That almost seems like a technical glitch it’s so small, but it isn’t, and it isn’t isolated to one, two, or a small handful. Those two YouTuber CEOs revealed how some of the most celebrated “viral” experts were the least able to draw in a paying crowd, despite racking up millions of views.

In case you’re one of those experts who’s yet to convert, I’m going to tell you the cold, hard truth you deserve to know: Knowledge alone doesn’t sell. It isn’t just about what you know. Connection sells. “Like” sells. Sure, people have to believe you have something to offer, but if you’re the face-to-camera salesman, you’re not going to make millions off your expertise if people don’t fundamentally like you enough to pay (and care enough about what you’re selling). Unfortunately, charisma is one of those intangibles you can’t buy with credentials, a packed resume, and some letters behind your name.

People will binge free information-heavy content from a variety of sources and creators all day long; then, they’ll swipe their credit card for the one they happened to click with. Moral of the story? Either get personal and find a way to click with your audience or find someone else who can and appoint that person as the face-to-camera salesperson of your brand.

3. Vulnerability connects, while perfection separates

Want to know the secret sales hack those two YouTubers leverage (and recommend) to increase engagement and eventual sales, even though they can tank viewership statistics? Informal, imperfect, personal, vulnerable not-so-planned content. These two creators have big teams, sponsors, production budgets, a studio — you name it. Nonetheless, they’re both adamant about sprinkling these lower-quality, less-polished pieces of content into their schedule from time to time.

These pieces rarely if ever go viral. In fact, they lower their overall viewership averages. They can even lower their retention. But you know what else they do? They harken back to the days when social media content wasn’t all so slick, staged, transactional, and clearly an #ad, reeling back in the die-hard fans who yearn for the personal connection that’s been waning across all content platforms.

If you think your content isn’t perfect enough to convert, it may simply be that your content is so staged, stilted, and impersonal that it fails to connect with, impact, and thus influence the audience.

4. Audiences aren’t dumb (unfortunately)

If you’ve been around the digital world, internet business, or social media space for at least the past five or ten years, you should have noticed a gradual-turned-drastic shift. That shift? Sophistication, savviness, and business acumen. I’m not referring to creators, advertisers, or digital business owners; I’m talking about audiences.

Whether you’re marketing to adults, teens, tweens, or kids, they aren’t exactly dumb. At all. Instead, they’re incredibly clued into the transactional nature of money-hungry influencers and brands these days. The dissipation of genuine, authentic, spontaneous content also led to a dissipation of credibility and trust.

If you think you’re going to slyly slip a sponsored post or product launch onto your audience’s plate without tipping off their “Promo!” alert radar, you have another think coming. Thus, the answer isn’t to run away from selling, but rather to treat your audience as if they’re just as smart and clued in as they are. Unfortunately, the smarter and more discriminating the audience, the more thoughtful the marketing messaging required to convert.

5. These numbers will follow you (not followers)

Speaking of the fact that audiences aren’t dumb these days, neither are brands — and that makes a big difference to the earning opportunities for aspiring creators and influencers. Years ago, companies would dish out 6 figures just for a mention in a video (that rarely made back a profit). How do I know? Because I owned one of those startups, was head of those negotiations, and had a network of other businesses and talent relations professionals who did the same — to the detriment of the bottom line* (*cough: profit margin).

These days, pursuing a career as a successful influencer can’t really be faked or fast-tracked. Sure, you can buy followers and invest in sketchy engagement-inflating apps, but that’s not going to earn you 6, 5, or even 4-figure sponsorship deals — at least, not for long. Smart companies have transitioned from asking for follower counts to engagement statistics to conversion metrics and sales history. As a creator, your skill set may be in planning, editing, and content production, but as an influencer (or someone who aspires to be one), you’ll have to master the art of actually influencing, a.k.a. selling.

Too many companies over the years have gotten burned by unprofitable collaborations and overpriced sponsorships, and they’re well-aware that followers can be fake, cheap, flighty, and simply not real buyers.

Pop goes the weasel (or it will soon)

TikTok is still new, and some companies are just warming up to it as a sales and marketing vessel; however, it won’t be new forever, and they won’t stick out unprofitable campaigns just to say they were there. If you were banking on viral fame or short-form content to skyrocket yourself or your brand to success, beware of the fact that sometimes a flash in the pan is just that. If you want to build a presence, a career, or a company with longevity, conversion power, influence, and uncapped earning potential, you should be thinking about a lot more than the next trending sound to lay over your dance clip.