What's up, marketing mavens — it's good to see you again. Like the rising temps, we've got a hot one for you this week: 

• Meet the Master: A TikTok VP says stop trying to go viral
• Open Tabs: What Musk is really hiding by getting rid of likes
• Tips from the Tops: A step-by-step guide to building a great TikTok lead-gen campaign

MEET THE MASTER

Name: Lorry Destainville, TikTok’s global head of product partnerships

☀️ Job: He helps businesses thrive on "the last sunny corner of the internet"

Claim to fame: Partnering with Shopify, Salesforce and other major brands to bring TikTok Shop to their merchants 

Fun fact: Prefers handwriting his to-do list in a Moleskine notebook

Lesson 1: Ditch the fancy studio

Destainville says that businesses who advertise on TikTok often start with big dreams of fancy, polished ad content. That’s a mistake.

Instead, he says a 20-second video created in the back of a car will score more views than any sleek studio ad. 

Which is probably why my brother racked up 200K+ views on TikTok by getting hit by a ceiling fan.

The lesson here? Spend less time producing and editing and more time experimenting on the platform to see what sticks.

Lesson 2: Virality isn't all it’s cracked up to be

🤳 Let's be real — we all have a sneaking hunch we might become famous after our first viral TikTok. (If a video of a dog ringing a doorbell can get 2M+ views, why can't I?) 

But Destainville urges against virality being your end goal. "I would consider a steady volume of engagement with content on the platform to be a success rather than a one-off moment," he says. 

"Steady volume of engagement" doesn't sound quite as glamorous as your one big-hit moment — but it's more likely to pay off in the long run with better-qualified leads.

the aforementioned dog doorbell-ringing vid

Lesson 3: Your kid can't hold your hand forever

Destainville told me he's spoken to plenty of business leaders and marketers about the opportunity to be successful on TikTok. 

A typical response? "I'll ask my daughter to show me."

💰This confuses Destainville: "Would you ask your daughter to show you how to spend your multimillion-dollar budget?”

The 'Tok has over 1B users, so it's not just Gen Zers flossing to Drake anymore. Plenty of B2B decision-makers and leaders hang out there, too — so embrace it.

Many marketers are hesitant to try TikTok without proof of concept — but proof of concept always requires a little trial and error.

A HELPFUL RESOURCE

LinkedIn’s guide to B2B success tools

If you’re building a brand or being a thought leader on LinkedIn, then you should probably mix in some of these. 

From analytic catalysts like Supermetrics and Adverity to custom workflows by Zapier and Dreamdata, here are LinkedIn’s recommended apps for improving your pipeline and freeing up more time slots on your schedule.  

Conquer your process and your coworkers may think that you’re some kind of number-crunching wizard.

TIPS FROM THE TOPS

Here’s your step-by-step guide to building an effective lead-gen campaign with TikTok's ads manager, straight from TikTok VP Lorry Destainville.

1️⃣ Use organic-first content. Who needs a studio? Shoot that sh*t on the street.

2️⃣ Visuals help. Include your logo, a header image and a footer image — and use 'Tok's tools and features to customize the visual experience. 

3️⃣ Don’t ask too many questions. Set a max of six questions in TikTok’s instant forms to drive lead volumes.

4️⃣ Embrace customization. Use logic settings and custom questions with TikTok’s advanced form and tailor the form based on responses to the first question. 

5️⃣ Link to your privacy policy. This keeps your personal info secure and in compliance with local rules and regs. 

6️⃣ Include a review screen. This helps ensure all info is correct and helps drive higher intent.

7️⃣ Don't forget to thank respondents. It's an important final step that allows you to provide extra resources to help convert the lead into a customer. Plus, it shows your appreciation. Use TikTok's visuals to speed up the process.

OPEN TABS

• Reels, Carousels, or nothing: Jack Appleby argues it's time to retire the single photo post on IG — we all live for the swipe-through carousels these days
• Dig deeper: What’s hiding in Google’s new ranking system? Marketing Against the Grain’s Kipp and Kieran get into it with Rand Fishkin 
• Unliked: X got rid of public likes, which Slate sees as an embarrassing move by Musk to hide the amount of "spam, bots, and manipulation filling the void." Yikes

This week's email was brought to you by Caroline Forsey. Editing by Curtis del Principe and Laura M. Browning.
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