You Don't Need To Be All Business On TikTok To Help Your Business (Britney Crosson)

Britney Crosson


Britney Crosson’s dancing treadmill videos have gained her a loyal TikTok following—and gotten her more business as a social media consultant. Christine Gritmon interviewed Britney about letting her personality shine on the platform.


Christine Gritmon:

Did you ever make super business-y videos on TikTok and then one day you thought, “What am I doing?”—or did you start out doing the videos that you do and then realized, “Oh wait—I can make this help me”?

Britney Crosson:

I started out just from an entertainment perspective, because that’s natural to me. I am an entertainer; I have been since I was a child.

When I first really realized what TikTok was around the latter part of 2019—and I realized grown people were dancing around in grocery stores and things like that—I was like, “Jackpot!” This is a dream to me. So I started to explore it in that way, because I thought it would be fun.

I always know that having a presence on social media is going to help my business and my life, so I’m already in that mindset naturally anyway, because I’ve loved social media for so long. So I knew that something cool would come of it.

I just started doing the trending dances, because dancing is just what I love to do. (You don’t have to dance–you do your own thing!) So that’s where it came from.

It’s crazy because just by having that presence and making that impact—and then making sure, of course, as far as strategy goes, having your information in your bio, making sure there’s a link, and all the things that somebody could go down the yellow brick road to learn more about you—it all went from there.

I actually had a client I worked with for two years who found me because of a treadmill dancing video—a legit, well-paying client. So you never know what will happen.

CG:

Did you originally consider your fun TikTok videos to be separate from your business presence on social media? Or were they part of it from the moment you started doing them?

BC:

To me, because of my mindset on social media and because I am a professional in the space, it’s always all linked together, because I know that to be true; I’ve seen it and I’ve done it, so I know that it’s all linked together. But no, I didn’t have any specific business strategy in mind, and I didn’t share business-y stuff until more recently.

I had already worked in social media for years; I’ve been creating content on social media since 2003, but I started really working in the space around 2017, and I officially formed my company in January 2019. Later that year is when the TikTok thing came about.

To me it was just such a fun, cool opportunity to create content and meet people. We have to remember this about social media, especially if you want to share things that aren’t super, super business-y all the time: it’s a networking party. If you’re a hermit and you’re not interacting with anybody, whether it’s in real life or on social media, the odds are much lower that you’re going to have great opportunities. We have to be with each other in one way or another. So it’s like showing up to the party and starting cool conversations about the things you like to do.

CG:

What was your content like before TikTok and the dancing videos?

BC:

I actually was already dancing and lip syncing and things in my Instagram Stories before that. I called it my “Post-Workout Jam Session”: after I did my workout, when my kids were at school, I would get in my Instagram Stories and I would lip sync, and just act a fool, essentially, and have fun. So that was already a part of it, but that was in Stories—Stories aren’t the main feed, my main feed was definitely more business-y, talking about social media marketing.

For years and years on Instagram and on Facebook and then with TikTok, like I said, I started with the entertaining but gradually have started to loop in more work-ish things. But for me, because I work in social media, and TikTok is social media, I can help make that connection with the viewer and show them, “This could be you, you can do this; here you are watching things on TikTok, why not create things on TikTok?” So it’s a mixture of things there.

CG:

Was there one particular moment where you realized, “This is kind of popping off; this is officially my thing now”?

BC:

Yes—shout out to the Peloton community, because that’s how it happened. I started sharing my TikTok videos in Facebook groups. There’s all kinds of Facebook groups for different organizations and interests, and they have plenty of their own. And so I started sharing them just for fun.

I started around the end of 2019—but, getting into March, April, May of 2020, I just thought, “This is your time—it’s time to step up, girl!” because people were sad and upset and stressed out at home with the pandemic being so new. And it was like, “Put on your superhero cape—let’s do this, let’s go make some people laugh!” So the community of people that also liked fitness and all that, they really rallied behind these fun, inspiring videos, and that was definitely a key time.

It’s funny: having worked in social media already for so long, I had never experienced that myself because I was always focused on helping other people with their social media. And of course, I needed to walk the walk. So I would post, but I didn’t like to worry so much about if I was getting a lot of attention. And then all of a sudden there was all this attention!

CG:

So, there’s the popularity of the videos in the moment, but then there’s also the business impact of your videos. Did those happen at the same time or did the popularity happen first? When did you start noticing, “Oh, this is actually helping”?

BC:

The popularity thing happened first, but it was not too far behind that I actually started gaining business from it…I had been creating on TikTok for probably nine months before I legit got a client from it, and then it started trickling in and I got multiple clients from it. Now, people will tag me when somebody says that they’re looking for a social media expert—and it’s so funny because I’m like, “I didn’t tell you what I did!” (…at that point. Now I do more. But it was very apparent.)

Let me say this to hopefully encourage somebody: it’s very silly, because I have a huge silly side to myself and I love that; it’s so much fun! And I just think we should be free and do what we want when it comes to that sort of thing. So, try not to let that discourage you—whatever your personality is, right? Maybe you’re not silly, maybe you’re super serious. Cool; embrace it! Go with what’s natural, because I think that that’s been the secret sauce this whole time: people watching are thinking, “This is a grown-ass woman with children, that owns a business, hosts a podcast, a ‘professional’ person—and she’s on here lip syncing to rap music and dancing on her treadmill,” and it sounds ridiculous.

But I always say: you don’t have to create serious content to make serious impact or serious money.

https://www.tiktok.com/@britneycrosson/video/7166822667658677550

CG:

When clients find you through the silly videos, what do they tend to say to you about why they decided to work with you as a result of that?

BC:

They say things like, “I just love your videos, they make me smile, I just knew I wanted to be your best friend,” things like that. Just real friendly, very kind, casual, relaxed. It’s almost like I’ve prepared them for our relationship, because I’ve brought it to you how I am. So you know we’re going to have a casual, relaxed, comfortable relationship, and that we’re going to have fun working together.

There’s probably people that have thought, “Yeah, I’m not gonna work with her because she’s silly"—nobody’s going out of their way to tell me, but I’m sure it’s probably crossed somebody’s mind. And I’m okay with that. It doesn’t bother me at all because I just am not willing to compromise personality and how I feel happy living life and creating content. I’m just not willing to compromise it at all.

CG:

Do you think social media and/or TikTok specifically has sort of changed the idea of needing to be “professional” on social media?

BC:

I think that it’s definitely impacted that. I love how there are so many different kinds of “professionals” to me, because that’s real. Not everybody is super serious or in a suit or going to 27 meetings a day or having to watch your mouth every moment because of work—that kind of old-fashioned, super-strict workplace corporate vibe, you know what I mean? That’s just not how it really is everywhere, and that’s not how people are.

It’s so funny because I always remember hearing people being like, “I’ve got to switch into work mode”—and sure, I get it to a certain degree, but if you have to really hide your personality and you can’t just be yourself, to me that’s horribly sad. I understand we’ve all gotta do what we’ve gotta do in some situations to support our families. But I do think that having a presence on social media will help you gradually work to a place where you can be your true self in your work environment, whether you work for someone else or yourself. It’s just about really having the courage to do that and stand up for yourself and declare, “I’m going to be myself. And it doesn’t mean I don’t know things. I know lots of things, I’m very smart, but I’m silly. Or I’m fun, or I cuss,” or whatever is your thing. I love that.

We’re getting to see people’s personalities and really see all these unique individuals shine and still be badass professionals who are really great at what they do.


Britney Crosson @britney
Social Media Thought Leader | CEO | Speaker | Top Podcaster | Post the f-ing video🎥


Tell Us Below:

Do you let your personality shine in your social media content, or do you try to keep it “professional”?

1 Like

I so want to do this. But I don’t dance. I run. I drink coffee. I create content. Those are my passions so maybe I need to drink coffee while running and create videos of that! No in all seriousness, I admire you for starting, continuing and still doing this. I’ve stopped and started several ideas and get in my own head. I LOVE your confidence. Going to be watching your videos on Tiktok @britney I just followed you.

2 Likes

Similar idea - you read bad/good advice in your niche while drinking coffee, depending if you like it or not you run away. :laughing:

Can name it: Run or no run