246: How Retailers Can Use TikTok to Boost Visibility and Sales – Tips from Penny Walker

[00:00:00] Why TikTok still matters for retailers in 2025

Catherine Erdly: TikTok, this is one of the social media platforms that many people have a bit of a love-hate relationship with. It’s fast moving. There’s still great opportunities for organic growth, but it can be a very demanding platform and for many people they may be wondering how best to use it for their business.

If that’s you, then this is the perfect episode. I am joined by Penny Walker of BarBrusa Social. Who’s gonna be talking all things TikTok.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow, or scale a profitable creative product business. With me, Catherine Erdly the Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry.

And showing you how you can use them in your business. This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good confidently.

Plan, launch, and manage your products and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

[00:01:25] Meet Penny Walker: TikTok trainer & content strategist at BarBrusa Social

Catherine Erdly: Penny, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us again. Do you want to kick us off by telling everyone who you are and what you do?

Penny Walker: Yeah. Hi there. Thank you so much for having me. I’m Penny. I’m the founder of BarBrusa Social and I’m a TikTok trainer, and I also create content for brands. So I generally help people who are established on Instagram to get started on TikTok.

Catherine Erdly: Amazing. And we’re gonna delve into all things TikTok, what’s going on right now, what the trends are, who’s doing well and so much more. So I can’t wait to get started.

[00:01:56] What’s trending now (and how to reuse old trends)

Catherine Erdly: So yeah, let’s talk about trends then. Tiktoks known as being a trend-based platform, but what are we seeing now at the moment in terms of trends compared to maybe the sort of trends that we used to see dominating?

Penny Walker: Yeah, so there definitely are some big trends that I’ll talk about in a moment. But I do think there’s a shift away from your content being trend driven, that it certainly used to be probably back in 2020. And I think there’s a lot more space now as it becomes more of an SEO platform.

Catherine Erdly: Mm.

Penny Walker: For sort of authentic evergreen content about your business and your brand.

But there are some brilliant trends going round. One that I loved at the moment is I dunno if you’ve seen it, she didn’t know it yet, but in five minutes. That’s quite a good one because it’s really, you can really use it for your brand or business. You could use it to have fun or you could use it for a more serious message.

So some of the ones I like are I left my corporate job and started my own business. And that’s that’s just a really nice way to see behind the scenes. So it’s a trend, but you are also making it relevant to your business. There’s the anxiety one that I would quite frankly, smack in the face if I saw it, because I’m so sick of hearing it everywhere. It’s just the anxiety, but it’s been fun.

And the, the dancing one was good.

And then I also say to my students like, go back and look at the old trends because a lot of those were really good in the first place. If you have a big launch coming up, you can really dig into those old ones that worked just to reuse them for your business.

Now, like nobody wants to see anxiety this week or next week, but if you do it again in six months because you have a launch coming up and it’s relevant, you can really make it work. And then a good example of that one is do you remember the trend? If you asked me how I am, I’d tell you I’m okay.

But if you asked me on a deeper level.

Catherine Erdly: Yes.

Penny Walker: And you see it performing consistently well all the time. So there’s lots of trends like that were good a year ago, two years ago, that you could go and dig out again. And I see big brands doing that in their launches, so I love that.

However, I did see someone say the other day that TikTok feels like Open University these days ’cause everyone’s like sharing longer videos, but I think it’s because they introduced a STEM feed. So there’s quite a lot of learning content as well. But really you don’t have to do trends. You can do trends.

There’s plenty of trends. If that’s what you are into and you can make it relevant for your business, if you don’t like them and it doesn’t suit you, you do not have to bother.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. It’s one of those things that people, I still hear people say sometimes about TikTok. They’re like, oh, I don’t wanna be in TikTok. I don’t wanna be dancing around. And I’m like, I think we’re way past that these days.

Penny Walker: I don’t even think you were doing that in 20, like some people were, but I think as a, as your business feed. You are only gonna see stuff that’s relevant to you. If you go and look, can your teenagers feed it? There’s still lots of dancing there is on. I love it. I’ve danced on TikTok. It’s fun, like you’re meant to have fun that’s not you, and it’s not what you want.

You can be perfectly successful without going near any of that stuff.

Catherine Erdly: You touched there on how it’s evolved. It’s an, it certainly is a lot of entertainment on there, but it’s not just an entertainment app anymore.

[00:04:54] TikTok is now a search engine—here’s how to use it

Catherine Erdly: So you touched on SEO. Can you talk us a little bit more about how you might use TikTok as an SEO tool?

Penny Walker: Yeah, so I absolutely think that TikTok is quite misunderstood as being just a social media platform, which it isn’t at all. It’s a massive search engine. And in fact, I’d say that the Gen Zs and increasingly millennials are using TikTok to look for information, to search for information about your holiday, where to go out for dinner, where to buy what you love.

So it’s super powerful. And what does that do for your business? It makes your business discoverable, so being able to use it correctly means that when people are putting search terms into TikTok, they can come across your business or your product. So you can’t ignore it. It’s there, it’s happening. So what I would say is do a bit of research.

If you go in the search bar above the, when you when you are in the feeds, you’ll see there’s a search bar. You can just type in what you do, whether it’s engagement rings or dog leads. Just go and have a look and see what times people are using. But it’s brilliant because that means your content has a really long shelf life.

That’s of evergreen content where you’ve bothered with the SEO means your business can be discovered, for a video you might have done two years ago. So it might be that video is exploding or going viral in the moment, but it’s a useful video for your business. And you’ll see that in the analytics that goes from FYP, which is the main feed where you are delivered things you’re most interested in to, to search.

You wanna be on the FYP when you post a video, but after a period of time, you’ll no longer be on it, you’ll be on the search ’cause people are looking for your video using search terms.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, it was, it’s fascinating, this topic. I find it really interesting. So I just back from San Diego, as we were talking about earlier and social media marketing world, there was somebody called Melissa Lori, and she did a talk about SEO for TikTok. And it was really, eyeopening wasn’t just to be fair, it wasn’t just TikTok, it was Instagram as well.

And I think she did a side by side comparison of a Google search for best hotel in Paris versus TikTok search. And on the Google search, you’ve gotta scroll past all the sponsor posts and then you’ve gotta find a post that looks like it might have some interesting content, but that’s probably all sponsored too.

And you click it and then you’re scrolling down, you might get one picture of the hotel and it’s all very, it like takes a long time. And then they went into TikTok and said, best hotel’s in Paris and you’ve got like a hundred videos and the person’s in the room and they’re showing you the view and it’s all very immediate and I really was fascinating.

She said that apparently Google’s share of search dropped below 90% this year for the first time. And it’s because of people searching in TikTok.

Penny Walker: I mean, It’s brilliant. You can go so niche, and I think that’s the lovely thing about it as well. You’re seeing videos that creators have made, so the person who’s telling you 10 things to do when you’ve only got two days in Paris, you’ll see too that it’s absolutely brilliant. The other thing that you find is actually your TikTok videos do land in Google as well, so I can find my own content when I’m being really nosy. And I’m on Google as well, which is quite good to know.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, we such a, I think this is such a huge area and I think for me it was a real light bulb moment because I have heard it said before, but it was just seeing it like that and then also understanding then actually if you go through and say what are people searching for? I’m gonna make a video on this.

One a week, something like that. Look up the most commonly asked questions, or like you say, when you start typing it in you and it fills it in what people are searching for. Like you say, engagement rings what should they

Penny Walker: Yeah, so you can go into the Creator search Insights, which is a whole big other topic, but if you type in Creator Search Insights, TikTok will literally tell you what people are asking for information about in your research, different for everybody. And there’s also a content gap as well. So where is there a lack of content about a certain subject?

It might not all be relevant to you. But as TikTok understands you a bit more, especially if you’re on a strong niche, it will be really relevant. So that’s a great way to do content as well.

Catherine Erdly: Oh, that’s fabulous. And I think for a lot of people, probably as well, I would imagine that’s a much easier thing to get your head around to go okay, I need to make content that people can search on. So let’s go ahead and create that content that answers the question rather than, it’s almost can be overwhelming when you’re like, where do I start?

Where do we, what do we even talk about? What do.

Penny Walker: You to do that’s a great place to start

Catherine Erdly: Yeah,

Penny Walker: at. Big test anyway, isn’t it? So is that working for you? But it’s nice. It’s nice to be told what to create.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. No, I think it’s exciting. I think this, it is really exciting for a lot of business owners. ’cause again, you could be super creative and also showcase your products really nicely as well, right? If you’re answering people’s questions, you can actually show how your product.

Does whatever they’ve got a question about. Yeah let’s talk a little bit then about actual sales. ’cause as we know, everything, all of this is great, but it is gotta lead to sales. We’ve got in-app shopping now and TikTok, right? And three click checkouts. So can you talk us through a little bit about what that means?

[00:09:41]   How realistic is it for small businesses to drive sales directly through the TikTok app?

Catherine Erdly: And then also how realistic is it for small businesses to drive sales directly through the TikTok app?

Penny Walker: Yeah, so I think businesses are using TikTok different ways. The three click makes it so easy to buy anything, but obviously that’s, that’s a lot of energy from your business you need to put into having a TikTok shop. So there’s two things that people are doing. One is being a TikTok seller, which means you upload a catalog rather, like you would in Facebook and you sell your products.

Brands are getting round the disparity in price on your website or on your Shopify by perhaps selling bundles instead, or slightly different product to what you can find on the website. Otherwise, the prices are a bit messy and that can be a bit inconsistent.

The other thing that a lot of people are doing is. Actually having creator shops. So rather than selling their own products, they’re selling complimentary products to their business. So that could be are you a flower store? Maybe you are selling other people’s soil or seeds or something like that. Are you an artist? You might be selling paintbrushes and then you’d be taking 10% commission on those sales rather than selling your own thing. So in a way, sometimes that’s more popular than selling. So when you look at people who have TikTok shops, you can take a soft approach, go I’m gonna set up a catalog. I’m gonna be able to link these products easily to my video.

So three clicks from my video with the link in to buying it. Done. But you have to invest a little bit of time in it because you could do lives, you could sell in your lives. So if something, if that comes to you naturally, that’s a great one to do as well. TikTok recommends that you have several things in your catalog, so if you only sell one thing, maybe that’s not gonna work for you so well. And then you see there’s huge brands like The Ordinary or what’s the, is it Free Soul Who sell the protein?

Catherine Erdly: Yes.

Penny Walker: They’ve partnered with TikTok and then they just do these massive sales, so they’re giving free samples out. I got free samples from Free Soul to make videos about it. That’s right for my network.

But as a brand as a small business, it might be that there’s creators who are absolutely brilliant and have just the right audience to sell your product.

Two, and they’ll take a 10% commission, but you might get loads and loads of sales out of it. So there’s lots of different ways to work it.

Having said that, many people just push to their link in bio and don’t use the shop because it feels like a lot to organize. So you don’t have to do it, have a go at it. I think the people who are doing best are the ones who really push it and go all in and go we are gonna do this. We’re gonna give it two months where we’re behind all of the sales.

So lots of different ways to do it. It’s a big subject, but the thing is buying things on TikTok is so easy and addictive. You can see the origin as well. If things are made in China or if they’re British brands, it would love, it’d be lovely to know a bit more about the British brands.

If someone wanted to lead that revolution, that would be great. But yeah, definitely worth investigating. But obviously you’ve gotta take it seriously and set a bit of time aside in your business to do it.

Catherine Erdly: So if I am correct then from, based on what you’ve said, so you can have your link in bio, which just will take them off platform and on into your shop, which presumably we all know that the apps like you to stay in, in the app, so that’s less popular.

You can have your TikTok shop, which is set up directly to your catalog. Definitely has a Shopify integration and presumably the other platforms as well. And then you’ve also got this option where you’ve got creators selling your products. I think this is really, I’m very interested in this phenomenon because I think what we’re seeing is that people are overall wanting to give less money directly to the platforms for advertising, but they’re happier to give say, 10% to the creator for selling.

Because ultimately what’s great about that is, is that you are only going to pay that 10% if you’ve made a sale. So it’s not like an ad where you have to plow the money in and then see what happens. You’re literally like, okay, you sold it, you get 10%. Which, for most people, 10 percent’s workable.

Especially when you think about commissions. You might pay another platform.

Penny Walker: No, absolutely. And there’s some fantastic sellers out there as well who really are niche. So if you’re selling things for moms and toddlers, for example, you can imagine there’s some just brilliant moms out there selling this or their toddlers or aunt pets fashion, all sorts. But also TikTok will send you, I always get offers of free samples.

Then I have to make a video within two weeks. But obviously I try not to do it too much personally just because it’s not really where I’m making money for my business.

But I think if you were,

There’s lots of possibilities in there.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, I think it’s fascinating. And I suppose the probably the biggest issue that a lot of people have, and I know a question that comes up a lot is like, how do you find the peop the right people, the right niche people?

Penny Walker: Yeah, so you can be matched in the creator marketplace. So TikTok will actually recommend people to you based on they’re not necessarily creators with big followings. Just the right followings.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, because this is all about the niche and the fit rather than the size, right? Yeah. Okay so definitely something to delve into. But you said the people you think are doing it best then are the ones that are really leaning into it.

Penny Walker: Yeah, they’re going all in. Yeah, I think it’s hard to do it on a small scale.

Gotta set, do a lot of setup just to sell a few things here and there, or just your one product. Maybe it’s something that I would recommend setting up and having a go with a view to selling more at Christmas.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. So a good time to get started now and dip your toe in.

[00:15:08] Real-world retail TikTok success stories

Catherine Erdly: So who are some good good examples right now that in small and independent brands can learn from?

Penny Walker: Yeah. Gosh, there’s so many and everyone sees different ones. And it amazes me how many I haven’t discovered. Then you’re like, oh, why didn’t I know about them? There’s one, there’s one lady that I absolutely love called made with Mud, and she’s a potter. And she doesn’t sell on TikTok.

She sells on off platform. But what she does is do lots and lots of lives. So she’ll do live almost every day where she’s making her wares, but also just talking.

So lots of people can, she’s built up a really loyal following like this. She’s been on the TikTok Small creators newsletter as well with big sort of banners around town.

She’s done absolutely amazingly, but I love that approach. So it’s, you could run your business through lives. That’s one way of doing it. Another brand that I love is Partner in Wine. Do you? Yeah.

Catherine Erdly: Lucy Hitchcock.

Penny Walker: absolutely. I think she’s just brilliant and I love, I love about what she does is how she just talks about the whole product development story.

So it’s by the time she comes to launching something, you are wrapped up in it. You just want to buy it immediately. And I think that’s very I think she probably does the same content on Instagram and on TikTok, but I love that about TikTok, where often it’s more about sharing the story, sharing the development, and what you are learning along the way. Then actually look at this nice thing I’ve got in blue and green. Would you like one? So I think she’s about that creating a lot of momentum. Another brand that I like is Cots World’s Tablescape. So she sells block printed tablecloths and things like that.

What I love about what she does, it’s a very small account, but she does it on Instagram and TikTok. It’s a great example of having a very aesthetic brand where your videos are beautiful, your product is beautiful, and therefore they’re just gonna do well on Instagram and they’re gonna do well on TikTok.

So I love that and I envy that because I think when you have a service business, it’s not so much.

Catherine Erdly: Do you think people need, it’s an interesting one. This isn’t it. I feel like it’s a debate that’s been going on for years between Instagram and, and then with the videos coming along.

[00:17:15] What type of content is working on TikTok?

Catherine Erdly: But do you think, obviously if you’ve got a really aesthetic brand and it all fits for you, perfect, but it, do people still respond when it’s just real and raw and shot in a hurry and.

Penny Walker: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think they really do. So there’s another lady called Painted Love Customs, and she paints sort of leather jackets and Doc Martins and things like that for weddings, but with flowers. Has a store off platform. But have a look at her Jade Kdi or Painted Love Customs.

You can look at either of those. You’ll find her, but she literally shares all her business experience while she’s just working. And she’ll tell you a little story and I think that works really well. And that would be, the bad situations and the good situations that she shares. But mostly the struggles.

And I love it because I think. You just keep going back to here, how did she solve it? And that’ll be the next video. So it’s almost got that sort of serialization that you might get with a mini sort of BBC series and why and the reason why really that sort of the BB, C and Netflix see TikTok as their competitor because you do have this element of being able to post very long videos.

Various episodes, so I love that. And I love as well how big brands like Waitrose and Water Stains then have their own sort of high street accounts.

Catherine Erdly: Yes. Some of them are really funny.

Penny Walker: Employee generat rated content, which is huge this year. If you’ve got some employees, just get them to do everything for you. It’s leading to all sorts of panic and contracts and when do I have to be in your tiktoks? But yeah lots and lots of different approaches, but I think ultimately you’ve just gotta ask yourself, what do you wanna get out of TikTok?

Are you there to sell or are you there Maybe just to get people onto your newsletter so that you can sell to them from that instead.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. And what do you enjoy doing? What kind of content do you enjoy doing? Isn’t that part of it?

Penny Walker: Yeah, and I think you’ve got to, I think experimenting is great as well. There’s so many, I think people don’t always realize that you can post single photos on TikTok in the way that you no longer can on Instagram. Really it works. You can post carousel posts, so just photos which is a little bit easier for business owners sometimes because you might already have the content and you can just tell a story that way. It could be five shirts or it could be by color, or it could be by Valentine’s Day, or it could be just the first picture of my shop before I opened it, and, where we are now. Befores and afters. It’s really, and you can even do trends that way as well, is that’s really flexible content.

I’m a huge lover of those, and TikTok really pushes them. The other thing that TikTok really pushes is longer videos. So in the creative fund, they actually pay creators for. Videos that are over one minute long. So

To have videos with a bit more substance, I think, compared to Instagram, where you might have a very long caption, but a very quick video.

And I actually like those longer videos because I feel like that’s how I would like to learn from someone. Talking and telling me that thing or listening to your story. So I think that’s definitely something to experiment with as well. Just look at all the formats and have a go and you’ll probably land on the one that works for you, but I think it takes a little bit of testing and like I said before, we’re really always all testing all the time anyway.

[00:20:23] Where to start: Penny’s step-by-step intro TikTok strategy

Penny Walker: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And if anyone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, I just find this so overwhelming and, or it’s, not for me what’s your advice on getting started? I know you said to test things, but is there any other way that any other sort of top tips for, just getting started and staying on the right side of being relevant, basically?

The first thing I’d say is create an account anyway. Create an account, take your business name. That might be the same as your Instagram one, hopefully before someone else makes it. Pin three videos, who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. Something like that. And if you don’t, if you’re not feeling tiktoks quite right for you.

Penny Walker: Yet, at least you have that in place and you’ll see that you start gaining followers anyway. But what’s important about that is that you are then not missing out on conversations about your brand. And I think people will miss that because there are, you might not want to be on TikTok, but your customers might already be and they might be making content about your business, or they’ve come to the fair where you were and they can’t tag you in, and it’s oh, all you need is to set up a profile page.

You don’t even be posting lots, but just be there to be tagged in. And again, I think if you’re not sure about TikTok, decide what you want to get out of it. Some people are there because they wanna fill up their Facebook groups or their memberships or the big one obviously is getting people on your newsletter so that you can get people off platform into the place where you can really sell to them.

Are you just there for brand awareness to have a shop front? Are you there to attract the attention of Sainsbury’s or Boots or, something like that? What are you trying to achieve? How to think about that and don’t be overwhelmed by it. I would say try and remember to have fun. I know that’s really silly, but I absolutely adore the extent of the creativity and madness on TikTok, and I think, if you haven’t established Instagram account, you’ve learned a lot along the way.

If you were gonna start it again, you’d probably do it a bit differently. You go onto TikTok, people don’t really know you’re there yet when you are a small account. Have a go with some things like test some different content, a bit, I’d say. And I think also just like mastering, talking to camera is huge because that means you never have to mess around with affy edits again, or transitions or smart and clever things.

You can just talk and tell your business story and I think that’s super, super powerful. But obviously. That takes a little bit of getting used to it, but it’s very liberating. Once you do, and I think just going back to what partner and wine does well, it is, I think if you are new to TikTok, it is just thinking about what your business stories are.

Can you story tell them through carousel posts? Can you share that conversation you had with your client the other day? He wasn’t sure about which one they wanted to buy and what helped them make up their mind. We all have loads of stories that we don’t notice. We have, I think those are nice.

They’re nice and relatable ways to start talking on TikTok and that’s where you’re gonna grow. The other thing that I’d say is I think people tend to post like their dog and then you know their product. That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but your growth, and I do a bit as well, but your growth will always be a little bit slower because the algorithm’s not always a hundred percent sure of what you are actually there for and what you are talking about. So I do see the accounts that tend to do better, faster are very niche. You just stick to the subject.

Catherine Erdly: I love that. Okay, so keep it simple. Liberate yourself, have some fun, and keep it on topic.

Penny Walker: Sounds that I, yeah, not that easy, I realize, but it’s just a bit of practice, isn’t it? And your drafts are there for a reason. Use them, have a go and stick it in the drafts.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. And ultimately it’s about just test testing, like you say, give it a test. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.

[00:24:04] Connect with Penny

Catherine Erdly: Do you wanna finish us off by telling everyone where they can find out more about working with you?

Penny Walker: Yes. Very simply either go to my LinkedIn bio on Instagram or TikTok and you can join my newsletter where I share all my, I’ve got quite a lot of in-person events coming up this summer. If you are interested in joining and learning more about, TikTok, but just come and connect with me on Instagram and TikTok, it’s BarBrusa_Social.

I think it’ll be written somewhere. That’s a silly spelling and a silly pronunciation. But do you come and ask me anything about TikTok? ’cause I’m always happy to chat and also make videos about things that you might be struggling with. But yeah, come and connect with me and I’d love to talk to you.

Catherine Erdly: Thank you so much for listening in.

Why not head over to Instagram at Resilient Retail Club or indeed TikTok at Resilient Retail Club as well, where you can say, hi. Let me know what you thought about today’s episode, and if you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to ask or drop over and say hi to Penny at BarBrusa Social as well. Her links are in the show notes.

If you have a moment to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcast, it makes a huge difference to getting the show out there to more listeners and if you like, follow or subscribe, depending on which platform you’re on, you’ll be the first to note about each new episode when it comes out on a Thursday morning.

See you next week.

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