We're back for Season 3 of TikTalk Radio and launching a new video format!
Did you miss me?
Today we are sitting down with professional ballet dancer and TikTok creator Autumn Klein. Between a busy career at Oklahoma City Ballet and taking care of her four cats, Autumn has gained over 3.1m followers on TikTok since she joined in the Musical.ly days.
If you're looking to learn about how to navigate burn out, rebrand, and balance brand deals as a full time artist turned TikTok creator, then this one is for you!
Below is the full transcript of our interview. If you'd like to watch the interview with subtitles, you can watch it here on our YouTube channel.
Full Interview Transcript
Victoria: I'm here today with Autumn Klein. This is super fun because I've known autumn for a long time from musically slash TikTok. I was really excited that she was able to come to the studio and actually be our first in person guest.
Autumn: It makes me feel special.
Victoria: One of the things that I like to ask people about is how they got started on the platform. And I know we both go way back. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about like how you got started and kind of what that journey looked like?
Autumn: So my story is actually I had a really bad injury. that I had surgery on. And when I woke up, the doctor told me it was a worst case scenario. I had a 50% chance of returning to my job as a ballet dancer, not ideal. I realized I was gonna have four months of not even being able to walk.
And then another couple months of rehab. So I started editing old videos. I had taken of myself for improvement and putting them on musically just to edit music onto it, to post to Instagram. And they started taking off and I never stopped
posting.
Victoria: It's just funny because I've heard several people say that they started using musically as like an editing platform, like a million years ago.
And they're like, oh, I didn't even realize that was TikTok. Like just the music feature of being able to add music was. like A big
deal for people.
Autumn: Right? Because it was so hard when I knew nothing about making
videos.
Victoria: Obviously didn't say this in the intro, but Autumn's a professional dancer with Oklahoma City Ballet.
When did you realize like, oh, okay. This social media thing can work for me outside of just my dance.
career
Autumn: I realized it pretty early on, I think because I was starting at that moment when musically was trying to change from being just it's kids at lip sync to, we have adult centered content as well. So they actually called me when I had been doing it for two months and they put me in a special program to teach me how to
make content.
Victoria: I was gonna ask you because I know that they had been working with creators. You were like in the creator program. Very first group of them. When they did like the live streaming thing,
Autumn: I also did that.
Victoria: Okay.
Autumn: Those are two separate things.
Victoria: Yeah. Okay. So there was a lot of these weird, like niche programs. Yeah. Back when TikTok was musically and they were like almost trying to network and meet with creators. And that eventually has kind of turned into the creator program, but it's looked very different over the years. Like
Autumn: it was super hands on personal and we do like phone calls with they flew us out to LA
Victoria: did they really?
Autumn: They took us to universal. It was really fun.
Victoria: I didn't know that. Wait, that's so cool.
Autumn: I know. Yeah. It was really special. I knew it was this huge opportunity. And I grew from, I think I had 6,000 followers when I started to over 360,000 in three months.
Victoria: Oh, okay.
Autumn: So I was like, I can do something with this. I'm already making lots of money off of my live streams.
Victoria: And that was back when live streaming was like cash money.
Autumn: I made slime online.
Victoria: did you really, I feel like people just did the weirdest stuff on live that like just was entertaining.
Autumn: Exactly. Cause it was better than the other option, which was just playing a thousand games with Children.
Victoria: Yeah. Cause it was all kids back then.
Autumn: Yes. The emoji. Yes. Which was the whole point emoji game.
Victoria: Oh my God. The first person to put the eyes emoji.
Autumn: Yes. Oh
Victoria: Get a follow.
Autumn: I got so burnt out on live streaming though. Doing that. I honestly I tried a live stream and I just can't do it.
Victoria: It's interesting. Cuz I see a lot of like coaches and people in like the social media coaching space talking about live streams.
And I think those of us that were Into TikTok slash musically early on and doing a bunch of live streaming. It's exhausting.
Autumn: Oh yeah.
Victoria: You're on, you're having to like almost not perform,
Autumn: but it is a performance.
Victoria: Yeah.
Autumn: Because you have to be up, your energy has to be engaging. You're still yourself, but it's like, when I perform, I'm still myself, but I'm dancing. I would do it for four to six hours a day.
Victoria: I know people that were doing like eight, 10 hour live streams, cuz they were making like $3,000 a day. Yeah. Like really good money.
Autumn: It was really good.
Victoria: But then the program shifted
Autumn: right.
Victoria: Once TikTok was TikTok
Autumn: Uhhuh.
Victoria: So you gained like 300,000 followers in a really short amount of time you started working with TikTok. Where did you go from there? Had you done any brand deals yet?
Autumn: I started doing brand deals, probably when I had been working for six months on my social media. I don't take that many brand deals.
I realized partway, like my second year that I don't enjoy doing the deals enough to take the smaller things.
Victoria: Right. And that's an interesting point that I think a lot of creators realize the more often you start doing brand deals is it's really easy to get burnt out on them. If you take a lot of small ones, you're posting a lot of sponsored content, which your audience.
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: Doesn't really vibe with. And when you kind of hold out for the bigger brand deals, it can be better aligned with your audience, the pays better. Then you don't have to do another one for like a month.
Autumn: Right? Exactly.
Victoria: You're turning down the small ones.
Autumn: And I also feel like, things on TikTok are always changing, but I felt like when I was doing the small deals, they wouldn't do well. And so my numbers would be going up and it would kind of crash the back down again. And once I stopped, they went up and they stayed up for a long. So then it was easier to get multiples of the big deals.
Victoria: Right? Because then they're seeing the performance and seeing how it can actually impact their page. So you gained 300,000 followers, short amount of time. How did your strategy shift, cuz it's really easy to hit like a plateau when you're growing and so how did you kind of go from there?
Autumn: So yes, I definitely had to do that and I didn't know anything about social media so in the beginning I was kind of doing everything even totally irrelevent..
I can relate
Victoria: to that for sure.
Autumn: And I feel like I wasted a lot of time on that. I got a lot of followers that weren't interested in, what I was making and so I would get followers and then my engagement would drop, because I wasn't making the same kind of content. I decided, okay, I'm gonna make these cool makeup videos I like right now, and they're gonna blow up and I'm gonna get 300,000 followers in a month. And then I'm not gonna make that anymore. And people are gonna be like, what the heck? Why is this totally different?
Victoria: I feel like part of that's natural though. Like part of it is evolving as a creator, but the other part of it is I think the kind of like dopamine hit of like, if I do this content
Autumn: Totally.
Victoria: It will go viral. Like you kind of start to get a vibe of like, I know what performs well, and then when that's not aligned with what, like your authentic brand is, then when you start to
Together: You get burnt out.
Autumn: Exactly. That happened to me. I realized I can make content that I'm not passionate about, but I know the algorithm likes for whatever reason. And every time I fall into that trap, I get burnt out really fast. And then I just. stop Which is the worst thing you can do.
Victoria: Yeah. Because you lose the momentum.
Autumn: You lose the momentum and it's all about, for me, at least connecting with your audience and giving them things they appreciate. Because even when they don't blow up, if I get a lot of positive engagement from people, they'll send me messages saying, oh, this really helped me. Oh, I really enjoyed this. That inspires me a lot more than just random numbers of people watching and commenting first.
Victoria: Yes. So like impactful content over viral content.
Autumn: Exactly.
Victoria: Some of my favorite videos or most engaging videos have been really low performing videos. Like they didn't go viral, they didn't do great.
But I connected with a lot of other creators on them. Like I saw comments from people I knew, like actually had conversations with. So I think that a lot of people put the, the pressure on virality when that's not really always the best thing for longevity.
Autumn: I definitely agree with that. And for myself, finding my space as a creator, sometimes I look at people who have gotten really easy, really quick success and they break have those moments exactly of being like, oh, I want that so badly and I get frustrated with my own content for not doing that. But then I remember, no, no, no. That's not my path. That's not why I'm doing this. I think it's really important to keep your eyes focused on your own goals. And my goal is to create impactful content that teaches people about ballet and how wonderful and beautiful it is and inspires people to either go and watch it or continue their training, or find a healthy way to engage with it and as, as long as I keep my focus on that, I really enjoy it and I'm really inspired.
Victoria: Yeah and I think you're the perfect person to do that too, because a lot of people in the dance space like injuries is a big, cuts off.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: a lot of your momentum,
Autumn: Oh for sure.
Victoria: When you're training. And so it's cool, like you have a really unique story in the dance world because you have had so many ups and downs in your career with being injured and, ,
switching companies. Yeah. And like moving here to Oklahoma city,
Autumn: I took a four year break to go to college.
Victoria: Yeah. And that's like really unheard of.
Autumn: You're not supposed to like community. Like
Victoria: I was a dance major for musical theater, but then in the ballet community, you don't have to go to college to be a professional ballet dancer. A lot of people don't
Autumn: In fact A lot of people kind of look down on it in the industry.
Victoria: I've heard that.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: It's like, cause they're like,
Autumn: Why are you wasting your money? You're losing four years of time when you could be in the company, which is terrible, but it's just that's reality.
Victoria: Yeah, I think, it's good that you're able to share and like show people what a non-traditional ballet career looks like in a way, or just having to take breaks even like for injuries. So when did you actually hit your first million on TikTok?
Autumn: 2018, I guess.
Victoria: You were an early grower.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: I felt like, like you had really boomed like right out of the gate. Was it discouraging to not have that kind of like explosive growth after that? Or was that the time period when you were kind of like figuring out how to manage getting burnt out or feeling too drained?
Autumn: I think, yeah. I had really huge growth and then I realized that things were gonna go up and down and that's when I learned that was kind of around the 1 million mark. It started slow. I got to like 1.3m and then it slowed down and I was like, I'm not good at this anymore. I'm not doing well anymore. What's happening.
Victoria: It's like an existential crisis.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: If I could say one thing that every creator struggles with, no matter what your size, like you have over, how many followers do you have now?
Autumn: 3.1.
Victoria: Okay. 3.1 million. And you're saying that seeing numbers go up and down gives you anxiety. Yeah. And you're like, what it's happening?
Autumn: Like right, exactly. You're like, have I lost my touch?
Victoria: Yes. Like do people not like me anymore?
Autumn: Right. Is my content bad? Am I out of ideas? Am I not creative anymore? And that is just not true. Everybody's gonna experience the ups and downs. You wouldn't even look at the huge, huge creators and their numbers go down relative to what they were before. And I'm sure they feel that they're not as high as they were. And it really doesn't matter. It's the long term, just consistency
Victoria: mm-hmm
Autumn: And owning your craft. You're gonna find your audience. If you're consistent with whatever you're passionate about, there will be people that want to see what you're making and you just gotta keep going with it if you want to, if that's what you wanna do.
Victoria: Being a creator is a lot different than a lot of careers too, because unlike, playing a character on TV or something or having, an actual kind of, I don't know, like the YouTubers and stuff that had like Miranda sings, like that was a character.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: That was not personally her.
Autumn: Right, right.
Victoria: It's a lot harder, I think when,
Autumn: when you're yourself,
Victoria: it's yourself.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: Cause then you take things so much more personally. Yeah. Like
it's,
it's you like, it's your personality.
Autumn: You don't like me?
Victoria: Yeah. Have you had to deal with a lot of like hate comments and all that fun stuff?
Autumn: Actually,
I've been, I think really lucky. I get probably the most hate when things go viral on Instagram,
Victoria: Dude, people are mean on Instagram.
Autumn: It's like little kids and then young adult to middle-aged men are so mean
Victoria: Yeah. I think you end up having to get, I mean, in the dance industry, obviously thick skin, like auditioning and having the ups and,
Autumn: Oh my gosh. Yes.
Victoria: And then social media, it's just like the same thing, but different.
Autumn: Well, to be honest, having gone through ballet school where I was told that I wasn't talented enough, my body didn't look right. I was stupid. Are you drunk, sweetie? Did you get to joint , all the time that impacted me in a much more profound way than some stranger. I don't care what a stranger thinks. I care what my ballet master thinks. I care if they're making fun of me for my foot sickeling but. You're saying I have cheese stick legs, whatever.
That's just funny.
Victoria: Cheese stick legs. Someone told you that.
Autumn: Oh, I got it a lot, actually.
Victoria: What,
Autumn: because I guess my, my skin is obviously very pale.
Victoria: Same girl. We're like twins.
Autumn: Yes, exactly.
Victoria: So you said when things go viral on Instagram are you finding yourself now that TikTok has become kind of your main platform and how has that kind of carried over to other platforms for you? Like instagram.
Autumn: TikTok hasn't really been my main platform for almost a year now.
Victoria: Yeah.
Autumn: It's been more Instagram because I just feel like.
My instagram audience is really engaged with my content, cuz I've stayed consistent there.
Victoria: Mm.
Autumn: I know what they like. I know that they care about what I'm making. I get really, really profound messages and comments that inspire me and push me forward on TikTok you can't really count on that because the way the algorithm works. Your followers that may love you won't necessarily see your content.
Victoria: It's very hit and miss.
Autumn: Even my husband who engages with everything I post, when he opens his following page, he won't see a lot of my content.
Victoria: Which is crazy. I think a lot of people have that anxiety of like, oh my content's not doing as well as it used to. I mean, we've both seen the ups and downs over the last, five years on the platform but I think what people don't realize is there's so much more content being put out right now on TikTok. Like it really, it is more competitive. I do still think, the value is there just like with Instagram Reels now, the bigger reach. These video platforms are giving better reach than typical Instagram on YouTube.
Autumn: Totally. But because of the way the Instagram algorithm works, where it shows your followers, your stuff, I do feel like they feel more connected to me.
Victoria: Yeah. I didn't think about it like that because Instagram does really show you the people you interact with the most.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: And TikTok doesn't necessarily do that.
Autumn: They show you the content they think you will like the most. So it's just a different approach and it depends on what you wanna get out of your social media.
Victoria: Mm-hmm
Autumn: So for me, it's more about that personal connection. That's why I tend to like Instagram better and then there's something to be said about TikTok. You can reach a huge audience.
Mmhm
Victoria: Three point what?
Autumn: Three, 3.1 million. Yeah.
Victoria: Yeah. That's so many people. And I like to think of TikTok as kinda like the top of the funnel though, because it really does bring people that love your content and your niche to find you on other platforms.
Autumn: Sure.
Victoria: Like I always, when I see a creator that I'm like, oh, this is cool. And then I'll go look at their Instagram and they're not posting anything on Instagram. And I'm like, oh, I wanna see more of this.
Autumn: Right? Yeah.
Victoria: So it's like good that you can have content on another platform to show people. You said you don't post as much on TikTok anymore.
Autumn: So I just started last week posting again. I got hacked last summer.
Victoria: Yes. I wanted to ask you about that.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: Okay. Tell me, tell me everything. What happened. So what's the tea
Autumn: So I got hacked by like a 17 year old kid. He hacked my account. He deleted all my videos and I instantly got it back.
Victoria: He deleted your videos. He didn't just private them?
Autumn: No, he deleted them all.
Victoria: Wait, can you, you
Autumn: Except for like 20
Victoria: That like feels illegal.
Autumn: It does. Right. I pursued it because we actually found the person, his address, his parents' phone number and everything, and where he goes to school, so we found all of his information.
Victoria: What did you talk to his mom through
Autumn: through my followers, we did.
Victoria: Wait, tell me what that was like!
Autumn: He's done it to a lot of, people and basically she was apologetic, but they're not gonna do anything about. And we went through, we talked to the cops
and they said, they're not gonna do anything because he's a minor and,
Victoria: but what if he had been an adult? Is that like a crime that feels like a crime?
Autumn: If he was an adult, they would've pursued it, but because he was just a little bit younger decided to drop it.
Victoria: It's insane. So, okay. You got your account back?
Autumn: Oh no. And they tried to extort me. He tried to extort me.
Victoria: Oh, like blackmail you,
Autumn: Yeah,
Victoria: Wait, that's illegal.
Autumn: It's totally illegal. And I have proof of it and I gave it to the cops and they were like, ah, he's, he's a kid. We don't wanna ruin his life. And I said, okay, but he's gonna keep doing this as an adult and it will ruin his life. For real, it's gonna ruin it.
Victoria: No. Yeah.
Autumn: So basically I was at the highest high ever. Everything I was posting was between five and 20 million views. At that point,
Victoria: that's insane.
Autumn: And then after he took it, I couldn't get over 200,000 views on anything.
Victoria: So how do you like move on from that? Like, without being super discouraged,
Autumn: I was super discouraged and I basically quit for a long time. I would post once a month maybe and I just shifted to Instagram.
Victoria: Mm-hmm
Autumn: Because I was just like, I've worked this hard for this long and somebody can take it from you like that. What am I doing this for? And so I just, I took a break and I needed it. Because I was so discouraged and I just recently last week started posting again and I kind of have to retrain the algorithm, I feel like to understand what kind of content I make.
Victoria: Mm-hmm
Autumn: Because it's been so long.
Victoria: Yeah.
Autumn: So I am turning out like a crazy amount of stuff right now, like four or five videos a day, just to teach it who, to, send my stuff to and to find what is even working on TikTok now. Cause I have no idea
Victoria: It's changed so much.
Autumn: I don't even use the app anymore so it's a process. I can already see, I went from having like 50,000 views a week to now 500,000. So that's, in five days that's a big improvement.
Victoria: Yeah. It just takes time. I think
Autumn: it just takes time
Victoria: to rebuild. Like any type of break will always, the momentum will be slow at first, but then it's funny cuz I do the same thing where I'm like, oh my views are down. And then finally you have something that pops off and it raises the views on
Autumn: yeah.
Victoria: everything else. And then you're like, oh, okay.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: It's fine.
Autumn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get back back in my rhythm. Yeah.
Victoria: You said you lost a lot of the content that was already on your TikTok. Do you film and edit outside of TikTok or do you use within the platform?
Autumn: Both. I used to do both. Although that early stuff, a lot of it was in the platform because I didn't know what I was doing, which is very sad.
Victoria: I think that's what a lot of people do though. I
tend to see that people start out using the
Autumn: Oh. defintely
Victoria: Tools in the platform, but long term, I think as a creator, it's important to be able to edit outside too cause you'll own your content.
Autumn: And the quality of the video is just gonna be higher and that's such an important thing. And You can put it on other platforms. There's so much content I can go back to and repost later, or repost the same platform when it becomes relevant again.
Victoria: Mm-hmm and that's great for when you're going through like a period too, where you don't feel like posting.
Autumn: Exactly.
Victoria: Then you can recycle old content and then you have those video clips too, that you can always edit into,
Autumn: Oh, I do that all the time.
Victoria: New trends. Yeah, me. Too,
Autumn: Especially because I like to do talking videos. Mm-hmm but I don't wanna just sit and talk. I find it more engaging to have the visuals along with it so I'll use old videos so I don't have to re-shoot.
Victoria: Yeah, no, that's smart because then you're doing, what is it? Work smarter, not harder.
Autumn: Exactly.
Victoria: And you'll have all that content to repurpose.
Autumn: Exactly.
Victoria: It always makes me sad when people don't like own their content, like it's like on a platform and then you have to download it with a watermark or there's really like no good way to export from any platform without ruining the quality, of the video.
Autumn: Exactly. There's no good way.
Victoria: What app are you using when you edit?
Autumn: I do most of it on my phone. I use VideoLeap. It works fantastically. I can even do some pretty decent green screening effects on it, which is nice.
Victoria: Oh yeah. Cuz you do a lot of green screen stuff.
Autumn: I do a lot of,
Victoria: So I think that's cool that you went from really knowing nothing about social media when you started this to now you're like doing these cool edits and effects and it's stuff that you've basically learned through your experience.
Autumn: Oh yeah. Just through trial and error.
Victoria: I think people get really overwhelmed with getting started on social media. Cuz they see people, like Autumn who has over 3 million followers and like, oh I could never do that.
But they don't realize, five years ago you,
Autumn: I couldn't do it either.
Victoria: Exactly. Like it just takes time and practice and just letting yourself out there.
Autumn: Just like any skill, the more you do it, the better you're gonna get at it. and whatever your specific content is, the more you do it, the easier it will get to create it.
I would sit for an hour or two every day just to come up with what I was gonna make. And now I just read comments. I watch videos, listen to music and I'm like, okay, this is what I'm doing today. And it's automatic.
Victoria: So how do you balance being a full-time ballet dancer and being a content creator, cuz I think there's different types of creators out there.
Like some people create content about their career and then you're kind of bouncing two careers in a way. And then some people like I'm a full-time content creator and I don't post about a specific career if that makes sense.
Autumn: Right. Right. So it's my ballet company, the situation there makes it a little bit hard, like I would love to make a ton of videos about that. But we can't even take a picture backstage in the costume and post it online.
Victoria: Right and cause in some career paths, , you have those restrictions with your job.
Autumn: Exactly, exactly. So I realized I can't keep these worlds really together. They have to be separate plus it's hard to get studio space. So very few of my videos are actually in the studio unless we're on. break And that's pretty much the only time I can actually film something in the studio when I'm not actually rehearsing. So that's kind of how you got into these more creative dance videos.
Yeah. I didn't have a lot of options because I have a home studio, but it's the size of this room,
Victoria: And this room's not very big.
Autumn: Exactly. exactly.
Victoria: So not exactly great for showing off.
Autumn: I'm not gonna do a leap in here.
Victoria: No.
Autumn: Cause then you're gonna hit a cement wall.
Victoria: That's so interesting though. I think when people see creators In their niche, that is their career they think it has to look a specific way and they kind of put themselves in a box and think, oh, well, if I'm a dancer, I need to be doing dancing videos. But sometimes you can build your career online in surrounding ways because you're talking about pointe shoes, you're educating people, you're doing these cool effects. You're not necessarily performing.
Autumn: Right. Right. It's totally true. There are so many ways to be a creator, for everything. And I think the biggest thing is just find something that you are interested in doing a lot, a lot of cuz you're gonna do a lot of it and you can explore and find that and that's great. And that's part of the process, but I really think what's special about social media is it lets us be creative in a way that as a dancer, I don't get to be in the studio. They tell me what to do. They tell me where to stand. They tell me what my emotion is. , they'll tell me how to hold my hand when I'm thinking about something. And I, I don't have a lot of freedom, but when I make my videos, I can make whatever store I want, whatever dance I want, whatever. I wanna communicate and that's pretty cool.
Victoria: That was something I actually found very empowering about social media, because I also come from a dance background and, performing acting and so much of our career is someone else telling us like, yes, you're good enough or no, like these things need to change.
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: And it's so much about having someone else. Judge you basically and tell you what you're gonna be doing. So for me, with creating, it did give me a space where I felt like I could be myself more and I have a job, regardless of if someone thinks I'm good enough, like that's so empowering
It's huge to like, know that my income is based on being myself to an extent and having that platform where I can do that. But growing up, it was always like, you didn't get the part, having to deal with that like constant criticism.
Autumn: You don't have to conform who you are online.
Victoria: Yes. Yeah, and then you get to connect with so many other creators. Like we would've never probably met, which is so funny because I'm, I mean, from Oklahoma city, right. Family up here. Dance in the dance world and like who would've thought we met through Musical.ly
Autumn: I know, right?
Victoria: Like five years ago
Autumn: at a,
Victoria: oh my God.
Autumn: Weird meetup in a park.
Victoria: sigh that was interesting.
Autumn: That was wild.
Victoria: It's cool to see how the platforms have evolved though. I think my favorite thing is seeing how creators. Make their content, fit into their lives like over a long period of time, because obviously what you're making now is so different than what you were doing back then and same
Autumn: totally
Victoria: For me too.
Autumn: Totally.
Victoria: Do you think with taking a longer break, has it shifted more of your focus with content creation?
Autumn: Yeah, I'd say so. Really. My focus is less. What can I make that? TikTok is gonna boost out and show people that feels like they like it and more, what can I create that is going to impact people because that's kind of how I work on Instagram. And I realized I can take that idea to TikTok and actually find some fulfillment there instead of just money and some pats on the back.
Victoria: Yeah. I think the money thing, I used to think, oh, I'm just gonna have it made, like when I hit, I
I remember, I couldn't even think about like what it would be like to have a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: And now I'm like, oh, cool. I don't feel any different.
Autumn: No,
Victoria: So it's more about like the connections and the people
Autumn: and the bigger your account gets the more, you think that's a small number.
Victoria: Okay. I'm so glad you brought that up because I have definitely struggled with that because then, I have friends that are like, oh my God, you have, , 900,000 followers you're famous.
Autumn: Exactly.
Victoria: And I'm like not, but I'm like literally
Autumn: People come up to me on the street and they recognize me and it is so nice, but so weird but then I'm like
Victoria: because you don't feel the name different?
Autumn: No.
Victoria: I always saw people who were successful on social media and thought like, wow, if I just had that number of followers, things would be so much easier, but it never is. And I actually think the bigger you get, the more pressure there is to
Autumn: for sure.
Victoria: perform. One thing I love to ask everyone is if you were gonna go back and start over today, which you kind of had to
Autumn: kind am doing.
Together: Yeah.
Victoria: So what would you do differently?
Autumn: I would focus on making content that I liked and not look at the numbers,
Victoria: which is so hard to do, because it is like a vanity metric.
Autumn: I have to say, though, this last like week-ish has been the happiest I've ever been making content for TikTok because I just, I'm not paying attention to it. I'm just making whatever I feel like making that I think feeds into my creator voice. It's really fun.
Victoria: I think that's really the sweet spot though, is when you can find that authenticity and be able to align that and then your audience enjoys it
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: And is receptive to it.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: I think sometimes it just takes a little bit of time to like redirect,
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: How do you think people figure out what their specific audience is?
Autumn: You are your audience laughs in so many ways if you look at your content and you're like, if I didn't know myself, would I wanna watch this?
Victoria: Mm. I love that.
Autumn: If that is how you feel about it, then it's, it's good content for yourself.
Victoria: I like to think about too, every video you post could be the first time someone sees you.
Autumn: Definitely.
Victoria: So that's one reason I get a little bit frustrated when people complain about their views or like are saying I'm shadow banned like get me un shadow banned but it's like shadow banning's whispers not real. I'm sorry, everyone. But it can be frustrating.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: To have fluctuating content.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: But when the first thing that people are seeing of you is you saying my content's not doing well anymore. Like it's,
Autumn: that's not a, a good first impression.
Victoria: It's not a good look. Yeah. Like it might perform well, cuz people are like interested in what's happening.
Autumn: Yeah. you have to realize that anything your post might go viral and if it does go viral, and It's not related to you or what you wanna make, it's gonna hurt your account
Victoria: Mm-hmm
Autumn: you don't want random virality, cause it's gonna bring a lot of people onto the bus that don't care about where you're going.
Victoria: I'm definitely so guilty of falling into that though, because back in, , 20 17, 18, 19. We didn't know what we were doing. No, we just were like, cool. My videos are getting millions of views.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: Like that wasn't happening on other platforms.
Autumn: Right.
Victoria: Especially just to normal people, like yeah. It was happening to big YouTubers and other
Autumn: Kardashians
Victoria: and yeah. Yeah. There really wasn't a space with the reach and growth like TikTok has now. Right. So it's really been cool to see how it's evolved.
And it's continuing to evolve.
Do you have stories yet on tikTok?
Autumn: I don't. They told us we were gonna get them. One of my friends got it yesterday. So hopefully I'll get it soon. I dunno if you remember this, they had it on Muscial.ly for a minute, and then they got rid of it.
Victoria: Oh my gosh. I like forgot that happened..
Autumn: They had it on Live.Ly too. The live stream app
Victoria: Live.ly. Oh, my you're unlocking so many memories
Autumn: I know right
Victoria: I forgot Musical.Ly used to have a separate live streaming app.
Autumn: Yeah
Victoria: Wow. That's wild. Like back in the day, that is so long. I feel like I've lived a thousand lives since then, between like COVID losing my house.
Like I'm like dude
Autumn: Dramatic era.
Victoria: Who was that person like? That was so long ago. Yeah. It's definitely been cool to see this platform. And one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast was because what I was seeing was normal people becoming content creators. And there's also not a lot of resources out there for content creators to connect with each other
Autumn: true.
Victoria: Or to learn things for free.
Autumn: Well, just like you, you were saying there are a lot of big creators here. I had no idea.
Victoria: Yeah.
Autumn: I only know you and you don't live here.
Victoria: Exactly. It's funny to see like where you wouldn't even expect it I think people think, oh, you have to live in LA to be a content creator. There's like 15 people here in Oklahoma, just in Oklahoma that are big creators. And it's great to be able to connect and like hear the similarities over and over though, because so many things we all make the same mistakes.
Autumn: Yes.
Victoria: And it makes you feel less crazy.
Autumn: Yes.
Victoria: Cause you're like, oh, okay. I'm not the only one that's freaking out when my views go down.
Autumn: Exactly.
Exactly.
Victoria: We'll wrap up with one of my favorite questions. What advice do you have. For someone, you kind of already said this though, someone who is starting out brand new.
Autumn: I would say have fun. Follow your passions. Don't get caught up in the numbers and block people that spam you with hate comments.
Victoria: Oh my gosh. Yes. Like your page is yours. You can choose to block. Or if there's certain words like I filter,
Autumn: oh yeah.
Victoria: Specific words. Like I personally don't want anyone commenting on my body, so I like filter out words.
Right, right.
That would be specific to that. So yeah, definitely the comment filters are, oh, gold,
Autumn: very important
Victoria: Gold.
And when we were on a break, just now you were saying like, you don't really watch TikTok that much. I never, how do you decide what content to post if you're not like watching it as often?
Autumn: That's a great question.
I listen to music. I actually look at Instagram,
get some ideas.
Yeah. And a lot of times what I do is I look at my comments from my own followers.
Mm. And that inspires me.
Victoria: Ooh, that's a really good one.
I have said that, or heard that before in the past too, is like,
when people are asking you specific things, like they're giving you content ideas.
Autumn: Oh, totally.
I. think Most like half of the things I made in the last week were just because somebody asked for it.
Victoria: Mm. And did they perform
Autumn: yeah.
Victoria: How you expected them to,
Autumn: they performed well,
Victoria: that's awesome.
Autumn: Cause people like it when you're engaging and you're making stuff that they're asking for.
Victoria: Yeah.
Autumn: And if one person wants it, probably a
lot of other people wanna engage.
Victoria: Yeah. That's so true. And I always tell people to like, look at the questions people are asking about your niche in general.
Autumn: Yeah.
Victoria: Like just Google, like what, what are people asking about? Point shoes.
Autumn: True. True.
Victoria: , there's so many things that. There's so many things out there that you can make content about.
Autumn: Oh,
for sure. I made a video, like I was saying yesterday. That's just about how my shoes came in too small and I've been struggling with them for the year.
So I had to change pointe shoes
Victoria: and that's like, great, cuz that's your real life.
Autumn: It's my real life.
Victoria: It's not something you're having to like.
Autumn: no,
Victoria: come up with a concept for
Autumn: Right
Victoria: and find
somewhere to film.
Autumn: And it's
something I know completely everything about cuz it's just me.
Victoria: yeah.
Autumn: Nobody
else knows about that's
Victoria: like the best route to be.
And I'm super excited for you getting this like new restart. Oh my God. I'm so excited for you. So we'll have to definitely get together again cuz I wanna see like where this goes. Yeah. Hopefully now that you're more like focused on yeah.
Autumn: My biggest
hope is that I just don't get burnt out.
Victoria: Mm.
Yeah. I think that's all we can hope for.
Yeah.
Autumn: Cuz
the numbers, those are come and go. You can't
really predict that, but
Victoria: yeah, that's so true. And, and that's something that we all have to learn the hard way. I feel like it's.
Autumn: Yeah,
Victoria: like I said, a roller coaster,
Autumn: it is
Expect it to be unpredictable.
Victoria: that should be like TikTok's slogan,
Autumn: for
sure.
Victoria: Don't don't freak out.
You're fine.
Autumn: If you feel comfortable,
it's gonna change. So.
Victoria: Every time you feel like you're on top of the world, something
Autumn: the rug is coming out.
Victoria: Yeah. And that's okay though. It's part of the,
Autumn: it's part of the
journey
Victoria: experience.
Autumn: It teaches you to be calm. It brings out your Zen, or you have to
find your zen
Victoria: You have to find it for sure. I've been guilty of not finding the Zen.
Autumn: Me
too. So
I,
I realized in 2020, I had some freak out moments when things didn't do well, like ads and stuff. And I realized this is not healthy and I need to make a. change And I've been
Victoria: yeah
Autumn: happier
since
Victoria: I feel like one thing that comes up a lot talking to creators is mental health and how being a content creator really does not make or break, but it can play a big part.
Autumn: It can challenge.
Victoria: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like I think almost every creator that's on the podcast has had said something about that, which is good for people to be talking about it because
Autumn: right.
It's a common experience. It's good to expect it. And to
prepare for that,
Victoria: especially with fast growth too, cuz it's a whirlwind.
Autumn: Yeah
Victoria: You were all of
a sudden working with musically outta nowhere.
Autumn: I know. Yeah.
Victoria: Like that's insane. Yeah. That's so cool. I'm glad we got to get together, cuz I actually didn't know that that's how you started. And
Autumn: Yeah
Victoria: it was so like out of the gate,
it, it
Autumn: was,
it was meant to be, I guess just one
of those almost got lucky moments.
Yeah.
Victoria: Well I think sometimes people say they got lucky, but my ballet teacher used to always say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Nice. You like that? So you saw the opportunity.
Autumn: Oh, well, I will take credit for something I
didn't do then.
Victoria: awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, autumn.
Autumn: Uh, Thank you. for having me
Victoria: You guys can follow autumn on her socials. Tell, tell everyone where they can find you.
Autumn: You can find
me AutumnSKlein on Instagram and TikTok, and I think Autumn S Klein shorts on YouTube.
Ooh.
Victoria: Oh man. We didn't even get into shorts. That's a whole nother monster. Yeah I haven't
gone there yet.
Really? You should.
We'll see. No, I've seen that. They do really well. Yeah. But it's just like a lot,
Autumn: , all I've been posting is shorts and varies sporadically and I have made money.
Victoria: Oh yeah. Okay. Well, that's always a good thing. Yeah. I have some videos with
Autumn: millions of views.
Victoria: Well, maybe I'm gonna have to look into that.
I have like
Autumn: 15 videos and a couple of them have millions.
Victoria: No. Yeah. Oh man. Well, I'm gonna have to pick your brain on that later because that sounds like something I need to do. Yeah, for sure. That's all for this week's episode of TikTok radio. We'll have another guest next week and make sure you guys tune in and leave us a review on iTunes.
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