'We want you to like our brand': Truff co-founders Nick Guillen and Nick Ajluni on making their TikTok channel a destination
Modern Retail Podcast · with Nick Guillen and Nick Ajluni · September 17, 2020 · 29 min
Summary
Truff co-founders share their unique approach to TikTok, prioritizing brand affinity and community building over direct sales. They emphasize immersing in platform trends while maintaining brand identity, leveraging user-generated content, and balancing DTC with Amazon and retail channels. This episode offers a compelling case study for brands aiming to cultivate a strong online presence and engaged customer base beyond immediate conversions.
Key takeaways
Develop a social media strategy where platform engagement is an 'endgame' in itself, focusing on brand liking and community building before pushing for direct sales.
Immerse your brand in the native voice, tone, flow, and content style of each social platform (e.g., TikTok) to authentically connect with new generations of users.
Actively encourage and share user-generated content, including unboxing videos and usage demonstrations from fans and even professional users like chefs, to build social proof and community.
Strategically integrate a DTC model with marketplace (Amazon) and traditional retail (Neiman Marcus, Wegmans) presences, viewing each as a distinct channel with a specific role, rather than solely as competitors.
Prioritize authentic brand presence over hard selling on platforms like TikTok, allowing for organic customer journeys from brand appreciation to purchase without overt sales pressure.
Most companies use social media as a way to point consumers to the brand's website. In hot sauce company Truff's case, social media -- and TikTok, in particular -- is an endgame in itself.
"They eventually become customers, but we don't tell them, you know 'go to our link and buy our sauce,'" Truff co-founder Nick Guillen said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "We don't want you to go to the link and buy. We want you to like our brand."
Nick Guillen and Nick Ajluni co-founded the company in 2017 based on an Instagram handle -- @sauce -- that they got their hands on during their college years.
But TikTok is where it's really at, said Guillen. "It's a completely new generation of user, of customer," he said. "You really have to immerse yourself in platform -- TikTok, for example -- [and] really try to understand the voice, the tone, the flow, the style of content, how people are talking, the trends. And then set the brand in the middle of all this and not lose sight of the brand."
The Truff co-founders said their company is the biggest hot sauce brand on TikTok, with 69,000 followers and nearly one million likes as of this writing. Beyond its own production (first-person videos are especially in these days, Guillen said), Truff shares videos in which fans and followers -- some of them chefs -- use the sauce themselves.
Like the name suggests, Truff sells three truffle-infused hot sauces. They ship them to customers as a direct-to-consumer company, though Truff is also available on Amazon -- "we look at Amazon as more of a retailer versus our competition," Guillen said -- and in stores ranging from Neiman Marcus to Wegmans.
Develop a social media strategy where platform engagement is an 'endgame' in itself, focusing on brand liking and community building before pushing for direct sales.
What does this episode say about dtc strategy?
Immerse your brand in the native voice, tone, flow, and content style of each social platform (e.g., TikTok) to authentically connect with new generations of users.
What does this episode say about amazon & marketplaces?
Actively encourage and share user-generated content, including unboxing videos and usage demonstrations from fans and even professional users like chefs, to build social proof and community.
What does this episode say about retail & omnichannel?
Strategically integrate a DTC model with marketplace (Amazon) and traditional retail (Neiman Marcus, Wegmans) presences, viewing each as a distinct channel with a specific role, rather than solely as competitors.
What does this episode say about brand & content?
Prioritize authentic brand presence over hard selling on platforms like TikTok, allowing for organic customer journeys from brand appreciation to purchase without overt sales pressure.
