Samantha Vlasceaunu, also known as The TikTok Coach, is a business coach who helps brands and individuals make the most of marketing on TikTok. She’s helped marketing agencies, coaches, lawyers, and corporate brands use the app to reach their target audience and convert followers into paying clients.
As a young adult, Samantha had big dreams for making it in the corporate world. She went to Ivey Business School and spent over ten years in management consulting. Samantha helped businesses develop strategies. Although she was good at the work, she didn’t love it.
When she was laid off from her management consulting job, she started Traveling Munchkin, her first business. When 2020 hit, fewer people were traveling. This was a huge hit to her travel-based business. Samantha knew she needed to get into the online space if her business was going to survive.
How Samantha Became the TikTok Coach
When the pandemic impacted her business, Samantha hit a dark place. She was depressed and felt like she’d failed. During this time, she turned to TikTok as a distraction. She saw the good it had to offer and spent time learning from short videos on a daily basis.
She took her new interest in TikTok and started making videos for Traveling Munchkin, her traveling business. In only three months, she grew to a following of over 100,000 people! She had orders coming in and businesses asking her how she did it and if she could teach them.
Samantha closed her business in 2021 and started her business as The TikTok Coach. Through her business, she helps businesses and brands market and increase their reach online. In the first year alone, Samantha helped over 200 companies. Disrupt named her as one of Canada’s top TikTok coaches.
She prefers to work only with businesses and brands that are willing to teach and educate their audiences to some degree. Samantha won’t work with people and brands who only want to showcase themselves and their products.
As a coach, she teaches clients how to use TikTok to build brand awareness and grow their business. There are four pillars Samantha uses to teach her clients:
- Understanding how TikTik works and understanding how it can work for businesses.
- Understanding who you want to attract and building a consistent brand on TikTok.
- Creating attractive content that builds demand for your products/services.
- Funneling your audience off TikTok with the right conversion system in place.
She offers corporate packages, 1-on-1 consultations, and group learning. In March 2022, she’ll be launching a digital course for businesses and brands. She also wrote this great informational article about the benefits of TikTok for businesses.
Overcoming Challenges & Inspiring Others
Her work hasn’t come without challenges, though. When she first started her second business, friends and family were concerned. Many told her to return to her corporate job. They saw the failure of Traveling Munchkin as a sign of what would happen with her new business.
Although she’s already proved them wrong, she continues to prove them wrong. Her parents and in-laws don’t understand what she does and why she loves it. They also can’t quite grasp why people would pay for her services.
Another challenge is the limiting beliefs of brands who think TikTok isn’t worth using. She likes to ask them where their business would be if they got into Instagram when it launched in 2009. Samantha then points to TikTok as a golden opportunity to lead the competition in this new space. Brands have the opportunity to change the way marketing is done in their industries.
Samantha’s mission and vision involve creating an opportunity for brands that want to be thought leaders. She wants to help them get the exposure they need while showing off their fun, creative, and educational sides.
Video content converts 88% higher than any other channel and Samantha is dedicated to helping businesses find their dream clients on TikTok.
Her advice to budding entrepreneurs: do it! Instead of aiming for perfection before sharing anyone with the world, aim for the MVP (minimal viable product).
When businesses and individuals get started on TikTok, their first videos will suck, but that’s okay. Video creation takes time to improve and it’s best to test the market demand before spending too much time and energy on learning the medium. This can apply to every part of business: done is better than perfection.
To keep up with Samantha Vlasceanu, she can be found on her Instagram: @TheTikTokCoach or check out her website, https://www.thetiktokcoach.ca.
