Cereal, Content, and Creativity with Chris Burns

Learn more at ovationupcom . And today we've got Chris Burns , the owner of Serial Killers Kitchen , which boasts over one million followers on TikTok . They're crushing the social media game . They've got some awesome collabs . There is Serial Kitchen that has over 100 different types of cereal from all around the world .

Every day is a Saturday morning there at Serial Killers . And we actually met at Restaurantology , which is a great conference put on by the Savory Fund Go next year and super . I was really impressed , chris , with you on stage , so I wanted to have you here on the podcast . So welcome to Give an Ovation , my man .

Besides , I can say that I'm one of the only restaurants that has a million followers , so that was definitely the coolness of it . And just to be able to do something that no one else has done for the most part . So , yeah , there's really nothing .

Yeah , we kept working towards it and stay consistent , stay consistent , post it two to three times a day until we were able to hit that .

So just don't be afraid to repost , reuse , do a different voiceover , a lot of different things you can do to get to those levels where you're not like . Could you imagine creating 21 pieces of content in a week , every week ? So yeah , it's pretty hard to always have something new , so you can always just rework some old stuff in .

But but yeah , you can throw a lot of use , a lot of funny audio , like right now it's Halloween , so of course we use a lot of spooky , spooky sounds that we're kind of going viral , getting used a little lot , so a bunch of different things like that .

That's what I , that's what I would have done because I could be doing other things , but I didn't have the budget , you know . You know because they they range , like you can get a beginner , you know , for $1,000 a month . Maybe you know they might post twice , twice a week on your page , or you can .

You know you could pretty much customize it however you want to , and with unlimited budget , for per se , depends on you know who you're getting . But we had no choice . So I had to do it and then started got it , started getting kind of good at it and yeah , now it's hard to get rid of it because everything , most of our content , involved my voice .

So I guess , yeah , so that's there's that , but . But yeah , so I would definitely , if you can hire somebody , definitely do it . I wouldn't just get my niece off the streets who is on Tik Tok all day , because she's probably not going to know all the steps it takes to make a good video and a good , high quality content .

So what would you say is what would you define as good content , if you were to kind of write up your your strategy doc on that ?

You literally can do everything with your phone at this point , as long as you have really a little $30 light that you can kind of make your lighting a little better and I know that definitely worked .

So the best like , say , as long as you get , like if you're doing food content , if you get your little light off Amazon $20 , $30 , your iPhone at least like at least the pro models you know the bigger ones that have the three cameras on the back , because they definitely pick up content a lot better . But so a good video .

I always say the hook is the most important thing . So you get three to five seconds to catch someone's attention . What I like to do ? I like to like either , like ask questions , I like to challenge people .

And when I say challenge people , it's like let's just say if I have 50 pair of shoes behind me , like hey , I bet you never seen 50 pair of shoes , or you've never seen 50 pair of shoes . So I like to kind of challenge them to get them engaged . So just kind of like you need to get them to stop scrolling .

That's the most important thing in any video , because I think subconsciously , like we're just sitting there scrolling up and down , up and down . Something has to stop you . You're not watching every single video , so that's the first thing . You definitely you need your hook what's going to gather everybody's attention .

And then after that , like your content has to be engaging . You need to ask questions Because , like , once you ask questions like I'm trying to use like real world examples so I always ask like , hey , what's your favorite cereal ? Something along those lines , leave it in the comment and now that pushes that .

That will let Instagram and Facebook know to push your content out to more people . Because you need that engagement . At least the like , like that doesn't really work as much , but you definitely need people to engage with your post . From what I've read , I don't know what the real truth is .

It's like they'll send it out to 10 or 20% of your followers If they don't engage with it . They're not going to send it to more people . So you have to get your core people to actually engage with your posts first before it goes out to the masses . So , but yeah , good video , like I said , good , good , decent .

I'm not going to say super quality , but like , as long as you long , as it's clear , clear on your camera , that's good . Your sound is good , your , your lighting , that's . That's pretty much the basics , but I always start with the hook you know , something engaged , engaging , and probably end it with a call to action .

You know something you want them to do if you want them to stop by your store , buy a t-shirt , just yeah .

If they don't have people scrolling all day , they have no one to sell the advertisers to . You know stuff like that ? So everybody wants the content . So if you're pushing more content on a platform , they're gonna reward you by being more consistent .

Like , say , a case in point like I took a mental break at the beginning of the year after I hit all these invisible numbers I thought were so cool that that three month break came out to be like seven months . So it's just like got so overwhelmed with other things . But now I'm trying to get back into it and it's like okay , like why are my numbers down ?

Like why am I only getting 30,000 views , which ? So some people , that's a lot . But when I was really going at it , I was averaging 150,000 views . A post . Like the bad posts were only getting a hundred thousand views Interesting . But the minute I took a step back and I stopped being consistent . They don't reward it anymore .

You lose your audience , you lose your engagement and 20 what are we in ? So in 2022 , end of 2021 and that year span , I had over 250 million views on my post , organically not paid for just everything for the year . So , yeah , so it's just really . It's about consistency . Yeah , that's really . I say , two to three times a day is a good start .

Once you get audience , you can scale it back a little bit . But you know , and the cool thing is , like all those Platforms , all the four I mentioned they're all pretty much set up exactly the same . So , whatever platform you like the best , I like Instagram's editing and everything , so I use not Instagram , sorry .

I like a tick tocks editing , so I use tick tock . I post the video there , I do all the editing there , I post it . I Use another separate app . It's like share , talk or something like that . I take the video from Insta , I mean from tick tock . It removes the watermark and then I share it on Facebook , instagram and YouTube .

So it's literally the same video getting shared four times . That . You multiply that by three times a day . I'm sharing at least 12 pieces of content a day .

year to year . Just because I , like I said , just so much stuff in life was happening . I couldn't physically or anything post or I didn't have the time . But I definitely can tell , like look at it separate months and what was different . There was only one our products been the same , everything has been the same , but my consistency and posting .

So , yeah , definitely , yeah , I can definitely tell it , definitely I didn't know , I didn't know , you don't know until you know . You just think your place is the greatest thing ever , but something has to drive these people there .

It might not be right away , like especially because we have a store on the Las Vegas Strip , so that's not a consistent customer base . It's literally always new people .

So , yeah , I can definitely tell , and that's what makes our business a little harder than anybody else's per se , because if you're a mom and pop shop in a neighborhood , you can get a loyal following . We have with our store on the Strip . We have to build a nationwide following to visit us when they finally make it in town .

Granted , we're in like one of the most popular tourist destinations , but so , yeah , we just had to get creative and take talk at Instagram the kind of exposure that we got on there from posting two to three times a day , I couldn't pay for it really , like McDonald's can probably pay for it , but that would cost them millions of dollars to get that many organic

views , stuff like that . Or well , I guess it wouldn't be organic if they're paying for it .

So I would edit everything , put it in the drafts and then just post it on that day and I would kinda keep like a system . So I know I would do one ice cream and milkshake post of us making the milkshakes , one making a crazy bowl of cereal , and then another one like our cereal challenge , so it pretty much be the same type of thing , but every day .

So I have to go in there and post . I have to go make seven milkshake videos , seven cereal bowl videos and then , if I think of anything else , there's a lot of filler content that we got kinda good at like let's the top five cereals , then you can do the top five chocolate cereals , the top five cinnamon cereals .

You can do worse cereals , the worst five . So it's just so many little things that don't take much time that you can do what I think a lot of people make mistakes on . They think that their content has to be great , it has to be perfect . But anytime that I spend like let's just say like real time on trying to create content , it bombs every time .

I don't know why . It just seems like really , what's that word ? Really produced content doesn't really work for a lot of people Interesting . Yeah , like , like . If you could look at , like , look at the top people in the space , like I'm not going to say the people I actually love , let's just say look at McDonald's , burger King , any of the .

Look at their content , you can tell that it's high quality , great cameras , somebody . They set out a board meeting for a week and came up with these ideas .

Uh-huh , if you think about how much money they're spending on these professionals and like and look at , look at , look at their likes and their engagement compared to like their followers as they are McDonald's and stuff like that , it just it doesn't add up .

You know what I mean . So that's just . That's just the way I see things . You know content is different .

He seems like a big personality or anything .

You got into your rhythm of of milkshake cereal challenge and just doing that every single day and building that content up .

Like we want to throw something at the wall and see if it sticks , you know , you just you're allowed to keep trying to , you know , redefine yourself or find something that works , without it being a big deal , or happen to throw millions of dollars in marketing budgets behind it .

Because I tell you like I just like , like knowing people who's worked at these big companies are like all the money it takes for them just to launch something . I'm like why , like I can do that for about $5,000 , not a million dollars in R&D .

Like , if I want to do a new milkshake , I don't have to , I don't have to do a test group , I can just put it out , make good content around it . People try it , they like it , we keep it , they don't we get rid of it .

So I love this conversation , but I do want to ask you who deserves an ovation in the restaurant industry ? Who's someone that ? Or in the social media industry , who's someone that we should be following ?

So definitely them Like they're like how I got in contact with them pretty much is because I wanted to do a drive-through for our concept and then I started doing research and I came across Swig and I'm just like , wow , like they're really selling sodas and like like at an alarming , at a crazy , alarming rate .

And then so I'm like , well , we can just be that for the ice cream and dessert industry .

So I just started following them and then I finally met them at a restaurantology a couple years ago and like they're just amazing people Like not even like let's take like anybody like outside of , they have obviously money to invest in different organizations just getting to know them on a different level .

So Andrew and Alfonso and Taylor , all that whole group , like they've all just been great , like I think the most important thing that I can ask them questions , that I can get an answer Like , so definitely that whole group , yeah , has been amazing .

And on the social media thing , I think , like everybody , everybody kind of knows about Keith Lee now he's a he pretty much goes around testing restaurants . He's in a little bit . Not he's not in trouble right now , but he made Atlanta look really bad this week , so it's a whole . I know he got put on the box going on .

So he's definitely leading in the food category when it comes to restaurants .

Again , this episode was sponsored by Ovation . A two question SMS based actionable guest feedback platform , built for multi unit restaurants . If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience , visit us at ovation upcom .