Life on the River on TikTok
How an e-commerce brand owner's viral success has led to a community
Dylan Penick is the CEO of River Company Outfitters (RCO), a clothing brand that makes apparel meant to highlight the river & rafting world.
This week we talked over Zoom about how he’s figured TikTok out.
He’s a 30-year-old guy from the Atlanta suburbs and according to him, “Not one person in my buddy group chat is on TikToK”
He doesn’t fit the typical TikTok user, yet he’s gained millions of views and customers from Alaska to Florida for his brand.
His story is one that many other TikTok stars can relate to: it was an accident.
The First Taste of Virality
Dylan knew he needed a content plan centered around rafting on the river.
Originally, his focus was posting on Instagram and found that TikTok was a simple way to edit the footage from his brother/co-founder’s GoPro.
He’d edit & post the video on TikTok then post that same video on Instagram (content re-use brownie points).
Slowly his videos on TikTok were getting more attention.
500 views… 1,000… 2,000… 5,000… then a video took off and reached over half a million people and he sold 5 hats.
From there he realized that TikTok was the best channel to get more eyes on his brand if he invested time in it.
Getting More Customers in the Boat
He’s now focusing RCO content to TikTok and leaning on two things every social platform cares about: 1) post consistently and 2) use new features.
He takes advantage of trending sounds before they hit the main feed and uses multiple videos with the same sound to see what sticks and show consistency.
One feature he takes advantage of is live posts where he records himself in real-time talking about the rivers around the country and responding to live questions asked.
His followers are taking notice with comments like this one coming in last week:
Hockeyboyhunter was on to something because this week one of his 6 second videos hit 2.5M views (& counting) leading to rising numbers across his videos, follower count and some sales.
Downstream Community
Besides increasing revenues, Dylan says he’s really enjoyed connecting with people that have become true fans of River Company Outfitters.
He said, “It’s pretty cool that random people have become invested in my TikTok page and brand… the same 50 people like every single one of my posts.”
Today the business is primarily direct to consumer online, but as he expands to local retailers he’s noticed it’s much easier to get their interest now that he has almost 10,000 followers across all platforms.
“Retailers take me serious when they see I have a following”
He plans to keep up the same cadence of videos with the goal of hitting 50,000 followers in the near future while also adding more options to his store, which you can start shopping at here!
We Need More CrEatOrs
In 2021, if you’re a company CEO and don’t create anything online, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with customers & partners.
Write a thought on LinkedIn once a week.
Start making friends on Twitter.
Takeover the company Instagram account.
Use Dylan & River Company Outfitters as an example of how becoming vulnerable with your audience will lead to not only more sales, but people that actually care about your company.