Abby loves story. So much so that she now uses stories across all of Pet Angel Adoptions’ social media platforms. The goals: find the perfect forever home for the cats in their no-kill shelter. And the innovation doesn’t stop there. Because another goal is to make sure that the cats don’t come back to the rescue.
Pet Angel Adoption is a no-kill cat rescue located in Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Connect with Pet Angel Adoption: https://petangeladoption.com/
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Transcript
I don't know if I'm fearless because I do think the hate is pretty hard sometimes and I do privately take it pretty hard, but, I still show up because it's my job because no one else is gonna do it for the cats.
Cliff Duvernois:Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Ordinary People, extraordinary Things. I'm your host, cliff Dubin, wa. You know, when it comes to the world of nonprofits, I love to find those out there who are doing things differently, and that is certainly the case with today's guest. She's taken this small local cat rescue. And connected it with a large base of raving fans from all across the globe. Please welcome to the show, the animated Abby Engel from Pet Angel Adoption. out of Frankenmuth, Michigan. Abby, how are. you You
Abby Engel:I'm good cliff. How are you?
Cliff Duvernois:I'm doing awesome. Thank you for asking. And I know that Abby Engel isn't gonna be your name for long, cuz you just got recently engaged.
Abby Engel:did. By the end of this year, I'll be Abby Krieger. Thank you. I'm so excited.
Cliff Duvernois:there we go. So we're talking today about Pet Angel Adoption. Why don't you walk us through what Pet Angel adoption is?
Abby Engel:So for 20 years my parents have been running a cat rescue and they accidentally started it, um, when I was eight. My. Parents had some feral cats in our backyard and they had given birth and abandoned the kittens. And my mom had bottle fed kittens before, so she was like, let's just do this. We can take 'em in bottle, feed 'em, find 'em homes, we'll be done with it. So of course we took 'em to the local vet to get them vetted because that's what you do when you bottle feed kittens everybody. And. They were like, why do you have so many kittens? And my mom explained the whole situation and then the next thing she knows, they were like, well, hey, this person found a cat. Will you take it? And this person found a cat, will you take it? And before we knew it, we had cages of cats in my childhood garage and my parents said, we can't keep cats in our garage like this. So they had a decision to make, which was in one hand, just find all the cats. We currently had homes and. Call it good and get rid of the cages and be done, or file for a non-profit PA paperwork and find a location, and they went with the ladder and petting Angel was born. We
Cliff Duvernois:so why did they, so let me ask you this question. Why go that route? Why not just get rid of the cats and say we're out of this business versus going into a nonprofit? Cuz having a nonprofit is tough.
Abby Engel:I think that's a question you'd have to ask my mom, but if I was to answer for her, I would say it's because they're good people. There you go. I don't think my parents could. look at all of these homeless cats and kittens and be like, forget you. So I truly think that I, I always say to people that I was born to my parents because this is what I was supposed to do. I mean, God, whatever higher power could have put me with any people. And he put me with the two people who started an animal rescue and then he like, Poured into me all this compassion and empathy and I'm just like, this is where I'm supposed to be. And I think that that also plays a part into like who my mom is. I mean, cliff didn't mention it, but Cliff also knows my parents very well. Cliff was my dad's brother's best friend when they were kids. So Cliff knows my dad. He knew my parents' probably before I was even around. And so he knows who they are and I don't think my parents could just not, they love animals. My mom specifically, As a child, my brother Alex, he's three years younger than I, instead of going home after school, we went to the cat rescue because my mom was taking care of it alone. That was her full-time job. She didn't, she was a stay-at-home mom. Al my, my dad worked so. Stay-at-home. Mom became cat rescue and stay-at-home mom. So when she would pick us up from school, we went, we went to the rescue instead of home. So the cat rescue became our playground. I remember as a kid we would keep our snow gear at the rescue, like our snow pants and our jackets, and our gloves, and our hats. And after school, Alex and I would put it all on and the landlord outside the rescue would push all the snow in the parking lot. The sides of the parking lot and we would dig tunnels and we would play in the snow for hours. While my mom's meeting with adopters and cleaning cages and doing paperwork and all the cat rescue things that you need to do, we would keep our little like razor scooters at the rescue and like play on the parking lot. So like my childhood memories. Are of the cat rescue. We now have like free room apartment rooms, but before that it was dog runs that we used as the free room rooms. And one dog run was quote unquote mine and one was Alex's. And we would just. Spend time in these runs and we would pretend they're our offices. And when adopters would come in, I'd try to convince them to adopt a cat from my quote unquote run. And Alex would try to convince him to adopt cats from his run. And so that was like my introduction to cat adoption. When I got older, I got a lot of volunteer hours because I was volunteering at a cat rescue every day of my life. So I was lucky to get some scholarships and get recognized for volunteer hours. And then when I graduated, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I got a degree in communications, which I loved. My minor is in P T W, which is professional technical writing. I love to write, which I think reflects in my cat biographies that I write now at my job, but, I also got the job of being the Bavarian Princess here in town in 2018. So I needed all of the weekends off in the summer to tour as Princess because I had to go and be in parades and represent Frankenmuth, and I couldn't find a job straight out of graduation that would give me the time off. But my mom needed a rescue worker and I needed a job. So the agreement was for my Princess Ray and I would work at Pet Angel and then I'd find another job after I gave up my crown at the end of, in 2019, well now it's 2023 and I'm still. I'm not leaving until the rescue leaves
Cliff Duvernois:with regards to the rescue, it's not just a simple process of people walking through the door and picking out a cat. There's, you know, application that they've gotta fill out everything. Walk us through that process.
Abby Engel:Well, actually, I think this is gonna be the first place I talk about this. I've come up with a new way to describe Pet Angel. We're not just like any other animal shelter where you can go in, you can meet all of the cats that we have available and pick whichever one you want because, That's not realistically how picking an animal works, and I don't think that everybody really realizes that you need the perfect match for your family, and every cat needs the perfect match for them. So that's what we do. We help you find your perfect match. Instead of just finding a cat, I take into account your other pets, how active your home is, how many people you have in your home, what your home is like, and what you want in. to be able to find the perfect cat for you. So if you have, let's say it's just you, just, you Cliff, you don't want to have any other pets. It's just you. You don't plan on having anybody else in your household for the next 10 years, and you want. an active, playful cat that'll just interact with you. But like you know, you will go interview people all the time. So someone who can be independent while you're off doing interviews for your podcast, I'd be able to find you a cat that would love to cuddle and greet you at the door, but is also gonna be good solo when you're gone. They're not gonna like climb your curtains or destroy things. But I feel like sometimes when people go into an animal rescue, they see that super cute cat in the cage. They don't ask oh, what's his personality like? Does he like kids? Does he like other cats? Does he climb curtains? What's his history? Know that and you don't know that, so you just kinda get thrown in with a cat you know nothing about, and then you have to try to figure it out. And that's why I don't think adoptions last all the time. So we've altered the way that I do my adoptions. So let's say you're a family of five coming in to meet cats. If I have a cat who doesn't like children, I'm not gonna show you those cats, which I think makes sense. Now I'm not trying to talk shade on other rescues here, but I don't feel like other rescues really always take that into consideration.
Cliff Duvernois:Well, I think there's just a a marked difference too between people that are just thinking, get the cats outta.
Abby Engel:Mm-hmm.
Cliff Duvernois:without really thinking about the fact that that people could take the cat home, like you were talking about before. So people look at a cat, they think it's cute, they take it home, but the cat wants to have nothing to do with the kids. Yeah. So the kids are crying cuz the cat doesn't wanna play with me. The cat's always mean. So what do they do? They bring the cat back Exactly right. And want to exchange it for another cute one that's in there. So with that being. How do you go about judging the, I guess, quote unquote personalities of the cats to determined, well, this one likes kids. Oh, this one likes to be by itself. This one needs another cat for companionship. How do you go about judging that?
Abby Engel:Sometimes it's easy because the cat will be surrendered to me with that information. For example, I have a cat right now who was surrendered because she did not get along with children in the home, so that's why the family couldn't keep her anymore. So it's obvious to me she's not gonna do well in a home with children again. But I also have volunteers who are my lovely quote unquote Guinea pigs, and. I can ask them, Hey, when you came in with your six-year-old last week, how did Sonny do? And they can let me know. Like Sonny doesn't really interact with my six year old when we're at the, when we're volunteering, or this one hides whenever he comes into the room. So I can figure that out by process of illumination with my volunteers. It is hard with dogs because I can't bring a dog into my animal rescue because they. Our animal, and we can't just let animals that aren't fully quarantined interact with our animals for, illness reasons. So for that, I just base it off of personality. If they're really, really scared when I walk in the room. If a Great Dane walks in the room, they're probably also gonna be really scared. If a cat is so shy that like you, they don't come out very often unless they eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, they're probably not gonna be comfortable to come out to interact around at any dog. I have a small dog at home, so sometimes I'll use could this cat handle my dog doodle? Doodle is not very big. If they could handle doodle, I feel like they could handle any dog right? So I kind of sometimes take that into consideration too. But sometimes it's just easy to tell when you interact with the cat. I have one right now. He's a face biter. He's not being mean. He just likes to nibble on your face. But obviously I'm not gonna give a family with a newborn baby a cat that bites faces.
Cliff Duvernois:No, you definitely would
Abby Engel:wanna do that. Some people might though, so I always make sure people know like, I don't want you to just find a cat. I want you to find your perfect match. Cuz like you said, I don't think it's fair for a kid to have a cat that hates them and I don't think it's fair to a cat to have a home. where they hate someone in the home. So I'd rather find that cat home where they like everybody and find you a, a cat that would love your kids and wanna sleep in bed with your kids. I have cats that'll do that. It's just whether or not you like the looks of them, I guess.
Cliff Duvernois:So now what is your track record as far as placing cats inside of homes? I mean, I don't know if you know exact numbers off the top of your head, but I mean, is it like really good? Do you see a lot of people bringing their cats back when they're done?
Abby Engel:So when I took over Pet Angel, I did, I do feel like I helped change the way that we did adoptions because I saw a lot of returns when I first started full-time. And one of the things I wanted to do was, Stop returns. I wanted to make sure when a cat go goes home, they're going home to their forever home unless for like a dire emergency, like an owner passes away or something like that. And so I did think that that cut back on adoptions a little bit, but it also cut back on our return rate which I consider if a cat is adopted and returned three weeks later, that's not a true adoption number in my opinion. They were returned, so I don't count that as an adoption of the year. But the pandemic really did play a really big part into our adoption numbers, and it still is today. So I didn't really talk about how many adoptions we did last year because it was very low. And that's because a lot of people, when they went into the pandemic and had all this time off. They wanted adopted animals and then when they all went back to work in 2021 and 2020. They all return to the animals, to the shelters. So right now the shelters are in a bit of an epidemic ourselves, and I don't know if a lot of people know that we are, but we're overcrowded. We don't have adoptions. We just have more people wanting to bring us cats. And we're also now a no-kill state, which means 90% of the animals going into kill shelters are not euthanized. I'm a no-kill shelter, so that statistic doesn't matter for me. But for the state of Michigan, that just means that we eliminated. Eliminating of animals, which is great. That's what we wanna do. We don't wanna euthanize them. But we also didn't come up with what we're gonna do with the surplus of animals that we now have. So all of our animal rescues are full. Everybody wants to keep bringing us more, which is contributing to the dumping of animals now. So it's all just bleeding over and is a little crazy right now. I do think that's also playing into what I'm calling the epidemic of rudeness. The animal welfare world because so many people have animals they wanna return, but we're all full. So people are getting upset and acting out towards us in the animal welfare industry. And a lot of people I know from other shelters in the state are actually leaving the industry because it's too emotionally tolling for them right now.
Cliff Duvernois:Sweet Moses. Yeah. There's a whole other component right there. What I'd like to do is I would like to, cuz you were talking before about the personality that your cats have. Yeah. So what I'd like to do is I want to talk to you about how you are leveraging social media. To get your message out and to connect with your audience. Cuz one of the things that you do really well on Facebook, I read your post whenever you've got, you know, hi, my name is Timmy. Yes, and there's some post about, oh, well I like kids and I like to snuggle. And you really do an excellent job of painting a personality around a cat. Not only to, you know, let people know that, hey, there's, there's this, really cute cat here. But also get the message out to people that if they are looking for a cat, here's one that might be a good fit for you. First off, how did you come up with the idea to start giving your, your cats these, I guess, backs, stories on social.
Abby Engel:I call em resumes. So the idea was, I don't know if you've seen the little like documents I make where it actually looks like a job resume, but every cat at the rescue gets a true quote unquote job resume made for them that I handmake and takes a really long time but I do it and it's a resume for them to be your new house cat. Um, I came up with it because, I went to school. Well, my minor is professional technical writing, like I said. And one of the things that we did in that was make resumes, and that was my favorite part of Ptw when I was in college. I love making resumes. All of my friends, like ask me to help them make their resumes because it's like a secret love of mine. So I'm like, heck yeah. I wanna make resumes all, all the time. I love doing this, so I'm gonna make 'em for the cats and I. Personalize it and make it all cute, which is what I love to do, but I also get to do it about an animal that I love. I don't think a lot of people know how long an animal is with us before they go up for adoption, but all the animals have to be quarantined for at least 10 days before they can even be considered or moved. And I don't put them up for adoption. Oh, 10 days is up. They're up for adoption. I move them out of our isolation room at that point, and I wait until they're comfortable in their new environment, whether that's a cage or free room, room, something like that, before I put them up for adoption. So I usually know them for at least a month before. And in that month I'm interacting with them from the state of, they're absolutely terrified, hissing, growling, hiding when they arrive to their crawling all over my lap and cuddling on day 30. So I get to know their personality a lot. I know their backstory cuz I'm the one that took them in. So I can tell you where they came from. I can tell you why they were surrendered. I know their personality because I've been the one that's working with them every day on socializing. And I can. them, interact with the other cats. Oh my gosh. They love the other cats. Okay. They'll do great in a home with other cats. You mentioned I do have some pairs. It's very obvious which ones don't want to leave each other. So when you see that happen, I can say like, okay, these guys need to be a bonded pair. They won't even, I can't take this one out of the room without the other ones screaming their head off. They need to be together. I think it's just like, you know, when you know a lot of people, it's kinda like asking a teacher, like how they make their c lassroom seating chart, they kind of get to know the students and know, okay, these two can't sit next to each other. I know which two cats cannot be in the same room together, But I also think that that helps a lot with placing em into their homes.
Cliff Duvernois:The added aspect to this as well, is it's more than just putting a photo onto facebook. Oh, yeah. And say, here's a new cat by writing up that cat resume as you called it, right there. First off, people love your stories. because people are liking your posts, they're hearting your posts, they're commenting down below. They're doing everything, which from a social media marketing standpoint, that's what you want. You want to put content out there that people are gonna engage with, but these people seem to get really emotionally invested in what it is that you're doing.
Abby Engel:Yeah. I might be, because I think it's somewhat cats. I do think, you know, you bring animals into something and you. The animals. Because who doesn't look a cute cat? I mean, let's be honest. Every time you see a cute animal on social media, you stop for a second to look before you keep scrolling. You gotta, but I also think it's just the story aspect that I bring to it. I'm not just here's a cat. They're fully vetted, they need a home. I'll tell you everything about them, everything that I possibly can because I want them, to find the perfect home. And I want you to find the perfect cat. And I feel like that's the best way to do it. Sometimes I feel like I get down on myself, like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm full imposter syndrome. I guess I, and I get it a lot oh my gosh, how am I any better? How, how can I be the person to decide whether or not these people get cats? Like, how can I be this judgemental? I hate judging people and I'm the one that judges applications like, so I hate doing that but. Other times I look at, I read my own bio or I'll read a story that I wrote and I'll cry. I'm reading my own writing and I'm tearing up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I guess I am kind of good at this. Sometimes so sometimes I feel like everybody I feel like feels like that. Like nobody knows what they're doing. And I don't want anybody listening to this be like, oh my gosh, Abby totally knows what she's doing cuz I'm winging this 100% 24 7. But if you tell me something works, then I'm just gonna say, okay, well that works. So I'm just gonna keep doing it and this works. So I just keep doing.
Cliff Duvernois:Well, I think for any either business or nonprofit out there, you kind of have to experiment to find out what it is that's really gonna resonate with your particular audience. Yep.
Abby Engel:Oh, yeah.
Cliff Duvernois:speaking of audience, let's talk about you and TikTok. Okay. Because that seems to be where you're really shining. Yeah. So how, how many people are following you now on, on
Abby Engel:TikTok You wanna get a live number? Let me, uh, open up TikTok quick. So right now we, 219000.8. So 219,800, is that what that is?
Cliff Duvernois:200. 19,800.
Abby Engel:Yeah. Two 19.8 K. So that's a lot. Um, I'm at 5.4 million likes on TikTok as well. And would you believe me if I told you I have no idea what I'm. That's perfect. I truly wing a lot of my TikTok, so I have worked with a couple companies now. Um, but when I started TikTok, just like everybody else, I downloaded during the pandemic, I was staying home. we were supposed to, but I have an animal rescue. We can't just not go to the animal rescue for three weeks. I was going in not every day, cuz I wasn't working full days, but still to take care of the animals, to check on them, to see things. And I'm bored. I, the phone's not ringing. I have no applications. I can't do intakes, I can't do outtakes, I can't do anything. So I just made a TikTok of the cat rescue because I'm sitting in the building for by myself all day long doing nothing. So I'll make a TikTok and it. People wanted to see my cats. People had questions, people wanted to know more about me, so I told my story, oh, this is how my parents started my cat rescue. Oh, here's this cat. This is, and I just explained our rescue, you know? Oh, they're all fully vetted. Oh yeah. Like, no, we're a no kill shelter. Oh, yeah. They stay with us till they find a home. Yeah, we have free room rooms. They don't all have to stay in cages. People loved it. Sometimes I think some people come to my channel just for the cats. Sometimes I think people come to my channel just for me, whatever you come to my channel to. I'm just glad you're there.
Cliff Duvernois:So let's talk about some of the, the real tangible benefits of TikTok. Have you been able to raise money through TikTok? Yeah. Have you gained, uh, I don't wanna say notoriety, maybe, you know, you've garnered some, some real attention from people. Talk to us a little bit about that.
Abby Engel:So there's good aspects of TikTok and there's bad aspects of TikTok, so I kinda wanna talk about both. The good is we've benefited from it in so many ways, not only from being able to reach people globally, like I have followers from the other side of the world who send, not even like monetary donations, but they'll buy things off our Amazon wishlist and send them to the rescue. So we're getting. More donations than we ever have before from people all over the world who have never heard of us or even know me personally. They just wanna send my cats a cat, you know, a cat tree. And we love that and we love to see it. I feel like sometimes there's some people who aren't so nice too, see the internet. Yeah. And so that, I feel it gets hard to show up on TikTok for me, sometimes I won't post for a little bit just because I'm a very empathetic person and I don't think people realize that. I do read the comments, so I'll see something. You know, someone could be really great bringing, like it brings in a lot of donations. So many people from this one video brought, but one bad comment, I don't wanna post for. So even though it's benefiting my rescue and my cats are seeing success, it's i'll, I've cried over comments probably this week alone, people will reach out. They don't think I see it. They don't, oh, she has 200 followers. She doesn't see my dms. I see the dms and they're not kind, and I don't answer most of the, not kind ones, but I see 'em. So it kind of, The two coins. I have people from other sides of the world who are reaching out, sending donations. People who have lived left us in our will, in their wills. We don't even know them, and they've left us in their wills. I've had adopters find us on TikTok. I've gotten to work with amazing brands that all of us use every single day. I've made money myself, not only just for the karaoke, but people have paid me for who I am for. And I've never a mil imagined that in a million years. But then on the flip coin, I open my comments and people are calling me names and saying, I did this in my video, so I'm a bad person, or I didn't post, so I'm a bad person. And so there's both of it. it's really helping the rescue, but sometimes it's really damaging my self-esteem and my personal worth
Cliff Duvernois:because a lot of who you are. Is wrapped up in this because you are literally sharing your story as you go.
Abby Engel:Yeah. I'm not a character. I'm not an actor. I'm not a fake, I think a character. I'm not a, well, I guess I shouldn't say a character in a book. I'm not like a made up person that this company has put me on to be their spokes model. I'm the only employee at Pet Angel. I'm the face of the place. I am the employee of the place, and I'm also Akel, not Pet Angel. I have other things I do in my life too, not. Cat rescue related. So it's really hard for me to like unravel the two sometimes. So if someone gets really upset that I am not taking a cat from them, or I didn't, I, their application was denied for some reason, they'll take it out on me. And I take that personally. So I've been trying to put up some boundaries a little bit on social media. Um, like I don't always answer personal dms anymore. Um, they have to be directed to like Pet Angels account if they're pet Angel related. Just to protect myself a little bit more.
Cliff Duvernois:When you were talking before about these negative comments that were coming in and how it takes a little bit of an emotional toll and you're, you don't post for a week mm-hmm. you know, you need to take a break. How do you overcome. That to get back onto the social media bandwagon, to get back onto TikTok, what, what is your thought process that that helps you to flip that switch to say, okay, yesterday I wasn't gonna do it, but today I'll do it.
Abby Engel:usually an idea for a video. If I don't have an idea for a video, I'm probably not gonna show up if I'm having one of those bad days. Sometimes I'll be scrolling on TikTok at bed and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I love this sound. This is what I could do with it. Save it. And I make it the next day. And then it just, I'm okay Again, there's no bad comments on that video. I'm okay. It, I think it depends on the comments though too. If it was something really bad, if they've been continuing, I'm gonna probably not post for a little bit because I want that person to kind of forget I existed before I start posting again. I do block people, but people don't care if they make a second profile and find you. There's hate watchers. They count as a view, so thanks for the view, but sometimes I wish people wouldn't leave comments that are mean. If you don't say anything, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Should be a rule still.
Cliff Duvernois:so TikTok has actually had a lot more benefits. For the rescue. Yes. And there's definitely has been a benefit to, you know, for fair lack of a better term, for being fearless.
Abby Engel:Yeah. To go
Cliff Duvernois:TikTok, cuz not a lot of people would do that.
Abby Engel:I don't know if I'm fearless because I do think the hate is pretty hard sometimes and I do privately take it pretty hard, but, I still show up because it's my job because no one else is gonna do it for the cats. So if I don't like, we'll lose all of these followers. We lose all of these donors and I feel like it's kind of riding on me to, to keep 'em entertained so they'll keep helping us. I think that it's like a give serve. I give them the cat content, they give us donations, but it works out. There are some really great people. I've met some people on TikTok that I wouldn't have known otherwise, and now they're like, I've never met them in real life. We just talk on social media because they've become great supporters of our rescue. I'm sure they're listening to this cuz they support us so much. They'll listen to anything I post. Anything that has to do with the cat rescue, they'll be there. So I'm sure they, they're listening. They're like, yeah. Oh my god, that's me. It is you. Hi Stephanie
Cliff Duvernois:me. Oh,
Abby Engel:Oh, that's so wonderful. Being able to create relationships media like that. Yeah. And I don't even know them. They just love our rescue, love what we do, and they're there for us. And I mean, we had a, I have two cats, their names Sonny and Bunny last year. They had to have, they have. I think it's pronounced periodontal disease. And they had to have full dental work done, teeth pulled. Bunny got most of his teeth pulled during the surgery and we found out they had it and they needed the surgery pretty quickly. And we did not have the money for two cats to get dental surgery at the same time. And I made a TikTok about it and by the end of the day, I had enough money for both of those cats to get their dental surgery plus more. So I'm able to get things. Never before were possible because of TikTok. Like Bunny and Sunny would've had to wait months before for us to raise enough money for them to get that surgery, and I was able to schedule it the next day. I don't really wanna talk about f I P a lot because it's really complex and I definitely cry when I talk about it. But f i p is a really bad fatal disease that is kind of coming up in the cat rescue world right now. If you're worrying about it for your animal, you don't need to. It usually only happens when there's a lot of animals that are together. It has to do with the feline coronavirus. It's very complex. You can look it up if you want. It's called F i P but it hit our rescue two years ago.
Cliff Duvernois:ago. Oh,
Abby Engel:And we lost a couple cats to it. A few of them are very dear to my heart. My bottle feed babies, my, that eye bottle fed had 'em, um, I lost one of them and two of them are now our office cats there, f i p survivors. But because of TikTok, I believe those cats survived. F i p. because I wouldn't have been able to afford the medication. It is so, so expensive. We currently have a cat who has f i p, she's in foster care. She is on the medication, but it's very expensive and I don't think we'd be able to even do this medication and save their lives if I didn't have TikTok followers who are giving us views, which is giving us donations.
Cliff Duvernois:So I think it's safe to say that making that investment into creating these little short videos on TikTok, creating this content, sharing the story, has paid off for you in spades.
Abby Engel:TikTok has saved cat's lives for sure, at my cat rescue, and I don't think that people realize it. Like, I don't think, when people watch my TikTok, they're like, oh, I just, I'm making a difference. But you are like, you truly are. When people leave, like a comment that spikes the video when people like the video that spikes the video, like all of it's helping. I don't think yeah, just watching it, it helps. I don't joke when I say like a dollar donation. If you make $1 donation on Facebook, we get that whole donation from Facebook. They don't take a portion of a donation made through there. So that, or like PayPal or something like that, that $1 is making a huge difference because you know, 50 people can make a $1 donation and that's $50. So I don't think people realize like, yeah, you know, one view, one full, watching a TikTok on one full video might give them 1 cent, but that's 5,000 people doing that at once. That's. Money in an hour. So it helps and everything helps. And I, I appreciate TikTok. I really do. I know I was talking trash on it. Sometimes it really is hard sometimes to just show up on it every day, but I'm finding ways to manage it. One thing I have been doing is Bulk making my tos so I don't have to show up on TikTok every day to make a video. I can just make four in one day and then I don't have to make a video for three days, and that's been helping me a lot. Yes. Don't have to get myself fully ready and show up on camera when I'm not feeling it.
Cliff Duvernois:please. Certainly. Abby, for our audience, if anybody's listening to this and they want to connect with you, learn more about Pet angel adoption, maybe even find you on tikTok and leave you a nice comment,
Abby Engel:Yes, please. So I am Ace Engel, which is just a C E E N G E L on all social media platforms. And then Pet Angel adoption is just pet angel adoption on TikTok. It's just me. Pet Angel does not have their own TikTok. It's my TikTok. We are one which is just the Ace angle. Um, and then on Facebook it's just Pet Angel, cat Adoption and Rescue. I don't use my personal Facebook for like cat stuff, so don't look me up on there. Just look up Pet Angel's account. I'm the one that answers everything on there.
Cliff Duvernois:And for our audience, you can go to total michigan.com. Click on Abby's interview and get all the links that she shared with us today in the show. And please take a moment to donate to their great cause. If you are interested in having these stories sent directly to your inbox, head over to our website@totalmichigan.com slash join. Give us your email and we'll send you our top five interviews along with the powerful lessons that I've learned along the ways talking to these people that are doing really extraordinary things. You'll also get an invitation to join our private Facebook group, as well as Advanced notice of upcoming guests and great behind the scenes stories. Once again, that's total michigan.com/join, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
