Using TikTok To Drive Journalistic Content
TikTok is a video-sharing app that has taken the world by storm, with over one billion active users. While it's commonly associated with music, dance, and viral challenges, the platform has also become an effective tool for news organizations to reach younger audiences: more than 50 percent of all TikTok users are 18-24 years old, and over 90 percent are under the age of 35.
Dealing with a new platform and a specific audience requires some focused work on the journalist’s part. As news organizations begin to create TikTok accounts, they’ll need to reckon with the app’s specific format, its algorithm, and its idiosyncrasies.
Here are some tips on how to use TikTok to drive news engagement.
USE HUMOR AND CREATIVITY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE—BUT CATER TO THE ALGORITHM
TikTok is a platform where users come to be entertained, so it's essential to grab their attention with creative and funny content. News organizations can use humor to make complex topics more accessible to viewers, thus driving engagement. However, unlike platforms like Twitter or Facebook, TikTokers consume all of their content from one very specific page: the “For You” page, which is driven by an unknown algorithm. “The FYP will define your whole world, every minute you work on this app,” said Openly TikTok Lead and LGBTQ+ correspondent Enrique Anarte.
“You can’t expect that people will see [your videos] because you’re a big outlet, or because you have 100K followers. A big outlet with over 150K followers [can get] 2K or 3K views because people aren’t consuming from the Following page,” said Anarte. The “For You” and “Following” pages are the two pages that users have access to upon immediately opening the app, and turning up on the “For You” page is the key to engagement. Anarte recommends using strategic words, hashtags and keyphrases in the video description so that it can reach the appropriate communities.
KEEP IT SHORT AND SWEET
TikTok videos are typically 15 to 60 seconds long, though videos can go up to ten minutes. Videos that are over three minutes typically see less engagement. Outlets should heed this warning by making their videos extremely concise in order to keep to the typical attention span of the average TikTok user. By keeping videos short, news organizations can quickly convey the news and still be entertaining, thus driving engagement.
BE AWARE OF AND INCORPORATE POPULAR TRENDS
TikTok has different trends, almost like memes, that come and go at the speed of light. This has forced commercial TikTok users, such as the DuoLingo account, to create their own responses to these trends in order to keep users engaged. Anarte encourages the use of “native storytelling,” or incorporating the tools TikTok has at its disposal while listening to the request of the communities.
“They’re a great way of making stories come to life,” said Anarte. “[Acting out both sides of a story] allows me to showcase a different side, so it helps me strengthen my impartiality as a journalist, but it feels like an entertaining video.”
COLLABORATE WITH INFLUENCERS AND OTHER NEWS ORGANIZATIONS
Collaborating with influencers or other news organizations is an effective way to reach a wider audience and drive engagement. TikTok loves a cross-influencer collaboration and collaborating with other organizations or even individual influencers can bring a lot of attention to your page as it speaks to a community who already conflate a piece of their identity with the influencers they follow. “If you are not a major news brand it will be much harder to get people to follow you, but TikTok is based on how good your video is, not how many followers you have,” Anarte noted—and influencers have plenty of experience in making “good” videos.
BE AUTHENTIC
Authenticity is crucial on TikTok. The app's users are savvy and can spot inauthentic content very easily and users will not hesitate to make videos disproving your work if they believe it to be inauthentic. Authenticity includes incorporating user feedback: “TikTok has forced us to stop talking down to our audience and to start talking to them – to start engaging with them,” said Anarte. “Here the relationship you have with your audience is super important, and being open to feedback, even if it’s criticism, is super important. [TikTok users are] going to be the first ones to ask, ‘Can you please cover this story that just happened in my country?’ They’re very proactive, and sometimes you can even get [to a story] before Reuters or the AP.”
TikTok is a new tool that we know very little about and that we may continue to know very little about for years to come. We don’t know how the algorithm works, we don’t know how it personalizes to each individual—but what we do know is that TikTok can reach communities like almost nothing else that we have at our disposal. We do know that in keeping to the app’s format and using outreach to give clear, correct, and concise information, we can ultimately make a difference in how communities receive news that they sorely need.
