TikTok is available in over 150 countries and has over 1 billion users. If you want your journalism to reach younger audiences, then you should have a solid TikTok strategy. Many businesses from Ryanair to Chipotle are exceling at engaging with people on TikTok. So here are 5 things journalists can learn from businesses on TikTok:
You might also want to take a look at 5 things digital journalists can learn about search from Depop sellers.
1. Take TikTok trends and mould them to your brand
Every week people start new TikTok trends and journalists can be fairly daunted when faced with the weird dances and filters. Many businesses don’t hop on every trend possible but in fact judiciously choose and mould trends to work for them. Chipotle did a great job of using the Instagram Ted Talk filter that became popular on TikTok. The filter puts your face onto a cartoon body and makes it look like you’re doing your own TED Talk and then it zooms out to an applauding cartoon crowd. You can record an audio with some sort of ‘motivational’ (I use this term very loosely) statement. The statement in Chipotle’s version was: “if your crush leaves you on read, order Chipotle instead.” (Now that’s pretty good advice.)
2. Use popular sounds
Just like TikTok trends there are constantly changing ‘viral’ sounds on TikTok. Sometimes they become famous because they are paired with trends and sometimes they’re just pretty funny. One business who really have got their TikTok statergy nailed are Ryanair, yup the budget airline. Not only are they great at taking on TikTok trends but they also use sounds brilliantly. A good example of this is a TikTok where they use the “Me wa mata weee” audio. Every time the audio says “weee” you can see a Ryanair plane take off or landing (hard landing no doubt). Many have been perplexed by what the audio is actually saying but it sounds pretty funny. The sound was originally used with a clip of a pigeon appearing to jump off a building (which came from a video called ‘Suicidal Pigeon’). If you’re interested in the origins of the “weee” sound, you can read about it here.
3. Create odd combinations of sounds and visual content
You can use sounds for their intended use and context like the Ryanair “weee” video or you could use a sound that complete contrasts with the content of your video. This is what the Black Country Living Museum is pretty good at on TikTok. I mean seeing an educational history clip with K pop music in the background is pretty interesting. However, don’t be too random in your choice. Another good video is one looking at how Victorians kept themselves warm which had the “Whoopty” audio. It works well because the rap song is often used with videos with slick transitions which the video has. (the TikTok lawyer is famous for his transitions to this audio). The museum is often praised for their video quality in the comments.
4. Engage with commenters in a meaningful way
All of the businesses previously mentioned are great at engaging with commenters on their TikToks. But this isn’t just about liking comments and saying thank you but understanding the memes their referencing and the ‘Gen Zisms’ in their comments. Once again Ryanair trumps when it comes to great responses to comments. When a user commented “First” (which people normally do when they’re the first to watch a TikTok) the Ryanair admin responded “Congrats you are the proud winner of ✨Nothing✨”. Putting star emojis around a word in a sentence is a common thing Gen Zers do to emphasise a word. Another great moment was when a commenter (named Brian) said “okay, I’m flying with Ryan air next time I’m in Europe. If it was BRIAN air, then I could make bad jokes about it being my airline…”. Ryanair responded with, “And If My Grandmother Had Wheels She Would Have Been A Bike”. This was famously said by Gino D’Acampo when Holly Willoughby suggested putting ham in macaroni cheese. The phase is not often used in memes and in reply to completely nonsensical or useless comments like Brian’s.
5. Engage with memes and popular creators
There are many creators on TikTok who have started hilarious memes. One such creator is @josh1morris. His videos normally use the “Call out my name” song and he has a caption on screen that normally follows this pattern: “POV: You [do something] and then you see this you still [carrying on with the action you were doing]”. Then the thing “you see” is Morris with a scrunched face in a tight orange suit which accentuates his facade of a large posterior. He’s basically known on TikTok as the “guy in the orange suit”. One company that used this meme to their advantage was the Hellman Retail Group who specialises in menswear. In reply to a comment that said “do you have any suits in orange” a worker at the store stepped back to reveal Morris in his orange suit, with his scrunched face and then changed the angle to him on a ladder, with the main focus being his bulging behind.
While all these methods might not always applicable to journalist all the time it’s a good way to see how journalists and publications can mould themselves to TikTok audiences.