TikTok has been making headlines following a U.S. Congress bill requiring its sale to a U.S.-based company due to national security concerns. So TikTok spent millions of dollars on ads to avoid the ban.
Officials are worried that TikTok’s ownership in China could allow Beijing to collect data on Americans and influence public opinion. The tipping point seems to have been the crisis in the Middle East where TikTok users have watched more videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than pro-Israel ones, according to analysts.
Still, the bill has a hard path ahead in the Senate. My sense is that the likely outcome is American ownership, rather than a ban. If the controversy over the app has proven anything, it’s that your organization should probably develop its TikTok strategy and expand its presence on other platforms. As social media consultants, we’ve spent some time over the last couple of years helping organizations do just that.
The possibility of a ban has provoked strong reactions, particularly among young people. One user told their elected representative they would end their own life if TikTok was banned. Such reactions are outsized, but they show the strength of attachment young people feel to the app. In the 15 years I’ve been working in social media consulting, I haven’t seen a social media platform dominate people’s attention in the same way as TikTok does. It’s next-level.
You can find a TikTok community whatever you’re into. From Clean Tok—where people ask you to come and clean their houses with them—to Teacher Tok to Fitness Tok and much much more. Whatever piques your interest, there’s a niche community on TikTok. In turn, those niche communities are rewriting mainstream culture.
At Catnip, we know that TikTok is a significant commitment for any client. To build viewership, you need to post at least three times a day, and that means an in-house person should post on TikTok almost as a full-time job. We worked with a major nonprofit to run focus groups about TikTok. We asked young people what they wanted in a TikTok channel. Their main request? They wanted the content to be authentic. The vital insights we gathered then went on to inform their TikTok strategy and now their channel is succeeding at reaching their target youth audiences.
Some organizations are doing it amazingly. You have to be willing to be experimental. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in England has posted a lot of funny content - their channel is well worth checking out. Millions of people also watch content from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. And MIND is producing fantastic TikTok content, prompting young people to have an authentic conversation about their mental health.
TikTok has also reshaped young people’s professional expectations. After the pandemic, many more young people in the U.S. say they want to be content creators when they’re older.
If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I was 14, I’d have told you I wanted to be a vet. It turned out I wasn’t very good at math(s) and I reassessed. Eventually I found my way into social media consulting and I realized it was my passion. But these days, young people see content creation as their path forward from their teenage years.
If your organization is doing important work in communities, having a good TikTok strategy will empower your team reach out to a wide audience of young people who are interested in learning more about your cause. But, those staff need training about how to avoid their content making the news for the wrong reasons. As I say, TikTok has been in the news a great deal, and many organizations feel it’s not worth the risk to start a presence. At Catnip, we feel that if done strategically and with expert support, it has huge potential.
My personal belief is that attempts to ban TikTok only highlight the incredible communities that exist on the platform. We might see TikTok as just a social media platform but for many young people it is so much more. It’s about authentic connection to one another in a world where that feels hard to find. If you want to connect with young people about your cause, it's crucial to do so authentically, strategically, and with your eyes wide open.
You can get in touch with me here if you fancy a chat.
