I’m fascinated by TikTok and what its startling growth implies for online reporters and editors. Some recent data points:
“The app came into its own as a news-gathering and presenting tool in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ordinary Ukrainians picked up their smartphones and documented the atrocities of the Russian regime, their footage viewed nearly a million times a minute in the war’s early days.
“The reality is that TikTok is where the audience is these days: a billion worldwide. So it makes sense for news outlets to be there too. The BBC has, for at least a decade or more, been seeking an audience of “replenishers” – W1A speak for younger viewers and listeners to replace the old, dying audience it currently has. (The average age of a BBC One and BBC Two viewer is well north of 60, according to the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie.) So far, it has done so relatively unsuccessfully.” (1)
Usage is higher among people 18–24, and much higher in parts of Latin America, Asia, and Africa than it is in the United States or Northern Europe. (2)
There’s still a relatively short list of U.S. news publishers on the platform, including The Washington Post, USA Today, PBS stations including WGBH,WBUR, YahooNews, Vice News.(3)
The Washington Post, for example, has 1.4 million followers, with its most popular posts including pieces on monkeypox (137,000 views), student loan forgiveness (144,000) and controlled-burning in forests (211,000).(4)
The Post’s TikTok efforts are led by Senior Video Reporter Dave Jorgenson, a graduate of DePauw University in English who launched the paper’s channel in 2019. Presented here are two samples of his work. Notice the two approaches, typical of the experimentation you would expect as we figure out how best to connect with audiences.
The student loan piece (above) from Aug. 18 has racked up nearly 900,000 views with a 10 percent engagement rate – the number of likes, shares, etc., over the number of total views. By comparison, the average on Twitter posts is closer to 0.5 percent.(5)
Check out the sophisticated production, with Jorgenson playing both parts as two people discuss repayments, complete with reaction shots. And besides the information itself, there’s a point of view: At the end, the person with debt is Googling up a question very much on the mind of skeptical, younger students today: “Was going to college a bad idea?”
A more recent Jorgenson piece, published Aug. 27, takes another approach. The description line says, “Want to give your phone battery a long life? The Post talked to scientists who study lithium batteries. Here’s some tips.”
What follows is a frenetic take on a Jack Black “School of Rock” moment as the backdrop for information about making cellphone batteries last longer. After only one day, the piece had more than 97,000 views and an engagement rate of 14 percent.
After watching these you may wonder, is this news? Set aside the format for a moment, and think about how the material relates to the time-honored seven values we use for evaluating newsworthiness(6).
A better question: Is it worth the effort? WaPo’s TikToks don’t link back to the newspaper’s web site, and don’t generate revenue, so a fair question would be to ask what the goal is, and how does this contribute to their success. One answer: As newsrooms seek to replace readers who are aging out, and trying to underscore their usefulness and relevance, they have to turn to the strategy we’ve always used: Meet the readers where they are, not necessarily where you’d like them to be.
Your thoughts are welcome.
(1) TikTok is not the enemy of journalism. It’s just a new way of reaching people
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/23/tiktok-journalism-news-outlet-journalism-media
(2) Overview and key findings of the 2022 Digital News Report
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/dnr-executive-summary
(3) Here’s a running list of publishers and journalists on TikTok | Nieman Journalism Lab
https://www.niemanlab.org/read
(4) Washington Post TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@washingtonpost
(5) Your guide to social media engagement rates
https://www.adobe.com/express/learn/blog/what-is-a-good-social-media-engagement-rate
(6) These 7 news values can help you make smarter content choices
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