It’s hard to have a conversation about social media now without talking about TikTok. Still, with all the platforms that you’re already checking and posting to daily, it’s overwhelming to think about adding a new one. So in this video, I’m going to talk about TikTok, tell you about the platform and answer the question, Do you really need to be on TikTok?
How is TikTok used?
First, let’s go over what the platform is used for. TikTok is made up of short-form mobile vertical videos that last anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds. The app opens up to fullscreen video and just immediately starts playing content. And now, this is not necessarily only the content that you’re following. The algorithm learns the type of videos that you like to watch, and it’ll feed you this on your For You page, which is the page that the app opens to.
So that means as a creator, it’s a lot easier for your content to get discovered, especially if you’re tapping into trends and TikTok makes it a little bit easier to find those trends. If you go to the Discover page, you’ll see the trending hashtags and challenges that people on the app are doing, and the app makes it easy for you to click into one of those challenges and replicate it for yourself. As I’m sure you’ve seen, the platform is pretty audio-driven. It’s a lot of dancing, a lot of music, a lot of lip-syncing, but some of the most viral content on the platform is based on visual storytelling — content that’s visually interesting without any audio. The app is also a pretty sophisticated editing tool. You can add music, you can edit your video, you can add effects, and you can also add filters. (There’s also a dedicated editor just for TikTok that’s slightly more powerful called CapCut, which is owned by the same company.)
With all that combined, it makes it a lot easier to use your phone to create the content. Now, because it’s so easy to make the content on the app, you’re starting to see TikToks show up on other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
Who is the TikTok audience?
Now, let’s talk about the audience. The audience for TikTok is definitely younger than the other platforms. It’s made up mostly of gen Z and young millennials. So if that’s the audience that you’re trying to target, it probably makes sense to start thinking about what type of content you want to create on TikTok.
How do we use TikTok? Well, right now, we haven’t invested that much time in creating for the platform, but we do spend a lot of time on the app. It’s one of the greatest places right now to discover what’s trending and what the collective conversation is on social media. Comedy is something that we’ve seen work well on TikTok as well as very short-form vlogs.
So, do you need to be on TikTok?
So to answer the question, do you really need to be on TikTok — in my opinion, whether or not you’re creating for the app, I’d recommend downloading it, checking out the trends, and staying up to date on what’s happening on the app. If you are trying to target a younger audience, I definitely think it’s a great place to reach them, especially since they’re the ones using it as a search engine, but you’re going to have to do it with the right type of content. You need to think about how to tell your story in a very visual way. You will need to tap into the trends that are occurring on TikTok to tell your story.
Because TikTok is such a sophisticated editing tool. You can also use the app to create content that you’re going to post across Instagram and Twitter. The most important thing is to create a sustainable content strategy, which means something that you can do every single day. Consistently. Creating and releasing content is the only way that you’re going to build the audience.
