TikTok Newsletter 19
🪀 U.S. Election 🌍 TikTok Africa ⌛ Best Time To Post
Hi subscriber!
Here is your weekly infusion of TikTok related news. My name is Marcus. This week we are talking about:
🪀 TikTok’s First U.S. Presidential Election
🌍 TikTok Africa
⌛ Best Time To Post
🪀 TikTok’s First U.S. Presidential Election
And thus it was that ...well let´s see what happens in the coming hours, days and weeks. 🙏 TikTok has obviously been “the latest political battlefield in the 2020 election” (CNN, October 30) with election misinformation going viral (just as on any other platform too). And with first-time voters and many too young to cast ballots — turning to TikTok for virtual watch parties, political analysis and a bit of manifesting (Taylor Lorenz, NYT, Nov 4).
I checked out some TikTok livestreams during the day and the day after, including an hour long program by the german public broacaster ARD and their news service Tagesschau. The team streamed to roughly 8K people watching, many of them commenting that they were just about to go to school.
In fact the ARD team somewhat mimicked a normal elections tv program with correspondents popping by. Not sure if this is the best way to do it. I saw two systems clashing: Old school media clinging to an old transmitter-receiver model including questions from the so-called audience when in fact TikTok users have become “active presenters of political information” leading to “a new form of political communication”. Both quotes taken from the paper “Dancing to the Partisan Beat”.
Or as Taylor Lorenz describes it: “My parents are watching NBC in the other room,” she said. “I personally think the mass information that you’re seeing online is so much more helpful, because I’m getting information by the second, and I’m getting everyone else’s opinion to form my own,” she said. “Watching a news station seems like getting someone else’s opinion instead of forming your own.”
More about 🏡 TikTok Houses (and the elections) in newsletter 15 and 🇺🇸 US Elections in newsletter 14.
🌍 TikTok Africa
As a freelancer trainer and consultant for Deutsche Welle Akademie i have planned and conducted several digital storytelling workshops and conferences with partners on the African continent. This is why i was curious how TikTok is actually doing there.
TikTok is quietly snapping up creatives from YouTube and Instagram for a full Africa roll-out (Quartz Africa, March 10). TikTok’s attention to Africa makes absolute sense. “Africa is the world’s youngest continent with a median age of 20 years, in comparison with India which is 27, and America which is 38...the advent and overflow of affordable made-in-China smartphones have led to a rise in internet penetration across Africa” (TikTok Is Doubling Down On Africa, WT. November 4)
TikTok has its scope set on three key African markets: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, as it has taken on various marketing initiatives in these countries. One of the latest moves: TikTok signs first African influencer platform partnership. The South African Social Media Landscape 2020 report compiled by World Wide Worx and Ornico highlights that TikTok is the country's second most downloaded social app on the Android Play Store, behind Facebook Lite ( TikTok partners to boost African creator economy, ITWeb, Nov 2).
Interestingly the approach is quite different to Facebook. While FB has tried to win “the hearts and minds of African users going so far to offer free data usage...TikTok is taking a different approach by focusing on understanding the African market and encouraging users to express themselves in the way that they know best.” (Quartz) Using this hashtag #Africancheck for example, young Africans create videos showing off exactly what they feel it means to be African. Here is another trend you might have missed #JerusalemaDanceChallenge. And what about journalism? Some African media uses TikTok, but traditional newsrooms are slow to catch up. For instance
⌛ Best Time To Post On TikTok
Okay, so you are really serious about increasing the performance rate of your tiktoks, the engagement rate of your audience and the damn numbers in total? Well. Sorry to inform you: There is no one size fits all. But here is a nice article on what to do. It includes getting to TikTok Analytics with a free Pro Account. More about that in newsletter 17: 📊 Analytics & Tools.
The rest - as always - depends on a user centered approach and some serious trial and error. Quote: “Your target audience will determine the best time for you to post. Every creator on TikTok will have slightly different best TikTok post times.” And the best time to post on TikTok will depend primarily on your audience location. Then you need to identify when your followers are most active. All this data can be found in the Pro Acount: Just go to the Analytics section and click on the Followers tab. Scroll down to see your Follower activity.
If you are really really eager you can track your content performance. Yes, that basically means putting data in an Excel sheet. Revise the data frequently. And remember that TikTok displays its data in UTC. So always convert to the time zone where your audience is located. Thx Marvellous.
Excuse me, i am still not sure if we should start doing TikTok in the first place. Well, check out 9 Ways To Decide If Marketing On TikTok Is Worth The Investment. You are welcome.
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And now what? Here is more on Bella Poarch. Here is RickTok. Here is Cozy TikTok. Ceramics TikTok. And a little case study focusing on US-based leftist TikTok.
Feel free to share. Or say ‘Hi’. Sprechen Sie deutsch? Hier lang bitte.
Speak soon.
Marcus