On this week's Princh Library Blog post we have guest writer David Lee King, digital services director at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, sharing his thoughts on why using TikTok might be beneficial for your library.
Apple’s iTunes is a handy gauge to see what music people are listening to. Sometimes, the most popular songs on iTunes are very different from the Billboard Top 100. For example, this week’s number one song on iTunes is Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Yes, that Dreams – from way back in 1977.
Why is a song from 1977 the most popular song on iTunes? You can blame TikTok for that. Or, more specifically, you can blame TikTok user @420doggface208. He’s a middle-aged guy who posted a video of himself on a skateboard, drinking cranberry juice, while lip syncing to Dreams.
That short video went viral – it has been viewed over 39.9 million times. When that happens on TikTok, other users join in the fun by copying the video, using the same song, or creating a “duet” video (a video of themselves and the original video in the same frame).
Weird, I know. But also consider this: that silly 15-second video was influential enough to tip the scales in a completely different industry (the music industry).
And hey – I’ll bet that Stevie Nicks is pretty happy that her song from 43 years ago is getting re-discovered.
That’s pretty impressive for a mobile app dominated by teenagers. It’s also a good indicator that you should explore the world of TikTok and see if it can work in your organization.
TikTok is an app-based social media tool that allows you to create 15-60 second videos. What happens in these videos? There’s a lot of lip-syncing and dancing to music. You’ll also find pretty much anything you can fit into a video format, including rocket launches, parkour, comedy skits, political speeches, and musicians doing their thing. Cute babies, animals, and gag videos. For organizations with TikTok accounts, you’ll find them sharing recent news, thoughts about their industry, and information about new services.
Believe it or not, some form of TikTok has been around for years! In April 2014, the Musical.ly app was released. It focused on … well, pretty much everything that TikTok does. By 2017, Musical.ly had over 200 million users.
In November of 2017, Musical.ly was sold to ByteDance, who made a similar set of apps: Douyin (focused on China) and TikTok (focused on an international market). ByteDance merged the users from Musical.ly and TikTok, and kept the name TikTok for their global app.
Here are some recent statistics:
Are there ways to connect TikTok content to your library’s customers? I think so. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Right now, TikTok is an easy way to grab the attention of that hard-to-connect-with younger generation. Teens and young 20-somethings love the app. If they find other people and organizations that they like using TikTok, they are likely to follow and watch your videos, too.
It’s also easy to share a TikTok video to other social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter. That way, you can create content once and share it to multiple places, which saves you time.
With TikTok, there’s nothing to really lose by trying it out. So why not set up an account and see if it works for your library?
There are a few libraries using TikTok:
Following some popular influencers and organizations can help you quickly understand what types of content work on TikTok:
We will be back with another interesting article from the library world soon!
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David Lee King is the digital services director at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in Topeka, KS.
David explores social media, emerging trends and websites on his blog at davidleeking.com.