“Tik Tok is not only about dancing and lipsync.” Radios have an opportunity to jump on this trend
Even though TikTok is banned in multiple institutions, radios still need to build a presence on this platform to reach their audiences.
The first speaker of this panel, Dario Marčac, a Croatian TikTok star with over 500 thousand followers, tried to inform about the process of building a brand on this platform. “At first, I didn’t like TikTok. Neither on the second try. And not even on the third,” he described his experience.
According to Marčac, radios are already present on the platform, and they can create engaging content through which they can transfer their views new audience members of the radio.
Radios on TikTok can create motivating, educating, inspiring and most importantly entertaining content, which allows them to use the organic reach, that this platform allows getting. “TikTok is not only about dancing and lipsync,” Marčac explained.
The second speaker, Parastoo Saeidi, a digital producer at Swedish Radio introduced the secrets of making content stand out. ‘’We are not allowed to have Tik Toks on our phones, that’s why we use burner phones without company connections,” she laughs about the recent bans.
Although Tik Tok is still in development, it is now the most promising platform to create content on. 10 years ago, it was Vine and in another decade, it will be another platform, she hints. It is necessary to work with all the data since it has a lot of content to compete with.
But what makes the podcast stand out? Before starting creating content, it is important to know why we want to be on Tik Tok and what type of content we want. Will it be a funny, dancing, stand up content or one with a lot of dogs? First, you have to catch the audience’s attention, then keep it and make it count. Moving on to the editing stage, start with a good strategy, to a phone with camera and finish with an editing program, she recommends.
The last speaker, Joanne Sweeney, an Irish digital expert, was focusing specifically on TikTok strategies for radios. “Welcome to the tiktokization of social media,” she stated as she introduced a 7-step strategy, which is supposed to help.
She recommended radios focus on a dual programming strategy, both on-air and online. The first point in her strategy is to realize that news is social and radios have to grasp this new opportunity and bring young people the content.
As a second step, she proposed turning on the studio camera as it creates a simultaneous content both for online and on-air spaces. Her third recommendation is to be on trend and as number four, she underlined the importance of keyword research, which can help understand the search engine.
The fifth step according to Sweeney is finding a niche audience and as the sixth, she states that “if consent is king on the internet, consistency is queen”. The final point is to take a deep look into statistics, as they can provide important answers.
TikTok, as Sweeney said, is a place to grow youth audiences. “Radios have to create with purpose, trend with ease and hang out where their audience is,” she finished.
