Recently we talked about the fact that TikTok can be considered a tool for journalists and media. Many media outlets already have accounts on this platform, each trying to attract the audience in its own way. The interesting thing about TikTok is that, unlike other social networks, the way it is used is not so clear.

TikTok is not Facebook, you are limited to 15-60 second videos, mostly vertical, although horizontal is also possible.

Moreover, the chances that people will watch a 60-second video are very small, because here people constantly want change. The internal logic of the social network demands the creation of dynamic videos, and that’s what the viewers expect.

Consider how the media and journalists use TikTok. Here are some options that will allow you to see what content-style solutions individuals and organizations have found.

For example, Yahoo News has a very conservative approach to this issue: it selects relevant announcements from popular newsmakers, adds text as there are people who watch videos silently. For example, Biden’s words about TikTok.

In Vice they do something more complicated, they choose, for example, prominent articles or titles, they make funny videos about them. Naturally, in this case, the audience will be very different from the Yahoo News audience.

USA Today is a mixture of the two: They do it all, news, funny jokes, you name it. And the audience is ten times bigger than the previous two.

The British The Telegraph is trying to talk about educational, interesting facts.

In the German Tagesschau, they create factual short reports, trying to stick to a journalistic style and at the same time be TikTokish. It can be concluded from the number of likes that it’s not that bad.

In French Le Monde, they create mixtures of reportage and visual material on interesting topics.

Russian Lentach is in their style as if TikTok was created for them.

There are many uses. For example, Buzzfeed interviews Emma Watson and posts the trailer here.

If you are a journalist, you can say short pieces of news. If you are an Italian journalist, you can put a lot of information into a short video. (It is not recommended to try the same in Armenian).

Or you can talk about your work. Why not? Use your program as an attachment to your TikTok.

All this speaks of only one thing․ On TikTok you can do whatever crosses your mind.

Samvel Martirosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.