TikTok for arts and culture: What’s working now?

Introduction

Bella: A little bit about HDK is that we’re a digital marketing and website agency specialising in arts and culture. We’re based in London, in the UK, but also work internationally. Some of our clients include organisations like Alexandra Palace, English National Ballet, Museum of the Home and Arts Council England. And we run a monthly programme of webinars, so do check those out on our website if you would like to sign up to any more.

So today we’re talking about TikTok and what’s working now on the platform. A bit of short housekeeping is that captions are available if you need. We’re recording, so you can watch the webinar back at any time you like from our website. And feel free to pop any questions you might have in the chat throughout the session. We’ll do our best to get to it in the Q&A.

And welcome, and thank you everyone else who’s been adding their names and where they’re from in the chat. It’s really nice to see you all.

So we’ll get started with some introductions of us, if you don’t, if you haven’t met me or Fizz before. My name is Bella. I am a part of the digital marketing team at HDK. My pronouns are she, her, and I am a white woman, with wavy, curly, dark brown hair, and I’m wearing some glasses today.

I’ll pass over to Fizz.

Fizz: Morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I’m Fizz, I’m also part of the digital marketing team here at HDK. My pronouns are she, her. I’m also a white woman, in my mid-20s. I have shortish brown hair, and I’m wearing a black strappy dress today.

Bella: And a little bit about what we’ll talk about today. So, we will start off with some ideas that are maybe easier to implement for people who aren’t so comfortable or so familiar with TikTok and with posting on the platform. And as we go, we’ll move into some ideas that you can explore if you feel a little bit more experienced or comfortable on the platform.

And so the very final thing before we get into it is, if you’ve come to one of our webinars in the last few months, you might know that we’ve started running some action planning sessions, and these are free one to one consultations with a member of the HDK team that follow up on topics discussed in these webinars. So at the end of the session, stick around and we will share a link to book a meeting with us, in which we’ll review our current content and help you understand what’s working, or what’s not, and leave you with a clear sense of what to do next. And these will be actions that you can take away and do yourself. So, yeah, do put those in. They’re limited, and it’s first come, first served. So, I’ll talk a little bit more about that later on.

01. Creating TikTok-first content

So, we can get started, and I’m gonna start with some advice that you might have heard before, but that it is really important that your content on TikTok works for the platform, and people come onto TikTok for a lot of different reasons, whether that is to laugh and be entertained, to learn new things, or to search for something specific. Or just out of habit, or because we get a bit bored sometimes. So they’re most likely not waiting for you specifically to post. So your content needs to catch their attention as they’re scrolling. So how do you make them stop when they land on your post?

And I’m gonna put up a little poll here. Just to get some ideas flowing.

And that should come up on your screen. What makes you stop scrolling on TikTok, if you see a post that catches your eye? What are the reasons you might stay and engage with that post? So, I’m just gonna wait until some more answers come through.

Well, that’s really interesting, there’s actually a variety, a lot of people saying any of the above. And I’ll just leave that a little bit longer.

Great, okay, I will, oh, yeah, curious and laughter, yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a whole range of reasons why someone might stop and engage with your post on TikTok, but I’ll end the poll there, and share the results with you, so you can see them.

My point being with this poll is that everyone is different, and everyone will be drawn to different things. In this poll, it looks like a lot of you are drawn to posts that make you curious, or make you laugh, or sort of any reason that comes up there. So, my point here is that your content can catch someone’s attention because they might be interested in something relatable or awe inspiring, something that sparks their imagination or curiosity, not just because it’s funny or it latches onto a trend. So don’t feel like you have to be restricted to what other people are posting on TikTok, and what works for them. Find out what works for you.

So, how do you stop people scrolling if they don’t want to be sold to, they want to be entertained? How do you stop them so that they engage with it? And a few stats to start us off are that on TikTok, over 60% of videos with the highest click through rates put the message or the thing in front of the camera within 3 seconds. And the platform itself makes the first distribution decision around a second and a half into your video, and it rewards videos that resolve a hook fully by the 3 second mark, so that’s not a very long time that you have to catch people’s attention. So, you have to grab people quickly. And I’ll show a few examples of this.

And how you might be able to grab people’s attention. So we’ll start off with the first example of a verbal hook, which is just an opening sentence of a video, and why that would catch someone’s attention. So let’s play this for us.

[Audio clip, Cinema Museum]: This is an absolute must-do for any cinema lovers in London. Recently, I visited the Cinema Museum in South London, and it was so cool to be surrounded by so much vintage and iconic cinema history. The museum’s location has its own…

Bella: And we can stop there, because it goes on for a little while, but the main point is there in the first few seconds. They say, this is a must-do for any cinema lovers in London. You see how quickly that is tailored to the person that they’re trying to reach, and why someone should be interested in watching the full video through.

So along with verbal hooks, what you’re saying, oh, can you please add that stat to the chat? Yes, I’ll just copy and paste some of my notes.

Here we go. That’s in the chat for you. So, other than verbal hooks, you can also have visual hooks. So, that can be anything from an unusual action, a quick edit, or maybe text on screen, so that can engage someone quickly. And on my next example, we’ve got some dancers in an airport. I’ll just play that for you.

So along with some funny music there, you’ve got an interesting setting, which people might not be expecting to see. So anything that makes something stand out to an audience will also help you to engage someone quickly.

And my final example for this point is, being entertaining and having a hook that is a little bit quirky, so I’ll let Fizz play it.

Thanks, Fizz. I’ve just spotted that I only sent my comment to the hosts and panellists, so let me resend that for everyone. And, so you can all see.

There you go. Hopefully that’s come through. So this is a brilliant video by the Royal Armouries Museum, and they are just outstanding on TikTok. I love their videos. And you can see in this video, they’ve got a hook around there being a fire, a sort of a silly play acting piece, but also they weave in, through the video, some points about what they actually want to announce, about their exhibition, what they’re promoting. And so I thought that was a nice way to weave in something that hooks and grabs people’s attention in a funny way, but also is actually relevant to what you’re talking about and what you want to promote. So, some tips to finish this off are, to look through TikTok and to see what other people are doing, so search for the sector you’re in, maybe that’s a museum, or a gallery, or theatre, or dance, anything.

And watch some of the top rated content that comes up there, and you can filter by that on the search bar. So, a lot of it, what might come up is user created content, not just other brands or organisations, so have a look through what people are putting up. If they’re just content creators, they’re not an organisation, see how they create content that engages their audience.

And don’t introduce the video, don’t feel like it has to be YouTube, where you spend a few seconds saying, hello everyone, I’m so and so, today we’re going to talk about, just get straight into it. And that’s the end of my point.

02. Putting people front and centre

Fizz: Thanks, Bella. So, I’m now going to look at putting people front and centre. Now, obviously, this isn’t something that’s groundbreaking, but I do feel that the appetite for human personality-led content feels particularly significant at the moment with the rise of AI. And we’re seeing audiences respond to content that feels like it’s coming from an actual person, rather than always through that polished, organisational voice.

And when we talk about putting your people front and centre, that doesn’t necessarily mean your artistic director, or your chief exec, or whoever you traditionally think of as a spokesperson. Some of your best TikTok personalities might be elsewhere in the organisation. It could be someone who’s front of house, a technician, a curator, someone even backstage, really anyone who’s comfortable on camera, and understands the platform, or just has a naturally engaging personality.

So, employee generated content, or EGC, doesn’t mean telling your entire team they suddenly need to start making TikToks. It might be one or two people who are particularly good at it, or different people, depending on the subject. A curator, say, might casually share something surprising about an object, or a technician you bump into might show you something unusual backstage that could make for some great content. And really, you’re tapping into expertise that already exists within your organisation.

So you’ll see this Forbes definition of EGC on the screen here, which I think sums up really well by saying that it delivers authenticity that goes beyond that of a traditional influencer or brand created content, which helps to foster those deeper connections with audiences that we’re always looking for.

So I’ve got a few examples here of EGC that I think works really well. The first one is from Birmingham Royal Ballet, who work with their dancers to kind of get those behind the scenes, funny moments from their rehearsals, and the dancers also have a go at playing into some of the trends that you might see online. And then the second one is from Royal Historic Palaces, who again, just do a great job of employee generated content, and they’ve got some great personalities that kind of come back again and again. So I’ll play these quickly for you now.

[Audio clip]: Oh, so close!

Fizz: So I’ll end that one there, but you can see that the dancers are trying to land a certain type of jump, and spin in time with the music beat. And here’s the second example.

And there you go, it was a really quick video, but it’s funny, and it plays into a trend that at the moment is going around social media, which I think is a really good one. If anybody wants a content idea, I really like that.

I’ve got a couple more, but we are a bit short on time today with all of these amazing examples we’ve got to share. So I’ve got one of Tate with the Assistant Curator talking about the Leigh Bowery exhibition, and then I’ve got a final one here from the Natural History Museum, so I’ll just play the start of these ones really quickly.

[Audio clip]: They’re gory, they’re glamorous, and they’re gay. Oh, hi! I didn’t see you there. My name is Jess Baxter, and I’m the Assistant Curator for the Leigh Bowery exhibition. Then tell me who’s your housekeeper, and what you keep in your house! But in that room, what you got in that room?

Fizz: There we go, so I hope from those that you can see that there’s a bit of humour in them, and they don’t often require that much effort, from your team members. And one advantage that we really have in arts and culture is that there’s already so much interesting stuff happening behind the scenes that you can tap into. So instead of always asking, what can we invent for TikTok, maybe ask yourself what’s already happening here that somebody else might find interesting.

So my tip goes into what I was saying earlier, but look beyond your usual spokespeople. Find the people in your organisation who naturally suit TikTok, and give them that space to develop their own voice where they can.

Okay, I’m moving on to the next point. So, apologies, by the way, it’s difficult for me to see the chat while I’m sharing my screen, so if there’s any urgent questions, Bella, maybe just shout them out while I’m talking.

03. Experimenting with different content formats

But yeah, moving on to experimenting with different content formats. So I wanted to look at formats because this is one area that’s changed quite significantly from when TikTok first kind of arrived, and the idea that TikTok always means a short form video. The short form video is still really important on the platform, don’t get me wrong, but there’s now much more room to experiment with both the type and length of content that you’re producing.

So, like I said, 15 second videos are still golden on the app. I’m not saying they’re not, but you can now post up to 10 minutes, which is really interesting, and it’s, I think, a sign that long form content is something that audiences are looking for once again.

And along with that, my favourite format type on the platform at the moment is carousels and image sharing. Which I really enjoy, and I’m going to show you some really interesting examples of that in a minute.

And just a bit of data to back up what I’m saying here, is that 76% of users enjoy seeing a mix of images and videos on TikTok, so it’s actively something that audiences are looking for. And I think we sometimes put ourselves under a lot of pressure to constantly produce new videos for TikTok. But maybe you could try something else in the near future.

So, looking at carousels specifically, because I think that these lend themselves to arts and culture really well. The first example I have here is from the Wellcome Collection. And they’ve actually taken a historical figure, Louis Pasteur, who was the person that discovered pasteurisation of milk and the benefits it has. And the Wellcome Collection have stitched these images with screenshots from Subway Takes, which, if you are on TikTok or Instagram, you’ve probably seen this content format. It’s a very popular content creator, does these interviews on the subway. And they’re often very funny, and they dive into a hot take.

But anyway, here they’ve used Louis Pasteur to talk about milk, and I think that this is really genius. It’s fun, it shows a bit of humour, and then it continues, and so you get this kind of series of content. And this is something that wouldn’t have taken the Wellcome Collection very long to produce. Obviously, the hardest part is thinking about the words on the screen, but I love this. I think it’s a great example. Also educational, you know, crosses kind of both funny and informative.

Another example here, we’ve got from Historic England, I believe. So it’s just looking at the paintings that they have in their spaces, and putting some funny captions over the top, and they obviously posted this right after the new year, it was obviously winter. But you’ve got the first two slides, followed by the second two slides. Again, humorous, using the material that they’ve got ready in their galleries.

And then finally, maybe my favourite is from the National Coal Mining Museum, who have a great TikTok. If you haven’t been on there, I really recommend having a look. And the first slide is sad fact about a giraffe, and the second slide is, a giraffe won’t ever be able to visit the National Coal Mining Museum. This is due to them being too tall to enter the museum, so they’ll never learn about England’s rich coal mining heritage, which is true. I’m really sad that a giraffe will never get to experience that.

So I love these, I hope that you like them too, I think they’re very funny. And I hope that you can see how existing collection imagery can become something that feels really native to TikTok, just through the framing and the copy.

So, my tip for building carousels or experimenting with formats on the platform is before filming something new, ask whether the idea could work with content you already have. So, archive imagery, production photography, or backstage shots could also work really well.

And now I’m going to pass back to Bella.

04. Building audiences through content series

Bella: Okay, and I’m gonna move on to the idea of series and building an audience through episodic content. If you came to our end of 2025 Trends webinar, you might have heard me talking about episodic content, by which I mean series and repeated formats of content that maybe have an interesting format, or something entertaining, or shows a familiar face. And I think social media is clearly not the same as it was 10 years ago. We’re not seeing, you know, our friends and family, the celebrities or the businesses that we follow, often as the main source of content on our feeds. It’s often people we don’t know, and it feels sometimes a little bit like watching a TV channel.

Anyone and everyone who has a phone can put something out on one of these platforms, and with that has come some forms of serialisation, and it’s a reason for people to come back and keep watching your content. You might think of it like one video gets one moment of attention from your audience, but a series can build a reason for people to come back, and gives your team also a repeatable format instead of starting from zero each time, which can be something just really helpful for your insanity. So you could start thinking of your social media account like a content producer would, rather than just using it for announcements.

And you might already know about the playlist function on TikTok, which lets you group together posts into themed sets, so people can scroll through related content. But TikTok has also been building out different tools for series, like the series feature for creators, which can be monetised, so that’s something we’ll have a little dig into, if that’s of interest. But I’ll touch on playlists today.

The first example of this is from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and they’ve got a really interesting series called Cool Instruments, and they talk about their cool instruments in their orchestra. One of their first videos that caught my eye for this was one that starts with the Harry Potter themed tune, and it plays it on the actual instrument, and you might not know much about the instrument, and so it ties it back into the hook I was talking about, something recognisable. And then it digs into what this instrument is, what the history is, and similar format to what they’re showing in the rest of this playlist, so people can sort of binge that and scroll through.

And another good example here is by the Southbank Centre. They’ve got a series called Unboxing the Archive, and again, you can see what that looks like when it’s on your screen. But we’ll just play one of the videos, a little bit of that for you.

[Audio clip]: Let me tell you a story about one of my fave objects. This. Legend has it that this caused quite a large tiff between the sculptor Henry Moore and the two original architects of the East Wing development. It’s actually the top of the skylight of the Hayward Gallery. So, when they originally built the structure…

Bella: And what’s really nice about the series is it’s got a familiar face through every single video. It’s always in the same position, with the same backdrop, with the boxes of archive behind the presenter. And it’s always in the same format of presenting a piece of their archive, a piece of history from the Southbank Centre, and talking about why this is interesting. And it’s obviously a little bit entertaining as well, you’ll see they’ve got some fun edits and cuts in there, to make it feel engaging on the platform, but it’s also really educational, in a fun way. So, that’s a really nice one, I think. And the benefit of these series and playlists is that you can just scroll through and binge watch a lot of these if you’re interested.

So, and that also ties back to Fizz’s point about EGC, and why it’s really important to get your staff involved.

So, my tip from this section is to think about your organisation, pick a recurring angle that you could be uniquely placed to own, and whether that is bringing a staff member on the screen, like a curator, doing a Q&A, or maybe presenting an object of the week, or even something a bit simpler, if you don’t want to bring someone on screen. Think about what repeatable formats you could create with the content that you already have available.

And I’ll pass back to Fizz.

05. Optimising content for search

Fizz: Great. So, I’m now going to touch on discovery, because TikTok increasingly isn’t just somewhere where people are consuming content, but it’s also somewhere where people are actively looking for things. And that’s particularly interesting for us in arts and culture, because people are searching for things to do, places to visit, and those cultural recommendations.

So TikTok itself says that 57% of its users use its search functionality, and a quarter searched for something within 30 seconds of opening the app. So we need to think about TikTok content slightly differently. Someone doesn’t necessarily need to know your organisation or follow your account to find you. They might be searching for something that you happen to be really relevant to.

Another stat for you here, I love a good stat, but TikTok says that 46% of UK users have visited a local shop, restaurant, or attraction they saw on the platform. TikTok has also launched its Nearby feed in the UK, if you’ve seen that. They launched it at the end of last year. Specifically designed to surface things happening around you, including events.

So, in terms of how to talk about your organisation, and how to make sure that it’s being seen by the people that are searching for what’s on. I’ve got a few examples here to give you some inspiration. There’s a couple of different formats that I particularly like, on the screen here. The first one has no voiceover over the top, so it’s good if you just need something quick, you want something that you can create with imagery or videos that you already have, and then I’ll move on to the second in a minute.

So why I think this works, and why I feel that it got some good engagement, is because it has everything you need in that short sentence. So, what it is, when it is, and the fact that it’s free, which is something that, obviously, people enjoy as well.

I’ll play the second example for you here.

[Audio clip, National Gallery]: This is my new favourite Friday night activity. Every few months, the National Gallery hosts free live drawing sessions in the evening. All materials are provided for, and you spend an hour drawing models in various poses inspired by the rooms they are in. The models pose for varying lengths of time, ranging from 2 minutes to 15 minutes. This is a great way to stimulate your mind after a day…

Fizz: So this example here from the National Gallery obviously works in partnership with a content creator, which is something I’m going to come back to in a second, but again, I think it’s a really nice way to promote what’s happening, and it has that hook at the very start there that Bella was talking about earlier.

My final example is a different kind of format that works really well, say, if you have a programme of events that you want to talk about. And you’ll see here in the example that they get into what events are on, they talk about what it’s about, and it’s a really good way of kind of building in the SEO into what you’re actually saying on the platform.

[Audio clip]: Get your calendars out, here are some of the most exciting exhibitions coming to London this summer. Frida, The Making of an Icon is at the Tate Modern. This exhibition is not just about celebrating Frida Kahlo’s work, but about her life as a whole. Expect to see all facets of her persona as an artist, a wife, a political icon. Hopefully this exhibition should give us a more complex view of Frida Kahlo as more than the boiled down image that we’re all familiar with. This exhibition ties in with Frida Mania, which is how did Frida Kahlo become one of the most recognisable faces in the world today? There is an Anish Kapoor exhibition coming to the…

Fizz: So there you go, I like that video a lot. I think that somebody that is searching on TikTok, what exhibitions should I see in London, that’s really likely to come up on their feed.

So you might think, well, how do I make my videos, other than just what’s the actual content in them, how do I make them come up on the search engine? And my tip here is to do a bit of research and type the start of relevant phrases about what you do or what you have on offer, into the TikTok search bar, and then use the suggested searches as content prompts.

And you want to make sure that you use these keywords and phrases, not only within the videos or content that you’re creating, if it’s a carousel, but also within the caption, and potentially even add some of those hashtags as well using those keywords. Try and incorporate them naturally when you can. Obviously, don’t force them in. And then you also want to make sure that, where possible, you’ve got your location tagging on for people that are searching specifically about one place. It’s a form of SEO, but I don’t think that you need to overcomplicate it for TikTok. Ultimately, you’re just helping TikTok and the person searching understand what your content is about.

Bella: Okay, before I say anything here, I’m really enjoying all the chat and everyone’s saying about who made the videos, I’m really loving seeing that, so thank you all for joining. I’m glad that we can share some of what you’ve created.

06. Blending organic and paid content

So, ads. I think that’s a really important thing for a lot of us. People want to know how can we be using TikTok in an effective way to reach new people, and actually promote what we’re wanting to share with our audiences.

So, you might be used to thinking, perhaps on other platforms, of your organic content and your paid content as being two separate things. But on TikTok, we might be able to think of them as the same thing, and it’s what TikTok encourages, because they don’t want your ads to feel like ads, and instead they should act like any other content on the platform.

So TikTok encourages you using organic content for your ads, because they want the audience to carry on scrolling, to stay entertained and engaged, and it works for you, because audiences don’t feel like you’re selling to them or pushing something on them that they didn’t ask for and don’t want to see.

So, the idea behind this is don’t design content for ads and organic separately. You could post organically first, and watch what performs, and put paid spend behind it. So, I’ll talk about TikTok ads specifically here, which is a tool where, although in TikTok you can upload your own new specific ad content in a campaign, what Spark ads allow you to do is to convert an organic post into an ad, and function in a similar way to a campaign, adding a call to action and a link, and still being labelled as promoted content, but acting like organic content and keeping the same likes and follows on your post.

And another example from the Southbank Centre, actually, I’m skipping ahead, but we’ll start off with these two. So, these are sort of traditional ads, especially the first one, Arts University Bournemouth, probably what you’d expect to see in an ad, discovering our postgraduate courses, and London Theatre Week as well, which is actually a little bit more of a native feeling, organic feeling ad. They’re talking about what you should see at London Theatre Week, instead of it just being a sort of trailer.

But also what you can do in Spark ads is work with content creators, and, so we’ve got two examples here of paid partnerships. I’ll let Fizz play the both of them.

[Audio clip]: Spend a day with me at the Southbank Centre. I recently became a member there, and I spent a day working, eating, shopping, going to a gallery, so I thought I’d show you everything I got up to. Started the day at the Southbank Centre Members’ Lounge, which I think is gonna be my new place to hang out in London. You can book tables to work…

[Audio clip]: If you like thought provoking thrillers, you aren’t going to want to miss The Story starring Natasha Wright at London’s National Theatre. After the murder of a white teacher in a black neighbourhood, four journalists race to get the headline at any cost. The premise of this play sounds so genuinely interesting, and I feel like it’s going to be one of those shows that you just can’t help but discuss all the way home. And this is why I love the National Theatre so much, all of their…

Bella: So those are really two really nice examples of what came up as paid partnership content on TikTok for me. One for the Southbank Centre, and that sort of authentic feeling created content, spend a day with me, maybe a bit like what Fizz was saying about making it feel local and tailored so that someone can search and find that. And then one for the National Theatre with a content creator talking about the show and where it feels really important and interesting.

So, that’s to say that you don’t just have to feel restricted to using your own content, your own staff. If you work with content creators on a paid partnership basis, you can also kind of expand that reach to build trust with their audience.

So, my tips coming out of this section is using organic feeling content for ads, potentially connecting with creators to build that trust, if that’s something that might be relevant for your organisation, but also search on TikTok’s ad library, so similar to Meta and Google, you can look at what the other organisations are putting out on TikTok’s ads platform. And search through your sector, or industry, or even other industries if you want to see a little bit more broadly, for inspiration around what’s working, and what you could try out.

07. Building trust through creator partnerships

Fizz: Okay, and now on to the final point from us before we can move into some questions. So, this is around creator partnerships. Influencer marketing isn’t anything new, but I think what’s interesting at the moment is that the definition of what is a valuable creator is changing, and we’re seeing less emphasis on simply having the biggest possible following, and more emphasis on relevance, community, and whether people actually trust that person’s recommendations.

So we’re often not trying to reach everyone, we’re trying to reach people with a genuine likelihood of being interested in a particular performance, or an exhibition, your venue, or maybe an experience that you have on offer. So a creator with 5,000 really engaged followers who loves theatre or museums or contemporary dance, or even what’s on in Manchester, could potentially be much more useful than a general lifestyle creator with a much bigger audience.

One thing, if I was searching for content creators to partner with, and I was in house in an organisation, is that I would be looking for whether they’re a good storyteller. Can this person take an exhibition, a performance, or an experience, and turn it into something that audiences genuinely want to watch? Their existing content will usually tell you much more than, say, their follower count alone, so that is something that I would look into.

I’ve got some examples here. I’ve got two examples from the V&A who work with big creators and artists to explore their collections in a slightly different way and to bring in a new voice. These are very polished examples of bringing in content creators and partnerships. They’re in a studio with professional lighting, and this doesn’t have to be what working with content creators is. It’s just a couple of examples that I really liked when I was doing this research.

Afterwards, I’m going to share some more laid back examples by the Booker Prize, who I think have really nice collaborations as well. So I’ll show you these V&A ones first.

[Audio clip]: Courtney Love. Streets, amazing. Kylie, our girl. Hi, I’m Ecca Vandal, and I’m here at the V&A for Unexpected Items. I think I’m gonna see things related to fashion, punk, and things that inspire me. But I don’t know. I feel like it’s alive. Whoa. If I wasn’t a singer, I’d probably just be somewhere just making little tiny things, just minding my business. But instead, I’m all up in everyone’s business. Hey y’all, I’m Conan Gray, and I’m here at the V&A Museum for Unexpected Items.

Fizz: And they go on there to look at some moths from their collection, and Conan Gray has a song about moths, so it kind of makes sense, and it all ties together.

So the next two examples, like I said, Booker Prize, and this is a very different style.

[Audio clip]: Spend the day with me and the International Booker Prize. So whenever I’m home in South Africa and that travel bug hits me, it’s always to books that I turn to first as a way to step outside my own world. And for the past 10 years, the International Booker Prize has been transporting me to far off lands and giving voice to the experiences of a diverse cohort of translators and authors from all around the world. Introducing me to voices…

[Audio clip]: Spend the day with me as I’m reading. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman at the bookshop. It’s been 10 years of the International Booker Prize, highlighting fiction that opened readers up to different experiences.

Fizz: So I hope they were interesting, and they gave you a couple of different styles that you could work with. I think don’t be put off by niche creators. Someone whose entire account is about museums, or books, or accessible days out, LGBTQ+ culture, or family activities might have exactly the community that you want to reach.

So, our final tip of the session is if you’ve chosen a creator for their style, don’t brief that style out of them. And by that, what I mean is, obviously give the creators the objective and the important information that they need to include, but give them the room to create, because ultimately, working with these kinds of content creators, you’re inviting their style and their voice in. And perhaps providing a different narrative to what you’ve thought of as your team.

Okay, so we’ve got some final takeaways, and then we’ll move into the Q&A.

Final takeaways

Bella: Thank you, Fizz. The first takeaway to sort of sum up a lot of some points that we’ve shared across the different topics we’ve spoken about today is to not be afraid to experiment with your tone and style, so whether that’s the actual format of the content you’re putting out, or the tone of what you’re saying, whether it’s something playful and funny, or a little bit more serious and sombre, or longer form and educational, you can try lots of different things.

And to do well on the app, I would also say you have to be on the app and be regularly using it to see what the culture is like, and to take in what’s doing well, and like I think both Fizz and I have suggested, use that search bar function and look at what other people are doing, and see what’s coming up.

Fizz: And then you want to make sure that you are experimenting, as I said earlier, but also find those repeatable formats and hooks that engage your audience. If something is working really well, then you can keep doing it. There’s no issue with that. And just exploring what works for you and your team.

And then finally, our last takeaway is to explore collaborations and partnerships, both organic, which could work really nicely, but also paid, if that’s an option that you have available. And again, just see how your audience responds, and give it a go.

Survey and announcements

Bella: Great. So, just before we jump into the Q&A, and do stick around for that, because I’ve seen a couple of people have been asking some questions, and thank you to everyone who’s been answering those in the chat as well. We’ve made a note of some that haven’t been answered, or we could chat through in a bit more detail. If you have anything else, please put that in the chat.

But I’m just gonna send a link, and at the end of every webinar, we ask you to fill out a short survey, just to see how you feel about this webinar, whether there’s anything that could be improved, and this really helps us with our webinar programme and our upcoming sessions. So, thanks so much for filling that out. I’ll give you around 30 seconds to a minute to click on that and fill it out, and if anyone could put a message when they’re all done with that in the chat, then we can move on swiftly.

Yeah, the slides will be available after the webinar, or we’ll share the full recording after the webinar as well, but we can also share the slides for you.

Just capturing some of these questions, lots of those coming in. Just a reminder that if you could fill out the survey in the link that I shared a little bit earlier in the chat and message when you’re done with that, that would be really helpful.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Yeah, I’ll post the link again, and I’ll just leave anyone else to finish up if they hadn’t seen it up there before.

Here we go. Okay, and just while any last attendees fill out that survey, a few announcements. One is that we’ve been running these webinars for around 6 years now, longer than me, this has both been at HDK, but since COVID, and we’re very excited to now be bringing the conversation into real life with our first ever in person event. So, it’ll be in London. It’s a free panel discussion with networking as well, on the topic of how audiences today are discovering arts and culture. So, find out more on our website if you’re interested in coming along to that.

As mentioned earlier, we are also running the action planning sessions, so I will pop the booking link in the chat as well. So those are coming shortly.

These will also be sent in the newsletter following, that goes out specifically to anyone who’s come to this webinar, so if you miss it here, you can also get a chance to look at the links later on.

So, I think we’re all ready to move into our Q&A.

08. Q&A

Nice. So quite a few questions coming in. And I might start off with something that Liberty asked a little while back, which was if there were any stats on how many people are watching with the sound on or off on TikTok. And I had a quick Google, and there’s lots of different stats that come up, and some of them are a bit contrasting, so some say that lots of people are watching on mute, and you can imagine if you’re on a bus or on the tube or in a coffee shop, you might be scrolling, but watching with the sound off.

But equally, TikTok’s own research is saying that sound is indispensable on TikTok. Kantar found that 88% of TikTok users said that sound is essential to the TikTok experience. So, there’s some conflicting evidence there. I think sound is really important, but, slightly annoyingly, text is equally important, and you sort of want to be adding those subtitles so that people can still engage with it, and for accessibility purposes as well. So I hope that somewhat answers your question, but do dig into that in a little bit more detail if you’re interested.

And I might pass this one over to Fizz. Consuelo was asking, where do you find trends, and how do you know if something is a trend?

Fizz: I would say the best way to find trends is to be on the app yourself, to scroll, to have a look, to see what other organisations are doing, and perhaps what they’re playing around with.

However, I would also suggest there are some really, really brilliant content creators in their own right who actually create content around what content you should be making on TikTok. So you can always search what is trending on TikTok right now, and there are people on TikTok who are making videos about trends, and how to film them, and the way to go about it. But there are also, say, on LinkedIn or online, so many resources out there explaining what’s working on TikTok in, say, August 2026, and it will give you a list of certain trends that are being pushed on the platform, and sounds that are trending, for example.

That’s another quite good way of finding trends, is to look at what sounds are popular on the app. So, when you create a video, you can choose a sound, have a look at the top 10 that are being used, and it will probably give you some examples of what’s trending and working right now.

Bella: Thank you, Chris.

Okay, there’s quite a few questions coming in. I’ll just pick out some that might be useful. Someone had a question around being a registered charity and having to register as a business account on TikTok, which has meant that we can no longer use any kind of trending audio. How come all the organisations we see are able to use those trending sounds?

So obviously that is a bit of a restriction when you’re a business account. What might be the case, and you might want to ask some of the organisations that you’ve seen today using those trending sounds. I don’t know if anyone wants to put in the chat what they’ve been doing to get around that. But it might be that they’re using a personal account rather than a business account. It does reduce what you’re able to access in terms of your TikTok profile.

They might be sort of repurposing a video, sort of remixing a video that already has the sound on it, and getting around it that way, or they might just be able to use it and not get it taken down quite quickly. But often we do see videos with music, whether it’s trending or not, being taken down on the platform. Which is quite common across all of the Meta platforms as well, which is sometimes frustrating. But if anyone has any thoughts on that, then please add those in.

And I really enjoyed, Natalie, your question about any tips for being a marketer and understanding the landscape without getting addicted or burnt out by scrolling social media all the time. I don’t want to spend too much time on TikTok for my own wellbeing, but I feel like I should for work. I think that’s probably something we can all relate to as marketers, and probably feeling sometimes a little bit sick of having to scroll through these platforms, for work, as well as when you’re looking at it for your own interests. So maybe both me and Fizz can answer this question, but for me, it’s that I keep my personal accounts very personal and related to my interests, so there’s no crossover there, and I might use it to save some inspiration that comes up, but in terms of working accounts, I sort of dedicate actual research time, and work time on that account, so looking through, scrolling, what’s coming up on the platform, and treating that like it’s an actual part of my role, rather than something that I have to do outside of work.

And I think the point about wellbeing is also really important, so whether that’s setting some time limits on your apps. That can be really helpful. I’ve tried a lot of things in the past, but if anyone has any thoughts on how to keep your sense of sanity while you’re on these platforms, then please do add them in the chat.

But I don’t know, Fizz, do you have any other thoughts to add to that?

Fizz: I would agree with what you’re saying. I think what helps me is I don’t use a personal account, I just have my work account, so every time I go on TikTok, now it feels like work. So I think that that stops me from scrolling kind of endlessly.

But also, this is obviously quite an extreme solution, and for people that are finding it difficult to find the balance, a friend of mine has just been given a brick, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Basically it locks your phone, and the only way that you can go on certain apps is if you actively go to this brick. It’s just like a little square thing. And then it will unlock TikTok, and I’m quite interested in trying that for myself, so maybe I’ll buy one, and then I’ll let you all know how it works. But, yeah, people have put them in sort of really mad places, and it stops them from being able to go on, say, TikTok for hours, because they then actively have to get out of their chair and go under the bed or something where they put the brick, and yeah, maybe that’s a good solution.

Bella: I like the idea that Grace is putting in here. Having work phones that you can keep at the office. Wouldn’t we all lock it up?

So, another question, relating to EGC, so maybe, Fizz, you can also take this one. What do you do if you have a lot of camera shy people at your organisation who don’t like to be in videos?

Fizz: Yeah, this is something that we have come across with clients, and obviously, you never want to force people to be on camera. That’s not the solution.

I think if that is the case, and there is kind of nobody around that is willing to show a bit of personality and be on camera, then maybe you think a bit more creatively about how you can create things without a person always there. Obviously, it’s better to have faces throughout the feed, but, like those carousels that I showed earlier, that’s one example of how you don’t necessarily need an employee to be in front of the camera, in order to do that.

I would also maybe suggest putting in a few skills sessions, or sessions around understanding why TikTok is used and why it might be beneficial to your organisation. You might have somebody who’s hiding away, but actually wants to understand the benefits and also feel a bit more confident using cameras and phones and what works, it might be something where they can have a bit of a creative outlet, and it might be something that they then end up really enjoying.

So, yes, I completely understand that that can be an issue, and a bit of a blocker, but hopefully it can be resolved, or you can find a different way to make content that might help. A good place to start is perhaps somebody recording a voiceover rather than being on camera, for example, where it’s just their voice being heard.

Bella: Yeah, I definitely agree with what Fizz was saying about doing some skill sessions, and they don’t have to be called skill sessions, but just spending half an hour doing these short tests where they can actually maybe make a video themselves, or film someone else on the team, or see their face on camera. Sometimes it’s just that barrier of, you know, for a video that isn’t gonna go out anywhere, I must stress. Just say to them, this isn’t gonna go out anywhere, let’s just test it, see how you feel, and then I’ll delete it immediately. But sometimes it’s that barrier of being in front of a camera and thinking, oh my god, I’m gonna be in public, and people are gonna see me. But obviously, if someone doesn’t want to be on camera, that’s their prerogative, and you don’t have to force them.

So, comments were about, sorry, Fizz, did you have anything to add to that?

Fizz: Well, I was just gonna say, Maisie, that’s really cute, what you’ve just said about the socks. I really like that, I might have a research into that. But also, there’s a few comments around, is it exploitative? For staff, and one thing I would say to that is, of course, again, it’s something that has to be worked out within your organisation. But I have known organisations that actually provide different types of contracts for staff that end up regularly being in TikTok videos, and if it is something where you don’t have volunteers, maybe that’s a solution to look into.

Bella: Okay, and we had a couple of questions about age range as well. One was from Matthew, saying, I work in an art form, classical music, where older people remain a vital part of the audience. What is the engagement of people 50 plus with TikTok? And, just before we go into the answer of that, Mia also asked, do we have any way to gauge the age range or demographic of users being reached with these examples? They all seem to be younger coded, but TikTok has a huge age range currently.

Without access to the analytics of the organisations that we’ve seen here, unfortunately, we can’t say what age range they’re reaching. But, as you say, TikTok does have a huge age range. I don’t think when you pass a certain age, you stop being entertained by a joke or something being funny, but there are obviously differences in how people will engage with a platform like TikTok and what they’ll be seeing.

I suppose an answer to that might be, firstly, that don’t feel like TikTok is going to be excluding that 50 plus audience, because they will very likely be on there, or at least a few of them. Secondly, that it can help you also to potentially engage with a younger audience who might be more, who might be interested, and I showed the example of Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier, where they’re sort of showing off their instruments, and thinking of a different way to engage people, that it doesn’t have to be trend based and just funny content. It can be sort of educational, or it can be genuinely showing off the beauty of the music.

I see a lot of content which is sometimes just a ballet dancer dancing, or an orchestra playing, and it’s still as engaging and as captivating for people as these sort of trend based videos or carousels, so again, don’t be afraid to experiment, and potentially, if you try out different formats, you might be able to see who you’re attracting with that.

Okay, we’re seeing a few more questions come through. I’m just gonna have a scroll.

For the Q&A, as platforms like TikTok start to lose their distinctive features and borrow from each other, they seem to become more and more indistinguishable. Amid these changes, how do we learn which content works best for which platform, and how do we adapt it? I might pass this one to Fizz.

Fizz: Sorry, I’m just pulling up the question myself so I can see it. How do we learn which content works best for which platform? Yeah, it is true, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are feeling more and more similar as they kind of discover what works for keeping audiences on there, and what’s holding attention.

I think the best way to learn, and this isn’t a very useful answer, I’m sorry, but the best way to learn is to just keep trying, and seeing what is performing well on the apps already.

So, in terms of what works best for TikTok, for example, the more that you can get out, and the more content you can push out onto your own platform, the more understanding you’ll have of what audiences might pick up and are engaged with, and then you can sort of use that format and template again.

In terms of adapting content, sometimes content can be transferred over platforms. There are some videos where I do think it will work for both Instagram and TikTok. But in a lot of cases, potentially when you’re sort of storyboarding something, or you’re having those initial brainstorming sessions around a piece of content, maybe just look at the different types of audiences that you have. You should be able, if you have a business account, to see some audience demographics, who is looking at your content, and who isn’t. And then from there, I would begin to flesh out why and how it might look different on the various platforms.

I don’t know if, Bella, you have anything to add to that?

Bella: Yeah, similar, experiment, try different things, but also understanding, tracking your data regularly can also really help to show you, okay, this platform is working really well for this thing, and this platform is different because of these reasons.

I would say, for example, on Instagram, we see carousels performing really, really well, and getting a lot of reach, but maybe a bit less engagement rate, because sometimes the amount of people it’s going out to is higher than the amount of people who are liking it, sort of in comparison to a video, which might be a smaller group of people, but more people liking it from your follower base. Or equally, maybe a reel goes really viral on Instagram, and you see a lot of engagement from that. Reels and TikTok can be very similar, as Fizz has mentioned.

And I see we’re coming up to time, and I think I’m rambling a little bit there, but the point being, carousels might serve a different function on Instagram than they do on TikTok, so test them out, see different ideas, but also repost if you need to. Just one point being, don’t repost with a logo on it, so don’t download something from TikTok and then upload to Instagram, because it will not like that so much.

So, I think that’s the end of the session, and thank you everyone for joining today. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to everyone’s questions, but it was lovely to have you all here, and thank you so much for your engagement in the chat. It was really nice to see everyone’s comments. So, yeah, we’ll send out an email later on with further resources that you can look into, with the recording of the webinar and with the slides. So, thank you again, and see you soon.

Fizz: Thanks, everyone. Bye.