Why journalists shouldn’t sleep on TikTok
By Ishbel Macleod, Head of Research and Insights at Hydrogen 14/08/2023It should come as no surprise that more and more people are turning to social media when it comes to finding their news.
Research by Ofcom found that while 70% of adults consume news through broadcast TV, social media is quickly catching up: with just under half (47%) of UK adults using social media as a news source nowadays.
TikTok is the platform that has shown the steepest increase in use for news: with the 2023 Ofcom report finding that 10% of UK adults use this platform for news discovery, up from 1% in 2020.
To discover what this means for news stories and journalists, PA Media’s Analytics and Insights team worked alongside Hydrogen’s Research and Insights team to see how the top most viewed news stories and categories on PA Explore compared to the most viewed news stories on TikTok.
Together, we discovered three key learnings:
Takeaway one: Journalists should not assume that TikTok and social is just for ‘light’ news
After analysing 2023’s most accessed news topics by journalists on PA Media’s Explore platform and comparing this with the most viewed news-focused videos on TikTok (by hashtags) in the UK, we discovered that politics, showbiz and sports news ranked in the top five for both – albeit in different orders.
Our personal analysis tied into that of Ofcom, who found that 55% turn to TikTok for celebrity news, while 25% use the platform for political news.
The inclusion of politics on this list for TikTok shows that while it may be seen as a ‘lighter’ social media platform, those using it are interested in what is going on in the political sphere.
This should not come as a surprise: while there has been a blurring of demographics on TikTok, it has traditionally been seen as a the platform for Gen Z and Millennials, and Edelman research has shown 70% of this Gen Z audience are involved in a social or political cause. Therefore, more hard-hitting news still has a place on social media, alongside lighter stories.
Takeaway two: News stories can have a longer lifespan on TikTok
In July, PA Media’s Editor-in-Chief Pete Clifton stated that the coronation of King Charges III was the biggest news story that PA Media covered in the first half of the year.
It was a huge moment in history and one that PA was proud to cover, with images taken by PA journalists being used worldwide .
While coverage in mainstream media of the coronation on Saturday 6 May, 2023, has now stopped, the conversation is still continuing at a low level on TikTok. In fact, over the last 30 days alone (Wednesday 12 July -Thursday 10 August), there have been over 50 million views in the UK of videos with a Coronation Day related hashtag.
On these, roughly half of viewers are aged 18-24.
This suggests that on TikTok, news can have a longer lifespan than it can in traditional newspapers and broadcast format. This allows for stories to be seen, digested, and commented on long after they have been posted.
Takeaway three: the public are more likely to follow journalists than news platforms on TikTok
An interesting finding from Ofcom research – backed by personal analysis – is that TikTok users are more likely to follow individual journalists on TikTok, compared to news organisations themselves.
In the Ofcom survey, 64% of TikTok users said they followed at least one journalist on the platform: compared to 36% following the BBC, 22% following Sky News and 21% following ITV.
This compares to Facebook, where 51% follow the BBC, and 33% follow at least one journalist, but it correlates to Twitter/X, where 59% state they follow at least one journalist, ahead of the most followed news outlet (BBC at 50%).
This takeaway may change how news organisations and outlets share their news: it could lead to more of a focus of journalists being encouraged to post and share news via personal TikTok accounts. Many journalists have already been doing this across Twitter/X over the past decade, so it will be interesting to see if this follows suit on TikTok.
Overall, this shows that social media – and TikTok in particular – is not an area that journalists should ignore. The rise in use of TikTok as a news platform is something that will not be going away anytime soon, and those news organisations that want to be on the front foot and attract a younger audience need to consider it. From short 15 second ‘NIBs’ to longer feature articles, TikTok offers all a journalist needs…they just need to jump in!