Do You Actually Need a TikTok?
Newsletter #142
This Week
Staggering Data on TikTok
ICYMI:
Spotted
Before We Go…
1. Should Your Organization Be On TikTok?
There’s one question we get from almost every organization we work with: Should we have a TikTok?
And when we’re the ones suggesting that TikTok—or another new media platform—should be part of the communications mix, we’re often met with skepticism.
Whether the question comes from us or from them, the answer is complicated. It deserves discussion within your organization, especially around audience, resources, goals, and risk. That said, here are a few recent data points worth exploring.
Conceptually, none of this surprised us. However, the scale and speed at which some of these media consumption shifts are happening is a little staggering.
2. ICYMI: Spooky Lakes Month Starts This Week
This month marks the start of October, and with it, the beginning of one EO Report editor’s favorite social media series: Spooky Lakes Month. We wrote this story last year on Geo Rutherford, a creator who has figured out the art of niching down.
She’s built an audience of 1.9 million followers around a single, unlikely topic: haunted hydrology. Every October, Geo delivers what her fans crave: Spooky Lake Month. For 31 days, she posts one video each day about a lake and its eerie lore, always beginning with the same hook: “Uhm, yes, hello, it’s Spooky Lake Month.”
There’s a lot to learn from her singular focus.
3. Spotted
George Lucas recently opened The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
An entire museum devoted to the art of storytelling, and it was founded by one of the greatest storytellers of our time? We’re in.
4. Before We Go…
From The New York Times: An army of paid creators is carpeting the web with political content
“Unlike celebrity influencers with large followings, these creators produce a blizzard of videos for a fraction of the cost of traditional online campaigns and, in the process, shift public conversation.”
From Creative Repute: We are entering an era of visual skepticism
AI-generated images are everywhere, leaving people questioning whether what they’re looking at is even real. Are gritty, imperfect images the answer to building brand trust?
From CNN: There’s an old-school newspaper war brewing in DC — and we all stand to benefit
“In Washington, DC, there’s something unexpected happening: A new-age version of an old-school newspaper war, with feisty competition between two formidable newsrooms, the entrenched Washington Post and the upstart Washington Sun.”