My team and I have wanted to do TikTok since 2019. We launched into the platform, finally, in February of 2021. This weekend marked our three-month anniversary. In that time, we had 1.5 million views and 112 K likes. We are definitely still a small museum account with only one thousand followers, but we have the seventh and eight most viewed #museumtok videos. (Also, you can watch TikToks on your browser if you can't get yourself to download the app.)
@akronartmuseum ##duet with @anouarchelabi_ ##arttiktok##arthistorytiktok##learnontiktok##museumtok
♬ SugarCrash! - ElyOtto
Here are my reflections of our time:
1. Don’t let the bureaucracy be the enemy of the
joy: In some Clubhouse talk in January, Mar Dixon mentioned that
administrator often muck things up. (As an administrator, I decided, well, I don’t
want to be a stereotype ;>) Her comment really points to the fear of risk in
museum. We often really want to get it perfect before putting it out there. I
get the impetus, honestly. Our stakes can feel higher. We have fewer resources
and no R&D departments. People might visit us once in a lifetime. But, what
if you ignore those stakes? You focus instead not on the negative, but the possibilities.
Then you become centered on plenty and action.
2. Lose control: Much of this last year of
museum work has been adding content to platforms. Museums are pretty used to controlling
all the variables to retain their norms. When we left our galleries for Facebook,
et al, we had to break out of our norms. Opening this up was good for us, or
can be, if we take some of those lessons back to the galleries. The biggest
lesson has been that the lack of control can be freeing. When you share your content
to anyone, anyone can engage.
3. No one cares about us: Tiktok is a watchers
market for content. The two biggest #ArtHistorytiktok accounts are run
by, perhaps, grad students. I imagine showing those videos to curators I’ve
known. There would certainly be apoplexy and disgust about the approach and the
content. But guess what? No one cares about museum. A museum account won’t get
more views than a random person, because largely institutional authority has no
weight in that platform. This lack of power is actually freeing. You aren’t
bound my our field hang-ups. For creators,
this can be a bit of a balancing act; to be like them but keep our core competency
(of research-based content). But, if you can manage it, the rewards are great.
4. Adapt: So often, before this year, I saw
museums trying to plop museum content on digital to match their desires, rather
than the users needs or the platform’s norms. In this year, I’ve seen so many
organizations truly catch up with the times and adapt. For example, on Tiktok,
dueting others is a common norm. We used that to do art appreciation, and then
link to collection objects. Historically, we’d have started with the collection
object. It was a different way from our norm, but we decided to be flexible. It
definitely increased our views considerably. The algorithms are no joke, so
this transformation was essential to success. But, now we’ve shown ourselves we
can adapt. So, where else in our field can we use this knowledge.
5. Enjoy:
Our social team started with watching many videos. Teenagers playing music on
upturned bowls, parents acting like fools, cats chasing dogs—we were there for all
of it. We laughed and laughed in meetings, where my team tried to explain much
of pop culture. After a year of loss, we really needed the good feelings. I can’t
say we’re experts on this. Many museums are killing it on Tiktok, but that wasn’t
the point. We could message each other about our successes and missteps.
6. Make Mistakes Over and Over: Tiktok
values authenticity. Polished videos don’t get better traction than mediocre
ones. It forces us to really rethink the value of the polish we use everywhere.
In one of our videos, I said, “the blue is really blue.” I’m actually a
credentialed art historian. I could have been a bit more articulate. But,
honestly, that video wouldn’t have done as well. Many of our mistakes were
really just tests. We are trying content and then trying new content. We’re
letting the stakes me low and therefore the gains can be high.
Should your museum do Tiktok? I honestly couldn’t tell you.
We could do it, because we had the capacity and the desire. We wanted this for
ourselves. What instead you should think is, what is something that will help
us continue to push our desires forward? What is something that will increase
joy and success for my team after this terrible time? What is something that
will show our visitors that we’ve grown? What is something that puts a bit more
good out into the world? For us, one of those things was Tiktok.