#LearnOnTikTok: The Educational Side of the Viral App

While its emphasis on fun and entertainment over news or politics made it a welcome distraction during the pandemic, a few months ago TikTok announced a new strategic direction with the #LearnOnTikTok educational focus feature.

Rich Waterworth, UK & EU Managing Director of TikTok told BBC Click: "Learn On TikTok will be a long-term program from now on that is about us investing in partners and content creators from a wide range range of professional content creators, and educational institutions such as English Heritage and the University of Cambridge."

According to Waterworth, TikTok is working with partners more focused on education. Platforms will be more focused on life skills and things that are interesting to people.

"We think it's about applying the power of TikTok to learning, and what I mean by that is about effects, audio, engagement, and transitions. Using all the tools that make TikTok videos so engaging and fun." emphasized the general manager of the platform. 

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TikTok's partners include English Heritage, a charity that manages hundreds of historic sites in the UK and can see the importance of reaching a younger audience through social media.

Martin Jefferies, social media manager at English Heritage, told BBC Click: "We think TikTok is a safe place to explore some of the stories that are perhaps most important to young people, so things like black history and stories LGTBQ on some of our sites, Women's History Too, feels like a very safe and welcoming environment to explore those stories."

This reminds us of the YouTube journey. Both platforms started with viral videos and fun. But gradually, over time, much of YouTube's content became more structured and produced. It could be that TikTok is starting to push that kind of content too.

Until then, we can all learn something useful from makeup tutorials and lessons to learn new languages ​​to cooking and baking recipes.

If you marry information with entertainment and find something memorable, that will make people remember your content. There are many educators on TikTok, and many of them are doing a fantastic job. Some people can teach us to do math, cook, draw, business trainers, social media trainers, personal trainers, dietitians, and many more.

Marco Zamora (@markiroz_z) is a math teacher. He is also entertaining, and thanks to this, his videos went viral. Bic Walker (@sketchmill) does tutorials on how to draw a particular animal or flower to inspire people to paint.

TikTok has excellent possibilities. By following the #LearnOnTikTok hashtag, you will find endless short educational videos that can teach you something new. Even if this is not as effective as a longer video, it can be useful, for example, to learn expressions or words in other languages ​​or precise information that can be quickly memorized. Without a doubt, this is a great step for the platform.