‘Rollercoaster’ to build ITV News Politics TikTok account

This is the first post in a new election diary in collaboration with ITN. Insights come twice a week from ITV News, Channel 4 News and Channel 5 News Teams.

People come to Tiktok for memes, but stop for politics. It’s my job to try to make sure that happens.

This has been called the first Tiktok elections, and it was proven when all the most important political parties joined the platform within a few days after the national investigation was called.

It is one of the world’s most used apps on social media, and this is where many young people spend most of their spare time, so it makes sense that this is where much of the campaign takes place.

ITV news have been on tictok for a while But this year we developed our strategy and became one of the first established news organizations that set up a TikTok account devoted to politicsIn order to keep people informed during an election year on a platform where error information can drive.

We wanted to keep people informed, with the same trusted news as they expect from our website and TV balls. I was hired as the man to do that job.

It has been a roller coaster. The plan was to build a following before a general choice during “second half”. We did not expect it to be the first week during the second half.

“Young people who are more interested in politics than I expected”

But we were ready. Young people are much more interested in politics than I expected. Since the end of January we have received 100,000 followers and our videos have seen almost 50 million times.

Of course, the many Gaffes this year have been good content for the account, but our explainers and original content are seen regularly by millions of people.

Videos about what many may think are the boring topics from the first post and Purdah has been shown almost a million times.

The government’s advice on emergency situations, a much more exciting subject, has more than 1.6 million views.

But TikTok is not just a platform to share our content, we also use it to talk to our audience.

During the campaign we asked our followers to submit questions, which we then asked to the leaders.

So far, our interviews with Ed Davey and Carla Denyer have been shown almost three million times, with answers to the election and drug form that gets the most traction.

ITV NEWS ON TIKTOK: ‘We love to get opinions but we don’t forget who we are’

We love getting many views, but we don’t forget who we are. On ITV News we keep our social media content to the same Avcom Standards required for our TV output, so there is a balance to turn on tone and style.

The content must be influencing from the beginning, in order to stop people who browse, but it is also important not to sensationalize. In a nutshell it must be correct, impartial and brief.

Brevity is particularly important and difficult to master. A tictoch must be long enough to include all relevant information and to that point enough to keep people’s attention.

But the voter’s apathy this choice indicates that politicians must also do more to keep their attention – because people lose interest in politics.

Many people I have talked to this campaign have told me that they have no confidence in politics, that the system is broken and all politicians are the same.

It is even though the parties make a huge effort to reach them on social media.

Labor has received 190,000 followers and 4.4 million likes at TikTok since its launch on May 23. The Conservative Party has received only 58,000 followers and its videos have been liked 457,000 times.

Despite both their best efforts, young people are uninspired by politics.

Hardly any of the young I talked to in Manchester after ITV debate Had seen it live on TV. However, most had seen clips on social media.

So it shows that there is a role for reliable news organizations that give news to young people on these platforms, although many of them do not plan to vote in this year’s general elections.

Almost one fifth of young people who are eligible to vote in this year’s general elections is unlikely to participateA survey by the Duke of the Edinburgh Award found this week.

Only four out of ten of the ages 18 to 24 said they are likely to throw their vote on July 4, said about 43% that they still questioned whether they were to vote and 18% said they are unlikely to do so.

And even more deviant found the recent vote of techne uk that 20% of all Briter has already decided not to vote.

The parties will do what they can to change it before July 4 – and you can see the best of it on our Tiktok.

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