With many people using TikTok as a search engine, charities have said they are leaning into the trend by creating bespoke content for the platform.
It comes after a recent study found over 40% of Gen Z use TikTok as a search engine instead of Google.
Aaliyah Burns, senior digital campaigns officer at Freedom from Torture, said that the charity has noticed people are using the platform this way and are wanting to “lean into that”.
Burns was speaking at the launch of the TikTok Charity Academy in London this week.
“We’ve done explainers like, ‘What's happening with the Rwanda bill?’ And things like that, because people search for those things. So, we’re trying to lean in to do more explainers that really answer the questions that people are searching for.”
RNLI: ‘Don’t ignore Gen Z’
Zoe Briscoe, senior social media manager at the RNLI, said that the charity is also leaning into TikTok’s searchability feature.
“We're looking at phrases that people search on Google, that people search on our website, and TikTok itself so we can then look to work backwards and create content that answers those questions and reaches the people that we need to.
“There's a really exciting opportunity to tap into new audiences here.”
RNLI started its TikTok account in 2022 and garnered over 100,000 followers in the first week of its launch.
Almost two years on, it has around 215,000 followers and has amassed 2.7 million likes on its content.
Briscoe said the platform had helped it reach younger generations, with 28% of its TikTok content over the past three months reaching people under 24.
Comparatively, this was 15% of its audience on Instagram and just 1.7% of the charity’s audience on Facebook.
Creating content based on what users are searching for “will help us get into peoples for your pages and raise brand awareness with a brand new set of people”, she said.
She urged the audience not to “underestimate” the younger generation as they will be the sector’s next donors and fundraisers.
“They're keen to learn, they want to support stuff that they believe in. And I think it's just about being in their space and seeing what they're seeing and connecting with them.
“They’re going to be our next donors, our next fundraisers, our next ambassadors – so definitely don’t ignore them.”
Reaching new audiences
Burns from Freedom from Torture said another way the refugee charity has used the platform is by making humorous content despite how it tackles serious issues, as this seems to gain a lot of engagement on TikTok.
“We've found one way we can reach people is through entertaining them and engaging them in some sort of fun way.”
Burns said that a humorous TikTok she made in less than 20 minutes garnered more attention than some of the more long-form content which took much longer to create.
“Hopefully, at least a few 100,000 [that saw it] would then go and look at some of our other content,” she said.
Aicha Therese, social media manager at Poetic Unity, said that creating a TikTok account in 2022 has allowed the small, grassroots charity to expand its audience.
“Our main goal was to expand our reach and tap into new audiences because we found that while other platforms allow you to be consistent with the community that you've already built, it doesn't necessarily allow you to tap into people who don't know that you exist and aren't aware of the work that you do.
“So, we definitely found that within our first few posts where we were targeting specifically our demographic of young Black people, we had a massive increase of new followers, new supporters and people emailing us to see how they can get involved.”
