Industry Insider: Why Your Theatre Needs to be on TikTok!

For any business, building a social media presence has become an important, if not necessary part of growing a following, with a solid online presence being used as a vital tool for promotion and a way to connect. While platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and more have reigned supreme, one app has emerged in the last few years, particularly last year, 2020, that has changed the game. Yes, we're talking about TikTok. If you are currently working with a theatre company and are wondering how joining this social media platform will benefit your business, we've got you covered.

When was TikTok Launched?

Tiktok was officially launched in 2018, after its parent company ByteDance purchased and merged with the popular platform Musical.ly. At its core, TikTok is a video-sharing, social media platform that allows its users to upload videos up to 60 seconds in length, while providing you with a curated 'For You Page' dictated by the content that you are most engaged with. Simply put, if you watch and like a bunch of theater-related TikToks and animal videos, the app is going to continue to show you theater and animal focused TikToks. The result is a highly entertaining, endlessly watchable, specifically-dictated-to-your-tastes social media experience unlike any other social platform.

How many people are currently on TikTok?

As of January 2021, TikTok has over 1 billion users in over 150 countries, and has been downloaded over 200 million times just in the United States. Sensor Tower reported in December 2020 that TikTok was downloaded over 2.6 billion times worldwide, and in Q1 of 2020, the app had 315 million downloads. This was the best quarter by any app in history. TikTok was downloaded 87 million times worldwide in June of 2020, with 7.5 million of those downloads coming from the United States. Apptopia lists TikTok as the most downloaded app both worldwide and in the United States in 2020.

In August 2020, TikTok announced that they have 100 million active users in the U.S. It has been reported that a TikTok user opens the app 8 times per day, spending an average of 52 minutes per day in the platform. A new study showed that people ages 4 to 15 spend an average of 80 minutes per day on the app.

Why should your theatre be on TikTok?

The statistics alone show that the app has immense potential to reach a vast amount of people, many of whom are specifically drawn to theater-related content. At the time of this article's posting, the hashtag #theatrekid has 3.3 billion views, #theatreKids has 2.8 billion views, #theatre has 2.1 billion views, #musicaltheatre has 1.7 billion views, #theater has 606.3 million views, #theaterkid has 301.6 million views, #musicaltheatrekid has 137.2 million views, #musicaltheater has 106.5 million views, and #musicaltheatrekidcheck has 17.7 million views.

The impact that this app has had on the world of theater is unprecedented. One of the biggest theater creations to come from TikTok was the groundbreaking Ratatouille musical. A collaborative musical based off the popular Pixar film, Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical was cultivated entirely on TikTok by young innovators, coming together virtually to build something that had never been done before (#RatatouilleMusical currently has 269.6 million views). What started as a fun social media trend ultimately cumulated in a highly anticipated, massively watched online performance on January 1, 2021, generating a total of $2 million to benefit The Actors Fund. Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical was the most successful fundraiser in Actors Fund history.

The most recent musical theatre TikTok trend is Bridgerton the Musical, created by Abigail Barlow (@abigailbarlowww) and Emily Bear (@emilythebear) which is based on the Netflix mega-hit Bridgerton. #bridgertonmusical currently has 105.2 million views.

What TikTok does is unlike any other social media platform. It enables people to be creators, to share in one another's passions, to create a community built on a mutual love of a topic, no matter how widespread or niche it may be. TikTok is here to stay, and the potential of Theatre TikTok is only growing. Getting your theatre onto this platform is not only statistically a big way to bring attention to, and create interest in, what your theatre is doing, but it is a fun, user-friendly way to produce content, promote your business, and connect to millions, even billions, of people.

Want to learn more about social media for your theatre company? Then make sure you register for February's Industry Pro Webinar:

The Ins and Outs of Social Media for Theatre with the BroadwayWorld Social Team!

Join BroadwayWorld's Chloe Rabinowitz and Taylor Brethauer for a discussion of the in's and out's of the various social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook Twitter, and tiktok), how BroadwayWorld has grown their accounts in the last year, what posts they've found to be successful, how best to work the algorithm, and what the biggest trends (and how to spot them) are on theatre tiktok! The presentation will be followed by a q+a to answer your questions about social media.

Register Now to Join us Wednesday, February 24th at 3pm Eastern!

You can follow BroadwayWorld on TikTok HERE!