A quick shout for West Suffolk Council, ladies and gentlemen, who are doing great work with TikTok.
While others dither the team here are doing great work with the platform with a series of videos to communicate the need to register to vote, voter ID, postal vote deadlines and a whole lot of other stuff.
On the face of it, electoral rolls are pretty dry. The team at West Suffolk have made it anything but.
Absolutely, this is a work in progress. The local government elections haven’t happened yet and there is work to be done. But as a concept their series of videos is a great way to tackle the issue.
TikTok is not one-and-done. It’s not make one video and you’ve magically communicated with everyone. It can take time and a list of content. It’s also using the trends available and repurposing the language of the platform.
Do you speak TikTok? West Suffolk do
Here’s a flavour…
VIDEO: Do I need to have photo ID to vote by post?
VIDEO: Will you be my proxy?
I’ve linked rather than embedded because TikTok and WordPress don’t play that nicely together.
Now, I expect two reactions on watching these. The first, if you’re not used to TikTok is confusion and fear that these are too informal. If that’s you, that’s fine. But you’re probably not the audience.
If you are used to TikTok you’ll appreciate their use of the platform.
It all serves to illustrate a point I consistently make in training. Make content for the individual platform not to stuff on every available platform.
Great work.
Thanks Dan for the shout out. The team have been working hard on this and as you say it is evolving as we go. I’d echo what you say about creating for the channel and its particular audience and often in our meetings when I question something I am gently reminded that I am not that target audience. A massive thanks to the team and staff who have have been creating these or starring in them as well as colleagues delivering the elections and helping us understand the complexities. Always happy to talk to any authority looking to do this as well as learn from others out there who are smashing it too.