There are five billion views on videos marked #art, 586 million views on #MuseumTok and 904 million views on #GetCultured
Courtesy: @christies_inc, @sothebys, @nationalgallerylondon on TikTok
Insta’ gratification is a monthly blog by Aimee Dawson, looking at how the art world and social media collide. Each article tackles a topic around the innovations and challenges that spring up when art enters the digital world.
In last month’s column, a spokesperson at Sotheby’s revealed that the auction house has been working with an in-house team at TikTok to improve its content and grow its reach. Such a service was news to me—despite the fact that I’m constantly buried in the worlds of art and social media. I needed to know more.
It is hard to find information online about the “lifestyle and education content operations team” that runs this side of TikTok’s business, but a job listing describes it as being “dedicated to empowering content creators and publishers within specialised niches”. Luckily, the team at TikTok were responsive to questions (unlike certain other social media companies, ahem). “TikTok is a place to spread creativity and joy and celebrate cultural expression,” says Lina Renzina, TikTok’s lifestyle and education media partnerships lead for North America. “Culture lives and grows on TikTok, and cultural institutions—including museums, galleries, theatres, botanical gardens, libraries and opera houses—are the epicentres of culture in their respective cities. TikTok works directly with these organisations to elevate and unlock the unique perspectives and educational content they bring to the TikTok community.”
TikTok also confirmed that it does not charge for this service—but why would it offer it for free? There are five billion views on videos marked #art, 586 million views on #MuseumTok and 904 million views on #GetCultured: a hashtag aimed at engaging the TikTok community with cultural institutions on the platform and shining a light on educational arts and culture content. These numbers suggest that there is already huge interest in the visual arts on TikTok that could grow even further with better insights and strategy.
TikTok has been stepping up support for cultural institutions. The North American lifestyle and education team recently launched “Culture Starts on TikTok”, an in-person workshop programme focused on educating cultural professionals around the US and Canada on how to build their presence and audience. Participants learned about the different types of educational content that perform well and content creation best practices, as well as product feature updates.
Here are three top tips that the team shared: