According to the annual Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, TikTok has emerged as the fastest-growing social network, with 20% of 18- to 24-year-olds now relying on it for news, significantly more than last year. The report emphasises that people tend to pay more attention to celebrities, influencers, and social media personalities, eclipsing traditional journalists on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Legit Media Group offers a useful case study in utilising TikTok to engage with the audience and drive growth. The company operates a portfolio of digital news and entertainment outlets across Africa, including Legit.ng, TUKO.co.ke, YEN.com.gh, and Briefly News.

Since mid-2022, when the group embraced the platform after some initial hesitation, they gathered 270k followers and 1.8 million likes across all their TikTok pages. Their top-viewed video has garnered 1.4 million views. (Overall the company’s brands have over 36 million social media subscribers).

The Fix spoke with Anna Krokhmaliuk, Media Project Manager at Legit Media Group, and distilled key insights and lessons from the company’s approach to TikTok.

Understand your target audience

Krokhmaliuk closely works with the Kenyan market, catering to Kenyans interested in current affairs, human interest stories, recent trends, and events. To understand their audience, they use a number of analytical tools, such as IO, Google Analytics, and CT (for tracking Facebook engagement).

Their audience prefers human interest stories over politics and funny content over bright entertainment stories related to famous personalities. According to analytics, articles centred around ordinary people get higher reach and pageviews.

Find a balance between reacting to trends and creating exclusive content

Jumping on trends without developing a unique style is not a sustainable long-term strategy for a media outlet, Krokhmaliuk believes. Legit Media Group utilises trends for creating memes, brand videos, and behind-the-scenes footage that showcases their team.

“Having an established brand presence certainly helped us in the initial stages. However, TikTok’s algorithms also provided opportunities for growth, even for accounts with a modest following,” Krokhmaliuk says. They started by repurposing content from their YouTube channel, testing the waters and observing the audience’s response. The results were impressive, with a surge in followers within a week and some videos going viral.

First week of Kenyan outlet TUKO.co.ke on TikTok:

Total number of followers – 7,044
Total number of likes – 22,100
Number of video views for the week – 71,138

Power of scripts, narration, and calls-to-action

The team invests time and effort into crafting compelling scripts for their TikTok videos, focusing on engaging narration. Each video begins with a hook, such as a captivating question or a humorous fact, to grab viewers’ attention. Krokhmaliuk notes that script quality determines the length of watch time, as well as audience engagement.

They actively seek audience feedback, such as by asking “What are your thoughts on it?”. They usually include two calls in each post – one within the video and another in the description – prompting viewers to share, comment, or follow their page.

Hashtags, descriptions, and community engagement

Legit Media Group social media team members add up to five hashtags per video, focusing on precise and targeted options instead of generic or broad ones. For example, in describing the story of “Nadia Nakai finally opens up about the fateful night of AKA’s murder”, the Briefly News team used a brand hashtag, plus 5-6 more that are relevant to the specific video: #SAMA28 #briefly #fyp #brieflynews #brieflyza #sa #entertainment #nadianakai #aka #ripaka #justiceforaka.

While Legit Media Group initially tested longer descriptions to increase average watch time, they discovered that their audience wasn’t interested in reading a lot of text – so they phased out long descriptions. (A short description consists of up to 80 characters, a captivating sentence, quote, or question. A long descrip t ion can include 3 sentences describing a story and a question to the audience).

Besides, they actively engage with their audience in the comment section, which also prompts the algorithm to recommend their content to a wider audience. Legit Media Group hired one community manager per news outlet. This person takes care of the community across all social media platforms (not only TikTok). For example, TUKO.co.ke received over 9k comments on this viral video, thanks in part to communication with the audience in comments.

The number of comments also depends on the video reach and the power of a call-to-action that they use. When the video performs well (gets more than 50k+ views), receiving 300 comments is a fair result.

Focus on organic reach and collaborations with influencers

Legit Media Group currently prioritises organic reach on TikTok, leveraging the platform’s algorithm without resorting to artificial boosting. They observed that pages with smaller followings can achieve millions of views by producing quality, well-packaged content.

While they have pursued influencer collaborations in Nigeria and Ghana, their immediate focus is collaborating with experts such as lawyers, doctors, and relationship specialists.

However, they recognize the potential of influencer collaborations to drive engagement. For example, they have partnered with a range of Nigerian celebrities for holding Media Literacy Champaign. This project aimed at teaching the Nigerian audience to distinguish between fake and true news as they approached the elections, and spanned far beyond TikTok coverage. The team has picked celebrities with a huge following and a vast social media presence, such as TV stars, media experts, and opinion leaders.

Data-driven approach

Legit Media Group relies on data to drive their decisions, analysing metrics like average watch time and views. A benchmark of 50% or higher for average watch time indicates success.

They conduct weekly analyses, breaking down numbers by formats and topics. This enables them to spot patterns and make content strategy adjustments. They also identify videos that lead to rapid follower growth.

Krokhmaliuk explains, “Once we find a format that works, we maximise its potential by setting daily or weekly quotas for such videos, allowing us to further analyse their performance and potential.”

*Screenshots from Briefly News and YEN.com.gh TikTok accounts demonstrate Legit Media Group’s consistent visual style and the significant differences in performance of their videos.*

Challenges of working on TikTok

The team acknowledges that there will be ups and downs, with videos ranging from millions of views to just a few thousand. Failing to maintain a consistent posting schedule can impact performance levels and take time to recover.

Moderation policy adherence might be another challenge for publishers on TikTok. Even with compliant coverage, no one is safe from potential claims while reporting on sensitive matters that can affect the reach and recommendations of videos.

Regrets and lessons learned

If given the chance, Krokhmaliuk would have hired dedicated video creators from the start to fully implement their TikTok and Reels strategies. Involving team members primarily focused on text and photo content slowed down progress as they had been adapting to video creation and editing.

The first two months on TikTok are critical for building a loyal audience and establishing key formats. Testing new formats becomes more challenging over time.

Future plans and focus on Reels

Legit Media Group plans to collaborate with influencers and experiment with new formats like vox pops, explainers, and user-generated content. Expanding coverage of events is also on the agenda, with the ultimate goal of becoming a top global news publisher on TikTok.

In addition to TikTok, Legit Media Group is directing attention toward Facebook and Instagram Reels. They recognize the opportunity to monetise content on these platforms, as Meta provides them with the necessary tools.

Seven tips for newsrooms on TikTok

Test extensively and explore beyond traditional content strategies.
Utilise the content on Reels and Shorts in addition to TikTok.
Analyse content in terms of quality, consistency, topics, and watch time.
Don’t forget to check your key audience and their preferences. Are they even using TikTok? If so – what for?
Consider starting a new TikTok account when transitioning to a new content strategy, as the audience’s interests on the existing page may be different.
Implement AI solutions to processes like scriptwriting, keyword research, and work with calls-to-action.
Prioritise quality over quantity on TikTok for better audience engagement and growth.

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Iryna Hoiuk

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