The potential to go viral

The Very Rev Albert Bogle highlights the strengths of the social media app TikTok in a digital strategy.

WHEN I first heard about TikTok two or three years ago, it was being marketed as a niche social media platform for teenagers.

The Sanctuary First team advised me: ”It’s quirky and it is not for you to download – it’s for lip-syncing teens”. In that short timescale to the present, it has been transformed into the most popular app in the western world. So much so that Facebook are running scared that they may lose many of their followers.

So what is it that has brought about TikTok’s phenomenal success? Commentators suggest that it is because they have offered creative tools within the app which are easy to use and have attracted consumers to become creators. They have also on-tap a large library of licensed music, allowing their users a readymade soundtrack to the short movies they produce about their lives, without infringing copyright.

However, it is recognised that the most ingenious idea of all is the “For You Page” that confronts every new user. This is the default screen that appears before every new user of the app. The secret of this page’s success is the powerful algorithm that is used to populate and try to predict what will interest you. From the outset when you download TikTok they are giving you a message that says: “We want you to stay and engage and create content”. Of course, there is a challenging underbelly to all this when we begin to think of the power of the algorithm and how it works. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) involved with the selection of all the material we look at is based on, accounts we follow, posts we make, creative videos we produce, the hashtags used, the language, and the country we live in and indeed the type of device we use.

Some think when it comes to understanding how algorithms work, that AI has even now overtaken our ability to be sure that we can be in control of the information we read or view. This has startling consequences that will shape the opinions we hold and the views we share. In the end this may very well become the company’s Achilles’ heel.

The aggressive harvesting of personal likes and details might in the end be the thing that prompts users to deny the algorithms the information needed to make them work.

One thing is for certain, despite these hang ups, it won’t be long until the Sanctuary First Team suggest to me that it is time we opened up a TikTok account.

Why? Because this is where the interaction between consumers and creatives is taking place. Small and large creative steps are being made by sharing stories and influencing lifestyles. It is also the place where we may well meet up with the next generation of creatives that we so desperately need to take our congregations into the marketplace of ideas and creativity.

The Resurrection is a story that has the potential to go viral, but only if we know how to TikTok its new significance.

The gospel message we have to share never goes out of date, but the means through which it is shared continually requires to be refreshed and evaluated. Digital communication strategies are continually being shaped and reshaped because technology is in part the gift of the knowledge of good and evil. 

If you’d like to think more about your congregation’s digital strategy and the groups of people online you’d like to connect with, please feel free to email me at contact@ sanctuaryfirst.org.uk. The Sanctuary First team are excited about the new updates to our app. Why not download it and give us your feedback? We too are learning how to connect with a wider community and hopefully more Life and Work readers.