How To Videos Been Some Of Most Popular Content On YouTube And Now, To Grow Engagement And Pool Of Users That It Appeals To,
The upstart video app TikTok is getting in on the action, too.
After launching a dedicated “Learn On TikTok” hashtag (#LearnOnTikTok) earlier this summer with a slate of premium creators producing videos for it, multiple users and social media watchers (thanks Matt) are reporting sightings of a new menu item called “Learn.”
Featured prominently alongside “For You” and “Following” at the top of the home screen, TikTok describes Learn as a place to discover how-to and informative videos posted by users that take viewers through making food, producing art, how scientific processes work and more.
The Learn feed seems to have disappeared overnight: from what we understand it’s still being tested.
In any case, its emergence coincided with the company yesterday launching a new promotional campaign for educational content discoverable through the #LearnOnTikTok hashtag.
(And in the original announcement for Learn On TikTok content, TikTok noted that it is “exploring additional ways to showcase the rich offering of instructional content that’s thriving on the platform,” which includes “building a creator learning portal that will provide insights, tools, and best practices on how to create quality content on TikTok,” so the Learn tab may have been a test of how that will look and work.)
These are not TikTok’s first or only efforts in the realm of education.
Aside from its self-referential audience-created educational videos — it’s the best platform for learning TikTok dances, for learning about the latest song-based memes, watching comedic mishaps as people try to explain something, etc. — the company has been cultivating an image as a go-to platform for learning more serious things, not just messing around.
It’s been pushing that even harder this year than ever, both as TikTok itself faces ire from authorities for having a more potentially harmful influence and as more people turn to their screens during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This has included formal efforts, like partnering up with institutions and encouraging students to create educational content:
It’s also included dedicating $50 million specifically to a creator fund to promote educational videos, and reportedly a whopping $5 billion educational fund as part of a deal to keep from getting shut down in the U.S. over national security concerns (ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has disputed the idea of the fund).
This news was originally published at Tech Crunch