Visit Scotland | Alba
Article published 27/10/2022

Bringing Scotland to a new social audience

TikTok has been the fast-growing social media channel over the past few years, disrupting the established channels and shaping social trends. From a few seconds to up to 10 minutes long, users can create, edit, share and discover short, vertical videos on just about any subject you can think of.

With the platform's ability to reach a younger audience than existing social channels, our social media team were keen to start leveraging this new audience and experiment with how to sell Scotland in a new way.

In early June, we launched our VisitScotland TikTok, posting a mix of User Generated Content from trusted creators and content produced by our own social and multimedia teams which have been viewed over 2.42 million times (September 2022). 

As with our other channels, our TikTok has the primary aim of ensuring Scotland is discoverable for a broad range of audiences and markets. Through engaging, visual content, we hope users can see Scotland as a great destination to visit and inspire our UK audience to explore closer to home and discover new locations.

 

Check out some of our top performing posts to date including:

 

What we've learned so far

  • Storytelling is different on TikTok

    Users consume video content in full screen on TikTok and, as a result, audiences respond better to a well-edited but slower paced short story, building a strong narrative with text overlaid on the content that encourages the user to 'think' and 'feel'. A great example of this has been our 'Come on a walk around...' videos.

  • Authenticity is expected

    TikTok is a mobile-first platform, so polished and professionally captured content jars with the rest of the content more so than on other social channels. We need content to be captured in a raw and authentic way that aligns with the storytelling and vlog style of the channel. 

  • The algorithm prioritises discoverability

    On TikTok, a breakout piece of content can occur regardless of the creator's followers giving us a huge opportunity that isn't available on other channels. It does, however, mean the performance of our TikTok content will be extremely varied and takes longer to measure channel performance. 

What's next for VisitScotland on TikTok?

Our social team are enjoying navigating the challenges of a new and very different social channel. The impact of adapting our style for TikTok has influenced the content for our other more established channels too.

As we continue to experiment and reach a new audience, our TikTok will include:

  • More storytelling and vlog video style with bespoke channel content
  • Original, vertically shot content by our social and multimedia teams
  • Content with more Scottish culture and humour

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