Hi, Stephanie:
We have had a TikTok for our rescue, in addition to IG and FB, since we "opened" in August of 2022 but didn't do a whole lot with it. By that, I mean, we didn't stick to a schedule of posting, didn't work much at engaging with other accounts, and posted usually the same videos we posted on IG stories and/or reels.
Then I made a video that used a trending sound and that video "went viral, " with almost 2M views. Before that video, we had 236 followers; we now have 13.6K followers on TikTok.
Most of our other videos on TikTok have now jumped into the thousands and some tens of thousands of views.
That hasn't translated to donations, though. We have a few donations from the video, and a few more followers on IG that I think came over from TikTok, but TikTok seems to be a world of its own. My feeling is TikTokkers are more inclined to buy than to donate, so we're actually working on some merchandise specific to this puppy dog, and we're going to see if that's true!
I'm still learning, but my other feeling is that TikTok is more personal. Not sure if that makes sense, but the videos that are more like, "these two laboratory survivors are running free" paired with an inspirational song, do not do as well on TikTok for us as they do on IG.
We are just Cage to Couch on TikTok, Cage to Couch Rescue on IG, if you want to take a look. The video that has done so well is a video of our puppy Luna with a fractured skull and the trending sound is "What's a soul mate?"
Now, to learn how to rinse and repeat.
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Mary Pryor
President/Executive Director
Cage to Couch
CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-07-2022 07:18 AM
From: Stephanie Salvago
Subject: Using/Starting a Tik Tok for your shelter/rescue - Pros/Cons?
Hi!
I did a search on the forum but did not see any results for the topic of starting a Tik Tok for your shelter or rescue, so I apologize if this topic has already been discussed.
I am the Director of Marketing for the Greater Birmingham Humane Society and I have been debating starting a Tik Tok for our shelter. I was thinking that we could use it as an engagement and adoption tool, but I have not found much research on shelters starting a page or any positives/negatives that come with the platform (I think that I found a total of two articles but they were more about how to go viral and did not give much information).
I know that creating the content will be a lot of work and that is why I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had done it and had any advice or experience - good or bad - using the platform.
I personally have seen a few shelters while scrolling through Tik Tok, but not a huge amount and wasn't sure if it was due to the newness of the platform or if there was a deeper reason. I am relatively new to the shelter world so I am trying to make splashes before I make waves lol!
Thank you everyone for your help with this! I am so excited that I found this resource where Animal Care Professionals can get together and discuss things like this!
#TikTok #SocialMedia #marketing
#DataandTechnology
#FundraisingandDevelopment
#MarketingandSocialMedia
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Stephanie Salvago
Greater Birmingham Humane Society
ssalvago@gbhs.org
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