Learn how to market yourself through TikTok Academy, TikTok’s newest educational platform - By: Kaitlyn Chiang November 2022
TikTok: the video sharing platform that has undoubtedly taken the world by storm. We all know it. We love to use it as a pastime for mindless scrolling. We hate that we spend so much time mindlessly scrolling on it. If you have ever wondered how “just 5 minutes” on TikTok can so easily turn into 30 minutes of your day spent engrossed within these short videos, look no further. TikTok has officially launched an educational platform titled “TikTok Academy” for creators who are looking to grow their brands and enhance their marketing skills, such as audience engagement or customer retention. According to TikTok, “individuals who enroll in TikTok Academy will find courses designed to develop digital marketers into TikTok Pros through a gamified education adventure filled with interactive experiences, quizzes, tokens and badges. TikTok Academy badges are awarded for each successful course completion and are easily shareable on social media.“ For the purposes of this article, as well as out of a personal curiosity, I decided to enroll in the program myself. After registering and verifying one’s email, one is taken to a learning dashboard. Within the dashboard, a user can see courses that have not yet been started and courses that are currently in progress.
As of now, there are only two courses in the catalog that are available for creators to enroll in: “TikTok 101” under the TikTok Essentials category, and “Small Business” under the SMB Course category. Each course has a set number of modules that must be completed in order to gain module tokens, and ultimately the badge for completion of the entire course. Before diving into the modules, a user is shown an overview of topics and concepts that will be covered within that specific course. As one makes their way through the modules, lesson activities are scattered throughout as a means of quizzing the user on knowledge that is being retained- I personally found these questions relatively easy to answer, so as long as one is paying attention during the video lessons, they should have no problem answering these questions. When one incorrectly answers a question, they are given an explanation as to why that answer is wrong as well as the correct answer and its reasoning. Lastly, upon completion of a course a user is shown a summary screen that lists the key takeaways, if one wishes to revisit information or test their overall comprehension of the content learned.
I personally think this educational platform has the potential to be monumental for up-and-coming creators as well as for established creators who wish to touch up on their marketing skills. Through the “Small Business” course alone, I was able to learn more about thelogistics behind TikTok creator accounts, how to identify a key audience, as well as how tomaintain an engaging presence with said audience. As an individual who is easily consumed by the content on TikTok, learning how to efficiently market oneself and one’s business on the platform would be highly beneficial for creators in today’s day and age.
Source: tiktok.com/business/en-US/blog/introducing-tiktok-academy
