MNAPG added TikTok to the ranks of its social media channels last fall. Northern Light sat down with Rhiana Stark of Evans-Stark Design, to learn more about this effort.
Rhiana Stark, Marketing Specialist
NL: When did MNAPG gain its presence on TikTok?
RS: Our TikTok was established in September of 2023. Our first video was an introduction to who MNAPG is and what we do.
NL: How many followers do we have to date?
RS: We have 1,783 followers as of July 1, 2024, and we have made 31 posts as of that date.
NL: What are the primary goals for our TikTok strategy?
RS: There are two primary goals: raising awareness about problem gambling to a young demographic and providing resources for users looking for help.
Raising awareness includes educating younger people about what problem gambling is and what it looks like, how problem gambling is similar to addictions they are more likely to take seriously and have indirect or direct experience with, such as alcohol and drug addiction, and the danger of activities that don’t present as gambling but introduce and encourage gambling behavior, such as lottery tickets and loot boxes. We published MNAPG’s PSA on TikTok that emphasizes the similarity between gambling addiction and other addictions. (See https://www.tiktok.com/@mnapg/video/7303622776265461023.)
As far as providing resources for users that are looking for help, our TikTok content promotes the comparative tool survey [an individual’s betting behavior is compared against the behavior of other Minnesotans], the Minnesota problem gambling helpline, Gamban and BetBlocker, along with mental health-focused meditations and “scrolling breaks.”
NL: What are the demographics we hope to reach with TikTok?
RS: TikTok is a wonderful platform to reach an audience that, prior to our involvement on TikTok, was a little out of reach. The average age of TikTok users is 16–24, which is the general range we hope to reach with our content.
NL: What types of content have you found to be most effective for engaging our audience on TikTok?
RS: Users respond well to new information and TikTok has become a treasure trove for people around the world to learn new things without doing an extensive amount of their own research. When we publish educational content about gambling or gaming we get a lot of “saves,” which means people are bookmarking the video to return to it later or saving it to their phone. We also get a lot of positive engagement with our meditation videos. The dependence that people in my [younger] generation have on their phones is not lost on me. In some ways, I think people are waiting for something like our meditation videos to come up as they scroll to remove them from their content consumption, and I see that in the comments and quality of engagement on those particular videos.
NL: Can you share a particular success story or a campaign that performed exceptionally well on TikTok?
RS: I wish I had a definite and simple answer to this but in reality, most of our campaigns do very well across the board. What I will say is that users on TikTok, especially the younger audience we speak to, are not usually looking for our content. We come up on their feed when they are probably trying to detach and zone out, and we are talking about things that may be difficult, boring or threatening to their way of life. Kids usually don’t want to be told to act with caution, think twice before taking actions online or limit the amount of time they spend doing something that brings them instant gratification. And they let us know in the comments. So, I don’t look at those things to measure our success or impact. I try to read between the lines. I scroll through the resistant-natured comments and once in a while, I’ll find a user that just says “thank you” or if we’re really lucky they’re asking how to get help. So even though we don’t have users overloading our analytics with positive replies, we are a present, consistent, neutral and reliable source of education and resources for those who need help, whenever they’re ready – I think that makes our efforts successful.
NL: What are some of the ways we assess our performance on TikTok?
RS: We measure engagement metrics similar to the way we monitor our other social platforms. This includes how long users are watching our videos, how many likes we’re getting, saves, reposts, shares, etc. We garner an average of 123,000 views per video that we post and promote.
NL: What strategies do we use to grow our follower base on TikTok?
RS: We are still building our community on TikTok, which we try to accomplish alongside our goals of spreading education, awareness and available resources. Our videos are intentionally created to capture the user’s imagination. On a platform where we are competing for views against creators that offer an almost unlimited pool of entertainment, it’s important to create videos that are visually appealing as well as educational and helpful. This is why so many of our videos are animated with graphics that mimic our brand identity and play an engaging sound to accompany the visual components.