Well in a week where a 22 year old footballer convinced the Government of the importance of feeding children learning continues to come from surprising places…
by Darren Caveney
1. TikTok home-schooling
Well home-schooling took a turn this week when my 15-year old daughter gave me some useful teenage insights into the world of TikTok.
Here’s what she shared…
TikTok is for 12 – 26 year olds (“why would a 30-year old want to be on TikTok?” she asked)
Charlie de Melo has the most followers – 63 million and rising
She went on to get a SuperBowl advert, and was reportedly paid $1million
Danny DeVito is loved on TikTok and regularly trends. His hashtag has had over 217 million views
My daughter believes that if Danny DeVito opened an account he would top Charlie de Melo’s follower numbers
There are three broad types of users: Straight, alternative and deep
There are a whole bunch of themes – Emo is big
Adverts she recalled seeing on TikTok were from NHS, Apple and eBay
McDonald’s has a profile but has never posted any content – it used purely to place adverts. That has got them 170k followers too.
My learning?
I’m full of hope and confidence that our children will shine and come through and make amends for some of our current mistakes and failures. But I still don’t ‘get’ a lot of TikToks!
2. Video calls have been a lifeline, but…
I was on a Whatsapp Group chat earlier in the week and the conversation changed to how many video calls people are having each day. It ranged from 0 to 8. Gulp, that’s a lot.
In fact it’s more than a lot – for those having eight a day that’s 40 a week for some of you. Woah.
Delve a little deeper and it’s clear that some people are having to work later or - worse still – on days off in order to catch up and deliver the work and actions coming out of some of these calls. Maybe this is normal in a global pandemic, after all we haven’t experienced one in UK comms before. But over 3 months into the crisis and it seems we potentially have a problem brewing here.
I took to Twitter and asked the question in a poll
Here’s what you said
My learning
As always, it’s all about organisations and teams being tightly prioritised.
Zoom, Teams and Hangouts have been an absolute bonus during lockdown. I have enjoyed and benefitted from plenty of them. But reports of comms people still working 60 hour weeks is a broader concern and not long term sustainable without some fall-out. Let’s have one or two good quality and important video calls per day rather than seven or eight.
3. Dead cats
So you know the deal. Dead cat theory works by distraction stories being dropped into the media so that we run and look the other way whilst forgetting about bigger more important stories. Just this week alone we have had the supposed painting - red, white and blue – of the prime ministerial plane, and strange mentions of Barry Humphries and boomerangs in relation to far off trade deals with Australia.
Quite bizarre. Or is it? As Don Draper used to say in Mad Men:
If you don’t like what people are saying about you, change the conversation.
My learning?
Don’t get distracted. We must always pay attention.
Stay safe x
Darren Caveney is creator of comms2point0 and owner of creative communicators ltd
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Image via Tullio Saba
