One of the things that has always struck me is how people engage with different media forms, from text to image to audio to Video. Video seems to have become the default media method, and TikTok is one of the premier platforms for its dissemination.

As such, I needed to understand TikTok from a content creation and marketing perspective. Mum and I decided on 8^th January 2023 to set up a TikTok channel where we can document our life together. TikTok has been one of the platforms that I have been looking to get involved with for a while. First, however, I wanted to understand how it could increase awareness for brands or causes.

The idea behind the IanandMyra channel was also that now Mum and I are living together again. All be it in a different situation to the one where I was growing up and one where the traditional parent-child roles have been reversed. The need for each other and the help we can provide is critical. Again, if we could articulate this and show how the relationship works, this might help or encourage people in similar situations.

As for the content, I wanted it to be as informal as possible, with handheld videos and topics ranging from serious to trivial whilst maintaining an element of fun and support. This decision was taken because we weren’t going to be looking to get people to subscribe to a service or sell a product. As such, the style of the videos needed to reflect the topics we covered. Mum is brilliant, and she is getting into it. She is an 87-year-old with no experience making videos or using mobile technology besides looking at various news sites on the iPhone. However, she has embraced the concept, especially as we are getting positive feedback.

To date, after just 2 days we have over 38,000 views on our 6 videos, one alone has over 26,700 views 935 followers and 2341 likes. Unfortunately, I need to explore further how to increase the audience size as the number of new followers has slowed, so I can only assume that the tagging we are using has reached a saturation point.

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