Telling Your Store's Story on TikTok

Reaching today’s college students online means engaging them on TikTok. The social media platform was once filled with dance videos—which remain popular—but now there are short videos of all kinds.

Your campus store can join in the fun with videos highlighting new product arrivals, special events, who’s who on staff, campus groups and activities, or any number of visual ideas that could click with students. Just be sure to make it interesting.

“No child says, ‘Make me a commercial,’” noted Jennifer Sader, NACS learning designer and education consultant, in her CAMEX22 session, Effective Video Storytelling. “Instead they say, ‘Tell me a story.’” Sader and audience members offered their tips on how to do that on TikTok.

“I think that’s why TikTok has taken off so much,” she said. “They’re a quick hit, but they’re fun. They have characters … maybe a bit of plot. All the elements of storytelling.”

Campus stores don’t require a lot of equipment to create interesting videos, just a phone capable of recording video. The most important factor in video content: Stay away from the hard sell.

“If they just see ad, ad, ad, they won’t want to follow you,” Sader stressed.

Keep the video very brief, even though TikTok now allows up to 10 minutes. “I can guarantee no one is going to watch that,” she said.

Gear the content to student interests, and that means putting student faces on screen as much as possible. There are always exceptions to that rule; MSU Bookstore, Montana State University, Bozeman, produced a series of videos with product picks by a 70something cashier who’s become an icon at the store.

Putting different students in front of the camera is generally more effective than using the same person, in Sader’s view, but a campus influencer with the right personality could be a hit as the “face” of the store. It’s all right to feature products as long as it’s done with a sense of fun and creativity.

“Don’t just show merchandise and say, ‘Come buy stuff,’” Sader noted. Videos of student employees opening a shipment of a new apparel style or first-time product are popular right now. Invite customers to post videos of themselves wearing or using a recent purchase.

One advantage with TikTok is that the platform has already licensed pop music you can use for your videos. If you don’t even have a video clip, just a collection of still photos, you can upload them to a TikTok template to create a carousel of images overlaid with text, music, or sounds. The Effects function in the TikTok app functions like filters, adding selected special effects to video or stills.

Downloading a storyboard template can help in planning out the video, especially if you want to shoot a variety of scenes from different angles. “You can sketch out scene by scene what you’re going to do,” Sader said. “You don’t have to be an artist. Even drawing stick figures can help you figure it out.”

Get your student workers or student ambassadors involved in developing TikTok videos and coming up with fresh ideas. “It’s not good to give students free rein with it. They need some structure,” cautioned Sader. Some stores allow students to take charge of the creative process but a manager must approve the idea before shooting begins and then OK the final cut before it’s posted.

To help promote the videos, be sure to add hashtags with your school name and the store’s name so the videos will pop up in searches. TikTok business accounts also have the option to buy advertisements targeting people in the geographic area.

To get some ideas for video shoots, search out schools in your region or your institution’s peer schools to see what they’re doing.