There’s no question about the potential engagement opportunities in reaching younger audiences on TikTok — if a news brand can cut through the algorithms and sheer quantity of content. And that is a true challenge. Even if a news media brand can cut through the sea of videos, they may only gain a second or two of attention.

In April 2023, Expressen in Sweden reapproached its social media strategy and set fresh goals for TikTok based on a new social media strategy:

1. Increasing reach and interaction to create a relationship with the Expressen brand.
2. Getting many to follow its accounts for deeper engagement and making Expressen top of mind.
3. Encouraging TikTok users to start visiting Expressen’s Web site and download its app.
4. Giving Expressen’s Web site visitors the opportunity to access TikTok content in an attractive way, with a social media-inspired advertising solution.

Embracing experimentation

For Expressen, experimentation was key to crafting the right balance of fast, visual, and personal interactive videos to break through the noise. By highlighting young people’s perspectives, Expressen’s TikTok offers comprehensive coverage of major news and events in a manner that makes viewers feel included.

The editorial team uses an internal analysis tool, the TikTok-score, to improve content. The score combines quantity measures like video views and reach with qualitative measures like completion rate, comments, and likes.

Through this approach, Expressen is reaching its target audience and proving credible journalism can engage people on the platform.

In 2023, Expressen was acclaimed as the most engaging news media on TikTok in Sweden in a study by Medieakademin, and the fifth most engaging TikTok account across all categories. The data supports this study: Expressen’s videos amassed 299 million views, with an average of 412,000 views per video.

Nurturing a more direct relationship

While Expressen’s TikTok account nearly doubled its followers from 170,000 to 326,000, the company also worked to deepen its audience relationship off of the social media platform. Through TikTok, Expressen encouraged viewers to visit its Web site and download its app, resulting in several thousand Web site clicks on individual days, and several hundred app downloads.

To keep meeting this audience’s needs on its own platform, Expressen’s mobile site now features TikTok videos in a specially designed player with a social media-inspired video and advertising solution developed in collaboration with SeenThis. Visitors to the Web site have high engagement with this feature, which has drawn a sensational interest from advertisers.

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