my thoughts on Tik Tok potentially being banned in the United States is it's not like it's the first time and I remember when I first created our account for the Sacramento History Museum the summer of 2020 that was even then was a thought was a potential ban on Tik Tok itself so it doesn't worry me uh because I mean I'll I'll think about that once it passes the Senate and it's on the president's desk to sign but uh We've definitely been able to grow on our other platforms uh since then so I don
't see Tik Tok as being our sole way of getting our video content out to our viewers so when we closed uh due to the covid-19 pandemic which today actually marks the last day we were open in 2020 so March 15 um we didn't know what we were going to do museums were closed across the country and uh one of the things that we had a meeting of our our executive director Delta asked us do what you can to keep busy during this time and find some way to keep the museum relevant and so I had been looking
at some seminars that talked about uh you know social media and one of them said you should create a Tik Tok account for your Museum and so I did and that was the way that we were starting to create videos was on Tik Tok and because they had something that no other platform at the time had and that was like a for you page where it's literally just the endless stream of videos and anybody whether you have five followers or a million followers are weighted the same on potentially going viral and s
o that's how we were able to really grow and for from the time of when we first started posting videos in the summer of 2020 until about a year and a half ago all of our videos were on Tik Tok some of them were on our other platforms and now I make sure to get our content across all of our platforms pretty evenly and I've also enjoyed the community that I've been able to to gain off of Tik Tock uh other museums that I've discovered because of Tik Tock and uh the support that we have from the edu
cation and philanthropy Department within Tik Tock itself so we I've actually gone um two different workshops hosted by Tik Tock and presented to other nonprofits and museums about the the role of Tik Tock and how it is beneficial for institutions to uh be able to grow on social media and be able to Market themselves and reach a new audience we were never in it for the money we were never in it for the money um we never we're not part of the Creator fund on Tik Tok because we are unfortunately e
ven though we're a nonprofit Museum we're labeled as a business so uh we can't receive Revenue that way however in 2021 Tik Tock was uh giving $7 million out to nonprofits during giving season and we received $25,000 from Tik Tok just because we're awesome and great and they wanted to support nonprofit so I that was a a wonderful gift from them at the time and we are able to have a donate button on our page so when we do go live on Tik Tok people can donate Direct directly to our uh nonprofit it
self the Sacramento history Alliance on our other platforms you know YouTube we're monetized we're monetized on the other Facebook and Instagram as well but it's not like we're even in it for the money on those platforms either we are mainly on it for education and being able to share our mum that's what's been really wonderful about our growth on social media from when we initially while we were closed reaching people who couldn't visit here because nobody could but even when we reopened we're
not only reaching people who could visit our Museum but we also reach people who will never be able to re visit our Museum because of we have an international following people all over the world tune in to watch our stuff so that's what I feel like we are breaking sort of the barriers of our Museum itself and reaching people wherever they are at in the world and Tik Tok has made that possible and slowly the other platforms are are growing that way too oh yeah if Tik Tok never happened I don't I
don't think we would be having this conversation right now I mean that's what I think Tik Tock has changed the social media game I would say everything is was trying to copy them whether it's reals on Instagram and Facebook or shorts on YouTube creating that vertical format short video form uh was something that really exploded during the pandemic and has become the norm now on social media but it is also Tik Tok I think that we were able to find that new audience and that new audience continued
to grow and grow and eventually as uh people have found us on our other platforms but we have pretty held true to our pretty pretty large following on Tik Tok we are the number one Museum in the world on Tik Tok and but we're also now the number one Museum in the world on YouTube what would we do if Tik Tok was banned um well we would have to certainly change our signage that says follow us on Tik Tok that's for sure um but uh I I I don't think it would change us that much in regards to like ou
r regular format that we do I think it would definitely hinder us going live I've always enjoyed going live on Tik Tok itself and I haven't gone live on other platforms so people will actually tune in to us usually on Friday mornings and watch Howard and I Howard is the other individual who works in the print shop with me and we do a Q&A with our viewers and we we see anywhere from from two to 10,000 people tuning in to watch us and on a on a Friday morning you know like it's obviously not peopl
e in Sacramento tuning in they're they're at work or at school you know these are people from uh across the country and across the world watching us we would certainly have to Pivot quite a bit I think Tik Tok is always the first platform I get our videos up on in the morning um it's going to definitely shift my routine around but that's also if we've ever connected with creators other creators and done collaborations it's always because of Tik Tock so I'd have to try a little bit harder to go b
eyond outside our normal stuff I would say he's been that since day one Howard has always been Howard I mean I think I think if we stopped posting videos tomorrow just completely he would go back to what he was doing even before we started posting videos my job I mean I don't think my job would really exist really because that's been our our primary driver on social media is creating video content but we've always kind of like jokes back and forth like what are you going to do should we do a vid
eo you know should we like do something that says hey support Tik Tock and uh we've just had so many other projects that uh we've been working on that we haven't been able to get around to it but yeah we we we trade a couple jokes back and forth in the morning all the time but tick Howard even though he is in his mid 80s and a dosent at the Sacramento History Museum he doesn't have a Tik Tok account himself but he does to he does go on to Tik Tok I he has the link to our main page and he likes t
o read the comments that people have because uh usually they're overwhelmingly positive and some people ask pretty genuine questions that help gear us towards new videos that we create so that is going to be something that we lose for sure is that we definitely have an audience that is interested in what we do Beyond that's a nice video they're actually comments saying hey can you talk more about this or about that and that has helped us figure out new video ideas uh because we have such an enga
ging audience on that platform oh this again like that was the that was what I thought like but however this one this potential ban was a lot more than just our previous president saying I think I'm going to ban Tik Tok this was uh pretty large effort as you could see the vote was overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives to ban Tik Tock I haven't been following it too much to see what the Senate thinks but um yeah it's uh it was a pretty good reaction because I feel like maybe this time it
had hap it would happen but I'm certainly hope it doesn't because I've certainly enjoyed what we've been able to create on Tik Tok you know know when I about a a year or two ago they they were they would have commercials that would say it started on Tik Tok and it truly did start on Tik Tok for us like we wouldn't have videos as our driving force for our social media onto whe we wouldn't even have a Tik Tok account just like we wouldn't have videos on our other platforms Tik Tok is what gave us
the opportunity to format videos in a specific way vertical under a minute and be able to share some segment of Sacramento history not only with our local audience but the world and I've always appreciated that you know Tik Tok is the platform that we have the most support from and I don't think people realize just how how uh much that Tik Tok supports education they support nonprofits they support museums the fact that I even went to a workshop in Austin Texas that Tik Tok flew me to so I coul
d go present to other museums this was about a year ago present to other museums who didn't even have a Tik Tok account yet just to share with them our experience and to share with these other museums and nonprofits and cultural in institutions about the role that the platform has it's it's well beyond prank videos or dancing or anything like that we share real educational content and I've thought about just how much that Tik Tok has helped us to break down the barriers of our Museum and share n
ot only with an audience that could visit our Museum anytime or or anything like that because they live locally but to reach an audience that would never be able to visit our Museum because of Tik Tok it's changed our social media strategy uh because of Tik Tock and everybody wanting prints that we show on our videos we started to sell prints in our gift shop something that was you know our Museum's been around since 1985 never have we really had prints for sale in our Museum Store but we do now
and people buy them across the country I wouldn't believe that somebody in uh New York or Boston or North Carolina would be buying one of our prints because they watched it on a video and they watched it be printed on Tik Tok so I just I just think that's incredible I mean it it could impact uh visitors that we get because every day we have people that come in and say that they W that they watch our videos on social media and a good majority of that say that they watch our videos on Tik Tok so
they're hearing about us and learning about us from Tik Tock so if Tik Tok is banned then that prevents us from further growing on that platform and reaching even more new people who didn't know that our Museum existed we do have other people that come in and say they watch our videos on Instagram and YouTube but I would say a majority is Tik Tok
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