How can I increase the number of followers by creating a museum account on Douyin?

The author of this article breaks down the operational cases of museum accounts on Douyin and explains the highlights for everyone's reference and learning.

Did you know? May 18th of every year is International Museum Day. "International Museum Day" was initiated by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to promote the healthy development of the global museum industry and attract the public's understanding, participation and attention to the museum industry.

The reason we talked about this festival is that the combination of museum + TikTok has attracted widespread attention more than once. Do you still remember the "First Cultural Relics Drama Conference" on the 518 International Museum Day in 2018?

Douyin, together with seven major museums (National Museum of China, Hunan Provincial Museum, Nanjing Museum, Shanxi Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Guangdong Provincial Museum and Zhejiang Museum), launched the #嗯~神奇博物馆# topic event and simultaneously launched the event preheating H5 "The First Cultural Relics Drama Conference". This museum H5 went online on the evening of May 17 and was widely circulated in the circle of friends. It was subsequently banned twice by WeChat and became a hot topic among self-media.

Within two days of the launch of the first Douyin ✖ Museum event, more than 30,000 people participated, helping the @National Museum's Douyin account gain 254,000 followers in four days, with a single video receiving 10.42 million views. To date, the topic #嗯~神奇博物馆# has been played over 770 million times.

In 2019, museums across the country have set up accounts on short video platforms, dedicated to promoting local history and culture on short video platforms. The combination of Tik Tok and Museum has become one of the most eye-catching events every year.

This article will discuss the difficulties in increasing followers for museum-type accounts on Douyin, and how high-quality museum accounts increase followers. At the end of the article, it will mention how ordinary people can cleverly use the popularity of museums to create popular videos.

What are the popular museum accounts on TikTok? The "2019 Douyin Data Report" released by Douyin counted the top 10 museums with the most likes in 2019. Although the Forbidden City with a history of 600 years is the most popular, in terms of the number of fans, it is the National Museum of China that currently has the most fans.

NO.1 Why is it difficult to increase followers for a museum account on Douyin?

Although there are some hot-selling accounts of museums in various regions on Douyin, there are only a few that have millions of followers. There are three main reasons:

1. Museum accounts have obvious regional attributes and a small audience

The Forbidden City is a dimensional wall-breaking existence in the museum circle. It breaks through the limitations of regional culture. As an imperial city with a long history of 600 years, the Forbidden City has accumulated many historical stories and interesting mysteries. It is not only an exhibition place for ancient cultural relics, but also a gathering place for Chinese civilization. Compared with the Forbidden City, museum accounts in other regions serve more as sub-sites to promote local cultural relics and history. Apart from the locals who are likely to pay attention, it is difficult for users in other regions to establish cultural belonging and identity.

(Tik Tok accounts of provincial museums)

2. Most of them are institutional accounts, and the content focuses on brand promotion

The museum's accounts are basically certified as official blue Vs, and the content is relatively scattered, covering in-museum lectures, news updates, visit notices, and casual photos of cultural relics. They are not interesting enough to impress users, and the verticality of the content segmentation is not focused enough. In addition, due to being limited to institutional accounts, it is difficult for users to feel the personalized charm of this account. If there is no major breakthrough in the form of content presentation, it will be difficult to stand out from many interesting cultural accounts.

3. The video presentation is dull and lacks “new bottle”

Cultural relics are dead, but the people, realities, creation background and process behind them are the real souls that can attract people's attention. Simply photographing and displaying cultural relics is like separating users from a different dimension through the screen. Without the actual in-depth offline museum experience, it is difficult for users to feel worship and admiration for a cold object from the bottom of their hearts. In this regard, museums with rich collection resources, complete historical and cultural materials, and thorough research on cultural relics have greater advantages, and can launch attractive and high-quality cultural relic videos in more ways and dimensions.

NO.2 How do high-quality museum accounts on Douyin gain followers?

Although museums have their own difficulties in moving to short videos, some accounts have attracted a large number of fans through innovation in form and content and the accumulation of cultural and artistic works.

1. Cultural Relics Science

• Features: Display the unique structure, excavation process, historical background, etc. of the cultural relics themselves
• Representative account: National Museum of China

The collection of "National Museum's Collection Cloud Appreciation" on the National Museum's Douyin homepage, each video introduces a cultural relic, focusing on the origin, structure and design, function and collection significance of the cultural relic. For example, when explaining the Terracotta Warriors, the eighth wonder of the world, they would say things like "They have many brothers, more than 8,000 in total", "The two young Qin soldiers are as tall as real people, but they wear different clothes, and they look different if you look closely". Such popular science explanations are very down-to-earth and full of dry goods. It can be used as a homework book for next time you visit a museum.

2. Historical and cultural interpretation

• Features: Popularize science and explain knowledge based on the building itself
• Representative account: Gong Gongjun who only reveals his voice, Fang Bo

Gongdianjun's account is just as its name suggests. The entire video only has the voices of characters but no real people. It is said that accounts without any personalities find it difficult to attract fans, but this account shows what it means to gain fans with real strength. The absence of voices allows users to focus more on the buildings and cultural relics themselves. Combined with the author's explanation, watching the videos gives people a sense of fulfillment as if they have learned something new. In addition, the videos present real scenes of buildings or cultural relics, which can inspire users to like, collect or share. Next time you visit a museum in person, you will most likely think of this type of account and look for it again.

(Left: Non-real person; Right: Real person)

3. The characters in famous paintings are transformed into drama

• Features: Select representative works of art or cultural relics of figures and perform them in a “dramatic” way
• Representative account: Museum No. 33

Directly turning the characters in the artworks into "actors", performing small sitcoms with real people and virtual characters, this way of playing makes the common artworks such as portraits come alive, and the originally motionless mannequins seem to have real personalities: Zhu Yuanzhang complained that netizens said he looked like a toilet; when the emperor received a fraudulent call, he was confused about which child to transfer the money to (because he had too many children~); if the entire museum was disconnected from the Internet, Jesus, who could turn on the hotspot, would be the savior of everyone...

Such a creative plot setting brings the artwork to life, making it easier for people to find it novel and pay attention.

4. Appreciation of the details of famous paintings

• Features: Displayed with details of ancient Chinese paintings
• Representative account: Ancient Painting Records

By interpreting the many details in ancient figure paintings, the story of ancient people's life is told, starting with details such as clothing, hair accessories, entertainment methods, customs, etc., and using interesting points to attract users, such as: Do you want to know about the life of the ladies of the Qing Dynasty? Do you want to know what Qianlong and his concubines looked like? The five major forms of entertainment for ancient women, etc. The shooting is simple, and the ingenuity of the content lies in the delicate selection of topics.

NO.3 Why can museum accounts on Douyin gain followers?

1. Satisfy users’ curiosity

Modern people may be more or less curious about everything about the ancients, just like most people like to talk about celebrities and gossip. In addition, the differences in customs, living environment and historical background make the lives of the ancients seem mysterious and interesting.

2. Satisfy users’ curiosity

What kind of tools did the ancients invent with limited technology? What were these objects used for in ancient times? The National Museum's collection of popular science on the artifacts, as well as the video released by the Shaanxi Museum on the working principle of the national treasure "Backflow Teapot", the rigorous popular science plus the unique structure of the artifacts themselves can satisfy users' curiosity and thus receive a large number of likes.

3. Satisfy users’ desire for fun

The National Museum of China has released a video that makes cultural relics move. The cheerful music and the switching of a large number of cultural relics form a fast-paced switching of character movements. It looks as if the ancient cultural relics are moving, which is very magical. Users have given positive comments such as "This is a unique display of cultural relics" and "The National Museum of China is addictive." Museum account No. 33 directly released famous paintings, turning Mona Lisa, Jesus, and Van Gogh into its own unique actors, and attracted millions of fans with its creative plots.

NO.4 A review of the museum challenge on TikTok

There are many topics about museum challenges on Douyin. I have compiled 7 high-quality activities that are suspected to be officially organized.

The theme of the 518 "International Museum Day" that just passed this year was "Museums dedicated to equality: diversity and inclusion". Douyin launched the #云博物馆topic event. Unlike previous events, this time the challenge event mainly focused on online live broadcasts. Mainstream media and museum institutions have joined hands with cultural celebrities to participate in it.

The first live broadcast was led by the Palace Museum and started on May 17. More than 500,000 netizens flocked to the live broadcast room to watch the Forbidden City live broadcast on Douyin, and followed the tour guide to learn about the Forbidden City’s century-old cultural heritage and the beauty of spring scenery. Since June 13, 2015, the Palace Museum has officially implemented a daily limit of 80,000 people, which means that the number of viewers on the day of the live broadcast exceeded the Palace Museum's normal weekly visitor flow.

The live broadcast format makes online museum visits seem very lively, and many netizens left messages saying that they were "fans of the tour guide" and "I didn't realize so many tricks when I visited the Forbidden City before." It can be seen that cultural relics will never become outdated. However, among the mute objects, there needs to be people who understand history and can explain to interpret them and convey the historical stories behind the cultural relics to users.

Compared with the number of museums participating in the first event, the number of participating museums this time has increased to more than 20, including: Old Summer Palace, Dunhuang Academy, Shanxi Museum, Guangdong Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Nanjing Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, Shaanxi Museum, China Geological Museum, Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum, Gansu Provincial Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, Xi'an Museum, and Chengdu Museum.
It is foreseeable that in the future more and more museums will leverage short video platforms to display their treasured rare cultural relics.

The series of activities of Douyin and museums has become one of the important activities that Douyin must promote every year. As an amateur, if you are not focusing on the field of knowledge and culture to create a popular science or interpretation account, how else can you take advantage of the museum's popularity?

As far as I know, there are some hot topics: the first snow in the Forbidden City, the lighting of the Forbidden City during the Lantern Festival, wearing ancient costumes in the Forbidden City is like traveling through time, details of the Forbidden City , etc.

(It’s snowing in the Forbidden City, a hot spot that both amateurs and officials can take advantage of)

(Discover the small details in the Forbidden City)

If you haven’t created a hit product yet, try multiplying your marketing calendar with that of a museum.

The above is the operation case of Douyin museum account that I analyzed. Before the next museum festival comes, remember to catch the hot spots.

Author: Tian Xin

Source: Operator's Notes