TikTok Japan's Operations team held a hashtag workshop for students this May at iroots lounge Keio, a student-only cafe near Keio University, in Tokyo, Japan. This workshop was held with the wider aim of teaching university students how hashtags work on the platform, the ideas behind popular hashtags, and how the operations team designs each hashtag.
Unique to the TikTok platform are hashtag challenges, which users can participate in by simply posting a video under popular hashtags and engaging with other videos created for the hashtag challenge.
Our operations team is the brain behind these hashtags, and as our team members explained, they think of themselves as #15SecDesigners because they design everything according to the 15-second time limit of TikTok videos. The team explained how the challenge for them is to think of ideas that are interesting, but also simple enough to attract users to participate easily.
A few of the hashtags that have been popular in Japan include #アイドルシャッター (#IdolShutter), where people do three poses according to the instructions on screen and #フリーズチャレンジ (#FreezeChallenge), where a user pose for 14 seconds without moving, confusing the viewers into thinking the video is actually a photo, before moving at the last second to reveal its a video.
Students were then given 20 minutes after the mini lecture to think of hashtags themselves, before pitching their idea, their target audience, and the background of their hashtag idea.
The winning group came up with a hashtag that focused on boba or bubble tea. The operations team chose this as the winning idea because of how simple it is for users to participate in, along with the catchiness and contextual relevancy of the hashtag.
The team here in Japan would like to extend our thanks to everyone who participated in this workshop. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did interacting with this energetic and enthusiastic group!
We also took a #FreezeChallenge video with the group which you could check out here on TikTok: http://vt.tiktok.com/JUYYm8/
At TikTok, you can be the change, just like our #15SecDesginer team.
If you're interested in becoming a #15SecDesigner, please click Search Jobs to explore more roles in Tokyo!
We look forward to hearing from you.
