Museum and history content is gaining traction on TikTok, pointing to the growing role of short-form video platforms in introducing younger audiences to arts, culture and heritage.
Bea Bautista, TikTok’s communications lead for the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, said posts tagged #Museum grew 67% year on year to more than one million globally, while #MuseumTok content rose 48%.
Posts under #HistoryTok, meanwhile, jumped 108% from a year earlier to more than 900,000, while two in five TikTok users worldwide said they are interested in history.
The figures were presented during the TikTok Content Camp: Arts and Culture Advocacy Edition, organized in partnership with Ayala Foundation.
“MuseumTok is making history more dynamic, more inclusive, and more alive than ever before,” Bautista said during the event held at the Ayala Museum in Makati City.
TikTok also launched Museums Come Alive, a series of TikTok LIVE sessions and partnerships with museums around the world that gives viewers behind-the-scenes access to cultural institutions.
Bautista also said 56 of the world’s 100 most-visited museums now have official TikTok accounts, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Museum and the Grand Egyptian Museum.
Even niche institutions such as the Bone Museum in Oklahoma and the Disgusting Food Museum in Sweden have built global audiences on the platform.
Panelists including Cultural Center of the Philippines vice-president and artistic director Dennis Marasigan, UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines secretary-general Ivan Anthony Henares and Ayala Foundation senior director for Arts and Culture Jorell Legaspi discussed how digital platforms can help make cultural content more accessible and discoverable online.
Bautista said museums are increasingly using pop culture, creators and livestreams to make history and cultural content more engaging for younger audiences and to extend their reach beyond physical spaces.
