With the rising influence of social media in today’s world, Iona College’s Media & Strategic Communication department is finding new ways to prepare its students for the complexity of the social media landscape. In the spring 2020-21 semester, Iona College will be offering a course focused solely on TikTok, a popular app for making and sharing short, entertaining videos.

The three credit elective course, TikTok Masterclass, will teach students about the rise of TikTok’s fame, its algorithm and the bandwidth and skills required to create a tiktok for branding and marketing purposes.

TikTok was born in Beijing. It’s parent company is ByteDane, a Chinese internet technology company. The app acquired its US based rival, Music.ly, in 2018 and merged the two apps together, causing TikTok’s popularity to skyrocket.

Since its launch in 2017, TikTok has been downloaded more than a billion times. According to Statista, it has more user engagement than Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.

The mobile platform is unique in that it allows users to create, edit and share short video clips that are geared with filters and include the latest music trends. It includes lip syncing, short dances, comedy and talent videos that create new memes and trends. It has proven highly successful with younger audiences, but has also gained some traction among older groups.

As TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media apps, many students are looking forward to taking the course.

“A Tiktok class would be a fun, entertaining course for students to take,” junior Thomas Mortensen said. “I know I will be registering for that class.”

Other students recognize the app’s acclaim but think the school should focus their efforts in other areas.

“…I spend hours scrolling through videos, literally dying of laughter,” sophomore Tiffany Persuad said. “However, if Iona offers a course on TikTok, it’s a complete waste of money. Iona doesn’t even splurge on the education of STEM or liberal arts majors, let alone a program on social media.”

To learn more about this course, visit the Media & Strategic Communication home page on Iona’s website.