Confused about how city hall works? This Thunder Bay city councillor wants to change that

The social media app known as TikTok is fuelled by videos - millions of them - dropped nearly non stop from all corners of the world. Most of the videos are of people dancing, cute baby animals or maybe the unboxing of a new item.

But recently, a Thunder Bay city councillor has taken to TikTok to try and engage another demographic on the ins and outs of municipal politics.

"I've always been one to use social as a platform to get information across," said Ch'ng." I kind of came up with a bit of a formula and after the TikTok explosion, that's kind of the style of videos that more people are watching."

For the past few months Ch'ng has been dropping TikTok videos that run the gamut from reading the Oath of Allegiance to running down the dates for budget deliberations. Ch'ng admits her videos are not what most people post to the site, but her style matches what the site looks for. 

She said choosing what subjects to do videos on can be a little trickier.

"It typically comes down to whatever's going on at council at the time," she said. "So I do the this video series called the '12 Second Agenda' and I just pick things that I think people would want to comment on."

Ch'ng said she was inspired to start doing videos about council when people would ask her what was going on at the meetings. She said that got her thinking about trying to do videos that would remove some of the mystery and confusion some about council and things like the budget. Ch'ng also said the videos are primarily meant to reach a demographic that traditional sources of news and information may be missing.

"We have our traditional media like newspaper and radio and TV," said Ch'ng. "That really has a certain demographic. So this way it's like quick nugget pieces that hopefully supplement maybe some of the the gaps that we have in our collective education about municipal politics."

Simran Talpade is a pre-law and political science student Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. After seeing Ch'ng's account, she said she appreciated the innovative attempt to reach younger residents.

"It's refreshing to see both sides of a politician, as her videos alternate between professional content which is informative in it's own right, and her own personal life, which helps the public get a feel of her character," said Talpade. "It also just seems a good method to promote the council in general to younger people."

Talpade said she has seen Ch'ng's videos pop up on the 'for you page'. She assumes the TikTok app knows she lives in Thunder Bay would be interested in content coming from the same city.

"This method of announcements is helpful," said Talpade said, "It has the chance of showing up on different people's 'For You' pages, which might incite an interest for them in their city council and its activities."

Talpade said if she could suggest any improvements to Ch'ng, it would be to "branch out a bit more" to gain a larger audience. She said using using relevant hashtags can engage popular trends, which can in turn reach a specific demographic.

Ch'ng said she plans to continue doing the videos as time permits and is still learning about how to best use social media.

She said she usually cross posts her videos to Instagram, but has discovered that political content tends to be "throttled there," which means the app shows it on fewer feeds. Ch'ng said TikTok seems to be more open to videos such as hers.

Ch'ng said she is pleased that the council-focused videos have had a good reception and hopes that some of her colleagues — including Mayor Ken Boshcoff — consider taking to social media more often and have some fun, while also showing the business of council.

"I do want to see him on TikTok," she said. "And I do ask other council members to appear in cameos every now and then. So, Mayor Boshcoff, I'm coming for you!"