TikTok recently partnered with Entertainment Week Africa (EWA), a major platform celebrating the heartbeats of the continent’s creative economy. The platform offered a hub where leaders and innovators across music, film, fashion, tech, live production, and entrepreneurship could discover emerging trends, explore bold collaborations, and engage in transformative conversations. This perfectly aligns with TikTok’s mission to fuel discovery and celebrate diverse storytelling across Africa.
A panel discussion at the event titled “Getting It Right: Turning Festival Buzz into Theatrical and Street Breakthroughs,” explored the shifting dynamics of audience engagement and content distribution in the African creative industry, moving from the traditional advantages of the film festival system to the new marketing realities presented by platforms like TikTok. The main assertion was that the established rules of audience discovery and content consumption have been fundamentally redefined.
To maximise visibility within the platform’s algorithm, creators must consistently adhere to best practices: they should maintain a stable content theme (such as sports or food) and ensure their hashtag usage is relevant to the content, with a recommendation of using a maximum of five relevant hashtags.
This approach should specifically target the audience using high-impact hashtags like #MovieTok and #WhatToWatch. This method is effective because it capitalises on the discovery power of #WhatToWatch, which has already seen over 5 million global videos published to date, with the trend growing rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 365k new posts in the first half of 2025 alone.
TikTok’s Content Operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, Boniswa Sidwaba, says,
“Entertainment is synonymous with our platform. Our research has found that almost one in two (47%) users say that they have discovered a new movie by coming to TikTok.”TikTok has seen a resurgence of Nollywood movies through trending soundbites and clips used in creator content. This boom is fueled by local film buffs who have become powerful curators of culture. Creators like Kome Nathaniel (
@_kome_nath) profile leading Nollywood actors and recommend
indigenous language movies, while
@talkswiththandie focuses exclusively on Nollywood shows and movies.
Other influential voices like Tosin Silverdam (
@tosinsilverdam1),
and
@dimejireviewsmovie, have all harnessed various formats, from skits to reviews and reactions, to guide audiences on the best local and international shows, cementing TikTok’s role as the definitive gateway to the African screen.
Deola Art Alade, Founder of Livespot360 and Convener of Entertainment Week Africa, emphasised this partnership: “TikTok’s influence on how stories are told and shared today is undeniable, but what excites us most is its potential to amplify authentic African storytelling on a global scale. Through Creator Day and the education workshops, we’re bridging the gap between creative expression and business acumen. It’s not just about going viral, it’s about giving African creators the knowledge to build longevity, financial literacy, and global relevance in a fast-evolving digital landscape.”
TikTok’s overall message was a crucial shift in focus from chasing simple metrics to prioritising storytelling quality, reinforcing its commitment to empowering the creative ecosystem for sustainable growth.
