You should be promoting your music on TikTok
Over the past two years, TikTok has become a premier music promotion tool for Artists and record labels. The video sharing platform launched in 2016 by Chinese company, ByteDance, has absolutely taken the world by storm, having a large effect on music and culture. In 2020 alone, over 70 artists that had songs trending on TikTok signed major record deals. As a music artist, trending on TikTok can change your career forever.
Why is TikTok important for music artists?
Because all videos posted on TikTok are backed with an audio snippet (usually a song), music is intrinsic to the user experience. Also fundamental to TikTok’s user experience, is its capacity for discovery. TikTok’s algorithm curates a unique content feed for every user. This is called the “For You Page.” The content shown to users on their FYP is specific to their taste, and the more a user interacts with TikTok, the more tailored their FYP becomes.
TikTok’s algorithm is amazing at showing people new content that it knows they will like, making the potential for discovery and virality easier than ever. Simply put, promoting your music on TikTok gives you the best chance to have your music discovered by new fans.
How to promote your music on TikTok in 4 easy steps
Clearly TikTok is the best place to be promoting your music, but how should you go about it?
1. Release your music on TikTok
You can get your music on TikTok the same way you get it on any streaming platform, through a Music Distribution Service. Companies like TuneCore, DistroKid, & CDBaby distribute your music to a variety of platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and TikTok. These companies also help you earn royalties from your songs, so it’s a good idea to utilize a distribution service that you trust.
2. Know your audience
The world of entertainment exists within the attention economy. TikTok’s main focus is to keep users entertained so they spend as much time on the App as possible. All social media platforms work like this, but TikTok’s emphasis on entertainment goes further than the rest. Khartoon Weiss, the head of global agency and accounts at TikTok, has explicitly described the application as an entertainment platform, not a social network. TikTok is the most engaging application on the market, and when promoting music on it, you have to consider the entertainment value you’re providing to TikTok users.
The goal of any sophisticated music promotion campaign on TikTok should be to stimulate as much User Generated Content (UGC) as possible. This means that you as the artist may not be the center of attention, but that is perfectly ok! Focus on creating an exciting and interactive trend or challenge that has your song at the core of it all. To do this, users need to be encouraged to use your song in their videos, so keep in mind what type of content and trends your audience is inclined to engage with.
3. Find your “meme moment”
It could be the hook, but it could also be the intro… keep an open mind. TikTok videos are generally around 15 seconds, so you should look to capture a unique moment in your song that will grab the viewers’ attention and keep them engaged. Memes are the love language of the internet, so don’t be afraid to use them! The meme doesn’t necessarily have to match the spirit of the song, but it should be some combination of memorable, funny, shocking, relatable, interactive, and multifunctional. Influencers are experts at creating clever memes and memorable content, so you should make sure to work with them or someone on their team to help find the “meme moment” in your song.
4. Partner with TikTok Influencers
Tastemakers have always been instrumental in the music industry. These days, influencers are the taste makers. The importance of TikTok influencers within the music industry cannot be understated. Kristen Bender, SVP of digital strategy and business development at Universal Music Group, stated during a webinar with Business Insider, “TikTok has really become a crucial part of artist storytelling.”
Remember that feeling when a friend first showed you a new song and you immediately fell in love with it? What about the feeling when you were at a concert and the opening act was so good that all you could think about was their music after the show, and not the headliner’s? Music and experience go hand-in-hand; furthermore, the way in which you first experience someone’s music can have a large impact on whether or not you like it. The more personal the experience is, the more likely the listener is to become a fan, and even a superfan. Someone experiencing your song for the first time while it is accompanied by their favorite type of video content from their favorite influencers, has an extremely high potential to become a fan of your music.
Promoting your music through influencer marketing is the most effective way to create buzz around your music, find new fans, and get your song trending on TikTok. Keep in mind, songs that trend on TikTok often end up charting on the billboard 100. It can be difficult to get in contact with TikTok influencers, and since they are constantly being bombarded with opportunities, they don’t necessarily spend their time looking for new music to promote. This is where Greenlight Group comes in.
What is Greenlight Group?
Greenlight Group creates custom strategies for the new era of digital interaction. With years of experience working one-on-one with a diverse group of top influencers, our team has the knowledge and expertise to help you run high-performing and efficient influencer marketing campaigns (IMCs). There is no better group to help you promote your music through creators.
We take a bespoke approach to TikTok music promotion, tailoring every campaign to the specific needs of each individual client.
With over 500,000 influencers in our ecosystem, and proprietary search + select technology, we curate the perfect team of creators to promote your music and cultivate your audience on TikTok.
Through niche content matching and proven dissemination strategies, our influencer marketing campaigns deliver results.
Whether its advising on campaign strategy, ideating creative concepts, curating the perfect team of influencers, or providing detailed data tracking and KPI’s, Greenlight Group has the knowledge, experience, and skillset to effectively promote your music on TikTok.
