by By Eva Price
Want your music to be heard? Try Tik Tok. It is being used as a creative space for a wide range of musicians. Whether it is a popular artist sharing a new song or an artist that posts from their bedroom, the music side of Tik Tok has helped these artists gain a lot of popularity. For example, artist Lil Nas X released a song called “Old Town Road” in 2018; The #YeeHawChallenge on Tik Tok made the song trend around the world and gave Lil Nas X a lot of recognition. Since, he has released many more songs that have gotten over one billion listens on Spotify and has received multiple grammy awards.
Someone may post a video of them singing or playing an instrument and go viral overnight. It is also a space for more famous artists to gain a larger following, more listens and more money— which is threatening to the traditional ways of music industry. According to MI College of Contemporary Music, Tik Tok has changed the music industry significantly. Instead of billboard charts affecting viral Tik Tok songs, the trending songs on Tik Tok are now affecting billboard charts. Marketers are using this to their advantage by paying influencers to use their songs. When a popular influencer makes a short video using their song, it will inspire their followers to do the same. These videos appear all over people’s “For You” page, which introduces them to music they wouldn’t normally listen to and hence result in the artist gaining more downloads through Apple Music and Spotify. There are even curated Spotify playlists that include the most popular songs on the internet. For example, the playlist “tik tok songs trending in 2022” has 12 hours worth of the most viral Tik Tok songs and 338,696 followers.
The app has a music team that works specifically on shaping music trends. They are responsible for adding songs to the “sounds” section so people can use the top, most commonly played songs in their videos. Artists and music labels incorporate memes and Tik Tok trends into their music creating process in order for the music to successfully flow through the app’s algorithm. Also, according to INSIDER, they “Host private listening parties with Tik Tok creators” to help promote their song before the official release date.
Tik Tok is taking a new approach to sharing the talents of new artists as well as the enjoyment of new songs from popular artists. It provides more opportunity as well as influences what songs make it to Today’s Top Hits.
Thank you for reading! Feel free to message me on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/eva-price
Hi Eva! I really enjoyed your post. I think the concept of #musictok is interesting and you explained it extremely well. TikTok is a great way to advertise for yourself or your company, and many users found that out early on. I find myself on the singer-songwriter side of TikTok fairly often, but I can’t complain. I have found over fifty songs from artists on TikTok all because they were on my For You Page. I hope artists continue to use the platform to promote their work!
Hey!
This is a great post topic. TikTok has definitely made a major impact on the music industry and, as you said, has created a space for smaller artists to achieve both online virality and fame. Megan Thee Stallion is another super successful artist who gained lots of popularity on the app. Something I consider is how the prospect of going viral with short snippets of similarly catchy songs may change the actual content and structure of music.
Tik Tok has gained so much power and influence over pop culture trends in such a short amount of time. Music is such a huge part of that. It’s interesting to see how quickly one app can influence a person’s life and career. Another example of an artist whose music blew up on Tik Tok is Doja Cat, who has had major internet success with her albums “Hot Pink” and “Planet Her”.
Hi Eva! I really liked how this post analyzed how the way people consume music has fundamentally changed since the rise of TikTok. In a lot of cases, even people who don’t own the app are now having their listening experiences shaped by trends on the platform that they don’t even know are going on. I also think it is hilarious that “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac blew up a second time because of one viral video.
This blog post was so interesting and based in how Tik Tok is truly affecting our everyday lives now. Before reading this I did not know that “the app has a music team that works specifically on shaping music trends and are responsible for adding songs to the “sounds” section so people can use the top, most commonly played songs in their videos.” This is honestly cool because it is creating more job opportunities through a social media app that continues to be so prevalent. My question is do we think Tik Tok will continue to trend of soon fade away?
Eva I really enjoyed this post. I completely agree with you that Tik Tok is single handedly changing the face of the music industry. Because there are over 1 billion users, it is safe to say that this Tik Tok trend is here to stay. One trend I noticed with music on Tik Tok is that many of these creators are creating songs, but they are only around a minute and a half long. While normal songs are typically upwards of three minutes, these short songs by creators shows a shift in a decreasing attention span. Its also interesting because Tik Tok encourages people to repeatedly listen to short snippets of songs. This is transformative and something we haven’t seen in the music industry before.
Eva I love this blog post! I have found so many new artists and songs through TikTok. Even when making my own silly videos, choosing the song is the hardest part. You mentioned that trending songs are now affecting billboard charts. I find this FASCINATING. I can’t believe that one social media app (and a pandemic) has contributed to a major shift in the music industry. A $26B industry I might add. As I look for jobs I have found entire companies that are dedicated to music marketing through influencers. Such an interesting way to get music out there.
I had no idea that TikTok had a whole music team! Considering everything is so calculated, I am surprised that TikTok has been able to have this casual, fun and easy reputation for this long. Additionally, moving forward it will be very interesting to find how how labels rope TikTok into their plans for their artists. We are beginning to see it now, but it is somewhat transparent as of right now. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future there was an entire TikTok section devoted to music. I loved this article!