Music Marketing on TikTok can be fun and successful. TikTok is a video-sharing app reminiscent of Vine that allows users to upload 15 second- or one-minute videos.
The appeal of TikTok versus other social media platforms for marketing your music is that users can borrow a sound and make it their own. You can also go viral quickly as TikTok videos can reach a vast audience quickly.
TikTok has over 850 million active users and 2 billion app downloads in over 150 countries around the world.
So, there is huge potential to promote your music to a wide audience on TikTok. And, when a song becomes trending on TikTok, it typically does well on Spotify as well.
Example: Salem Ilese’s ‘Mad At Disney’
The new single ‘Mad at Disney’, by Salem Ilese, Bendik Møller, and Jason Hahsnew, is now getting over a million streams a day just on Spotify because of its success on TikTok.
Using TikTok marketing, singer Ilese gained more exposure in four months than she had in over a decade of singing and songwriting.
The song’s successes literally happened overnight.
Ilese uploaded a video of her singing ‘Mad At Disney’ on TikTok, and the next day it had hundreds of thousands of views, she explained in an interview with Rolling Stone. While this example may combine luck with a niche audience, you can also find success in marketing your music on TikTok.
TikTok: Music Marketing
So how do you promote your song on TikTok?
After spending some time on the app to familiarize yourself, here are three steps to start marketing your music on TikTok.
1. Set Up a Contest
Post a video of you challenging viewers to a contest.
This will get them to create their own content using your sound. You could challenge them to create unique moves, make the funniest video, or do the best lip sync.
Make sure to add a unique hashtag to the contest as hashtags help create visibility.
2. Collab with TikTok Influencers
Partner with TikTok influencers to get your content in front of their followers.
Make sure to pick an influencer who makes sense with your brand. Choose relevance over reach when selecting another creator to work with.
You could ask them to use your song as a soundtrack and give you a shout-out, use Duet mode to create a partner video, or develop a vibe/meme that others will want to mimic.
3. Be Authentic, Not Perfect
TikTok is an incredibly personal platform. Be authentic.
Don’t try to please everyone – with a crowd of 850 million people, TikTok videos spread quickly when tailored to a certain aesthetic or niche.
But even focusing on a niche, you can still reach millions of people. TikTok has had massive growth since the pandemic, and now is a good time to capitalize on that.
And when videos can go viral overnight, start creating videos now to get your song promoted on TikTok.
