😲 Why TikTok Became The Music Industry's New Best Friend

The Chinese short video app proved to be the best platform for artists to becoming international stars!

Whether you’re enjoying the late summer days with a Mojito next to your beach chair or you’re just finishing your new EP for the big launch in autumn, we’re pretty sure this holiday tasting newsletter will catch your attention. Just like a TikTok video: short, interesting, shareable. Do yourself a good thing and hit the subscribe button below 👇

If you didn’t live in a cave until now, you are pretty aware about TikTok and its huge base of active users, hungry for 60 seconds videos. TikTok is the leading time-wasting app, with an impressive 800 million active users (some say it’s actually close to 1 billion) - more than double the users Spotify has, and every major player in the social media business tries to replicate its success one way or another. Youtube has just expanded its Shorts platform to more than 100 countries, making it super appealing to musicians, while Instagram officials clearly stated that they goal is to focus more and more on video rather that still photography. Reels, Instagram’s TikTok clone, now sports a music based search.

Ok, TikTok is the SH*T right now! But what is its impact on the music scene and why does it count for an artist popularity? Well, a study revealed that 75% of TikTok users discovered new artists through the platform, while 67% went to music streaming platforms to listen to the full songs. And looking at the most successful songs on TikTok, there’s a clear corellation between the Chinese short video app and Spotify plays. For example, Masked Wolf’s Astronaut In The Ocean went viral on TikTok in the first months of 2021 and this had a huge impact on the number of plays on Youtube, as you can see below in a screenshot from Soundfeed’s track statistics page.

So maybe it’s time to focus a bit on creating content for TikTok, using your music as a background. Money maker? At this moment, no. Buzz creator and popularity steroid? A big yes: the music listening habit is shifting from the artist-centric to a more mood or situation based way. The Z generation is now interested in the emotions the music triggers rather than the artist who sings, so TikTok may be an opportunity to boost the awareness, the fanbase and eventually the number of paid streams.