Hacking it in 2022 and beyond: Musicians and The Rise of TikTok
While it may not be what everyone wants to hear, TikTok is reshaping the music industry, and quite rapidly at that. Rare are the days when you walk into a music store, spot a cool-looking album and give it a shot. Labels aren’t commonly going to shows to scout out bands to sign, instead, they are scrolling social media.
Social media first played a pivotal role in the music landscape in the early 2000s. It was the era of music forums and Myspace. Promoting your music was simple, fun, and often natural. Myspace users would share their favourite song on their profile, and another user would soon discover that song. A flow-on effect would happen, and fans multiplied rapidly. Musicians, more than ever, felt accessible to fans too. Bands might post happy birthday to you, they’d put you in their “top friends”, they’d be contactable via message. Artists could soon launch their new music, tour and merch on their profile — and the fans would do the work in marketing it.
Twenty years later, Myspace has vanished. We’ve since seen Tumblr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram bring on new and innovative ways to launch your artistry and find new fans.
Of course, the most prolific social media platform in recent years is TikTok. Forget posting a simple photo, a song or a sentence to get audiences excited. Now, you seemingly have to combine all of those things at once, make sure it’s funny, make sure it’s memorable, make sure it’s shareable, make sure it’s likeable and pray to the algorithm Gods it gets seen. Oh yeah, did we mention you’ll need to add your music there too? And make sure it’s no longer than 40 seconds!
Adelaide’s Peach PRC had dreams of a music career for as long as she could remember. The 24-year-old is now a prominent singer-songwriter. She also holds another title: social media sensation.
@peachprc GIAF acoustic coming 1st April ?
♬ original sound - Peach PRC
@inoxiasounds MAKE THIS MORE VIRAL THAN THE GIRL THAT UPLOADED ME AND DIDNT CREDIT @buiibeu #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #dancemonkey #viral #inoxia #busker #singer ♬ original sound - INOXIA
Peach PRC is credited as one of the most successful Australian creators on TikTok. That’s because she doesn’t just post her music. She seemingly lets viewers in on every tidbit of her life. She has a knack for creating unbelievably clever content, like her “rejection hotline” in conjunction with her single Josh. She gave her audience a phone number they could pass on to people who didn’t want to undertake the awkward moment of rejecting someone. Of course, it was a successful recipe for virality - and in 2022, virality sells a song!
Tiktok has been a phenomenal success for many Australian artists in recent years. It’s, more often than not, by accident. Dean Lewis, Kid Laroi, or Sam Fischer. These artists didn’t get their chart-topping hit because of a well-produced music video or radio airplay. They made it through a song going viral.
Tones & I have to be up there with the biggest successes. Thanks to a viral “Dance Monkey Challenge” and a catchy hook to boot, the success of Tone’s and I’s Dance Monkey was and still is, astronomical, topping the charts in over 30 countries and staying #1 on the singles charts for 24 weeks.
'But we don’t want to be content creators, we want to make music' is a quote commonly heard in the music industry today. We’ve seen this evidence recently through major music industry players, such as Halsey, Adele and FKA Twigs speaking about it. We see upcoming bands make self-deprecating jokes about it on stage and then seemingly post 6 TikToks that week. And that is fair! The skill of content creation may come naturally for Peach PRC, but for other musicians like yourself, it may feel torturous, exhausting and overwhelming. While many pop and rock stars can and do say no to TikTok, it’s not so easy when you’re at the beginning of your career.
Here are our ten steps to conquering the TikTok phenomena as a musician:
- If you roll your eyes at the thought of TikTok, it’s probably not for you. Social media users want authenticity first and foremost - or at least to be sold that they’re getting authenticity! They have a damn good eye for picking up ungenuine content!
- If you don’t have the time or skills for TikTok, ask friends, family, and fans to film and post videos while performing, recording or busking. Plenty of artists got their break because someone else captured a moment.
- Find a social media strategy that you feel comfortable with. Toy with the idea of branching out to TikTok cautiously and optimistically.
- You want to showcase your music on TikTok, so do that! Viewers prefer humble, authentic videos over polished music videos - play on that. Take notes from young Australian artist Suzi. She has done a great job at captivating audiences by performing her songs in an authentic and relatable way.
- Trends are HUGE on TikTok - but they change fast. Don’t just perform your music or do original things you think will make people laugh. Hopping on the bandwagon by discovering what memes, sounds, videos and #challenges are trending. It will make a huge difference in your overall views.
- Nostalgia is also huge right now. Play some covers, show users your old diary (if you dare!) or post a video/photo of you when you first held a guitar vs today.
- Collaborate with users and other musicians — by replying to comments via video or using the duet feature! The duet feature can be a great way to align you with fans of other bands — or even hook you up with a collaboration IRL!
- Play on your strengths, no matter what. If a song you play live resonates with your audience, focus on that. Consistently promoting one song is often a better strategy than saturating your profile with an entire album's worth of them.
- We know you’ll want to showcase your entire song on a video, but keep them short for now. You can upload a TikTok video up to 1 minute long, but TikTok and its users tend to favour shorter videos.
- Keep going, even if your videos aren’t clocking views yet. Keep posting, and keep experimenting. One TikTok video can become a viral hit right when you assume it won’t!