Songfluencer has worked with hundreds of artists on their TikTok campaigns. While it is impossible to know exactly what works vs. what does not work, there are some common themes present with most successful TikTok songs/campaigns.
A TikTok friendly song
A Strong Creative Concept
Artist/Marketing Participation
When these 3 elements are unique, creative, and aligned - we tend to see great results for artists on TikTok. For part three we dive into the third element - artist/marketing participation.
ELEMENT #3: THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTIST/MARKETING PARTICIPATION
Artist participation/involvement in the campaign can help support growth and be a primary ingredient to overall performance. The same way it's difficult for a publicist to build a story around an artist that has nothing going on, it's difficult to generate a viral hit from nothing. An artist can do so many things to support their music on this platform. Regardless if you're hiring influencers or not to promote your music, having intentionality on the TikTok platform, using yourself (the artist) as an influencer, running adjacent marketing activities, and evangelizing current fans could be the catalyst for success. Consider the following:
The Artist could create content and/or participate in the creative concept (this is what we call "artist as an influencer")
Current/potential fans will be encouraged when they see the artist involved. They will feel a part of the project/growth and that can only help your campaign move in a positive direction. Especially when thinking through ROI, results, and performance of a TikTok campaign, evangelizing cannot be overstated.
Release Tip: When you are launching a campaign (given the artist is willing), the artist should create 10-15 TikTok videos using the song. You can save them in the “drafts” folder and post them whenever you want.
Evangelizing current fans (and friends/family). If pushing your current fans to create TikToks is not part of your current marketing strategy, then you're missing the point. As part of your release, use your other social media platforms to encourage/motivate your fans to create TikToks using your music. Hopefully, this will inspire THEIR friends/followers to use your music as well.
Engage with users/fans/influencers on TikTok that use your music. React/duet features, comments, likes, messages, etc.
Run official TikTok ads as part of further audience awareness on-platform.
EXAMPLE:
Kidd Kenn "U 2 Funny"
If you scroll through the videos created using this sound you will see that Kidd Kenn himself did roughly 10+ videos to support his efforts on TikTok. Each video he did was relatively different from the other ones he posted, but still used a similar structure and segment of the song. His efforts resulted in almost 1,000 people using his song on TikTok.
TikTok is a platform that allows content, once in motion, to go super viral. We must believe that this same ecosystem suppresses content that has very little or no motion. At Songfluencer, we always refer to a concept called "velocity" when considering the impact influencers will have on a song. Velocity refers to the speed of UGC (or lack thereof) a song is experiencing on the TikTok platform. Low velocity songs tend to need more time, effort, and resources (money) to grow. High velocity songs tend to need less.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned as next week we do an overview of the three elements.