How has TikTok influenced music-making and promoting today? Our curators look at how social media has changed music marketing and creation recently.
Inside Music Curation Episode 38 | TikTok Effect
Recap:
On Inside Music Curation, we talk about various music curation topics, from genres to music for businesses. Today, we're going to talk about "The TikTok Effect" and how TikTok has changed music creation, consumption, and everything in between.
When discussing music curation, a recurring theme is music discovery, and there's no denying that TikTok has become a significant music discovery tool. It has democratized people's ability to self-promote, create music, and promote themselves on social media, and this trend has been growing.
TikTok offers a platform for artists to showcase their work to a global audience, breaking the limitations of local radio play. It's intriguing to see how a song, like Pink Panthress's "Verse Chorus," can find exceptional success on TikTok due to its fit with the platform's formula. The short-form aspect of TikTok has transformed music creation, with artists focusing on catchy parts that users can easily engage with. It's a new creative outlet for user-generated content, giving artists more promotion opportunities.
The rise of TikTok has revolutionized the music industry, offering new opportunities for promotion and reshaping how songs are released. The platform's short clips are becoming as influential as traditional teasers, and artists and promoters have to adapt to this trend. Moreover, TikTok has allowed old songs to resurface and gain popularity again, while also inspiring artists to create music specifically tailored to the platform's format. This has led to a shift in how songs are composed and marketed.
TikTok's success as a music discovery platform has challenged traditional methods, making it crucial for artists and labels to adapt to the changing landscape. It's fascinating to see how this new platform is shaping the future of music and consumption habits. It can be tough to keep up with the constant influx of new and interesting music. TikTok's algorithm-driven recommendations have made music discovery more overwhelming yet exciting.
For Gen Z, TikTok has become the ultimate tool for discovery, surpassing traditional methods in various realms. From finding new restaurants to exploring music, it has become the go-to platform for many. In fact, some college students believe TikTok is even better than Google when it comes to searching for information.
As TikTok expands its offerings, like TikTok Radio, its impact on the music industry will continue to evolve. The platform's seamless experience of combining music, visuals, and text has captivated many users and sparked discussions about the future of music consumption.
Overall, TikTok has revolutionized music discovery and provided a new space for artists to promote their work. While it may have its drawbacks, it has become a powerful tool for both emerging and established artists to reach a wider audience. As we look to the future, it will be interesting to see how TikTok's influence on the music industry continues to grow.
About the live video series:
The music curation team here at Feed Media Group (FMG) is experienced at selecting music for businesses. While technology and analytics play a critical role throughout the curation process, our music curators' expertise, inquisitiveness, and ability to put the world around us into perspective make our music stations so effective.
Staying connected to pop culture trends and understanding the broader context of songs in society is key to creating a great music station. It's this connection, context, and care that most distinguishes our stations from those the best algorithms of major streaming platforms might generate.
Join us as we explore topics surrounding the curation of music for businesses and brands. From use cases to user experience, we will dive into genre, audience, data and trends. Live on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn, the first Wednesday of the month at 1pm Pacific.
Full Transcript:
hello everyone welcome to inside music curation We Are the team at feed Media Group we are B2B music solution and I'm joined by my esteemed colleagues from our music curation team that help businesses of all shapes and sizes make sure they have the right music getting to the right person at the right time and on inside music curation we talk about all types of music curation topics from genres to music for businesses and today we're going to talk about The Tick Tock effect and how Tick Tock has changed Music Creation consumption and everything in between so thanks for joining us and thank you guys for uh joining me on the call today sure um so let's dive in real quick I want to talk about you know we when we're talking about Music Creation a theme that comes up a lot is music Discovery and I think there's no denying that Tick Tock has become quite a music Discovery tool does anyone want to you know talk about how that's how that's changing the landscape and how it's changing music Discovery in general I think from a basic standpoint it's further sort of democratizing people's ability to self-promote and self-create and make music um and be able to put it out there and promote themselves um so I think each sort of level of social media or Internet to social media has done that more and more so that's interesting to see for sure I think it's a big world too right so you're going to be able to you know discover artists from not only just you know what your local radio station would play for you back in the day now you're hearing you know stuff from Independent Artists in the UK or whatever corner of the globe that they live you know yeah I think it's interesting because uh Tick Tock offers a platform for I guess like you could say well Pink Panthers is like a good example right where the music is really kind of just Verse Chorus you know and it's mostly you know house style music but on Tick Tock it did exceptionally well because it fit the uh the actual you know it fit the the formula right um and uh necessarily I don't think that that I don't think that that style of music would have uh been uh I guess or Pink Panthers would have you know had as much success had it not been for tick tock yeah the nature of like the clip aspect um and I think really combined with sort of like I don't know I'd sort of tie it to for some artists so like Taylor Swift and focus on lyrics and those very like bite-sized parts that like people want to like scream at the top of their lungs like that um sort of filters into of like you have the sort of it can be there can be a part of a song that gets more known versus the whole song so that's like a little bit of a transition both like um in good ways of like the creative Outlet of like user generated content and being able to create and use music to enhance you the picture whatever you're putting together um but also yeah it gives you know promotion to to artists yeah I think those are two really important points right like Tick Tock introduced short form music because it's being paired with short form video content and I think as far as a sharing and and Discovery platform you know that is a big difference right like this is a platform really where it's not just about like following the artist right it's about who you follow what music they're pairing with their content and that's how you're getting exposed to it so I think that does have a nod to the you know the Democracy kind of of how that works and like hey if I'm interested in your music and I'm putting out content and you know that's a way for me to share it which is different I think than some of the social media music Discovery we've seen on other platforms yeah definitely and like coming from like a younger perspective a lot of my friends there are people that I know that only find music through Tick Tock nowadays I mean it's tick tock or Instagram and like the the way that the music industry has shifted to putting everything onto Tick Tock now it's like the best way to in any Discovery really any Discovery method is I have friends who discover restaurants and everything is like on Tick Tock now um like a lot of my friends say that they prefer to use tick tock over Google they think that tick tock's a better search engine better Google which is crazy to think to me yeah it's a it's a whole different way of searching and Kate is joining us Kate is our intern this summer our music curation intern so we're we're stoked to have his experience and unique perspective here um yeah I mean searching for you know using Tick Tock as a search engine using it to find you know music and other things and then you know I think the short form content is the other really interesting piece of this right like to one's point you know the songs have this first chorus and that's all you need to be successful on on Tick Tock right you don't have to have this epic long ballad um how has that how has that changed music in general right like is the short form extending itself outside of tick tock um what does that mean for the music industry I thought about this a little bit because you know a lot of times when we talk about these new platforms we talk about new new new new right give me a break give me a break give me a piece of that KitKat bar one of the best Jingles right and that's a song that's a song right so if anything like these Tick Tock like videos are it's jinglefying the music right which I don't know if necessarily like I wake up one morning I'm gonna write Tick Tock right I'm gonna write to that 15 minute like listen there are people that do it I don't I don't know those people but um you know the people that I do know are just like you know creating um you know and trying to fit whatever piece of that song Fits in that specific framework right uh which is that that's also super interesting as well yeah I feel like you know a r Executives and major labels are you know sort of aiming their artists or gearing them towards like look this is how songs break now so keep that in the back of your mind when you're putting together the composition you know it's uh it's a it's it's almost a it's a it's it's that don't bore us get to the chorus on steroids you know well not totally new too like Claire you had in a previous conversation talked a little bit about you know iTunes music previews right like it's not the first time that we've gotten bite-sized pieces of of popular music right and that was you know equal parts I mean I think part of the reason I mean it was a big deal when they switched I remember from 30 seconds to a minute 30 and that was holy and like licensing um agreements and what they could do but what's interesting to me is that like the the like length is is part of it for sure and like yes they were quote unquote giving it away for free but it was a promotion tool in the same way that like Tick Tock is a promotion tool um so you can go to iTunes at the time right and you could listen to these 30 to a minute 30 second previews and determine like if you wanted to buy and download the song now you're getting these previews in you know this other form of content yeah and and then sort of taking it in a multimedia context um which I think like plays better in some ways and not as good in other ways and I do um I'm not Super Active on Tick Tock but I have a lot of friends who will sometimes like will be talking about a song or like we'll hear a song Blah Blah and they'll go oh that's a tick tock song and I like internally like like something in me kind of like cries a little because I just think I mean I'm sure the artists are obviously grateful for the promotion but like if that was the first thing somebody thought about your song would also like I don't know that it's good in its own right not just because you heard it on tick tock so that's my my little two cents on they you know most songs deserve more than than the clip that that's the music obsessive in me absolutely and I think that that kind of lends to the thing right like I feel Tick Tock is a space for a specific type of music Discovery right whereas like I don't think you're ever gonna have it that like you know maybe the record store won't have as many people but like people are still going to listen to full albums right people are still gonna try to ingest things that way um but I think so the really the really fun and kind of cool thing about Tick Tock right is that it's just another new emerging like uh platform right and then like the same way we saw uh you know Fallout Boy take Facebook I mean not facebook actually Myspace older um by storm and then create that into a career right and then like in the same lens right you had like Lil pump have a career in SoundCloud and where is he now you know it just adds more dialogue to this conversation that we're having it's like how do we get music to these people right and Tick Tock is a fabulous way to do that right now I think it's an interesting play I just thought of this um as far as like shift in music industry promotion both from like how do the artists make more money yeah um and and obviously just getting numbers and followers opens up sponsorships whatever that's obviously like a very good Revenue Source um but it is sort of curious to me when you brought the album thing the ryzen vinyl sales so you have the two like the very like long form listen to the full album situation like growing incongruous with the growth of tick tock and the clippedness and the small bits side that those two things are happening simultaneously it's really interesting I haven't thought about that until now well yeah before you know back in the olden days you know you would have to just you know maybe you heard one song on the radio and that was enough for you to go and gam take a Gamble and buy the vinyl now it's like you can you can you can preview on iTunes and apple music you can hear several different singles as they roll out on Tick Tock so it's a little bit less of a gamble you know good for the consumer yeah I think the only disadvantage right is that now you have so much music coming at you right like I remember back in the day when I used to go to borders and look at the CDs right like I was able to like look at a CD and since I wasn't able to listen to it I had to go back home do the research and then come back a week later with my lunch money or whatever right but now it's like you can listen to something dope that algorithm is going to find you something else that's dope and then all of a sudden you're just listening to nothing but dope stuff could be a little bit a lot especially if you like me or anyone else who's looking to get like different genres and like kind of like they have a wider scope because Tick Tock can get really Nitty Gritty specific with its algorithm um but it's still a fantastic tool yeah I mean music Discovery in itself has had a major Evolution over the last 20 years right I mean never before have you just at your fingertips you hear something you can click through you can get to it on Spotify you can get to the long form you can get to the lyrics you can get to so much information right away right like we went from you know what was that and having to ask or listen to come up on the radio again to you know shazaming and now like every everything is connected right like it's on your phone you're able to get to the information and that's it's amazing and it can be overwhelming right like where do you how do you even keep track of all the good stuff that you're listening to yeah and as like a music student who is trying to get into as many genres as possible and knows a lot of musicians and follows it when I get on my social medias it can be immediately overwhelming because I'm seeing everybody who's doing everything all at once and that can be it can be tough sometimes like I can get down to myself if I'm not feel like I'm not meeting that standards it does set up really high expectation especially like at Berkeley there are some people who are wildly successful here who you can meet easily and get close to and it can be tough to like sometimes see that and be like well what what am I doing wrong but it's not necessarily that it's not that you're doing anything wrong it's just the algorithm favors this thing more and they're putting more work into this thing it's it's pretty amazing how the Beast works well and I think too right like things can rise very fast you know but because of the repetitive nature because of the short clips right sometimes they have a shorter shelf life you know farther they you know the higher they fly the faster they fall right so there's there's that component um and it also changes you know from uh from a you know awareness building perspective too it's you gone are the days where you need to be teasing your new release for two or three months prior to the release right like now it's if you start playing those teasers immediately in the comments on Tick Tock they're gonna be like where is this why why can't I hear this right now like is this on Soundcloud is this on Spotify and you know labels have to move a little bit quicker you know yeah the build up isn't worth as much as being able to click through and buy it right away or follow them right away if that's what you want to turn off because if you're listening to that if you're listening to the chorus of a song in a million different Tick Tock videos over the course of a month by the time it's out you're already over that song right so yeah risk yeah the teasers have to come way closer to the actual release date if not immediately especially for bigger artists when you also mention the fact that you're listening to this song across many different kinds of videos right and I think that that's a really interesting way to experience music too right I know you know some folks love music videos and some prefer to watch you know to experience music without having that Association well it's one thing when the band is putting together the music video and they say this is the visual that I want to go with my music it's another thing when you have like the whole world making all of this content with your music and you know the first time that you experience that music paired with that visual like how does that have an effect on you know how they see your music and it could be good or maybe it's not right like sometimes a music video can actually turn me off of a song and I wonder if you know Tick Tock ever has that effect as well it's awesome you bring that up there's a band I love since I was a kid their name is Deftones they were always kind of like the bands band you know kind of like never really super popular they had some stuff but never really big through Tick Tock it's amazing to see how big they've gotten in this platform like as a I've been a fan for many years so to see how these a new new people new kids whatever and ingesting yeah new friends are ingesting this music and then how my old you know my old behind is over here like going like this is dope right um I can only imagine it's like a father like you know going into their 18 year olds like uh you know room and listening to Led Zeppelin they're like you're okay kid you know like hey yeah I think the um the sort of change in the funnel of even how music gets heard first Tick Tock has played into that of like it used to be like just songs that got released to radio that was what was considered new music and now it can come from so many different sources um so it really yeah just sort of and sometimes I gave the example of there's a song that was part of the White Lotus theme song um that's you hear in a zillion a zillion Tick Tock videos to the point where like it's kind of giving me a twitch and um and now I just heard it on the radio this week um and it's a song from 2016. so the the sort of change it's made for um catalog promotion for labels is also huge big time everything old is New Again especially to you know yeah the younger like Juan said like you know younger kids didn't live through it the first time around but there's now there's an opportunity for this stuff to be sort of not rehashed but just sort of resurfaced right I mean there's whole departments at at record labels now dedicated to figuring out creative ways to resurface some of that classic material it's great yeah and still ties into sort of the trend we see of all the interpolation happening too um that's I think both um more acceptable in the age of tick tock because you're getting used to seeing different media put together in different contexts um but also because everything is new again and seems like some people are running out of ideas David get it yeah sorry yeah the cool thing about Tick Tock though and I mean it's the thing that people are not attracted to it right and and a reason why maybe I may be maybe like very slightly attracted to it is the fact that everything's happening all at once right it's text it's music it's visuals like I know we all talk about ADHD I'm pretty sure either everyone or you know some people have AG I I definitely have HD ADHD so when I see that kind of stuff it's very pleasing I don't know if any of you all feel like that but I'm like ah this is nice I know everything's right there right um my thinking is I wonder what this is going to look like in the future right because we're going VR we're going like places Beyond Tick Tock and uh yeah no it's just interesting and especially when uh Kade was talking about you know uh his friends like using it over Google right that's that's a that's really like a mind-blowing thing because like you know for me I use Google all the time but I could see how they can use Google with or I can see how they can replace uh Tick Tock with Google and I find that fascinating well I mean even in the short term it's it's it's going to change the way people listen to music I mean it has you know Tick Tock just launched Tick Tock music or Tick Tock radio in Brazil and Indonesia it's coming everywhere else pretty soon and I think that it's gonna you know people are going to they they understand like wow we're getting people in here and then we're directing them elsewhere to Spotify or apple music or wherever why don't we just keep them here and I feel like you know that in the short term is coming where it's you know you're gonna be listening to music you're gonna be watching Tick Tock videos you've been listening to music on Tick Tock radio or Tick Tock music or whatever it's called it's seamless experiences being able to you know go from one thing to another but maybe not without leaving a platform it's personalization right the algorithms giving you you know these different recommendations it's yeah it's intense what else any any other I know we're coming up on on time here any other kind of closing you know I think one thing that we didn't talk too much about also was the fact that you know some of these artists are going out and you know performing these songs as short forms like it's not always a clip right like yes there are Clips on Tick Tock but there are also songs that are just made to that and and they're taking them outside of the platform in that way and I think that's really interesting another thing we didn't touch on quite yet as far as like the production side um is sort of the sped up and slowed down versions um and releasing those as like a part of even like kind of it's a singles package now it seems of like it's been helpful for us as people who carry music for fitness um to get the kit a little bit more sped up versions um places but uh yeah I think I I was I do I like listening to the radio in the car um because it's sort of nice to get that pulse on on what's on radio when we live in a streaming World um and they played the song Miguel Sure Thing the regular version which is charting and my friend who was with me goes oh is this the regular version I've only heard the sped up one and I was like oh geez like well you know a good example of that too is is um you know when that uh Sam Smith Kim Petras song Unholy came out on the clips on Tick Tock it was like just the really juiciest bit right and you're like oh my God my stuff I think I even put it in our feed Media Group slack group thing like this is gonna be a number one song and then you heard the song you're like and the rest of it is kind of a dirge it's slow I think that the label and the artist themselves probably realize like oh man that's why all of a sudden all those remixes came out like real quick because they realized we need to keep the people's interest in that juicy bit of the song and expand it you know yeah well and to that to that point and to the you know commercial music in in advertisements and like samples come up often when we talk about inside on inside music curation right like it's it's not new to take the best part of a song and you know make the most of it right and uh it's you know another way of doing that right any fun in any closing closing comments any any favorite Tick Tock discoveries from you guys I got a couple um one is hip-hop Duo that we I discover them on tick tock two years ago um Joey Valance and Bray they sound very much like old Beastie Boys they're not Reinventing the Wheel by any means but when it came out a couple years ago it was just so fresh and nobody else was really doing that and they have since blown right up and um all of our feed Media Group clients their customers Have Heard lots of Joey Valance because I've plugged it into lots of playlists because it works um and there's another one that really recently I mean the the stats are mind-blowing I came across these girls they're called flyanna boss they have a song called You Wish and the videos that they've created for that song alone have a hundred million plays in a month there's also 95 000 other people now who have created videos using this song and they just sign a record to Major record deal so we're probably gonna be hearing them all all over the radio soon but yeah I mean that it started absolutely on Tick Tock like last month wow yeah crazy yeah I'm always finding little things in there um it's actually a little bit of how I got into Korea's music was Tick Tock then Tanya Kano was pretty big on well I mean big in like the Urbano section of tick tock um but recently recently I've actually found a really cool hip-hop artist from Houston uh it's that Mexican OT um fire Rhymes that's all I gotta say fireworks well I can chime in um I'm one of the few people in my generation who doesn't use it a lot but I do have some friends at the school that I could plug um I've been friends with the with this band called tiny habits who have blown up on Tick Tock um and they're doing some really cool stuff and their harmonies are amazing and yeah cool and they're great tiny desk with Lizzie McAlpine yeah yeah it's really really cool they just sold out their first U.S tour because they blew up on tick tock yeah amazing yeah yeah I'm not a heavy user either and I but I know it was a factor in her Discovery so I'll shout out um Megan moroney uh it's a upcoming country star and her first album came out but yeah she only got it was one of those things like she pretty much had an album in the can and then you know took sort of the social media Discovery for her to get get signed so um that sort of there it seems like there's yeah this sort of like less development period having to happen um because a lot of these artists like they're ready to go so it's great to see awesome well thank you guys so much it's always fun to dive into new platforms and uh see what's going on I'm sure we'll have lots of interesting things coming from the future of tick tock and all the new platforms yet to come to existence um if you found this interesting this is inside music curation We Are the group at feed Media Group we're here the first Wednesday of the month ish we had a holiday last week so we we waited it out this week this month but um yeah first Wednesday of the month we stream live across social media platforms you can also check us out at feedmediagroup.com if you're interested in learning different ways that music uh can be integrated into businesses and apps and digital experiences thanks everyone for tuning in and thanks you guys for sharing uh sharing your experiences thanks
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