TikTok

 Today I wanted to talk about a debate which is rife in the music industry at the moment: is Tiktok a good thing for music? For background, in case anybody doesn't really engage with Tiktok, it's a social media platform that enables users to make short videos using a range of songs and 'sounds' and share them. It also has a strong algorithm that's designed to hook users up with content that they're more likely to engage with, something which has left a lot of people with a serious addiction. In this post, I want to look at a how Tiktok works for various kinds of users within the music industry and just introduce you to both sides of the debate. Hopefully, you might learn something new. 

Firstly, Tiktok is used a lot by unsigned artists like myself to post videos promoting their music and brand. It has powerful analytics and business tools built in, with a range of features available only to creators and business accounts aimed at building a following. It is possible to pay to advertise on Tiktok, but as a default depending on your engagement it will put your videos onto the 'for you' page of people who are likely to enjoy your content. In this way, it's a very creator friendly platform compared to other social media where it only tends to be your followers who see your posts. Rather than being a platform for you to connect with people who know you, Tiktok is somewhere to connect more with those who haven't discovered you quite yet. However, all of that said, it can sometimes feel like screaming into the void. There is never a guarantee of just how far Tiktok is going to push your video, and the best trends can be somewhat unpredictable meaning you never really know just how well your content will do. Overall, though, it's a fact that Tiktok has helped create several incredibly successful artists and boosted the careers of many others. 

For labels, too, Tiktok can be a powerful tool. As mentioned earlier, it is possible to pay to advertise and get a song to do very very well. Because of this, if an artist is backed by a major label who have a lot of money, they are able to pay to get the song out to Tiktok's huge range of users and, likely, gain a big following. Despite the useful tools though, Tiktok is actually one of most record labels' biggest competitors. As a corporation, part of its goal is to be a part of the music industry and it's undoubted that, right now, it is. Not only is Tiktok essentially a record label, but it also has the ability to distribute music on its own platform and it is worth substantially more than even the biggest official record label at the time of writing. So, while it can be a useful tool for labels, it is also recognised as a competitor of theirs. 

Finally, for the users who consume content on Tiktok rather than making it (this is kind of a blurred line as lots of people who aren't trying to build a brand still make and post Tiktoks) it is one of the best places to find the new music which is trending at the moment. One of the key cultural phenomena to do with this was last year when Kate Bush's song 'Running Up That Hill' was featured in Stranger Things and therefore started trending on Tiktok, a trend which went on for several months and is partly responsible for the song getting air time on various radio stations and generally going through a revival 37 years after it was first released. As well as reviving old music, Tiktok also brings popular new releases to the forefront. However, I've heard from several people now that they are starting to feel catfished by songs on Tiktok as the music industry responds to this huge change by making tracks where 15 to 30 seconds of the song is incredible and the rest is just kind of meh. It's important to watch out for this, and I'm sure those of you who get most of your music from Tiktok can think of examples. 

So overall Tiktok is certainly powerful and user-friendly, and it's definitely already changing the music industry. I suppose, it's up to us whether we embrace that change.