How to Use TikTok as a Musician

Like I said in my last article, I'm going to give you some tips on how to start your journey on TikTok so that you gain a new audience and, more importantly, new listeners. 

The best way to use TikTok is to create content and to collab with other people, so no, you can't just drop a still image put your music on it, and call it a day. You have to take the creativity you have with your music and also apply it to actual video concepts. That doesn't mean you have to put in 100% effort on each concept or every idea has to be amazing, as long as you're consistent and get people's attention, that's all that matters. Even if it's not your best idea, as long as it resonates with people, it can get the interactions you want.

Frequency is key with TikTok, and it coincides with the music industry today when it comes to streaming and people releasing music more often. Trends come and go fast, and you want to be on top of them if you can, like with streaming, the more of a catalog you have, the more opportunities you have to get more engagement. Here are some numbers that should help you hone in on how you create your videos to get the most out of them:

• 2-5 minute videos get the most views. Shorter videos still get a lot of views, but the views steadily increase up to 5 minutes, then drop off after that.

• Hashtags make up 0.03% of traffic, and sounds make up 0.04%. This is good for musicians because the biggest crutch you have on TikTok is not being able to use trending sounds to your advantage, so using your music can still get you those views, but the downside still exists in a more complicated way, it just isn't a direct negative impact.

• 70% of all traffic comes from the for you page, and 5% comes from search. This is where you should be focused on being, and it's also a part of the trending sound dilemma. TikTok’s algorithm is based on what's relevant to you as a person and what videos you click on. If a sound is trending, there's a good chance that a lot of people will interact with multiple videos with that sound, which would put more videos with that sound on their for you pages. It would also cause more people to search for those sounds and put them on their for you page. With this in mind, the more people interact with your content, the more it will show up on their for you page, and the more you post, the more they see your content there too. If you only post once a week, they will only see your content once a week, which means the algorithm won't push your videos to people who like similar videos because your engagement is too spread out.

To figure out what type of videos drive traffic, look at what kind of content blew up an artist. Don't look at content the established artists are currently making, it will only work for established artists it won't work for you. Figure out what got someone to go viral and try to replicate that element in your own way that makes sense for you. You can also do tests with your content starting out. See what catches people's eye by uploading frequently with different types of videos and the ones that get the most views/interactions, try to replicate it. If you don't get results on the replicated video, you either wrongly decided which part to replicate, or that video was just an anomaly. If that happens, go back to square one and try again until you find some patterns that will lead to your success. Also, if you have the money you can run ads on the videos you know will work to make them work even more. But don't waste ad money on videos you're testing because the results can get skewed, and you could also be losing money on a video that people don't care about.

Using your TikTok to build hype for a release is probably not the best way to go about it, this goes back to what I said about doing what artists did to blow up and not what they're doing now. No one will remember the release date of a single you're making videos of a month from now if you're not an established artist outside the few superfans you may have. If you want to hype up an unreleased song, post videos about multiple songs, and the one that pops off, focus your attention on promoting that song, and don't make the release window too far away or people will stop caring. This is similar to what the radio personality Charlemagne Tha God brought up when Drake released “$ome $exy $ongs 4 U” with PARTYNEXTDOOR. He stated that back in the day the artist chose the single and then gave it to the radio stations, but now in the streaming age, especially with smaller artists without a big rollout, the audience picks the single. They wait to see which song on a project is gaining traction and then promote that one for radio stations to add to the virality. This is why I suggested putting ads on videos that already have traction. 

Trying to be too cool to do something (unless it's part of your brand) won't get you anywhere. Be relatable, be goofy, and don't be afraid to be expressive or embarrass yourself. Make that video anyway, making cringy content before your content becomes good is a natural progression in the content world, very few start off making good content. No one will see those first few videos anyway, and if they do, they might laugh, but they'll move on, or it could go viral and help you unexpectedly promote your music. Either way embrace the entire journey, the good, the bad, and the cringe. If you have a fear of public embarrassment or have a hard time putting yourself out there as I do, still make those videos, it's a great way of making yourself more comfortable which will be good for you in the long run personally and career wise when it comes to your confidence, performing, and depending on the content even speaking.

Using your lyrics is a good baseline start to creating a TikTok video, you can act out/showcase the lyrics in a funny, interesting, or entertaining way. Even if you want to go faceless(which is harder to grow content like this but if you want to and it works go ahead) and have the talent you can create an engaging animated video based on the song or a lyric video(if it's a song that already has a push behind it). You can even post clips of you performing live to hype up your shows. Make that any video you make hooks the viewer in the first 3-5 seconds. A hook can come in 3 forms: text, visual, and audio. You can have text on the screen that grabs attention, something in the video that grabs attention, or use something interesting in the song to grab attention.

If you go viral on TikTok you have to capitalize on it or your career won't grow like it can. There are so many cases on TikTok of people blowing up and then months later, their videos only get 200 views. Don't be one of those people. Virality is fickle and you want to use every second of it to build a real fanbase that will keep listening to your music. You can even get a billboard hit and then struggle to sell tickets. You need to put in enough work to curate a real audience, and not sell tickets based on the virality of one song.

Make those videos no matter what, it's time consuming, but if you do it right it's beneficial for your career and lets you put your music and personality in front of a new crowd that could end up forever supporters of your music. Or if you have the money, you can do the pay to win route by throwing money at content creators and having them make content featuring your music instead. Whatever you decide, do it now and subscribe to my newsletter for more tips.