Well, that is still open for debate, but I think the simple answer is yes, and if not right now, then it has the potential to do so very soon. But let’s delve a little further shall we?
“To capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and precious life moments, directly from the mobile phone. TikTok enables everyone to be a creator, and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos.”
I had initially shied away from the ByteDance owned app; I installed it very briefly when it first hit the App Store but couldn’t see any value in it for me or my music promotion at the time. None of the content seemed relevant to my interests and it was seemingly aimed at much younger audiences than myself, so I ignored it.
Skip forward a few years to 2020 and I continued to ignore it. Even when it overtook the likes of Facebook and Twitter by being named the most downloaded app that year... It did however become a little difficult to ignore for much longer when I suddenly noticed close 17,000 streams of my track “Legends, The Kray Twins Story” on the platform earlier this year… So back up, just how and why did that happen? Keep reading folks.
Well, we need to inject a little context and backstory here before we continue… There was considerable talk in 2019 and into 2020 about Beijing’s ambitions to redefine its cultural landscape, with reports suggesting plans to position the city as a cultural hub by 2025. At the same time, I noticed that western music seemed to be gaining an unprecedented foothold in China. From my observations and research, Chinese listeners appeared to embrace multiple genres simultaneously, without the same subcultural divides that have historically characterised the west over the past 60 years. Punk in the morning, classical in the afternoon, hip-hop in the evening, and drum and bass at night.
While this postmodern approach has been applied to music in the west for some time now, that clash of cultures and the mass access to music in China seemed to spawn some really interesting fusion music. The consumption of all this at once interested me, and it was something myself and SkyQuaker's Steve Hope-Wynne were discussing heavily at the time. Particularly when discussing the fusion of live shows, visuals and music together with an eastern market in mind.
So I did what I do and started my research, which resulted in me entering the Chinese music market at the back end of 2019 with the distribution of the entire AEPL catalogue to Tencent Music. I also got the music spinning on Kugou Music, QQ Music, Kuwo Music, NetEase Music and Xiami Music to name a few... These are the top Chinese music streaming services by monthly active users, according to Soundcharts. I purposefully chose to partner with a different distributor to my usual western counterpart, and I did this as a way of monitoring different sectors independently. There was also the option to distribute to TikTok through these distributors (an option wider available in the west now) and so I thought, well why not! I ticked the box and didn't think too much past that.
Skip forward a year and I started noticed those streaming coming through on my statements which prompted me to reinstall the app and create a profile for Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd to see what was going on (follow it here). So that was my entry into the world of TikTok, and I'm still laughing at videos of folks miming to the Kray brothers talking with my music as an underscore to this hour. All because of the name I gave the track!
Phew… Now we have got past the preamble, let's get down to why I decided to write this blog, and why I think TikTok is about to dominate to the point I’ve changed my mind on the use case of the platform.
So firstly audience, is TikTok’s audience still young? Yes, it is… Roughly two-thirds of TikTok users are under 30 years old, but that being said I’ve certainly noticed the content has matured since revising the app this past week. Sure there is some utter tripe on there, especially as a new user when you have not yet followed or taught the algorithm what you like, but I think that’s unfortunately true of the internet in general. We also have to remember those early days of Facebook and Instagram too, remember those? Your Mum and your Nan had barely even heard of them, let alone been active users, it takes time for these things to grow. And then you have to question is this even a problem to be fair? Why not reserve an App for younger users?
The big question is, given at the time of writing this blog the app is available in 155 countries and 75 languages; it’s been downloaded over 2 billion times and reports are showing that 90% of all users are using the platform daily, is this really something we can ignore anymore?
In a similar way Apps like Instagram made it easy to create great pictures through filters, TikTok is enabling people to create engaging videos quickly and easily, and they can be uskng your music as a soundtrack. There are various tools, filters, and other features which enable creators to produce fancy, addicting videos with ease and it's important to know this market is totally unsaturated! If we take the USA as an example, over 60% of users are not natively of the country, so what does that way about the west in general? To me it means getting exposure on the platform should be much easier than say Instagram or Facebook, platforms which have the added benefit of potentially reaching billions of people, but also suffer the ever-present problem of trying to shout louder than everyone else for attention.
In conclusion to this somewhat 3am ramble of a blog, is TikTok for you? Well that is purely down to who you are trying to showcase your music or your art to, but I say reaching as many people as you can, and trying to reinvent your content to keep it as relevant to new audiences as possible is key across genres. I don’t think TikTok is going to make you megabucks if your music is played on the platform; after all the track isn’t streamed for long enough to really generate any revenue. But I think for a promotional tool it can be something of great value! Many people can hear your track synced to an array of different quirky and interesting visuals. The more people who sync your track, the more exposure you are going to get and I can see an opportunity to gain fans through those means.
As an additional closing thought… At the time of publishing this, Facebook has come under significant fire from an array of moral and ethical standpoints following reports from whistleblower Frances Haugen. We have seen Facebook stock tank, global outage of the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Workplace platforms, and reports of staff members not being able to get into Facebook buildings to work. Why? Does the plot thicken here? And will my predictions come true sooner than I thought?
I'd love to read your comments on this below and hope to discuss these ideas further!
- MWB-
