The reason you go on TikTok is to get the pulse of the nation, to be informed of what people think.
This is where the oldster/mainstream media/anti-technology perspective gets it wrong. If you're not on your phone consistently, if you're not surfing TikTok, you don't know what the majority of the public is thinking, and therefore, how can you market to them?
We keep hearing about IRL. That one must put down the phone and interact with those around them. I've got no problem with in person relations, but we are not going back to the 1860s, or even the 1960s. To insist on real life only is like decrying the car and continuing to use your horse and buggy.
Think of music. How is it marketed today? Online!
Of course we had word of mouth previously, but music didn't spread as wide previously. But there are put-downs of TikTok and Spotify and...this is how most of the active consumers find out about music and consume it. This is what is driving the sale of tickets. Terrestrial radio comes last, if at all. Find a youngster who listens to terrestrial radio and I'll give you a nickel, and at the end of the day all the requests will be fulfilled by the cash in my wallet...and I'll still have money left over.
Social media is not the devil. And today's social media is not that of yesteryear's. It used to be one to one, now it's one to many. Furthermore, unlike Instagram, TikTok is not a bragging platform. As for influencers trying to sell you something... People are trying to sell you things all day long, you're bombarded by sales messages. And despite all the press, the number of straight ahead sold out influencers on TikTok is de minimis. The story is just amplified because some of these people make bank.
And when people make money online this way, they don't make music.
Trends start on TikTok. And if you don't know the trends...
TikTok is where creativity lives. Want to be inspired? Just go through some TikTok clips. It's a cornucopia of expression and ideas. With modern technology everybody has the ability to record themselves and post the result. This is what the smartphone has wrought. It's broadened the playing field, reduced the barrier to entry to nothing.
Also, unlike on competing platforms, you can get pushed into people's feeds without having a history of success. In other words, if what you do is good people will see it. This is the problem the music industry has, how do you expose people to new music, how do you break an act?
Of course not all music on TikTok is good. And sure, labels have injected money into TikTok successes to no result, but you've got to separate the wheat from the chaff, it's a skill you must develop.
And do you know what one of the main types of video on TikTok is? Confessional. Women especially speaking about their relationships. But most A&R people are men, and this doesn't square with either their lives or their history. You want to sign up new Joni Mitchells, you want to sign up women who fit Taylor Swift's adolescent confessional niche in country.
The other thing you'll find out on TikTok is your feed is different from another's. Demonstrating that we're all in our own silos. But those silos run deep. We are looking for expertise in these silos. An example would be Billy Strings, whose success is based on his ability to play, whose career in arenas is a result of internet exposure and word of mouth.
If you are concerned with marketing, you must take the pulse of the public constantly. This is one of the reasons the Democrats lost in 2024, they didn't know how the public thought. And Andrew Cuomo lost all that money on television ads during the mayoral campaign while Mamdani created online viral moments.
What are people thinking? What are they interested in? What keeps popping up again and again? If you don't know the answers to these questions, you can't relate to the public at large. Which is fine if you want to live in a bubble, but if you are selling anything...
A starting musician could surf TikTok to inform them what people are listening to, what succeeds. As for those artists sitting on the sideline, refusing to post on social media, the joke is on you.
Oldsters are now explaining their songs on TikTok. Todd Rundgren gave a lengthy explanation of "Hello It's Me." I bought both the Nazz album and "Something/Anything?" which contain that tune when those records came out, I've spoken with Todd multiple times, I still learned stuff.
Yes, that's one kind of video that works on TikTok. An explanation of your past, of your history. You used to have to rely on the press to do this, your PR person had to persuade outlets. Now you don't need a PR person, you can go directly to your fans and talk about whatever you want for as long as you care.
And newbies know that a TikTok clip must have internal value beyond the music. That this is a canvas to be creative. If you say you play music and that's it, if you don't come up with new ideas and how to express them visually, you're marketing yourself with one hand behind your back.
The precepts have changed. And when one rails against TikTok it's no different from those who railed against MP3s and then streaming. Where did the market go? Not back to physical media.
You can choose to live in a bubble, but if you want to know what is going on with the people, if you want to be exposed to and learn from unfiltered messages, unlike in the press, you need to spend a lot of time online, and right now the platform that is king is TikTok.
If I were a company marketing to people I would insist that my team watch TikTok for at least twenty minutes every day. This is no different from those who watched MTV during the eighties to be hip to what worked, what the outlet would play.
As for record companies, I'd tell them to hire more women, because women rule disproportionately online. Too many men who pooh-pooh feelings and intimacies, who are baked in the rock or rap of the past, have decision making power, and they've got it all wrong.
And mindless can work, but what resonates most on TikTok is knowledge and depth. Think about marketing to that.
The same people whose parents told them their music was for troglodytes have contempt for what the younger generations are into today. But Perry Como never came back.
I harp on this point, the need to utilize TikTok, because it's so important.
Also, you must be on for a while for the algorithm to figure out what to serve you. To go on for a few minutes and say you don't get it is a mistake. You must invest yourself, make a little effort, then the payoff will begin.
If you're too busy to be on TikTok you're too busy to market to the public. And that's fine. But if you're selling...
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