By Jaden Kloppers
Singers, Songwriters, Rappers, Producers, in other words, Artists! We all strive to pursue our passion in music and to be known for our Art that boils with sensation in our creative souls, and today we have TikTok, a platform designed for us creators to share our work and to grow our brand as musicians…but nobody promised it would be easy.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos, on any topic.
The app is used by various ages of people (particularly young people) as an outlet to express themselves through singing, dancing, comedy, and lip-syncing, and allows users to create videos and share them across a community.
As of October 2020, Tiktok has grown widely popular, surpassing over 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide, and became a new home for ongoing and upcoming trends.
Why Use TikTok as a Means of Brand Growth (Digitally)?
- More likely to get your content seen by masses
When it comes to other social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, one thing they all have in common is that they all consist of a wide variety of pages for their content. This gives the user more control of seeing specified content where a mass amount of content (such as your own content) is unseen.
Whereas TikTok only has one page, the ‘For You Page’, where the user gets to see a flood load of content based on their liking and engagement.
- The Average TikTok user spends 52 minutes per day on the app (which is longer than the average 16 year old attention span).
- There is about 1 billion monthly active users as of 2021 Feb, increasing the chance of your content to be seen.
- And more importantly, it is easier to reach a variety of people with your music, where your craft can be appreciated and shared among others and even get noticed by top-tier users/influencers, who you could possibly collaborate with and grow even further off each others audience.
How to Grow Your Brand On TikTok
In case you didn’t know, you as a musician is a brand, and you have to market yourself as one. So on TikTok, the following tips should help you as a Branded Musician and to gain a great following throughout your progress.
- Decide On Your Niche
Whether your a producer, singer/rapper or a guitarist, when starting on TikTok you need to niche down on what you are going to create.
For example, as a producer, your favourite genre could be HipHop, so the best thing to do after finding out what your best at, is to niche down even further and maybe create content surrounding a specific topic regarding HipHop, such as “How Dua Lipa would sound like on a 90s HipHop song” and then producing such a track with her studio acapella over the beat.
*Do not forget to get your profile looking like it represents your brand and niche, so it would be best to use quality images and videos, as well as a bio defining you and your brand.*
- Post Consistently
Atleast 3 posts per day, stretched out through different times of the day which is best suited for the country you are aiming for, 7 days a week as a starting account would be best. A solid video strategy would make this easier to accomplish by preparing your content at least a week before the time of posting.
- Duration
It is important to capture the viewer’s attention within a second so that you do not lose their attention.You can achieve this by listing a problem, issue or challenge within in your niche, and spending the rest of the video solving it.It also important to make your videos a comfortable length of 10 – 15 seconds, so that the viewer does not get tired of watching or waiting.
- Hashtags and Captions
You want to add hashtags that are popular and trending , as well as within your craft, so if anyone searches for what you create, your video will show up. As for Captions, you want to engage with your audience, so dont be afraid to use sentences or questions you would say in an actual conversation.
- Engage With Your Comments
Once comments start arriving, do not forget to respond to them and show true connection with them. Not only am i referring to your posts, but as well as other peoples content. Comment and engage with those users to show the algorithm that you are active, and also to make other users aware of you, thus receiving more attention.
You should start seeing results no less than a week or two! Remember that success does not happen over night, but when it does, it is over night (if you understand what im saying). Be patient and consistent and dont allow the numbers to slow your down.
Content Ideas
Musicians often fall victim to terms such as ‘writers block’, ‘beat block’ or ‘creative block’’, where our creative juices run dry or our musical engines are burning out. Thankfully the process is only temporary, but sadly that does not stop us from experiencing such a tragedy.
So I’ve listed a number of ideas that can be used creatively and intuitively.
- Remixing/If I Featured..
This comes in handy for artists and producers. Remixing for producers involves taking an acapella or sample of a chosen song, and adding your own twist to it or rebranding it to something it has never been before. Take this and add a cup of your niche to it and BAM! You have your very own remix.
“If I Featured..” is an artist taking a trending song, and simply adding their own taste to it with their verse. Maybe take a song out of your genre and recreate it to the genre you specify in, and VWALA! A never-made-before piece of art.
- Cover
Covers are pieces of work that will never die out. An artist with its voice and an instrumental player with its body.
- If *insert song name* was made by *instert artist/producer name*
Pretty self explanatory. Make your best impression and have some fun acting like yout favourite artists/producers.
- Collab with other users/Stich/Duet
- Use TikTok Features
- Behind The Scenes Of Your Craft
Those should be more than enough to keep you occupied and having fun until you are capable of creating more unique content best suited for you.
Conclusion
TikTok has become a massive success and is nowhere near its end. This is the best Social Media platform for any artist and Musician to Market themselves and their content and this has been proven countless times with many influencers and celebrities growing off from this platform.
So if it’s been made possible so many times then nothing should be stopping you from investing your time into TikTok.
References
https://thedigitalmarketinginstitute.org/
https://blog.thedigitalmarketinginstitute.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=10097&action=edit
https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-most-popular-stars-gen-z-influencers-social-media-app-2019-6
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics
https://neilpatel.com/blog/tiktok-marketing/
Biography
My name is Jaden Kloppers, I am 19 years old and I am an intern at the International Institute of Digital Marketing™. Cape Town, South Africa born and raised, spreading my wings globally. I am artist, music producer, dancer , media editor and soon to be world wide sensation through my hard work and talent.