Welcome to the wild world of TikTok, where a 15-second clip can turn a song into an overnight sensation and have you accidentally learn a dance routine at 2 AM. TikTok has not only revolutionized social media but has also reshaped the music industry. Now, music supervisors for TikTok are the secret sauce in navigating your musical strategy and the unpredictable turns TikTok trends can take.
The Value of Music Supervisors for TikTok
Breaking Down Their Role
Music supervisors for TikTok might as well have a job description that reads: ‘must pick hits before they hit and know Gen-Zers better than they know themselves.’ They must have a keen sense for music that resonates with a global, predominantly younger audience, and the ability to foresee a song’s viral potential. This role extends beyond traditional music supervision, requiring a deep dive into the analytics and trends that drive TikTok’s ever-changing landscape.
Mastering the Art of Virality
One thing that makes music supervisors for TikTok unique is their ability to gauge the virality of a track. They analyze elements like the rhythm and lyrics of a song to understand how it can be used in challenges, dances, and other popular TikTok formats.
Catering to a Younger, Digital-First Audience
Music supervisors for TikTok face the unique challenge of appealing to a younger demographic. This involves staying ahead of musical trends, discovering emerging artists, and understanding the genres and beats that captivate TikTok users. It’s a constant race to stay relevant in a platform defined by its rapid content turnover.
Collaboration in the TikTok Era
Collaboration is key, and music supervisors often find themselves brainstorming with artists, labels, and creators to craft the next TikTok hit. This collaboration can involve creating special edits of songs or strategizing on how to launch a track on the platform for maximum impact. They’re the bridge between the music industry and TikTok’s quirky realm, ensuring everyone speaks the same viral language.
Navigating Licensing in the TikTok World
Licensing music for TikTok presents unique challenges, to say the least. Music supervisors for TikTok need to be adept at negotiating rights in a digital space where a track can go from unknown to driving the next viral dance trend overnight. This demands a flexible and innovative approach to music licensing that’s tailored to the platform’s unique usage patterns.
Final Thoughts
As the TikTok world spins on, the role of music supervisors for TikTok becomes increasingly pivotal. They are tasked with keeping the world’s toes tapping. They stand at the forefront of fusing music curation with an intricate understanding of social media dynamics. With three years under our belt as TikTok Sound Partners and our music supervision team’s diverse knowledge in sync licensing, we stand prepared and excited to elevate your TikToks and TikTok ads to new heights. Are you ready to make your sound resonate in the TikTok universe? Contact us to request music today.
TikTok has become one of the most popular and fastest-growing social media platforms, especially among the younger crowd. It has massively grown in the last few years and now stands above Facebook, Google, and other tech giants. Its rules are simple: pull out your phone, open the app, and do whatever you can to make the most creative 15-second TikTok video. But what is the app like from a legal standpoint? Like other social platforms, TikTok also subjects its users to rules and regulations surrounding music licensing and copyright infringement. But, since the app is relatively new, it is easier to fly under its radar.
However, TikTok has recently launched its Commercial Music Library to ensure music’s safe and legal use. This is a big step, particularly for brands and business accounts, since they can no longer use music the same way as before. As a result, many of these brands have moved towards music licensing to steer clear of any copyright infringement and prevent their hard work from getting taken down.
To resolve this, TikTok began signing licensing deals with the major labels and producers, giving them royalty rights. Following these music licensing agreements, the company released its Commercial Music Library in May 2022.
The Commercial Music Library (CML) is a pool of pre-cleared, free-to-use, licensed tracks. The audio library enables organizations and verified businesses to use these tracks for advertising and other commercial purposes.
How To Legally Use Music for TikTok Videos?
CML is good news for artists and producers in the music industry since their songs are protected from theft and unlicensed use but for the brands? Not so much. Now, brands can only use the licensed music available on CML and can no longer hop on any trending songs or participate in sponsored hashtags. So, what should they do? Well, here are a few ways to begin.
Only Use Tracks from CML
The first way is simple: stick to the rules. Whenever you upload videos on TikTok, use music from the CML. With about 500,000 tracks available, the library presents many options to choose from and is available for global use. Anyone can use CML’s content for advertising, endorsements, sponsorships, and marketing without fear of penalty or takedown.
Music Licensing
A music licensing agreement is the second way to get your hands on a “non-CML” track. To do this, you need to acquire proper music rights and licensing. This can be costly, but if you are sure that your brand can benefit from it, then go for it.
TikTok music licensing is multifaceted and involves negotiation with the music’s rights holders regarding the reason and compensation of the license. And once you get the approval, you can use the song for any purpose. One good business practice for all brands and verified businesses is to hire a lawyer to ensure that they comply with the obligations and that none of the content infringes copyright.
Create Original Music
The last way to avoid copyright infringement is to create original music. This idea may seem daunting at first, but creating custom music is one of the best ways to convey your brand’s message and to make it stand out among the competitors.
Let Score a Score Help You
With its emerging popularity, the gray areas of TikTok’s legal policies are coming to light. The app is not as lenient as it once was and has brought some challenges for brands and verified accounts. If you also fall under this unfortunate category, get in touch with Score a Score and let us help you with music licensing to get the best track for your TikTok videos.
To stay relevant on social media, you need to be on all the latest platforms. The latest and fastest-growing social media platform is the music-centric app TikTok, with an estimated 1 billion users. That’s a lot of potential exposure! Artists are constantly gaining popularity on TikTok by adding their music to the app. This is why it’s so important to get your music on TikTok. Users can add your music or sound to their videos, which can end up getting millions of plays, or even billions if it goes viral. But before your song goes viral, it needs to get onto the app. Score a Score will walk you through the process of how to get music on TikTok and why it’s important to have your music on the platform.
How to Get Music on TikTok
When your music is on TikTok, you can gain popularity and make money. Just like how plays on Apple Music and Amazon Music can get you paid, so can plays on TikTok. To get your music on TikTok, you’ll need digital distribution.
Digital Distribution
Have you ever noticed that not all songs are available on TikTok? That’s because the songs have to be officially added to the TikTok library through digital distribution. If they’re not added to the TikTok library, you can’t add the song to your video on the TikTok app.
Digital distribution is how you will manage the rights to your music and get credit for every time your music plays. You will need to distribute your music to the TikTok app for it to be on the list of available sounds to choose from, so it can be streamed. When streamed, you will be paid for each stream.
Release the Music
Once you have distributed your music onto the TikTok library, you’ll have to release it. Creating a release means providing detailed information to a streaming platform, and it is a very important step in the process.
To release the music onto the TikTok app, you will need to provide album artwork, publishing information, and detailed metadata proving that you are the author and owner of the music you’re releasing.
Get Paid for Plays
Now that you have released your music onto TikTok, you are ready to get paid. Anyone can create a video and add your music to their TikTok videos. Getting paid for adding your music to TikTok works this way:
A TikTok user creates a video
The user chooses to add your music to their TikTok video
The TikTok video is published and ready to be played
You earn money every time the TikTok video with your music is played
Another Great Way to Get Music on TikTok
Adding your music to the TikTok library is a great way for the app’s users to find your music and choose your song for their video, but that’s not the only way you can get your music on TikTok.
Did you know you can make a music profile and create your own content on TikTok? This is another great way to gain exposure and reach the one billion users on the app.
To promote your music on TikTok, you will need to make a music profile complete with album artwork or an avatar and all of the information pertaining to your music identity. This includes a biography and links to websites and other social media and streaming platforms.
All the videos on your music profile should be between 10 and 20 seconds long; the shorter, the better. Remember to interact with users who comment on your videos. You can also duet with other TikTok users who have a large following! This will help your music get exposure and gain popularity.
Let Score a Score Help
If you’re ready to get music on TikTok, let us help! Be sure to check out all of our information about Score a Score + TikTok. This will answer any additional questions you may have about how to get music on TikTok.
If you’re looking to master the art of creating music on TikTok, you’ve come to the right blog. We all know and love TikTok for its short-form videos. Over the past few years, TikTok has become an incredible source for music discovery, where new and upcoming artists can promote their music to a wider audience. As a proud TikTok Sound Partner with dozens of trending tracks in the TikTok Commercial Music Library (CML), we felt it was time to cover everything you need to know about how to get your music on TikTok in 2023.
Understanding the Importance of Music on TikTok
Music on TikTok has come a long way since the early days of lip-syncing and dance challenges on Musical.ly. Today, sounds on the platform are a mix of original content, snippets from popular songs, lo-fi tracks, sound effects, and narration. We will dive into the power it holds for musicians in a moment. As far as brands and businesses are concerned, incorporating music into your TikToks and TikTok ads plays a vital role in storytelling, sonic branding, and brand recall. In fact, according to TikTok insights recently reported by Social Media Today, “there has been a 120% increase in awareness lift for brands that use TikTok’s music-driven, sound-on ad solutions.” Alright… enough hype. Let’s talk about how to get your music on TikTok!
Join the SAS Roster and Create Custom Music for the TikTok Commercial Music Library
As we said, we are a TikTok Sound Partner. What that means is we are an official music distributor and rights holder on the platform. Essentially, Score a Score is involved in fueling the entire musical ecosystem from artists to labels to brands. If you are a brand or business, you can select from a wide array of tracks composed by our SAS roster in the TikTok library to pair with your content. By using our tracks from the CML, we make it much easier for you to find audio to soundtrack your TikToks. It also means that you can come to us to help develop your strategy and approach on the platform!
What this partnership means for all of the talented artists reading this blog is that any song or sound that exists in our collection of tracks in the CML has the chance to get paired with major brands’ TikTok campaigns. It even gives your music the potential to go viral!
Get Involved With The New TikTok Artist Program
Within the TikTok Custom Music Library, is the newly released Artist Impact Program. This program is meant to create more possibilities for artists and brands to work together. Musicians will also be able to monetize their work, which in return, gives businesses access to a world of music from the CML. The increase in artist discoverability that comes from that kind of collaboration is unparalleled. Access to this program starts with finding a distributor that’s an official TikTok Sound Partner. To put it simply, and yes, we sound like a broken record now, start by joining the SAS Roster.
Strategies Beyond a Music Distribution Company
There are a handful of other strategies to help bring your music to a wider audience on TikTok. In addition to choosing the right distributor a.k.a. Score a Score, we recommend the following.
Collaborate With Other TikTok Musicians
TikTok’s collaborative nature makes it an ideal platform to connect with fellow musicians. Reach out to other artists whose work resonates with yours and explore the possibility of creating duets. The more you connect with other artists in your community, the easier it is to introduce your music to a wider audience. It even helps foster creativity.
Participate in Challenges and Trends
TikTok is known for its viral challenges and trends. By participating in them, you can ride the wave of trending music and engage with a wider audience. Keep your eye on the For You Page (FYP) to stay updated on the latest challenges and trends within your niche and in general. Jumping on these trends can provide an opportunity to showcase your skills and gain exposure.
Engage With Your Audience
No matter how small, building a loyal fan base requires active engagement with your audience. Respond to comments, address questions, and show appreciation for your followers’ support. TikTok’s duets and stitches are great features to use to interact and respond to what your following is doing with your music. This engagement creates a sense of community, encourages user-generated content, and enhances your visibility on the platform.
Utilize Hashtags in Your Captions Effectively
Long gone are the days when TikTok had its Discover page. However, hashtags live on. When you use them right, they can be a big help in increasing your reach. At the end of each caption, we recommend choosing three niche hashtags and one broad hashtag. You don’t want to use the same hashtags every single time. Do some research and come up with a list of 30 or so tags for both your niche (for us, it’s music) and for the broader ones. Keep in mind that there are three ways you can go about finding hashtags on TikTok:
Do a search on TikTok on what you’re posting about i.e. custom music, and find what other related hashtags pop up.
See what hashtags top creators in the music community are using.
While scrolling through your FYP, take a look at what hashtags are used in viral videos. This will help you find broader tags.
Please note that it’s essential that you do not incorporate irrelevant hashtags as it will draw in the wrong audience.
Track Your Music’s Performance
Lastly, use your analytics to your benefit. Tracking the performance of your content on a weekly and monthly basis will help you understand what is and is not working.
That’s a Wrap!
From finding the right distributor to collaborating with other creators in the TikTok music community, there are tons of ways to make the most of this platform. If you are interested in learning how else Score a Score can be of service, or if you just want to say hello, email us at music@scoreascore.com. Happy scoring!
