Just days after the US Department Of Commerce announced plans to ban TikTok, the social media app lives on thanks to a potential sale.
TikTok is fully operational in the United States as of today, September 22. The social media app, which was set to be banned last Sunday, was spared its untimely fate thanks to a last-ditch effort from Oracle and Wal-Mart to purchase the company over the weekend. President Trump has approved the sale in principle, but conflicting reports from the companies involved leave many questions unanswered.
According to Variety, virtually every person and every company involved in the acquisition of TikTok disagrees on the terms of this deal. The deal approved by Trump allegedly makes Oracle the cloud provider and host of TikTok. That means the company will move its data stateside, and that U.S. citizens will control the data.
Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, whose Beijing headquarters are at the center of the platform’s controversy, disagrees.
What isn’t disputed: Oracle plans to take a 12.5% stake, and Walmart will get 7.5% in pre-IPO equity in TikTok Global. The new company will be based in the U.S. and run on the Oracle Cloud platform. ByteDance will continue to maintain control over the A.I. algorithms that power the TikTok app’s video recommendations (and which ByteDance uses for the similar Douyin app, available in China). The deal values TikTok at as much as $60 billion, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.
Trump previously claimed the only adequate deal would be one where a US-controlled TikTok. ByteDance claims it will retain majority control, as it believes the remaining 80% of pre-IPO equity belongs to them, but that might not be true.
To make sense of this, Music Biz News host James Shotwell put together a video explaining how we got here and what may happen next.
President Trump's executive order against Bytedance-owned TikTok goes into effect this Sunday, September 20.
President Trump’s executive order against Bytedance-owned TikTok goes into effect this Sunday, September 20.
The US Department of Commerce announced on Friday, September 18, that the maintenance and distribution of TikTok in US app stores would be prohibited starting Sunday, September 20.
Friday’s news follows a series of threats from the Trump administration toward TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and other Chinese-owned tech companies. The president began that such bans would happen in early August alongside allegations that the Chinese government could use the data collected by tech companies against the United States.
Starting Sunday, September 20, TikTok will disappear from both the Apple and Google app stores. Consumers who already have the app will still be able to access its content and create new videos until November 12. No further updates will be accessible, which may cause a degradation of service over time.
“The only real change as of Sunday night will be [TikTok users] won’t have access to improved apps, updated apps, upgraded apps or maintenance,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday morning on Fox Business.
“Today’s actions prove once again that President Trump will do everything in his power to guarantee our national security and protect Americans from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Ross. “At the President’s direction, we have taken significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data, while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and regulations.”
ByteDance may save TikTok’s presence in the states by making a deal with an American-owned corporation to house data stateside. Several corporations have expressed an interest in such partnerships, and some have floated the idea of purchasing the platform altogether. As of this posting, no deals have been made.
The complete loss of TikTok would be a major blow to music discovery at a time when the entertainment business is already in dire straights. The platform has launched dozens of careers in recent years, including breakout talent such as Lil Nas X and ppcocaine.
Additional updates on TikTok are likely to surface in the coming weeks. Follow Haulix on Facebook and YouTube for news.
The latest feature from one of the world’s biggest social media platforms is a complete waste of time and design. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Instagram seized a golden opportunity when it released Reels, its direct competitor to TikTok, in early August. Arriving just as President Trump was unveiling plans to ban TikTok (a decision that may never happen), Reels offers content creators a new place to make and share looping videos set to music or original audio recordings. It’s the latest example in a long line of Insta-updates that borrow proven ideas from other platforms, but unlike Stories and Filters, Reels is DOA.
Reels may have the look and feel of TikTok and a large potential user base, but it suffers from being a small part of a much larger platform. To find Reels, users must first open Instagram, navigate to their explore page, and click on the Reels option at the top of the page. That is two more steps than TikTok, and the problems continue from there.
TikTok users have two feeds of content two choose from; one that they curate themselves through follows, and another that is generated by the platform’s algorithm. Reels only offers one feed, and it combines algorithmic predictions with what users want with the people they follow. You cannot follow someone in Reels alone, so any Reels creators someone follows will have photos and videos from those creators appear in the user’s main Instagram feed.
Then there is an issue with the length of Reels clips. TikTok allows users to make their content up to one-minute long, but Reels limits clips to fifteen seconds. That may be enough time to do a quick dance or lip-sync, but it places a seemingly unnecessary cap on creative expression.
Many of Reels’ most significant flaws stem from a core misunderstanding of why people use Instagram as opposed to TikTok. Instagram is a social network people use to give friends, family, and followers a glimpse into their lives. It is, in many ways, a carefully-curated glimpse into someone’s private life (or the life they want you to believe they lead). TikTok, on the other hand, is made with entertainment in mind. Most users don’t share personal content, just memes. It’s about making people laugh or smile or momentarily forget about whatever is bothering them. As the kids say, “it’s not that deep.”
However, all hope is not lost. Reels could become a go-to platform for creatives, but to do so, Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, need to reconsider their goals. What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to entertain, and if so, how do you make that clear? Give users the ability to curate a Reels-specific following and make it easier to find the app’s feature. Facebook could even take things one step further and make Reels a standalone app for content creation that allows for cross-posting to Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram has built a large part of its business by stealing ideas that other services made famous. Its popular stories feature, which is the most used part of the app, is a variation of a similar tool that Snapchat brought to the public years prior. Similarly, though with less exciting results, IGTV is a variation of YouTube. These features both had their fair share of growing pains, but the longterm value is worth the effort needed to make them right. Reels could be the next ‘borrowed’ idea that hits big, but it’s not there-at least, not yet.
As the world waits to see if the United States follows through with a TikTok ban, Instagram’s competing service Reels feels dead on arrival.
Instagram launched its long-teased Reels feature at the beginning of August. A direct competitor to TikTok, Reels allows users to post 15-second clips set to music and other sounds they share with the global Instagram community. Its release follows the news that President Trump will be banning TikTok in September, but so far, the rollout isn’t taking the world by storm.
On the surface, Reels should be a hit. The feature looks and feels a lot like TikTok, which boasts more than a billion users worldwide. Users can browse through a seemingly endless collection of user-generated content set to catchy and humorous audio that provides a quick escape from the hellscape of 2020. Content creators can also use the sound from other creators’ clips, a tool that helped songs like “Old Town Road” from Lil Nas X go viral on TikTok.
But there is a problem—actually, more than one.
Reels may have the look and feel of TikTok and a large potential user base, but it suffers from being a small part of a much larger platform. To find Reels, users must first open Instagram, navigate to their explore page, and click on the Reels option at the top of the page. That is two more steps than TikTok, and the problems continue from there.
TikTok users have two feeds of content two choose from; one that they curate themselves through follows, and another that is generated by the platform’s algorithm. Reels only offers one feed, and it combines algorithmic predictions with what users want with the people they follow. You cannot follow someone in Reels alone, so any Reels creators someone follows will have photos and videos from those creators appear in the user’s main Instagram feed.
Then there is an issue with the length of Reels clips. TikTok allows users to make their content up to one-minute long, but Reels limits clips to fifteen seconds. That may be enough time to do a quick dance or lip-sync, but it places a seemingly unnecessary cap on creative expression.
Many of Reels’ most significant flaws stem from a core misunderstanding of why people use Instagram as opposed to TikTok. Instagram is a social network people use to give friends, family, and followers a glimpse into their lives. It is, in many ways, a carefully-curated glimpse into someone’s private life (or the life they want you to believe they lead). TikTok, on the other hand, is made with entertainment in mind. Most users don’t share personal content, just memes. It’s about making people laugh or smile or momentarily forget about whatever is bothering them. As the kids say, “it’s not that deep.”
However, all hope is not lost. Reels could become a go-to platform for creatives, but to do so, Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, need to reconsider their goals. What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to entertain, and if so, how do you make that clear? Give users the ability to curate a Reels-specific following and make it easier to find the app’s feature. Facebook could even take things one step further and make Reels a standalone app for content creation that allows for cross-posting to Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram has built a large part of its business by stealing ideas that other services made famous. Its popular stories feature, which is the most used part of the app, is a variation of a similar tool that Snapchat brought to the public years prior. Similarly, though with less exciting results, IGTV is a variation of YouTube. These features both had their fair share of growing pains, but the longterm value is worth the effort needed to make them right. Reels could be the next ‘borrowed’ idea that hits big, but it’s not there-at least, not yet.
TikTok promotes itself as a platform where creatives can become stars overnight, but how exactly does that work?
TikTok has quickly become the premier music discovery platform on the planet. More than half a billion people use TikTok every month, and they are helping raise a new generation of talent that may otherwise never have a chance at success. Lil Nas X is perhaps the best example of TikTok’s power, but since “Old Town Road” became a global sensation, more than a dozen additional artists have come out of nowhere to take the app’s community by storm.
But how does that happen? Algorithms play a part, of course, but how does a relatively unknown talent captivate an audience of millions in a matter of days or weeks with a single song? Could it really be talent alone?
Lol. No. Of course.
A recent feature from Rolling Stone found that the answer to this modern mystery is as old as the music business itself. Regardless of all the technological advances of TikTok boasts and its incredibly inventive userbase, money is the common trait amongst every success story. Artists and labels alike are pouring thousands of dollars into each song promotion. Influencers receive cash to create clips that inspire their millions of followers to imitate their behaviors and continue using a specific song or sound.
The biggest moneymaker on TikTok is Charli D’Amelio, a twenty-something that demands around $30,000 per song promotion. Other influential creatives charge between $2,000 and $20,000 per placement, but again, there is no guarantee of success.
In this episode of Music Biz, host James Shotwell demystifies how songs succeed on TikTok with a straightforward answer that will not appeal to everyone. He also expresses caution for artists that may be considering influencer marketing for their next single. Check it out:
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TikTok is growing faster than ever thanks to Coronavirus, and artists on the platform are witnessing a surge in engagement.
If you thought TikTok was the latest in a long series of ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ social media platforms – think again. The video-sharing app is growing in leaps and bounds, especially in light of COVID-19. The novel coronavirus is forcing everyone to stay inside, so anyone not yet converted to the world of TikTok now has plenty of time to assimilate.
Artists on TikTok are benefitting from the rise in content and new users in significant ways. After Lil Nas X, Ashnikko, and Blanco Brown took off in 2019, the latest crop of talent building massive followings on the platform is more diverse than ever. There are newcomers to mainstream pop, such as Jack Harlow and Doja Cat, as well as countless independent musicians whose current level of success is owed almost entirely to the TikTok community. Still, others are the kind of bizarre talent that only sees recognition because the internet loves weird things.
Some songs succeed on TikTok after users create action-based trends with a specific track. One recent example of that would be Powfu’s single, “Death Bed (Coffer For Your Head).” Users have paired the song with clips of themselves expressing their previously unspoken feelings for close friends. Check it out:
The majority of TikTok users are young. 66% of the app’s audience is below thirty years old, and many of its most famous users are younger than twenty. More than 800 million people use TikTok every month. The average user spends 52-minutes on the app per day. That engagement is exposing people to a lot of music, and that discovery is propelling many unknown artists and groups to success.
Even more impressive is TikTok’s engagement stats. TikTok has the highest follower engagement rate in social media. The average post receives engagement from 8-9.5% of the account’s following. That figure doesn’t count the engagement on posts found by users browsing the platform’s many video feeds, which are far easier to navigate than Twitter lists or Instagram’s ‘For You’ page.
Still, finding the next big thing by scrolling TikTok posts can be difficult. The app currently has no chart system in place, so the only way to understand what songs are popular is to watch a lot of videos.
Every label and artist would love to experience the level of viral success TikTok can provide, but users of the platform tend to enjoy hip-hop and pop music more than any other genre. The artists seeing the most success on the app often blur genre lines while delivering infectious and straightforward melodies. As a result, a great hook or strong opening can mean more than the quality of a song overall.
We cannot tell you how to make TikTok users fall in love with your music. We are researching that topic, but so far, the best advice anyone has given us is to ensure your songs are as immediately catchy as possible. To further prove this point, we took the most popular songs on the platform right now (April 1, 2020) and put them into a Spotify playlist. Check it out:
With multiple songs going viral on TikTok simultaneously, Tokyo’s Revenge is the video-sharing platform’s first breakout star of 2020.
Ask any regular TikTok viewer if they know a rap song that features a barking ad-lib, and their brain fills with flashbacks to countless clips. Ask that same user if they also know a song that features the line, “that’s a thot,” and their eyes will roll back as another avalanche of memories featuring looping videos with dancing people floods their brain. These tracks are commonplace on TikTok, and they have been for the better part of three months.
Both songs are the creation of Tokyo’s Revenge, a fast-rising rapper hailing from Connecticut. The young artist has never revealed his real name or age, and according to a recent interview with Complex, he prefers anonymity.
He explains, “For now, while I’m still a dickhead, I can be like, ‘I’m 444 years old.’ I want to stay as anonymous as possible”. Adding, “I don’t really care that much, but I try to hold back as much information as possible, so people think about me and the music separately.”
Tokyo’s Revenge began posting music online in 2018. His first taste of success came with the release of “GOODMORNINGTOKYO!” on Soundcloud in the summer of 2019. The track went viral on the music-sharing platform, amassing millions of plays, but the music industry at large barely noticed his rising profile.
In November 2019, Tokyo’s Revenge again went viral with the release of “THOT!” The song, which references Drake and lasts under three-minutes, feels built for the social media age. The track features a hypnotic beat backing lyrics that display intelligence and humor in equal measure. It’s the kind of song you cannot shake, one that lodges itself inside your mind and plays on repeat at all hours of the day.
According to Google Trends, Tokyo’s Revenge has skyrocketed in popularity since the beginning of December 2019
Both neither “GOODMORNINGTOKYO!” Or “THOT!” would be a topic of conversation today without TikTok. Beginning in December 2019, both tracks found a massive audience on the ByteDance-owned platform. The first to win over users was “THOT!,” which was aided in part by a viral dance trend.
To date, the original upload of “THOT!” has inspired more than 200,000 TikTok videos, with countless more created from remixes and separate (unauthorized) uploads.
Fans of “THOT!” soon learned that Tokyo’s Revenge has other songs tailor-made for TikTok clips. Pinning down who was the first to use “GOODMORNINGTOKYO!” is almost impossible given the current tools made available by the platform. Still, there are now more than 1.1 million videos using the song. The most popular trend amongst these clips is for content creators to act out the ad-libs. For example, people bark. Check it out:
It’s safe to assume there are more than 1.5 million TikTok videos in existence today that use music created by Tokyo’s Revenge. Those clips have millions and millions of views, which has helped both songs — as well as the rest of the artist’s catalog — find success on other platforms. “GOODMORNINGTOKYO!” has amassed more than 38 million Spotify streams and topped the platform’s viral songs charts. “THOT!” has more than 10 million Spotify streams and appears on dozens of popular playlists.
Tokyo’s Revenge has more than 50 million plays on his Spotify account and over 4.6 million monthly listeners.
The success of these two songs has gotten so massive that the industry is finally paying attention to the artist behind them. In the last month, Tokyo’s Revenge has been appearing in virtually every major hip-hop publication, as well as numerous music-related YouTube channels. Just last week, Tokyo’s Revenge and his producer, Clifford, did a Genius video breaking down the story behind “GOODMORNINGTOKYO!”
We’ve seen this kind of star-making success in the past with Ashnikko, Stunna Girl, and Blanco Brown. That said, the excitement around Tokyo’s Revenge feels different because he has multiple tracks going viral at once. Whether or not the young musician behind them can continue this trend of TikTok-ready creations remains to be seen, but with over 4 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, he’s already making enough money from music that he doesn’t need a day job. Aside from a record deal and RIAA certifications, what more could you ask for when you’ve barely released enough material to fill an album?
TikTok relies heavily on music to keep users happy, but should musicians be investing time and resources to promoting their work on the popular video-sharing app?
It’s easy to understand why the advertisers and record execs alike are fascinated by TikTok. With over 1.5 billion downloads worldwide and more than half a billion monthly users, TikTok has a diverse community of content creators that are changing the way people discover things online. Just look at the success of Lil Nas X, for example. The “Old Town Road” rapper first found viral popularity by placing his now-iconic breakout single on TikTok. Additionally, Blanco Brown, Stunna Girl, and Ashnikko all landed record deals because their music became popular on the app.
With TikTok turning unknown talents into internationally-recognized names in a matter of weeks, musicians everywhere are beginning to question whether or not the same could happen to them. After all, TikTok needs new music to keep its users inspired, so there is always a chance your song could be the next single that takes the platform by storm. It’s also possible that your song fails to find a following on the app and goes nowhere. The TikTok community is wild and unpredictable, which is what makes it so great, but that also means that anything is possible.
Before you invest hours of time and effort into developing a presence on TikTok or attempt promoting your music through the app, Music Biz host James Shotwell has some insight to share about the platform. From the revenue artists may or may not see to the difficulties people encounter when trying to leverage their success, having a hit song on TikTok may not be all that great for artists on the rise. Watch the video below for more information.
The world’s fastest-growing social media platform, TikTok, has quickly become the number one source for music discovery.
TikTok made its presence known in 2019. From the seemingly unstoppable success of Lil Nas X to the quick ascension of newcomers Blanco Brown, Stunna Girl, and Ashnikko into the pop culture spotlight, TikTok has proven itself as one of the essential music discovery platforms. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but right now, it seems no other platform has the star-making power possessed by this wildly popular app.
The numbers behind TikTok speak for themselves. The app now has over 1.5 billion downloads worldwide, which is far more than any music streaming platform, and it is more popular on Android devices than iPhones. 29% of monthly users open TikTok every day, and they typically spend around 52 minutes per day on the app.
Even better, 60% of the app’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 16- to 24- year-olds. That means, the key demographic for new music discovery in the United States turns to TikTok for entertainment and activity. That’s a massive segment of the population.
TikTok users create and share short video content. The majority of clips involve lip-syncing to music, but others use songs to soundtrack the action happening in the video. Some posts have no music at all, but for this post, we won’t address that content.
Finding the next big thing by scrolling TikTok posts can be difficult. The app currently has no chart system in place, so the only way to understand what songs are popular is to watch a lot of videos.
Every label and artist would love to experience the level of viral success TikTok can provide, but users of the platform tend to enjoy hip-hop and pop music more than any other genre. The artists seeing the most success on the app often blur genre lines while delivering infectious and straightforward melodies. As a result, a great hook or strong opening can mean more than the quality of a song overall.
Even musicians are catching on. Instead of waiting for TikTok to discover her latest singer, pop star Camila Cabello uses her account to share original videos using her songs.
We cannot tell you how to make TikTok users fall in love with your music. We are researching that topic, but so far, the best advice anyone has given us is to ensure your songs are as immediately catchy as possible. To further prove this point, we took the most popular songs on the platform right now (December 19) and put them into a Spotify playlist.
What surprises us the most about the content that goes viral on TikTok is that the vast majority of it comes from artists with relatively no pre-existing fame. Aside from a select few fast-rising stars, such as Doja Cat and Die Antwoord, many of the artists going viral on TikTok right now are virtually unknown.
Take “Becky” artist Championxiii, for example. The Houston rapper has less than 300 followers on Twitter, but on TikTok, he has more than 1.4 million followers. Similarly, “Becky” has amassed over 11 million streams on Spotify, which is over 10 million more than his second most popular song.
There are two ways the industry can view talent that goes viral on TikTok without first establishing themselves elsewhere. On the one hand, TikTok may hear something that industry A&R does not. At the same time, however, a single viral hit on TikTok does not mean someone is capable of replicating their success or building a career. TikTok talent is, in many ways, a high-risk investment.
That said, the kids like what they like, and the industry will continue to follow their lead.
TikTok is making superstars, but what kind of musicians are most likely to get ahead on the fastest-growing social media platform?
TikTok is an unstoppable force in the world of music. With more than one-billion downloads worldwide and over 500 million monthly users, TikTok has a sprawling community of creators who are actively shaping pop culture on a daily basis. From dances to jokes and even music, TikTok is at the forefront of social influence among young people, and that trends is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
TikTok’s influence on music is perhaps its most interesting. Since helping Lil Nas X rise to history-making success with his hit song, “Old Town Road,” the platform has aided other unlikely stars in finding success. First came Blanco Brown and “The Git Up,” which is now a platinum-certified song, and then came the one-million-dollar deal Stunna Girl received after her track “Runway” went viral. More recently, fast-rising star Ashnikko found a burst of attention after TikTok users discovered her sexually-charged smash, “STUPID.”
The users of TikTok are catapulting artists to the forefront of pop culture that may otherwise have never received a chance at stardom. Many of the biggest songs on the platform are from musicians with no deal, no touring experience, and only a small catalog of tracks. With the right users finding a track, virtually anyone can become the next star the platform gives to the world at large.
To help get you started, we studied the biggest hits on TikTok in October 2019 to find what, if anything, the songs have in common. Here’s what we learned:
Memorable lyrics are often key
The greatest songwriters from previous generations made an impact on culture with songs and albums that told elaborate, sprawling stories of the human condition. Some of those tracks may find an audience on TikTok as well, but most users are seeking out 4-16 bars that make an immediate impression on listeners. Lyrics that may seem silly or outright ridiculous to average music consumers often take TikTok by storm. Here’s just one example:
TikTok Loves Lyrics You Bring To Life
Going hand in hand with memorable lyrics are songs that are easily brought to life. That can mean direct call to action lines like those found in Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up” or a story that people can easily act out. Tongue-in-cheek lyrics tend to perform best, like these lines from rapper Lil Mayo:
People want to dance
Dancing is a huge part of the TikTok community. When users find a song that inspires them to move, trends begin that can change an artist’s career in a very short amount of time. Whether the dances are good or bad doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fun one has performing them, which is good news for every artist whose material has a great beat.
Don’t be afraid to switch it up
Sometimes the thing that makes a song popular on TikTok has nothing to do with the lyrics or the ability to dance. Kesh Kesh found success by sharing a song that includes a beat change in the opening moments that inspired an entire lane of TikToks where people surprise viewers with (often elaborate) outfit changes. Check it out:
You can never have too much bass
The majority of the viral songs on TikTok hail from the worlds of rap and EDM. Both areas of music are known for in your face production and lyricism, which fits well with the need all TikTok users have to make a quick impression on viewers. Bass-heavy tracks, as well as song that contain bass drops, have been known to take the platform by storm.
Remember: TikTok clips are usually fifteen-seconds long. When looking for tracks to upload and share on the platform, try searching from the most memorable clips from your material that fit that time restriction.
