What Now for Artists on TikTok?
What Now for Artists on TikTok?
It's been a dramatic couple of months for the social media giant
** Side note - I’ve switched over to Substack for the newsletter - both because I like the general layout, plus it’s a handy way to keep an archive on the site. I’ll continue to write on the topic of music culture and trends and hope you continue to enjoy reading them **
The last couple of months have been extremely chaotic for TikTok, and the fallout has left many artists wondering where TikTok should fit in their marketing strategy going forward.
It all kickstarted back when Universal decided to remove their artists’ music from the app citing unfair remuneration, resulting in millions of tracks being removed from the platform, and artists being caught in the middle with no control over the situation.
This bold move caused a lot of friction, with hundreds of artists expressing discontent. Still, despite all this, Universal stood firm in its position, even when Taylor Swift undermined them and put her music back on TikTok, able to do so due to her deal giving her ownership of copyrights.
This move highlighted the different perspectives that artists and labels have towards the app. Labels clearly have a much bigger interest in getting paid more for their catalog of already-established music, especially with a lot of older hits going viral.
Artists on the other hand view it as more of a promotional tool for their new music, accepting (begrudgingly) the low rates of compensation with the hope that any exposure carries over into other areas.
While this move from Taylor might have helped strengthen TikTok’s position, it all changed with the recent senate bill passing to either ban it or force a sale.
This places massive pressure on TikTok and it’s the sort of thing that has knock-on effects on public perception, with a recent poll showing that 58% of people in the US now believe it is used to influence public opinion.
This move is also likely to influence the perception of the app in other countries, with it already facing investigation in the EU for its impact on children’s safety and mental health.
Given all this, it’s not too surprising that last week we saw TikTok and UMG reach a new licensing deal including ‘improved remuneration’ for artists amongst other things.
Without being privy to the specifics, I’d hazard a guess that UMG managed to score a massive win given the amount of leverage they had.
TikTok had its back against the wall and has vowed to fight the ban (looks like they’ve already started), they will want to do everything they can to ensure the app retains dominance in a marketplace worth $16 billion to them, so paying higher royalty rates to get UMG on side is a no brainer.
While this agreement brings a powerful ally back and keeps the app as engaging as it has always been, it still leaves the future of TikTok up in the air and raises a question about how the music industry should approach the app from now on.
The bill gives ByteDance until 19th January 2025 to sell or face a ban - they have stated they would rather close the app than sell it.
This has got a lot of artists wondering if this should change their approach to TikTok, and whether it makes sense to be investing effort into building an audience that could disappear in a year.
While this may seem like a new problem, it’s actually one we’ve seen over and over again - and it all boils down to platform risk.
Negating Platform Risk
Just like when MySpace lost relevancy and artists lost access to fans, or when Facebook changed its algorithm to limit audience reach, or when Twitter shut down Vine. We’ve seen this film before.
Whether TikTok gets banned or not, this whole situation should highlight the importance of reducing dependency on one platform or channel.
When artists are too reliant on one channel they risk having the rug pulled from under them with little control over what they can do about it.
The best way to reduce this risk is by directing fans to channels they have ownership of, with the most obvious being an email list, in addition to diversifying activity across a few different platforms.
The good news for artists is that diversifying across channels is becoming easier to do. With every social platform striving to add on the features of its competitors, essentially becoming the same apps, repurposing content becomes way more viable.
Rebalanced Priorities
The changes these last few months should hopefully rebalance the priorities of artists and their teams. For a couple of years, TikTok was the darling of music marketing, turning unknown acts into superstars overnight. Marketing efforts were focused on understanding what format worked on the app and doubling down on whatever worked.
But when something works well, everyone starts doing it - and when everyone’s doing it, it suddenly doesn’t work as well anymore.
Everyone became reliant on TikTok, but we’re starting to see the signs of discontent - the results aren’t as consistent or scalable.
The resulting impact of this looming ban will be an increased hesitancy around overfocusing on TikTok, and as the industry places more focus on superfans, a natural side effect of this will be the development of tools and strategies to help move people along the funnel from casual listeners to engaged fans.
For artists, the focus going forward should be on how to use social media to gain exposure, while simultaneously ensuring that exposure is directed into owned channels that offer direct access to fans.
Other Stuff
Instagram Algorithm 2024 Changes — More Original Content, Better for Small Creators
In what seems like a move to make the app feel more like TikTok, Instagram is making a change to its algorithm to favour the creators of original content over content aggregators that repost content. This gives more of a chance for smaller content creators to blow up randomly in the same way they do on TikTok.
Universal Music Group sees a future where 1 in 5 streamers pays for a ‘super-premium’ tier
While the major labels keep talking about the priority of superfans, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. This ‘super-premium’ tier suggests this would exist inside a streaming service, which still raises the same issues that come with not having full ownership of your channels.
The False Drake v Kendrick Rumour
There was a rumor doing the rounds about UMG getting involved in the Kendrick vs Drake beef, alleging that they were making demands to attempt some damage control - which has subsequently been denied by Universal.
While the drama has been undeniably entertaining, and is responsible for a serious number of streams, there are surely some nervous heads at Universal wondering quite how all this is going to play out once the dust settles.
Having struck a massive deal back in 2021 the label won't want to see the longevity of Drake’s catalog impacted negatively - no doubt the crisis management team is working overtime rn.
Did AI Just End Music?
AI is moving quickly, it feels like it’s all so new, so it was interesting to see some examples of people trying to create the same tools way back.