The Viral Music Social Ecosystem
Social media usage is up big during the pandemic, and no platform has benefited more from our collective boredom than TikTok. The video-sharing service set the record for most app downloads during a quarter in Q1 2020. And before it drew the attention of the Trump administration—who, for reasons too complex to delve into here, are pushing for Microsoft to acquire it from Chinese start-up ByteDance—it was making the music industry take notice.
Over the past year, TikTok has launched numerous songs into the Billboard charts. Musicians are now making songs with TikTok potential in mind and paying young content creators to use these songs in their videos in hopes that they’ll go viral. If a song becomes a TikTok hit, it will inevitably chart.
TikTok is certainly the hottest social platform right now (especially if you're a connected teen™), but artists have been using social media to launch their careers since the halcyon days of MySpace. Our newest graphic shows how many of today’s biggest artists got their starts on social platforms, either by posting music or developing followings for memes or other content.
The first act to really find success on social media was the Arctic Monkeys. A MySpace fan-created band page became a hub for swapping bootlegs of their live performances, and boosted their profile before they signed with Domino. Their online following helped their first single, “I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor,” soar to number one in its first week of release.
Over the next few years, major acts like Ingrid Michaelson, Colbie Caillat, Calvin Harris, and even Adele found success on MySpace. It became trendy to discover new music on the social site, and many new artists there found overnight fame. But the age of MySpace was short-lived—Facebook surpassed it in total users in 2008 and effectively supplanted it soon after.
Facebook, alas, made it more difficult to discover new music since it was designed to connect its users with people (and bands) they already knew, but another social media site was quickly filling this gap: YouTube.
YouTube created some of the most successful artists today, including Justin Beiber, Alessia Cara, and The Weeknd. Unlike Myspace, YouTube offered a more visual medium for fans where they could watch lyric videos, music videos, or live videos of new artists. It also gave artists an opportunity to get their music heard without needing the polished production of a major studio. All they needed was a camera and an internet connection to be successful.
YouTube obviously remains popular, but platforms with shorter content limits like Instagram (up to one minute) and TikTok (fifteen seconds or one minute) have become the preferred social media sites for musicians, many of whom now work as DIY marketers.
On TikTok, they’re participating in trends and posting content every day. They’re also marketing their music to a younger generation and aligning with new influencers to promote their songs and create viral challenges. Another popular strategy is buying up ad space on Instagram and Facebook to reach a larger audience, and putting more effort into producing quality visual content on a regular basis. It’s not just about talent anymore—it’s about branding.
Social media isn’t a new tool for the music industry, but it’s quickly becoming the most important one. For the first time, artists have control over their careers and can build their own fans from their phones. So when you’re scrolling through TikTok tonight before bed, watch closely—you might just stumble upon the next big thing.
