background
amongst tiktok users, its influence on the music industry is widely known and recognised:
many articles suggest tiktok has changed the industry, become a marketing tool,
and given way to a surge of grassroots artists' popularity.
however, in our preliminary research, we recognised that while this link is well established, there are no quantitative data studies that concretely establish a link between tiktok and music streaming.
check out our individual research commentary's for more background on the topic:
audrey's
trevor's
jaeli's
raw data
| song title |
youtube or spotify |
10 days prior |
day of tiktok creation |
10 days post |
40 days post |
| say so (doja cat) |
spotify |
646,898 |
687,140 |
742,211 |
904,262 |
| WAP (cardi b) |
spotify |
12,017,253 |
12,147,204 |
12,282,546 |
12,651,056 |
| WAP (cardi b) |
youtube |
13,300,000 |
13,600,000 |
13,900,000 |
14,700,000 |
| Savage (Megan Thee Stallion) |
spotify |
784,130 |
822,409 |
859,239 |
988,958 |
| Savage (Megan Thee Stallion) |
youtube |
1,290,000 |
1,390,000 |
1,440,000 |
1,670,000 |
| Lottery/Renegade (K Camp) |
spotify |
1,007,150 |
1,012,122 |
1,018,148 |
1,039,148 |
we looked at music streaming for tiktok trends 10 days prior to Charli's beginning of the trend to 40 days after the trend started.
with 4 data points (streaming 10 days before, day-of, 10 days after, and 40 days after) we graphed the increase in streaming.
findings
our findings are twofold.
quantitative results:
For our quantitative data, we tracked the following of various artists, who created songs that went viral on Tik Tok, across a 50 day period. We used Charli d’Amelio, the popular creator on Tik Tok with the most followers, as a metric to measure the virality of a song. We recorded the amount of followers and subscribers on Spotify and Youtube, respectively, for an artist 10 days before Charli d’Amelio used the song, the day she used the song, and 10 days and 40 days after she used the song. It is important to note that, in the case that Charli d’Amelio used the song more than once, we based our data on the date she first used the song. Then we compiled the data, and found the percentage growth in following since before Charli used the song for each song, as well as an average All of the data that we sourced from the website soundcharts, supported the conclusion that Tik Tok plays an influential role in the music industry.
The 14 artists that we tracked on spotify, on average grew by 4.04% during the 10 days before Charli used the sound. However, 10 days and 40 days after Charli used the sound, the growth rose to 10.29% and 31.74% respectively. The data on Youtube presented even more extreme results. During the 10 days before Chalri, the growth rate was, on average, 5.06%, but increased to 14.61% and 63.94% at 10 days and 40 days after Charli used the sound. Clearly, there is a correlation between the two variables, as the growth after Charli d’amelio uses a sound is significantly higher than before she uses it. Moreover, the standard deviation, in addition to the mean growth, increased as time went on. This demonstrates that Tik Tok does not uniformly affect artists, and the impact among artists can vary quite a lot. For example, the artist BENEE’s following increased by 109.76% on Spotify and 291.83% on Youtube after 40 days, and for the artist Don Toliver, his following increased by 110.49% on Spotify and 223.42% on Youtube. Compared to most artists or even the average growth, the growth with these two artists is very extreme. While they are not considered outliers, they do demonstrate the leverage that Tik Tok has on the music industry and marketing.
Finally, it is important to address the potential bias in the calculations. For artists who already have a very significant following prior to Tik Tok, it can be harder to assess the impact. For example, Cardi B gained 1.4 million Youtube Subscribers during the 50 day period that we tracked, yet her growth percentage was only 10.53% by the end of the period. Yet, BENEE who had the highest growth rate on youtube at 291.83%, only gained 193,000 followers. At first glance, one would underestimate the impact of Tik Tok on artist like Cardi B, who were already well established, buy the impact was just as significant, as gaining 1.4 million followers in such a short period is profound.
qualitative results:
The intention of the qualitative component of our research was to better understand TikTok creators’ relationship with the audios they choose, and how they perceive their own role in the TikTok-music dynamic. There is a somewhat obvious, though fundamental, difference in how popular creators and “regular” creators employ the app; we thus chose to interview two TikTokers with substantial followings, and a consumer-based user of the platform.
Just as we found in our review of the literature, and in our quantitative research, there is no question that TikTok and music are inseparable now.
The platform is "really a game changer for the music industry,”" says Kit, adding that “creators definitely have power in promoting an artist—you have access to so many people.”
Hannah and Maria have discovered much of the music they are currently listening to through the FYP, and find themselves frequently googling the lyrics to an earworm, finding the song on Youtube, and ultimately adding it to their Spotify playlists.
Kit’s relationship with TikTok music is a little different. She says she’ll often listen to music that’s being promoted by indie artists themselves, but that she’s noticed TikTok’s pop hits—“Cardi B, Lizzo, Doja Cat”—infiltrating her life nonetheless, being played in stores, or on speakers in parks.
We asked them about their personal process of making a TikTok. Kit describes scrolling through the FYP, saving sound clips that she thinks are funny; Hannah “get[s] inspiration from other TikTokers, and how they have used different audio clips,” and uses that as a jumping off point for her own comedic sketches; Maria bases her videos “off a sound picked out in advance,” mostly recreating trends she’s seen already.
We asked Kit, Hannah, and Maria what they thought about our quantitative data, and none of them were surprised.
hannah - gen z artists are the most impacted, which makes a lot of sense. they are alternative, meaning they’re not super popular, so popular tiktokers using their songs expands their listening base a lot
maria - “these artists are the most in touch with younger generations, and they know how to market themselves”
Within the world of creators, among those with the ever-elusive title of “influencer,” one girl stands out: Charli D’Amelio. Our interviewees agree that she is in a category of her own, reaffirming our choice to use her as a critical part of our quantitative data. Maria observes that she has “such an immense following, that if she uses a song everyone will go listen to it.”
Kit goes one step further, saying that of course she has “the power to create trends,” and that she can “post whatever the f*** she wants, and it’ll get attention”
We asked our interviewees about one of the most fascinating aspects of TikTok: the pace with which content (videos, audios, creators) goes viral.
Kit, like many creators, tries to formulate potentially viral content, actively working to get on the FYP, which she finds happens most with videos “using sounds or songs, or when [she’s] dueted another video” —interactive content, especially when she’s using already-popular audios, generally does better.
The grassroots dissemination of audios and dances is also key. "When you see a trend, you want to do it yourself. That’s why this music does so well,”" Hannah adds, "that viral exposure is reflected on Spotify, Youtube, the radio. Everywhere”
Maria - “the amount of people any TikTok can reach is insane”
The feature of TikTok that is really democratizing the music industry, however, is the phenomena of musicians promoting their own songs on the app, and doing so successfully. In the past, record labels acted as major gatekeepers to producing and disseminating music, and even the influencer-driven trends of TikTok depend on major creators choosing to post with a specific audio. All of our interviewees emphasized this change.
For the two creators with substantial followings, the question of monetary compensation for advertising music on TikTok was pressing.
Interestingly, Maria did not make the same leap. She just isn’t thinking about monetization of content the way the other two are—she’s on the app to have fun. And even though she is noticing the role of sound, music, and musicians on TikTok, she’s not thinking so critically about it.
conclusion:
so as we expected, there's a clear link between tiktok and music streaming. our data and interviews made it clear that the relationship, however, has many other factors than follower on tiktok --> listeners on spotify.
if you rely solely on journal articles to understand tiktok + audios, it seems like it is really about songs / music → in reality, it is much more about sound - audios that go viral are not always songs, and the types of songs that go viral are not necessarily lyrical songs, but are ones that have cool sounds in them → where we see the jump from tiktok to other streaming platforms is when an audio finds that perfect balance of being suitable for tiktok AND listen-able
central possibility / phenomenon of songs going viral when other people (popular creators + regular users) repeat trends → also important is that musicians can, and are, using the app to promote their own work (completely bypassing the role of record labels tbh)
question: so far, we see record labels redirecting their marketing focus towards tiktok etc, but we don’t see them losing artists / revenue etc → will record labels survive, in almost exactly the same position of power, this shift in the music industry? it seems so → maybe they are no longer gatekeepers, but they are still major / respected players…
gen z artists are finding the most success on tiktok → it seems as if the ingrained understanding of social media that comes with being a y2k baby is hard to replicate.
shortcomings and concluding questions:
we only were able to interview two creators with 30,000+ followers, and both of them were on the same tiktok (gay tiktok). with more time and resources, reaching out to other creators, investigating songs that are not just from charli d'amelio, and observing popularity on other streaming platforms would provide more accurate results.
questions looking foward: will this result in a faster shift from prominent millennial musicians to gen z musicians than the shift from gen x musicians to millennials?
the app rewards interactivity, whether that be using preset audios, or dueting other creators, or recreating dances that are already trending → what implications does this have on creativity / innovation / uniqueness in music? is being original somehow less valuable?
do spotify and youtube have a vested interest in keeping tiktok around? how have they shown / not shown that?
