Tik Tok Tips: 5 Things To Think About When Starting Your Artist Page

Written by: Nicole Arruda

Tik Tok, the wild west of social media, is full of opportunity and the payouts can be extreme. Even if you haven’t started your page yet, there is still hope. According to Tik Tok themselves in a 2020 press release statement “neither follower count nor whether the account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors in the recommendation system.”

“Neither follower count nor whether the account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors in the recommendation system.” 

-TIKTOK PRESS RELEASE

As a musician, the chance for growth is endless. From teasing new music to giving your fans a place to see your personality, Tik Tok is all about making that authentic connection that turns fans into superfans. With almost no risk, there is no reason to not start your Tik Tok today. To get you started, here are 5 quick tips to keep in mind when starting your Tik Tok page. 

1. Quantity Over Quality 

Consistency is the name of the game when it comes to Tik Tok. Users spend most of their time on the app in their For You Page - each individually customized for themselves. Giving the algorithm enough content to continuously push to people For You Pages is only going to help - never hurt. 

Don’t be afraid to post more than once a day. At the least, 3 times a week is considered an “active user” by the Tik Tok algorithm. Keep your page active and always feed the algorithm, 

2. Repetition Is Key

Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself, especially when promoting music. Use your sound as often as possible in as many different ways. Zoe Clark, an AGD artist who recently found success on Tik Tok with her latest single, “Last One Standing,” knows the power of this. 

While this video is what went viral, Zoe had used the same audio numerous times before posting this video. Why did this one go viral and the others didn’t? The algorithm picked it up - this was the one everyone saw. Give your audio as many chances as you can to have momentum. And always ALWAYS use the in app audio when possible. 

Look to Lil Nas X for this strategy as well. Before releasing “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” he took the song viral on Tik Tok, creating extreme demand that most certainly paid off, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 

3. Trends

Find trends that fit you. Don’t shy away from the trends and participate in as many as possible. That does not mean you have to learn all the new dances and figure out how to do The Woah, but you should pay attention and seek out trends that fit your identity. 

Trending and challenges can be used in creative ways to show your personality outside of promoting your music. Trends like “Things in my house that just make sense” or “Show me your ___, without telling me you’re ____” are greats trends that can be manipulated for anyone, like AGD artist Manny Blu did to showcase his Canadian roots  

Trending Sounds can be used in lifestyle videos or any cool content you have. If you’re not promoting your music, you should be using a trending sound. The algorithm will pick that up and show it to more people, and people will be able to find you in searches. 

In Tik Tok, you can turn down the volume of any audio you add - so even if you’re talking in the video, you can still be using a trending sound.

4. Interact and Engage 

Duets and Stitches are a great way to engage with the Tik Tok community and build your following. Many times artists will ask for duets on a song with them, or content creators will challenge views in a duet challenge - these are perfect opportunities to interact with different creators and have some fun!

Don’t be afraid to engage with anyone’s content, asked or not. Just look at @another.blonde who’s duet for Grocery Store: The Musical sparked a viral moment and put her page on the map. 

5. Have Fun With It

Tik Tok is a place for creative freedom and expression. Explore all of the in app features like text-to-speech, filters, duets/stitches, and editing effects. If you are authentically yourself, people will react to it. Engage with your audience, show them your personality, and have fun with your music. If you put in the work, it will pay out in the end. 

Look at some editing apps outside of Tik Tok as well. Mojo is a great app that AGD uses for video editing. It’s especially helpful with adding captions and formatting pre-recorded content. For static content, Canva, a free editing website, can help with everything from album art and social promo to posters. 

Pro Tip: Use everything together - create a cool image in canva with your artwork, filter it with Mojo, add music in Tik Tok and post as a visualizer for your new music! 

A Big Announcement

Over eight years ago, we launched the first edition of the Zero To 60 (ZT60) program to support performing musicians. A musician's team provides guidance through accountability, encouragement, and education. Building a team can be one of the most difficult aspects of the musician's job. That's where the ZT60 Artist Coach comes in.

The ZT60 Artist Coach guides musicians for about the cost of a college course, and provides the foundation for an artist’s success in the industry. Artist Coaches understand a ZT60 musician intends to release music and become a confident performer. ZT60 is designed to work with the artist personality and develop their brand in line with these goals. The ZT60 program is affordable without sacrificing quality. Affordability is a core ZT60 value.

We believe that motivated artists should have the opportunity to succeed. Finances should not be the main cause preventing success as an artist. We are proud that we have not raised our prices since 2017. Still, we recognize that some talented artists might not be able to participate in the ZT60 community and program services due to financial constraints.

Thus, we are thrilled to launch the Zero to 60 Scholarship. It's something we've envisioned since we started, and we're so glad to make this happen now.

The scholarship tagline, "Imagination Into Action," encompasses the motivated artist. It's about the aspiring musician who dreams big and invests in themselves. Finances don't stop them. It's the musician who leverages "free time" to learn a new instrument and find co-writers. They have family members who work second jobs so the artist can keep creating.

The ZT60 Scholarship provides the funding and guidance needed to help artists thrive in this industry.

Applications will be open March 1 to April 5, 2021 at https://agdentertainment.com/scholarship. One recipient will receive a full ride to cover their nine month experience with the ZT60 program. We will also offer two to three partial ZT60 scholarships.

We are very excited to elevate some incredible talent and look forward to the impact this will have within our community and the greater music industry.

The Royalty Paradigm Shift - Part 1

The Royalty Paradigm Shift

There is a new paradigm for creating repeatable income and how to think about artist royalties. There are three concepts we can change our perspective on to achieve this paradigm shift. Let’s dive in. 

1. Comparing streaming royalties to album sales is futile.   

2. Streaming royalties are complicated.

3. Proactive steps will earn you more than algorithmic discovery.

Comparing streaming to sales is futile.   

Without taking too deep a dive into copyright law here, it’s worth pointing out that the value of owning the masters to a recording goes far beyond streaming royalties or physical albums. Because artists prefer to focus on creating rather than marketing or “selling” they'll usually migrate to the quickest and easiest point of sale. Prior to streaming this was physical album sales. Now it’s obviously playlists. But royalties you earn from streaming are not comparable to the sale of an album and shouldn’t be expected to replace them but add to them. To exemplify these differences we can look to the RIAA which seems to have the most in depth look at streaming habits vs. album sales

“After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors – including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program – and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues, the RIAA set the new Album Award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.  Also effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect the enormous growth of streaming consumption in the two plus years since that ratio was set. Just as RIAA announced when setting the initial formula in 2013, our analysis and the determination of a formula is based on comparative consumption patterns, not marketplace value.”

What streaming provides to artists, especially through Spotify, is a new avenue of discovery. So when a song reaches 1 million new listeners via a playlist, those streams are not comparable to an mp3 download much less an album sale. It’s more comparable to being on the radio in NYC for about a week at best. And with this comparison to terrestrial radio, the royalty payout is actually pretty great. 

The traditional album revenue stream is still available and should still be leveraged. It can still be as profitable as it once was if you develop your audience to participate in purchasing albums. Physical album sales for vinyl are rising as trends for “makers” and “tactile” products become sought after in our digital world. This doesn’t just mean vinyl or CD’s for the old timers. Digital album sales are rising as people become increasingly cautious about security. There is a large subset of music superfans that desire to “own” the music they love and not “borrow” it from Spotify or Pandora.

Comparison is the thief of a lot more than joy. It very much seems to be the thief of artists revenue as well. Owning your masters gives you the right to exploit your recordings in a myriad of different revenue streams and all of them create various royalties for you. While artists are so concerned with comparing the smaller royalty they’re getting from streaming than what they used to make off CD sales, they’re missing out on a lot of possible income.

In Parts 2 and 3 we’ll tackle ways to increase revenue not only from streaming but all the other avenues available.