Songfluencer has worked with hundreds of artists on their TikTok campaigns. While it is impossible to know exactly what works vs. what does not work, there are some common themes present with most successful TikTok songs/campaigns.

1. A TikTok friendly song
2. A Strong Creative Concept
3. Artist/Marketing Participation

When these 3 elements are unique, creative, and aligned - we tend to see great results for artists on TikTok.  In part one we explore element one - a TikTok friendly song.

ELEMENT #1: “WHAT MAKES A TIKTOK FRIENDLY SONG?”

A “TikTok-Friendly” song - Songfluencer considers many variables to navigate how “friendly” a song is for the TikTok platform. A few questions we ask when determining this are:

• Is there any lyrical (a phrase or a line) content that could inspire a visual?
• Does the instrumentation contain elements (something fun or unique) that could compel a user to create a video? This could mean a drop, transition, key change moment, breaks, and/or tempo changes. We have also seen that this could include unique or interesting instruments being involved and prevalent in the mix.
• Is there any cultural relevance or references in the song that could inspire a visual? Is there something timely about a specific lyric? Is there a phrase that points to something trending?

EXAMPLE:

One of our favorite examples is Chris Young's "Gettin' You Home". This song had a brief viral moment on TikTok in mid-May 2020 as we were slowly coming out of the COVID-19 quarantine. TikTokers took the line, "I don't need this menu...no I don't....I already know just what I want" as a storyline/meme concept in their videos to address their thoughts about restaurants re-opening. Some examples:

• Example 1
• Example 2

The same way certain songs work for Radio or Playlists, certain songs simply work better than others for TikTok. We are beginning to see that marketing teams are launching an A/B single approach:

• A) playlist/radio single
• B) TikTok single

What works for playlists and radio doesn't always work for TikTok.

Thank you for reading! If you want to check out a sneak peak of the next part of this series head to the part two HERE.

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