TikTok Marketing: How To Grow Your Fan Base on TikTok in 2022

Artists like Lil Nas X saw his songs move up the charts of Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming platforms and it all started with a TikTok challenge. Thanks to a powerful algorithm, TikTok is excellent at finding the right people who are interested in your musical style. Compared to other social platforms available, TikTok is an exciting tool to use to increase your audience and fan base. As a result, many musicians share songs and talents on the platform.

TikTok has proven to be an excellent platform for increasing followers and sharing songs. TikTok is a new social network that everyone is currently using and talking about. You’ve probably heard about it, but what many don’t utilize is the tremendous power TikTok has to make songs and musicians go “viral” in a very short amount of time. Combine this with a long term effort and your stats will rise to leave a lasting impression on the platform. The more viewers you have, the more attention you have, and eventually the more recognisability and new fans you have. If you want to use the platform in the long term, you need trusted followers who care about the videos and content you post on the platform. If your song receives attention on TikTok, the success may carry over to streaming platforms as well. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about how to increase your exposure as a musician on TikTok.

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a video app that allows users to record, edit and share vertical videos to their followers. Creators can add audio tracks and filters, record against green screens, and use many other exciting features. TikTok’s are 5 seconds to 3 minutes long. This makes it ideal for sharing snippets or previews of new songs or entire tracks. The TikTok app provides users with a variety of sounds and song snippets as well as the ability to add special effects and filters. You also have the option to add videos created directly on your phone. Most TikTok’s are short-time content (compared to YouTube videos that average above 7 minutes). This way, viewers can see a lot of content from musicians in a short amount of time. According to a recent survey, 75% of TikTok users in the United States are discovering new musicians through the platform. And if you are still wondering what makes TikTok great for music promotion. It is in three things.

1. Record labels are scouting TikTok
2. Gen’ Z identifies music trends through TikTok
3. Whatever’s trending on TikTok gets trending everywhere.

How does the TikTok algorithm work?

Before we tell you how to grow your fanbase on TikTok, you must understand how the algorithm of TikTok works to get the best leverage out of it. In base, TikTok cares about their own app. It looks for content optimized for TikTok’s own goal, which is keeping users on the app to allow for more advertising time. This is why they appreciate user and creator satisfaction. Next to that the general platform value, so advertisers are actually interested to be active in the app. All things considered, the TikTok algorithm is trying to keep both the user and the creators in the app for as long as possible. To rate and curate this, the TikTok algorithm is driven by:

1. User interactions

Like the Instagram algorithm, the TikTok algorithm makes recommendations based on user interaction with the content in your app. It provides clues about the types of content that users like or dislike.

2. Video information

Video info signals are based on the content you’re looking for on the discovery tab and their designed “for you page”. They learn what you watch, how often you watch it and similarly how you engage with it.

3. Device and account settings

These are the settings that TikTok uses to optimize performance. However, they are based on one-off adoption decisions rather than active interactions and considerations. They do not affect what is displayed on the platform as much as user interactions and video information signals.

All in all, the TikTok algorithm looks for:

• Likes
• Comments
• Creative information (captions, sounds, and hashtags)
• Subjects
• How much time a user spends watching each video
• If a video is watched or skipped over
• The frequency a TikTok creator is publishing content

However, TikTok’s algorithm does not consider the performance of previous videos. This means that you can always focus on posting high-quality content and never know when the first “viral moment” will be. So, knowing all that, how can you build a successful strategy and expand your fanbase?

Step 1. Switch to a TikTok Pro account

TikTok offers two types of accounts: a Professional / Creator account and a personal account. If you want to know how the TikTok algorithm works you switch to a Pro account. This gives you metrics and insights that will help you guide your TikTok strategy. Understanding who your viewers are, when they’re active in your app, and what kind of content you like is important when creating content that your viewers like and engage with.

Who is my target audience?

You need to know your target audience before you start your TikTok marketing. Once you know your audience, you can create content based on their interests. Or at least, format your style to their desires. Therefore, to increase your TikTok followers, it’s important to work on creating content, informing, and entertaining viewers to build real connections. However, if you have not already posted content on your page, we advise to experiment with a different type of content and see what it is that they like the most. There are several ways to show off your skills, whether it is sound design, mixing, songwriting, vocals or your artsy side.

Step 2. Analyze other musician’s TikTok strategy

You can check popular musicians, or musicians in your genre and analyze their TikTok strategy. That way you can get inspiration and think of look-alike videos. When analyzing a TikTok post, look for the quality of their engagement (that is, the type of positive or negative comment) as well as the amount of engagement received (that is, the number of likes and views).

You can post content such as covers, live performances, videos of your music, behind-the-scenes content, teaching your fans tricks in maybe (music producing), funny videos, and so on. TikTok users value reliability and creativity. This is perfect for ambitious and just starting musicians who want to express themselves and work on a budget.

Cover songs make up most of the majority of the music content that fans and users share most on TikTok. It’s also one of the most accessible types of content for different types of musicians. The reason why cover songs are a great way to increase viewership and reach new fans is to attract listeners by being familiar with famous songs and one of your personal favorites.

Expert Tip: Take some time to find something new or truly unique to you. Don’t forget to utilize smart captions that tell viewers why they need to watch your video. This improves the algorithm’s engagement signal and video completion score. Use captions to inspire curiosity or ask for comments to inspire conversations.

Step 3. Create a content calendar

Consistency is the most important factor in increasing followers on TikTok. Brainstorming your ideas and making a clear plan for your video will help you post the right content and reach the right people from the beginning. After you’ve experimented with content and analyzed other musicians’ TikTok it’s time to create a content calendar. That is the best way to consistently grow followers that want to support you and your art by releasing constantly new videos.

Expert Tip: Post an unreleased preview of the track you’re working on to see which tracks your fans are most connected to. If you have outstanding favorites, it’s easy to decide which one to post and put into your marketing resources.

Step 4. Hop on a #viral trend

Trends are the heart of TikTok. Whether it’s trend lip-syncing, seamless transitions, or photo challenges: trends drive TikTok’s algorithms. In the app, it will be one of the most used methods to attract more viewers. Use trending sounds to drastically increase your video views. Sound to put over your video can be movie conversations, song poems, or other creative TikTok audio edits. Moreover, you can use trending sound to find alternative ways to talk about why you wrote this song or talk more about an upcoming concert or just simply get the audience to know you better.

It’s important to do everything you can to make it similar enough to recognise, but at the same time stand out from others. As mentioned earlier, the easiest way to do this is to be yourself. When creating a TikTok video, you may want to track only the current trends. The problem with this approach is that whatever you are interested in, it can give the viewer the impression that you are only doing it because it is viral, so be careful with that approach.

Step 5. Duets & Collaborations

Within TikTok you can collaborate with other musicians and creators to increase your exposure on the platform. Collaboration shares viewers with other musicians and creators and it is a faster way to gain new followers. Recently, the duet function is mainly used by general users to create response videos and reaction videos. But for artists and creatives, the duet feature not only uploads reaction videos but also provides a way to stand out by adding a unique creative twist.

Step 6. Promote videos on other platforms

TikTok’s followers are great, but it’s not a promise that they’ll always be accessible. As a result, musicians need to share other social media profiles with their TikTok audience, turn them into email subscribers, and sell concert tickets. Share and promote your TikTok content on other social media platforms to get the most out of your online presence. By distributing your audience across multiple platforms, you can also create another place for your audience to connect with you and learn about yourself as a musician. This is a great way to develop relationships with your fans.

BONUS TIP: Reply to comments with a video

Another unique feature of TikTok is the ability to record video responses to user comments. When someone leaves a comment on one of your intriguing videos, roll the camera and create a video response to the comment you share on your page. Other users can see the original user’s comments and replies on the screen. This is a great way to receive song requests from your followers and invite users to inspire your content. If you still wonder, why should you do this… This feature allows users to show off their musical talent and create and upload original sounds that interact directly with what the viewer wants to see (and hear).

Did you know about TikTok Spotlight?

TikTok launched a program as an experiment in 2020 to support new artists. The program promised to introduce independent artists to music industry leaders and influential record labels, which shows how serious TikTok is about changing the music landscape.

To Wrap it Up

TikTok is becoming more and more popular every day. If you’re interested in getting more followers on TikTok take a guide by following the tips above. Recognise how to increase your followers, increase engagement, and build a vibrant community on TikTok. With billions of TikTok users around the world, you can certainly connect with the right audience. All you need to do is strategically create and edit the content they expect. Your phone is probably the best tool for making real videos. All you need is proper lighting and simple edits to keep your content running. Aim for your TikTok’s to be short to keep your viewers interested unless you’re convinced they will stay around for your video. Just remember once you start posting music to TikTok, you’ll want to come up with viral content ideas that promote your music on TikTok and at the same time leverage your TikTok user status.

So in short, you might have started reading this blog with a vague idea of how to market yourself on TikTok. Right now we hope you feel ready and confident to start with a successful rollout. Curious if you can use more help in growing your artist career? We’ve been in the game with a focus on playlist marketing since our start, which led to having helped over 6500+ individual artists with their journey to a successful career. Check out our programs to help you scale to real results. If you want to keep learning, follow us on our social media channels for weekly bite-sized knowledge. Moreover, feel free to ask us your questions on our Instagram (@daimoonmedia)!∑

Grow Well,

Team Daimoon