Ready For Your Viral Moment?: Your Guide to TikTok & Triller

Short-form video platforms are today's apps of choice for many and as such, they can be incredibly strong tools for any artist's campaign. Learn more about how to optimize your presence on platforms like TikTok & Triller and how to engage with audiences across both.

Short-form video platforms are the fastest-growing apps currently, with Triller & TikTok both accounting for over half a billion monthly active users. These platforms have the ability to catapult artists into the spotlight with viral challenges, hashtags, and lip-sync videos transforming a single into an overnight hit as we have seen with acts like Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion. The virality of these platforms helped Doja Cat & Megan Thee Stallion rack up streams and resulted in #1 Singles on the US Billboard Charts through their tracks on-platform activity. In addition to these stars, short-form video platforms can be incredibly beneficial for more emerging artists, for example, K Camp's ‘Renegade’ or Benee's ‘Supalonely’.  

It’s a no-brainer then that short-form video platforms can be an integral part of a marketing campaign for any artist, but especially for those artists who have a strong Gen-Z fan base, as 13-24 year olds account for over 70% of the user base on TikTok. 

Tip: If you have a more hip-hop / electronic leaning sound, you should definitely also work to engage more with Triller, which is more genre-focused than TikTok. 

Outlined below are tips and best practices to guide you through ways to maximize your music exposure on apps like TikTok & Triller, and make the most of the fans you gain from them: 

Highlight the Right Parts of your Tracks

By default, releases you upload to AWAL will be delivered to TikTok. It’s super important for optimization of your TikTok presence that you set the TikTok preview time at the right place in your track. Keep in mind, this is the portion of the song that users will have available to them in the ‘Sounds’ library to use within videos. Make sure to select a portion of your recording that represents your track best, such as a catchy verse or the first chorus. You can read more about Tiktok Preview Times here. 

It’s not only catchy lyrics that can go viral though, but also vibey instrumentals within the song itself as seen with the user-generated, ‘SlowWalkChallenge’ inspired by FKJ’s catalog track ‘Tadow’ which was viewed 61M times including videos by Anne-Marie and Mabel. 

Whether instrumental or with vocals, choosing a unique, recognizable portion of your track is a big first step into optimizing your TikTok presence. 

Tip: These platforms are great for not only boosting awareness of new releases but also older tracks as well so don’t forget to update the preview times for your catalog too! 

Optimize Your Profiles

As with any social media platform, it’s vital that your personal profiles on TikTok & Triller are full of content that is unique and allows your audience to get to know you. Be sure to keep the following in mind:

• Use a consistent username across social media, including on your Tiktok & Triller profiles. This makes it that much easier for your fans to find you on every platform they use. 
• Include your Instagram handle in your bio so new fans can delve further into your brand and who you are as an artist. Also don’t forget to include a link to your latest release so the ability for fans to stream is just a click away! 
• Do your research! Take a look at what others are doing (especially artists & creators similar to you) to help you choose the type of content you’d like to create. For example, AWAL artist Alaina Castillo, has built up a following of over 1M followers by posting fun, playful content and cover videos! 
• Experiment with different ideas and keep the tone fluid through your videos. High production value isn’t super important for these platforms but consistency is!

Become a Hashtag Pro! 

TikTok & Triller are incredible ways to engage with audiences, and one of the most important aspects of activity on these apps is consistency of content. Posting content to your profile often keeps your fans & followers engaged with your videos and page. 

If you need inspiration for content to get started with, a great way to get involved in the conversation and capture attention from a new audience is to participate in trending hashtags. Trending hashtags generally are where the most activity is living on the app at any given time, and can be easily viewed on the ‘Discover’ pages on TikTok & Triller. Give one of these trending ideas a try and be sure to hashtag your video! 

Tip: It’s important to have pre-existing content on your pages before participating in these hashtags so new fans can check out your personality and other videos when they click through to your page. 

As you begin curating content on these apps, don’t be afraid to also create your own hashtag! If you have a track that you think could be great for a campaign on TikTok or Triller, be sure to create your own unique hashtag (important for tracking numbers) and upload your own dance or challenge video alongside this to kick-start the campaign. 

Moral of the story: Hashtags are your friend!

Create Challenges of Your Own

Once you have become a pro at using & creating hashtags, try and find ways to incentivize users to get involved by running challenges, such as dance videos, lip-sync, or fun merch giveaways (and don’t forget to create a unique hashtag for the campaign!).  Be sure to interact with fans via comments or duets (TikTok) to keep up momentum for your challenge. Remember the more interactions you get on a video, the more the algorithm is encouraged to direct your content to even more users. 

As an example, one of our viral sensations, Daði Freyr had great success with his ‘danceaboutthings’ challenge and dance which reached 6.5M views on TikTok. 

Network: Make Connections with Other Creators

Platforms like TikTok & Triller are great places for you to engage with fans, but also, they can be great places to engage with other creators. 

When starting out on the apps, it’s great to follow creators that are similar to you, especially other artists and musicians. Be sure to engage with their content and consider working to collaborate with artists and influencers with similar branding, audiences, and sounds. Some ideas for collaborations include:

• Duet Videos: These are side-by-side videos where users participate in the same challenge. One user will have created the initial video and others can then ‘duet’ it.  Using ‘duets’ can be an opportunity to collaborate with similar sized musicians to open each other up to new audiences. 
• Influencer Campaigns: If you have a larger budget for your campaign, you could also reach out to popular influencers to participate in videos. This can be a  very effective way to boost viewership, engagement, and a means of broadening your fan base. 

Tip: TikTok Creator Marketplace offers tools for brands to discover and collaborate with creators on the platform. If you’re interested in featuring in their campaigns to grow your fan base and promote your music, update your TikTok profile and click here for more details. 

Now that you’re up to date on all the best practices for using short-form video platforms like TikTok & Triller, get started in your video creation! Remember that your videos don’t have to be perfect; authenticity & originality are key on the platform and go a long way with users of the apps! When you do post video content, be sure to share your videos on other social media platforms so your fans know you’re active on these apps and can follow along. Now it’s your turn! Ready, set, go viral!

Article Author: Soraya Stanley, AWAL Marketing