In this solo presentation, music industry veteran Wendy Day explains how artists and labels can effectively use TikTok (and similar short‑form video platforms) to reach the 13‑21 year‑old demographic. She emphasizes that TikTok is the premier music‑focused platform for this age group and recommends hiring a marketing firm with influencer connections. Day outlines the technical workflow: uploading a 1‑minute song snippet via DistroKid (noting that other distributors like Stem are not yet supported) and allowing five days for the track to appear. She then details campaign creation, suggesting influencer‑led challenges or dances that tie into relatable, school‑oriented themes (e.g., funny eyeglass challenge). The goal is viral spread, leveraging the influencer’s reach and a catchy, youth‑centric angle. Day advises repurposing top user‑generated videos across Instagram, YouTube, and the artist’s website—always securing permission. She also mentions running parallel campaigns on Triller and DubSmash, and stresses the importance of monitoring trending content, influencer metrics, and video performance to refine strategy. The talk concludes with a call to action for artists to set up TikTok accounts, study trends, and aim for high‑impact, youth‑focused marketing to generate revenue.
Chapters
Hi guys, Wendy Day here. So I want to talk about TikTok today. You know, TikTok has been in the press a lot lately thanks to Lil Nas X. It seems to be the latest bandwagon that the industry is jumping on. The cool thing is my clients that have been reaching younger fans have been using TikTok since it was called Musical.ly, you know, since before they sold. The great thing about TikTok is it if your fan base is young people, and by young I mean 13 to 21, the majority of like 13 to 18-year-olds seem to be, um, what frequent TikTok. If that's your market, it's a great way to reach these folks. And, um, I know the industry has really been, um, swarming there as of late. And my clients are still getting great results at TikTok. So I really suggest that if there are any folks out there that are reaching a younger audience, that you find somebody at a marketing company that can help you do a TikTok campaign. And what I mean by that is you pay somebody to— that has access to influencers on TikTok and they get those influencers either through relationship or by paying them. They get them to post a snippet of your song. The way we do it is we upload through DistroKid, um, and the artists that I work with, they choose their own snippet. So we upload a 1-minute snippet, and if you want to upload your whole song, you can, but then TikTok will make the decision as to what part of the song they're going to put up on their site. I'd rather, I'd rather the artist retain control of that, and they upload, they use the same name as the song, everything remains the same. It's just a 1-minute sample. Um, eventually all the other distributors will be able to do it. Like, for example, my clients use Stem as the distributor, but Stem is not one of the beta testers for just for, um, TikTok. DistroKid is. So we upload just to TikTok on DistroKid, which is— and it's really cool that we can do that. Um, and then once it's uploaded, takes about 5 days to appear, then we set up the campaign. And we also do campaigns on Triller and DubSmash as well, so it's not like it's just TikTok. But today I'm here really just to talk about TikTok because it's been in the news so much lately, and I'm getting questions from you guys asking me about how to effectively use TikTok. So once it's Once it's uploaded and it goes live, then you can put together a campaign. And by campaign, I mean you want to have, you want to have some sort of reason for being there. So you either want some sort of a challenge, or you want some sort of a funny dance, or you want something that the influencers can do to catch the attention of the fans and also spread to the fans. So for example, and I'm just gonna pull something out of the air, so it's not gonna be very intelligent, but let's say your song talks about wearing funny eyeglasses, right? So you're gonna do like the funny eyeglass challenge. So you're gonna hashtag your name, you're gonna hashtag funny eyeglass challenge, and wow, that's a really stupid example. Anyway, you're gonna have the influencers either do some sort of a funny eyeglass challenge where they're wearing giant glasses, or they're wearing, you know, some sort of weird, you know, futuristic, or just something different— homemade glasses, or purchased glasses, or clown glasses, or just some glasses that are a little bit different. And then they're either going to do the funny eyeglass dance or the funny eyeglass challenge, whatever, whatever you think will spread. And, you know, the funnier or the more different you can make it. Your goal is to get this to spread. Like, in an— in a perfect world, you want it to go viral, right? So you want to get as many eyeballs on this as possible for the money that you're spending. So the marketing company can deliver the influencers, but it's the music and the angle that you come with that's going to make this spread. And again, remember that TikTok is young people, so it can't necessarily be something that you think is cool if you're in your 20s or 30s, but that a 13 to 18 year old is gonna rock with and think is cool. Remember, most of the folks using, using TikTok are still in school, so you may want to tie something into it that has to do with school, like hating school or homework, or, you know, just something that makes it shareable. And if you can, if you can post the better videos that kids make to your TikTok and your Instagram, you can actually spread this bigger and larger than just TikTok. It can really go, you know, as, as large as you're able to make it. You can put them on your YouTube, you can put them on your website, you know, you can even make a music video streaming together the cooler um, the cooler TikTok videos, right? Just make sure you get permission if you're going to do that. So I'm a big fan of TikTok. It's a great way to reach young people that are otherwise a little challenging to reach. Other than YouTube, there aren't really any platforms other than TikTok, Triller, and DubSmash that reach, um, that age group so well. You know, there's the, there's the, um gaming sites like Twitch, um, but in terms of something that really focuses on the music, you know, pretty much that and YouTube. Like, they're the best ways to reach that young market. Um, have I said everything I want to say about TikTok? I think maybe I have. Okay guys, go get them. Set up your own TikTok account, check it out, look and see what's trending, look and see who the biggest influencers are and what they're doing, and look at the numbers of the videos to see why fans are following them and which videos are they watching the most. And that's going to tell you, you know, along with what's trending, exactly what the, the, the, um, users of TikTok are looking for, what they're comfortable with. Okay guys, take care. Go make a million dollars.
