For the longest time, I refused to download TikTok. As someone who consumes media at an extremely high rate and uses social media for a living, this was probably a mistake on my part. Once I finally caved, I quickly became addicted. Sure, there are some pretty cringe-worthy videos on the app, but the platform can also catapult artists’ careers. I’m sure you’ve heard about Lil Nas X’s rise to fame due to TikTok, so I wanted to dive deeper and look into the impact that this app has had on a few others.
First, I want to explain the app for those who might be a bit confused. TikTok includes short videos, typically with music playing in the background. Jump cuts, trending dances, and storytime clips flood the “For You Page.” The most popular videos can easily reach millions of views without too much effort at all. Celebrities from Mariah Carey to Howie Mendel, and various professional sports teams have account. Benny the Bull, the Chicago Bulls’ mascot, has over 900k followers for partaking in the app’s trends.
Formally known as Musical.ly, TikTok gained popularity in 2018 and has continued to amass users on a daily basis. Now, let’s get into some numbers and examples from popular TikTok sounds and videos.
Yellow Hearts by Ant Saunders
“Yellow Hearts” by Ant Saunders is currently #1 on Spotify’s “Global: Most Viral 50” playlist and #27 on Spotify’s “Global: Top 200” playlist. In the past 28 days he has increased his Instagram followers by 67.3% and increased his Spotify listeners by 3945.1%.
On May 17, 2019, Ant Saunders had roughly 5,700 listeners on Spotify. As you can see, that number remained stable for almost five months. On November 1, he had 132,149 listeners and just two weeks later, there were 2,917,982 on November 15. This is due to the increased use of his song on TikTok. As of today, the sound has been used in 884.3k videos on the app.
Ant Saunders data via Soundcharts
Dance Monkey by Tones and I
“Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is currently #1 on Spotify’s “Global: Top 200” playlist and she has gained 114,056 Instagram followers, 361k YouTube subscribers, and 86,947 Spotify followers in the past 28 days.
On May 17, 2019, Tones and I had 524,117 Spotify listeners. She had a bit of a steady increase starting in July and continued to climb with the song being used in 584.7k TikTok videos. On November 15, she had 33,678,782 streams.
Tones and I data via Soundcharts
ROXANNE by Arizona Zervas
“ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas is currently #2 on Spotify’s “Global: Most Viral 50” playlist and #2 on Spotify’s “Global: Top 200” playlist. Over the past 28 days, he has increased his Instagram followers by 87.1% and his YouTube subscribers by 98.4%.
On May 17, 2019, Arizona Zervas had 921,121 listeners per day and those streaming numbers remained consistent for almost five months. With his song being used in 523.5k videos on TikTok, the numbers spiked and on November 15, he had 8,411,347 listeners.
Arizona Zervas data via Soundcharts
By The Numbers
So the popularity of these songs and artists’ exposure has immensely increased, but what does that mean in terms of money? Well, let’s take a look. According to my research, Spotify pays $0.00437 per play, which is $4,370 per 1,000,000 plays. This means that Ant Saunders went from earning $25.21 on May 17 to $12,751.58 on November 15, 2019, Tones and I went from earning $2,290.39 on May 17 to $147,176.28 on November 15, and Arizona Zervas went from earning $4,025.30 on May 17 to $36,757.59 on November 15.* And remember, these numbers are from Spotify alone. Their money earned is likely much higher when added to the profit made from other streaming platforms.
After seeing the data, it’s easy to see why artists are so keen for their music to become popular on TikTok. The impact of this app can truly be a life-changer for those waiting to be discovered. I had a lot of fun doing this research, and I would also like to mention that this post was inspired by a TikTok that I watched from the user @ansonseabra. Check it out here: vm.tiktok.com/Hq47QK
Numbers are based on the value of $0.00437 earned per Spotify play. Numbers may not be exact.