TikTok is getting serious about independent musicians and music creators. The social media platform that began its journey with crowd-sourced ultra-short videos, is now trying to lend a hand to up-and-coming artists in boosting their audience, metrics, popularity, and earnings. TikTok SoundOn is an all-in-one platform for music creators. It promises to offer marketing and distribution services to help artists kickstart their careers.
Basically, SoundOn is TikTok's own promotion and music distribution platform. It could be similar to an in-house “Record Label” or “Record Company” of TikTok. The platform allows artists to upload their music directly to TikTok and begin earning royalties. TikTok has confirmed that musicians “publishing” through SoundOn will get to keep 100% of royalties in the first year of the music’s release. After the first year, musicians will continue to earn 90% of the royalties.
TikTok SoundOn will also offer multiple promotional tools and support for upcoming artists. Some of the notable features include audience insights and development, expert advice from a dedicated SoundOn artist team, access to TikTok's song tab where music is linked on profile pages, and promotional support through creator marketing on the TikTok platform.
Surprisingly, TikTok is quite open about sharing the content on other platforms specializing in music distribution. TikTok assures SoundOn can help distribute music to platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Instagram. This should help musicians reach many more listeners.
As and when artists become popular, TikTok SoundOn claims it can help them sign record and publishing deals. Alternatively, artists will also get opportunities to work with other talented individuals or teams that specialize in other creative areas such as writing lyrics, composing music, and so on.
TikTok started testing SoundOn last year. The platform claims it has already helped multiple artists. SoundOn has just gone live in the UK, US, Brazil, and Indonesia.
