How TikTok Is Shaping the Future of Music Discovery and Streaming
TikTok has changed the way we discover, engage with, and consume music. What used to take weeks of radio play or curated playlists now happens in seconds on a 15-second video. But beyond the viral dance challenges and catchy hooks, TikTok is evolving, with its “Add to Music App” feature that creates a direct pipeline from viral clip to full-stream playback.
This blog breaks down:
-
How TikTok influences music discovery and streaming
-
Whether it’s a good platform to promote music
-
Its overall impact on the music industry
What is the Add to Music App Feature on TikTok?
In December 2023, TikTok introduced a game-changing feature called the Add to Music feature. The goal? To leap at hearing a 15-second clip on your For You Page to stream the full track on your favorite music app as effortlessly as a tap.
This new feature is available in the U.S. and U.K. (with more countries expected soon), and it’s already transforming how users save and engage with music, while offering artists a powerful new way to convert TikTok virality into real-world streams.
TikTok Add to Music App: Source TikTok News
How Does TikTok Influence Music Discovery and Streaming?
TikTok has become a cultural accelerator for music. Its algorithm-driven content serves up sound-backed videos that often lead users to fall in love with a song before they even know the title or artist. Research shows that TikTok users are significantly more likely to both discover and share new music content in the app, while 75% of its users also find new artists via TikTok clips.
Here’s how TikTok drives music discovery and streaming:
-
Algorithmic exposure: TikTok surfaces content based on what you engage with, and music plays a big part in that. Trending sounds quickly gain traction and visibility.
-
Viral loops: Users create thousands of videos using a trending sound, compounding its reach.
-
In-app audio identification: You can tap the song name in a TikTok video and see other content using it, leading to deeper listening.
-
Now: “Add to Music App”
This feature allows users to add a song to Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music directly from TikTok. It eliminates the need to manually search for a song you liked in a video—just tap and it’s in your library.
In short, TikTok isn’t just a music discovery tool anymore—it’s a music streaming funnel.
Is TikTok a Good Place to Promote Music?
Yes, arguably one of the best right now.
Whether you’re an independent artist or a major label, TikTok offers:
-
Unmatched reach: A single piece of content can go viral and reach millions without paid promotion.
-
Authentic fan engagement: Fans don’t just listen; they create. TikTok encourages interaction through duets, challenges, remixes, and trends.
-
Short-form storytelling: Artists can tell the story behind their music, share behind-the-scenes moments, or even test unreleased tracks.
And with the new Add to Music App integration, TikTok now gives musicians a direct path to monetization. If your song gains traction, users can easily save and stream it, turning likes and shares into actual plays.
What Is the Impact of TikTok on the Music Industry?
TikTok has had a seismic impact on how music is made, promoted, and consumed:
???? For Artists:
-
Launchpad for careers: Many artists, like Lil Nas X, Ice Spice, and PinkPantheress, gained mainstream success after going viral on TikTok.
-
Data insights: Artists and labels can use real-time engagement data to decide which songs to release, promote, or even remix.
-
More control for independents: You don’t need a record deal to blow up. Creativity and consistency can take you far on TikTok.
???? For the Industry:
-
Influencing charts: A viral TikTok song often climbs Billboard and Spotify charts days or weeks later.
-
Shaping sound: Artists now create songs with TikTok in mind—short intros, catchy hooks, and strong beats are designed to “hit” within 5–10 seconds.
-
New marketing models: Traditional music marketing has shifted toward influencer partnerships, TikTok challenges, and trend-hopping.
???? For Listeners:
-
Interactive discovery: Fans feel like they “find” a song before it hits mainstream radio.
-
Faster access to music: Features like “Add to Music App” make saving and streaming immediate.
Final Thoughts
TikTok has evolved from a fun video-sharing app to a powerful music ecosystem. It blends discovery, social interaction, and streaming into one seamless experience.
Whether you’re a music lover, an artist, or a marketer, understanding how TikTok influences music—and now powers it—could be the key to unlocking new opportunities in the digital music era.
With tools like “Add to Music App” becoming more visible in the For You Feed, TikTok is no longer just about trends—it’s about what’s next in music.
7 Essential Qualities of a Successful Digital Marketing Consultant
What does digital marketing consultant do?
In todays’ ever changing world, you may need to work with a digital marketing consultant to elevate the growth of your business. What does a digital marketing consultant do? A digital marketing consultant is a professional who helps businesses and organizations develop and execute effective digital marketing strategies. They provide expert advice and guidance on various aspects of digital marketing. This will help you achieve their marketing goals and increase their online presence.
Here are some key responsibilities of a digital marketing consultant
Roles of a digital marketing consultant Samodigital Agency
1. Digital Strategy Development
A consultant collaborates with clients to understand their business objectives and target audience and ideal social media platforms. They develop comprehensive digital marketing strategies tailored to the client’s needs. This involves identifying the most suitable digital channels and tactics to reach the target audience effectively.
2. Run Paid Advertising Campaigns
Hiring a digital marketing consultant will assist you in planning, creating, and managing online advertising campaigns across platforms such as Google Ads, social media platforms, and YouTube advertising. They will help you optimize campaigns to achieve maximum reach, engagement, and conversions within the allocated budget.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As you know, SEO is crucial for improving a website’s visibility in search engine results. You will not be able to execute this alone if you don’t know how to do it. That’s why you will need an experienced digital marketing consultant. A digital marketing consultant will help you analyze websites, conduct keyword research, optimize content, and provide recommendations to enhance search engine rankings and drive organic traffic Click To Tweet. Some will even be able to write engaging and informative content for your website.
4. Content Marketing
Content is King! It’s what drives engagement, leads and conversion for any business. A consultant will also help you develop winning content marketing strategies that engage and attract the right target audience. You can read this article to understand types of content and why it’s important to brands. Consultants often assess the performance of content and make suggestions for improvement.
5. Social Media Marketing
Moreover, consultants assist in developing social media strategies to enhance brand visibility, engage with the audience, and drive website traffic. Right now, we have top social media platforms and emerging platforms. Platforms like Threads, Lemon8, Bluesky and much more to come. Therefore a consultant will recommend platforms suitable for your business, create content calendars, and provide insights.
Also, they will optimize social media posts and advertising to ensure you gain the most from your marketing efforts and return investment.
6. Analytics and Reporting
With digital marketing you can easily track and measure your marketing efforts. To add on, working with a consultant will help you use various tools to track and analyze the performance of digital marketing campaigns. These could be web analytics tools like Google Analytics, In-app social media analytics or third party analytics tools like Semrush, Sprout Social among others.
Moreover, They will provide you with reports while highlighting key metrics, trends, and areas for improvement. Consultants use these insights to refine strategies and make data-driven decisions.
7. Digital Marketing Training
Finally, some consultants may offer training sessions to educate clients on digital marketing principles, tools, and best practices.If you are in Kenya and you would like to have in-house training for your team, you can hire a certified digital marketer like Egline Samoei Click To Tweet. She will help you gain a better understanding of digital marketing and empowers them to execute strategies independently if desired. Yo can reach out via email at egline@samodigitalagency.com
In Conclusion
To conclude a digital marketing consultant helps businesses leverage digital channels effectively to achieve their marketing objectives, improve brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate leads or sales. Lastly, they stay updated with the latest trends and technologies in the digital marketing landscape to provide valuable insights and guidance to their clients.
How to use Social Media for Business
According to the Data Reportal Digital 2023 report, there are over 4.76 billion social media users out of 8 Billion people globally, and 10.55 million Kenyans are using social media. These people use social media to connect with friends, find information and discover products and services. If you are not using social media for business, you are missing out on a lot. Your business could benefit from this too.
So, how should you use social media as a business? This article shows you how you can use social media for Business.
7 Ways you can use Social Media for Business
Here are different ways you can use social media to grow your brand as a business.
1. Use social media for marketing
Social media can help you reach your target audience across the globe. You can use social media marketing to reach customers at every point of the marketing funnel. You can reach your target audience with the right social media content strategy, create compelling content, and carefully select social media platforms.
With social media marketing, you need to understand your target audience, know the right platforms and be consistent. You also need to ensure that you engage your followers and be responsive.
2. Use social media for Brand Building
Social media offers a great opportunity to create awareness of your brand. You can establish your business on certain platforms and grow your brand. How many brands have you known through social media? A number of them, right?
This means you can also use social media to create awareness about your brand and build credibility, loyalty, and trust through the content that you post. Fill out your social media business profiles to provide clear descriptions and be consistent with our brand.
Also, ensure you humanize your brand on social media and build a community. Make sure your content is up-to-date, catchy, entertaining, informative, or humorous so that you can stay on top of their minds.
3. Use Social Media for Customer Service
You can also use social media as a communication channel to address customers’ problems and queries. Most brands that have established social media presence are already using social media for customer service, crisis communication and brand reputation management. Brands such as Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Safaricom, and banks such as Cooperative Bank, and Absa, among others.
You will even notice that brands on a platform like Twitter have a dedicated customer service account separate from their main account just to handle customer queries. Examples are Kenya Airways and Safaricom, just to mention a few.
Dear Customer,
DO NOT BE CONNED! Always confirm you are interacting with the official Kenya Airways channels. @KenyaAirways and Kenya Airways Support (@KQSupport) for Customer Care services. #CheckBeforeYouTrust pic.twitter.com/qZvqSn0Jz4— Kenya Airways Support (@KQSupport) August 31, 2022
4. Use social media for sales
You can also use social media to increase sales as a business through advertising. With social media, you can do targeted advertising and reach the target audience cheaply compared to traditional methods. You can target customers per digital activities, demographics, interests and behaviours and boost sales
Furthermore, you can also retarget customers using Facebook Pixel and LinkedIn Insight tag. You can also work with influencers and content creators who will help create awareness and influence their audiences to buy your products and services.
5. Use Social Media for Social Listening
On social media, users share thoughts, media, and conversations. When you listen to and monitor these conversations over time, you will get a huge amount of data and insights. You will then use these insights garnered to improve your brand, products, services, and know brand sentiments.
You can use social media listening tools like Brand Moran to gather all such insights. Other than you will learn about industry trends and brand advocates and bench your competitors
6. Use Social Media To Prove ROI
If you are having challenges tracking and proving return on investment, then with social media, you can easily do it. Social media analytic tools have made it easier for marketers to prove ROI.
You can use in-app analytic tools on social media platforms, Google Analytics, or invest on 3rd party social media analytic tools like Sprout Social, Keyhole, and Hootsuite.
7. Use Social Media for Recruiting and Hiring
Last but least, social media can help you as a business find and hire the right candidate. It’s no longer a secret that companies and recruiters use social media platforms like LinkedIn to head-hunt and recruit potential candidates.
On the other hand, since companies can share their companies cultures on social media, it becomes easier for candidates to learn about the company before the interview.
Final Remarks
Social media is no longer just a platform where users connect. It has become a powerful tool for business. Businesses can use them to grow their brands, create awareness, and marketing, improve sales, and gain real-time customer feedback. You can also use social media for your business.
If you need help setting up social media, growing your business or in house-social media training in Kenya and consultancy, don’t hesitate to contact me at egline@samodigitalagency.com. Also, follow us on social media for more discussions.
