TikTok Strategies for Beginners
TikTok, for better or worse, is now an essential part of the songwriter and artist’s toolkit. If you’re new to the social media site, then I’ve got 5 few suggestions for how to start making content effectively.
Lip sync your own songs in your room. There are a greater number of people discovering music via TikTok every day. Your own original songs can be a vehicle to garner an audience on the platform. One effective strategy that a lot of artists employ is recording themselves lip syncing to their own songs and posting the video online. They tend to overlay the videos with captioned lyrics as well. Don’t be afraid to post multiple videos of the same song! Here’s an example.
Perform your songs acoustically and live. This can be a very effective strategy if you’re an artist whose music is based around guitar or piano. You can use TikTok’s sound editing tools to put some reverb on your voice if you record directly into your phone. For this video format, you should overlay the footage with captioned lyrics, which you can do in app. Here’s an example.
Record a lip sync in your car. For whatever reasons, car-based lip sync videos tend to blow up. In these videos, experiment by saying something quippy at the video’s onset and then launching into a lip sync of your song. Here’s an example.
Use a hooky + absurd caption at your video’s onset. There’s a TikTok feature where you can have a Siri-type voice read aloud anything you write. These tend to hook audiences now who are primed to hear that voice. You can follow with - yet again - a lip sync of your song. Here’s an example.
Include a friend reacting to your song. Invite your friend to make a TikTok with you and have them play a character who has never heard your song before. Your friend’s reaction will help keep viewers intrigued and might just pique the algorithm’s interest. Here’s an example.
