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TikTok and its influence on the music industry: Fad or Factor
Historical Note: Originally published in 2022 by Thrive Indie contributor Kellija Beloraga, this essay asked whether TikTok would become a lasting force in the music industry or another passing social media trend. Four years later, TikTok’s influence on music discovery is undeniable, but many of the article’s original questions about virality, artist development, and career longevity remain surprisingly relevant. The original essay has been preserved below with minor edits and updated context.
TikTok is a place where you’ll find various content, including funny videos, dance challenges, and most importantly, new music. Content guaranteed to entertain you for hours.
If you are an artist or someone trying to break into the music industry, TikTok is a place to discover and connect with your fans and like-minded industry professionals.
How important has this social platform been for new artists trying to get discovered? Is it worth exploring how to navigate its infinite waters in hopes of discovering new fans? Lastly, are the artists who are being discovered on this platform one-hit-wonders? Let’s explore more.1
Pro’s of TikTok
Thanks to the app’s organic reach, artists won’t be fighting annoying algorithms to reach their target audience. The app does that for them.
Similar to the days when artists got discovered on YouTube, like Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and The Weeknd, now we see more and more artists being discovered on TikTok.
However, are their newfound success offering them record deals? Or do most end up having few club appearances thanks to their viral songs and nothing more? Also, for those who do claim a deal, how profitable are they to the label?
The app also allows you to go live once you have a minimum of one thousand followers.
The platform allows you to get paid through your viewers or “fans” sending you “gifts”. When you’ve collected your gifts, you can trade the virtual icons and exchange them for virtual diamonds. You can then use the diamonds to collect real money using your chosen secure payment method.
Artists can also hire influencers, mostly through music influencer platforms like Breakr, where the influencer creates a TikTok to their song and shares it on their profile, which is another great way to give your song exposure.
TikTok Cons
Many artists can be discovered on this social platform; however, do they have longevity? Do people care what the artist has to say outside of the catchy lyrics fans create videos to? Can the newly discovered artists sell tickets? The music trends promoted on TikTok change so often that it makes a song very easily forgettable. 2TikTok easily deletes past trends/sounds and replaces them with new ones, making the artist easily replaceable as well. To be a successful artist, your music must stand the test of time and be able to sell tickets. The app is very much adjusted to Gen Z’s short-term attention span and cravings for the next big thing, forgetting the last trend like it never existed.
Viral TikTok artists
However, many viral hits have found their fame through TikTok.
Like Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’, Popp Hunna’s ‘Adderall (Corvette, Corvette)’ or Mooski’s ‘Trackstar’. Another interesting example is Ckay’s viral hit song ‘Love Nwantiti ’, which was released back in 2019, but it only found its fame in 2021 thanks to TikTok.
Posting your song on the app also increases people searching it up on other platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Google search. And then finding and adding the song to their Spotify, Apple Music, etc
As of now, TikTok has reported over 1 billion global users. An average user spends approx 89 min of daily scrolling, which is three times as much as any other social media platform.
TikTok’s own music marketing platform SoundOn
TikTok just launched its music marketing and distribution platform, SoundOn. A new platform that allows artists to upload their music directly to the app.
Based on their website, artists retain all rights and royalties, meaning they’ll own their masters in addition to receiving 100% of royalties (or later, 90%).
SoundOn is designed to empower new and undiscovered artists, helping them to grow their fanbases and get their music heard. Artists wanting to register for SoundOn can do so through: https://us.soundon.global or https://www.soundon.global/.
Having said that, new music is being discovered every day. We are having an opportunity to see more talent, more beautiful musicians, and rising stars. However, there are and will be questions surrounding their longevity: how much do you want to give credit for your success to it? More importantly, how beneficial TikTok can be for an artist’s career in the long run.
Four Years Later
TikTok passed the first test. It wasn’t a fad.
What was still an open question when this essay was originally published in 2022 eventually became undeniable. TikTok grew into a major force in music discovery, influencing how songs break, how artists reach new audiences, and how the music industry responds to emerging trends.
But some of the more difficult questions raised in the original article remain.
What happens after discovery? Does viral attention create lasting fans? Can an artist turn a moment created by an algorithm into a career capable of surviving beyond it?
Those questions are ultimately bigger than TikTok.
Every generation of the music industry produces a new technology, platform, or business model that promises to change how artists are discovered and careers are built. Some disappear. Others permanently alter the industry. Understanding the difference requires looking beyond what a technology does in the moment and examining how it changes artist behavior, audience behavior, and the business surrounding music over time.
That is also why this 2022 essay remains part of The Intellectual History of Thrive Indie.
The collection preserves ideas like this not because every prediction was correct, but because understanding how the music industry evolves requires remembering the questions we were asking while that evolution was happening. TikTok: Fad or Factor? captures one of those moments: a new platform was rapidly changing music, but no one yet knew how permanent that change would become.
Four years later, we have part of the answer.
And as technology continues reshaping music, there will always be another TikTok—another platform, technology, or idea forcing the industry to ask the same fundamental question:
Is this a moment, or are we watching the music industry change?
- 2026 Update: TikTok Wasn’t a Fad
Four years later, the first question posed by this article has largely been answered. TikTok became one of the most influential music discovery platforms of its generation. According to a 2025 Music Impact Report produced by Luminate in partnership with TikTok, 84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 in 2024 went viral on TikTok first, while TikTok’s Add to Music App feature generated more than one billion track saves.
But the more interesting question raised by this essay remains unresolved: Does discovering an artist create a fan, or merely create another stream?
Viral attention can introduce millions of people to a song. Building a career still requires artists to turn that attention into deeper relationships, repeat listeners, ticket buyers, customers, and long-term fans. ↩︎ - 2026 Perspective: This concern eventually became part of a much larger conversation at Thrive Indie: the difference between building visibility on a platform and building an artist career. Algorithms can create extraordinary exposure, but exposure becomes far more valuable when artists have infrastructure capable of capturing and retaining the audience it creates. ↩︎
