Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that Beyoncé released a pair of new songs earlier this month. One of them, “Texas Hold 'Em,” has taken TikTok by storm in recent days: About 74,000 users had made videos incorporating the sound on February 18. this more than tripled over the course of a week, pushing the total number of clips using the track to over 224,000 on February 25. “Texas Hold 'Em” rose from No. 2 to No. 1 on the latest Hot 100.
TikTok's ability to help foster this kind of ubiquity has diminished in recent years — much to the dismay of the music industry. “In 2019, you could catch a trend and be in the top five on Apple Music in a day,” he says Harrison Golding, vice president of strategic marketing at EMPIRE. “Now the platform is so mature that even if you get trends and user-generated content, the numbers may not correlate with the streams.”
And yet: “The virality of this Beyoncé record shows you the power of the platform,” he says Nima Naseri, formerly vice president of A&R strategy for Universal Music Group, where he worked on a team that ran TikTok campaigns for revamped catalog hits like Trinidad Cardona's “Dinero” and Phantogram's “Black Out Days.” “Is still there. You can't discount it.” (Not that anyone judged – more like he's lamenting the good old days, when TikTok results were much easier to influence.)
TikTok's acquisition of “Texas Hold 'Em” carries extra weight because it feels like a powerful reminder of the platform's impact at a time when the music industry is eager to look for alternatives. Licensing negotiations between Universal Music Group and TikTok collapsed in January, meaning there were no official sounds from UMG artists on the platform in February. And whenever TikTok faces a potential roadblock — US politicians threaten to ban it, for example, or a huge catalog of songs is removed — the music industry takes notice turns to Instagram and YouTube, which also have their own short-form video delivery systems (Reels and Shorts, respectively).
It's likely that more music will be released from TikTok in late February — not just tracks from UMG artists, but also songs featuring contributions from Universal Music Publishing Group songwriters. It makes sense, then, that “artists and their teams are putting more strategy into all three platforms now,” according to Jen Dharmafall, director of marketing for the ATG Group. “Before, they were just making content that works for TikTok and then uploading it to other platforms.”
While recent history is littered with songs that exploded on TikTok and saw a corresponding jump on streaming services, it's always been much harder to find comparable examples related to Reels and Shorts. “Reels is more self-contained,” explains Nasseri. “You can get 100,000 uses of an audio on Reels, and it won't affect” games on streaming services.
Historically, success on Reels creates “more of a passive following,” he adds Ben Lockedirector of A&R and marketing at label Disharmony.
As for Shorts, Golding includes it on all his releases, as do most music retailers. “Is a record-changer like TikTok?” he asks. “No not yet.”
Nasseri agrees: “You don't see creations grow at the same rate on YouTube Shorts as you do on TikTok.” (Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, recently He wrote on the company's blog that “Shorts averages over 70 billion views daily, and the number of channels uploading Shorts has grown 50% year over year.”)
All of which makes the recent success of Sawyer Hill's “Look at the Time” all the more remarkable: The song topped Spotify's US Viral 50 chart last week thanks in large part to listeners coming from Reels. “I've never seen virality from Reels like this that drove consumption in a meaningful way,” says Locke, who signed Sawyer Hill to Disharmony.
Locke actually found Sawyer Hill on TikTok (of course) in late 2022. “Look at the Time,” a laid-back power ballad filled with reprehensible guitar riffs, was released in June 2023. In recent months, Locke says, Sawyer Hill “crammed his strategy more into Reels because he felt there was less of an oversaturation of music on that platform.”
And recently, Locke continues, “its content is starting to take on a tone of devotion.” The top comment on Sawyer Hill's “Look at the Time” YouTube video is “Instagram brought me here, glad the algorithm showed me this gem.” The second comment is more fun – and more revealing: “Usually the songs that get promoted on insta SUCK, but this one is really great.”
Tommy Kiljoy, managed by ThxSoMch, calls the success of “Look at the Time” “a major win for Instagram.” The platform “is still a bit weird — you have more followers than engagement,” he says. But ThxSoMch's latest single “Hide Your Kids” has also recently enjoyed a boost from Reels. (Sawyer Hill and ThxSoMch are not signed to UMG labels, so their music is currently available on TikTok as well.)
It's too early to know if this activity at Reels is an aberration or the start of a trend. On Friday, “Look at the Time” enjoyed its fifth day at No. 1 on Spotify's US Viral 50. Close behind at No. 3 was Djo's “End of Beginning.” Unlike Sawyer Hill, however, Djo's success can be directly attributed to TikTok users, who have embraced the 2022 song in droves.
It just goes to show that “in the digital space, nobody has the formula right now,” as Golding puts it. “We're constantly trying to figure out what type of campaign will really convert a new fan. It's a few drops in a bucket here, a few drops there and hopefully you'll catch a viral moment.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/beyonce-tiktok-sawyer-hill-instagram-reels-1235614791/
