It is a simple fact that these days, popular music is heavily influenced by TikTok and its trends. Older songs such as Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” have in recent years re-entered the charts after gaining popularity through TikTok videos. New songs that were fresh off the press like, “Say So” by Doja Cat, enter the charts, largely due to a dance that went viral on TikTok in late 2022. What goes viral on TikTok organically can be very unpredictable but how does this work so effectively? Let’s say, an influencer uses your song in their TikTok video. They receive over a million views and now your song is being used by other TikTok users, then in the blink of an eye, your song gains enough popularity to top the charts. Check out one of many TikTok videos featuring “Say So” by Doja Cat below. This is a great example of a song going viral on TikTok.
Music industry professionals have found a way to utilize this to their advantage. All they have to do is secretly pay off a few influencers to use a particular song in their TikTok videos. Now the song is being heard by millions. Obviously, this may not always work out so perfectly. That being said, when this marketing tactic is effective, it can certainly be used to manipulate the market and create hit music for a very small price. The problem I have with this is that this sounds like a modernized version of payola. Check out a summary and explanation of a recent reported Payola scandles below.
Payola, otherwise known as pay for pay in the music industry, is the practice of secretly paying someone to play a song on the radio. This is considered illegal, yet when someone secretly pays an influencer on TikTok to play a song, this is completely legal. The reason why payola is illegal is to protect independent musicians and the industry as a whole. These days, I would very much argue that TikTok can have a much greater influence than radio does. If anything TikTok’s influence on music has an effect on what songs end up on the radio. Maybe, it is time to update the legal definition of Payola and keep the music industry in check, instead of allowing them being able to munipulate the market.
Has your taste in music been influenced by TikTok? Should it be legal to pay an influencer to play a song in their videos? I would love to hear your opinions.
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Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
This topic is one that I could talk about forever. Did you know there’s a Sirius XM channel called Tiktok Radio? I may or may not have it saved as a favourite….
The music industry is such a weird business, they’re losing money but don’t want to change their formats until they’re forced to. They should truthfully be leading the way in creative new ways to promote music, but they just hop on the bandwagon instead.
I think Tiktok itself has been a positive for the industry as music is now becoming popular (or popular again) in a new avenue. Music itself is being created specifically for the Tiktok audience, Drake is a prime example of this with Toosie Slide.
Thanks for blogging about this, I loved reading your blog!
Thank you for the reply. It is great to hear your thoughts on this. I honestly did not realize that sirus had a station called TokTok radio but, I certain wouldn’t mind checking it out.
As there are so many sides to this topic and would be interested to more of people thoughts.
Wow I never knew they were paying radio stations to play certain artists song so often in order for them to get more popular. Ever since I got Spotify, I never listen to the radio anymore because of commercials and the talking from the radio show hosts. I am very much out of the loop for what is popular in main stream music outside of what is shown on TikTok. It does make sense that these artists would do something like that, but I am not too sure about the rules on whether that is fully legal or not. Some of the songs played on TikTok are very addictive and play in your head over and over again. Part of me is curious whether the artist makes a song just for it to go viral on TikTok. The whole song may be decent or good, but the little 30 second clip of the song is really good and that’s what people use for their videos.
Thanks for the reply Dan. I am also very out of the loop when it comes to what is being played on the radio as well. This is why I argue that TikTok might have more of an impact on music these days.
I have noticed a few songs my friends listen to are very much built for TikTok and even then, some independant artists are starting to use TikTok as a primary medium to release their music.
Hello, I never really knew that they did that on the radio. Like you said, I only listen to the radio in the car, so I never noticed. But I don’t think this will change my opinion of music when I listen to the radio.
TikTok, on the over hand, it changes my opinion on music I listen to there. I don’t go on TikTok that often any more. It makes me dislike songs that are getting popular on TikTok.
I did hear a song that was popular on TikTok once and I liked it. But knowing now that they could of paid to make this popular makes me feel sad. I feel like a lot of the music that is popular on TikTok is brand new artists who are trying to make it in the music industry. It sad that some of them have paid money to get noticed while other artists were lucky that someone popular found their song.
Thanks for the comment Kelsey. I agree kind of sad that the industry is essentially paying influencers on TikTok to makes songs popular.
Awesome post. It’s crazy how much social media impacts music nowadays. I’ve definitely heard some stuff from social media that I loved and have in my library now. New and old. Great job!
Thanks for the reply Michaela. Great to hear you’ve found music you love on social media.