If you’re a musician attempting to earn money on TikTok, hear me out. By now, you acknowledge that income by way of Spotify is supplemental. Touring could be profitable, with merchandise gross sales usually making or breaking your success.
The excellent news? Social media has caught up and created a market that’s open 24/7.
Let’s get into it.
Do You Even TikTok Store?
Loads of bands frontload merchandise releases earlier than an album to create hype and drive file gross sales. A well-planned marketing campaign could be the multiplier many artists have to rationalize spending cash for studio time. However what in case you don’t have music but and have to make some cash to fund the recording? Introducing: TikTok Store.
An album’s paintings and merchandise are sometimes rolled out after the file is written. Merch will get spun up later, to match the texture of the music and complement its temper. Or that’s the standard order of operations, anyway.
Typically you’ll discover somebody who will get the identical reply however makes use of a special formulation. Among the most influential bands have flipped the script, main with logos, tales, merch, and characters earlier than writing the music that made them well-known.
Let it circulate, bro
Such an method works very nicely for individuals who wish to “see the place issues go,” as you may think a session with Rick Rubin. As a substitute of jamming together with your bandmates till notes come collectively, you might be placing collectively visuals, enjoying with fonts, creating characters, and reverse engineering the method, making a vibe earlier than any music or lyrics get put to paper.
Gorillaz, Gravediggaz, and Devo: Merch Universe Earlier than Verse
Within the music world, lyrics, melodies, riffs, and beats are the place to begin for a lot of artists hoping to create an album. And that might make quite a lot of sense — you are writing music in any case.
However what in case you created the design, logos, and storyline to reference because the album is written? In some methods, the file writes itself as a result of the vibe is ready. With a stable aesthetic, you can begin printing shirts, hoodies, luggage, and patches to incorporate in your TikTok Store.
The Gorillaz: Manufacturing a jungle
Yeah, you recognize Clint Eastwood, Really feel Good Inc. fame? This undertaking began with Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn, an artist and musician, creating the Gorillaz universe. In comes the creation of 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russell, who put their creators’ concepts into motion. If any of these characters had come to be within the TikTok period, they might have existed as totally monetizable accounts on the platform.
Every character can promote their very own merch line, making it simple to promote posters, comics, and movies in a TikTok Store, that are already baked into the crew’s DNA.
They began with the idea of a cartoon band that lived in a media-saturated, postmodern world; you recognize the aesthetic in case you’ve seen any of their music movies. The same method would work nicely for the trendy music marketer who is aware of the right way to construct on character and construct up a store.
Placing conference to relaxation: The Gravediggaz
The Nineteen Nineties have been a decade of unbelievable innovation that bridged artwork types, thanks partly to tv and grassroots efforts to unfold new music. Though not a mainstay on MTV, The Gravediggaz introduced a brand new method to creating and advertising music. Hopeful TikTok monetizers take observe.
When the group dropped 6 Toes Deep, they introduced Horrorcore to the entrance of hip hop’s collective creativeness. Vivid imagery of grim reapers, coffins, and scythes reduce by way of among the heaviest beats. Shirts, logos, and posters dropped at life a brand new manner of branding, with the soundtrack quickly to observe. A TikTok store with an identical merchandise method would make a killing. ☠️
Devo: Evolving how a band manufacturers
Earlier than enjoying any keyboards or synths, De-Evolution, or Devo for brief, had deal with on how they wished their model to current. The band’s complete id shaped round satire and a slick aesthetic; it was conceived as an artwork undertaking primarily based on a philosophical idea.
Musically, they leaned into jerky, mechanical, and futuristic sounds primarily based round sequencers and manipulating tones to create one thing solely new on the time.
Satirically, lots of the band’s logos, graphics, and merch have been designed as a part of a commentary on consumerism. Good! Devo introduced a complete new manner of monetizing merchandise that may function a prototype to anybody attempting to promote on TikTok at the moment, promoting every little thing from yellow hazmat fits to company emblem tees with a unified visible aesthetic.
Making a merch line is less complicated now than it ever has been. You possibly can go the DIY path and screenprint your shirts, hoodies, hats, and luggage for little or no. Buy a pin machine and take into consideration getting some stickers at hand out to pals or raffle off by way of your TikTok web page.
If you’re simply getting your TikTok web page off the bottom, there are a ton of instructions you may go.
Benefit from the truth that your viewers is rising with you. Behind-the-scenes (BTS) songwriting periods, a TikTok Reside transmission of the band hanging out, a carousel of lyrics out of your journal — intelligent content material can create hype (and money circulate) as you write the file in earnest.
Finally, you’ll want one thing to indicate for the music you convey to the world. It doesn’t need to be polished at first, and truthfully, B-sides which can be wildly completely different from the album reduce to carry a particular place in followers’ hearts quite a lot of the time.
You possibly can promote digital copies of scratch tracks in your TikTok Store and placed on TikTok Reside performances, for which you too can usher in some cash by way of items.
Write a melody, then loop it. Put up and search for suggestions out of your base. Now, tie in some visuals. The band strolling collectively down the road with a leaky gentle filter — throw a fisheye on the digital camera. Overlay the band’s emblem with transparency because the riff builds, and the course the blueprint of a tune goes turns into extra obvious.
Putting a chord together with your viewers earlier than even recording a single observe proves that your picture and method resonate with followers. That’s engaging to promoting companions and types trying to collaborate — and you routinely have an viewers invested in your success.
And simply since you are attracting consideration doesn’t imply it is advisable begin feeling bizarre about it. There are methods to construct an genuine following with out feeling icky. There’s no room for self-consciousness or nervousness about writing the music until that’s your muse.
No Music, no Drawback: Hype
It’s essential have a hook. Like every little thing within the biz, you’ll have to draw your viewers in with no matter you’ve bought. Often, this begins with an idea. Drop an announcement with a little bit of thriller.
Be imprecise. Drop hints concerning the theme and the course the album goes. For those who’ve bought your aesthetics down, you’ll use this. Letting followers be a part of the writing course of is priceless. Together with polls and having Q&A Reside Classes will make your fanbase spend money on you as an artist.
Have your followers ship in sounds and samples for inspiration. “One of the best one which makes it onto the album” is music meant for followers’ ears.
Carry all of it collectively
Add to this hype with restricted version pre-album merchandise in your TikTok Store, which builds thriller and a way of group earlier than the music drops. Cryptic symbols and album title placeholders on merchandise create a world to your viewers to exist in whereas testing completely different approaches. Scrapbooks and zines doc the creation course of, permitting followers to take part whereas driving site visitors to your store.
Teaser content material could be quick temper movies that embody quick cinematic loops. Use sonic parts out of your setting or try what is out there from sound libraries to fill within the audio. Studio photograph dumps, photos of band follow, and drawings can all be monetized with entry to a top quality printer.
And simply since you don’t have a band but shouldn’t cease you from actualizing the dream. Lean into no matter your strengths are. If you’re a visible artist who desires to make an album, begin with the artwork. Contemplate a theme if you’re a author, and let the phrases circulate onto the paper. There are many individuals on the market who need to do the precise factor you might be doing.
As soon as you discover your viewers? Let TikTok automation allow you to keep linked with them as you develop, collectively.
