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TikTok has launched a new collaboration with the music streaming platforms Spotify and Apple Music that allows users to share directly to TikTok.
Users can share songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts directly from Spotify or Apple Music (digital service providers, or DSPs) to the short-form video app using the new ‘Share to TikTok’ options in the platforms’ sharing menus.
There are two options for sharing. Users can share media via TikTok direct message (DM), sending directly to friends, who will be able to open the DSP it was shared from directly through the link in TikTok. Users can also use the ‘Share to TikTok’ feature to post media directly to the TikTok Feed (the For You Page or Stories) using Photo Mode or TikTok’s greenscreen feature.
TikTok’s impact on the music industry
“Today’s launch of ‘Share to TikTok’ is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to support music discovery and artist promotion in partnership with music streaming services,” said Ole Obermann, TikToke’s Global Head of Music Business Development, in a press release. “Since its launch, ‘Add To Music App’ has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of track saves and billions of streams on our partner music streaming services. ‘Share to TikTok’ takes the user experience full circle, and will be an amazing way of promoting artists and tracks to the TikTok community.”
‘Add To Music App’ is a feature TikTok launched earlier this year that allows users to save music tracks from TikTok to their music app of choice. In its own press release, Spotify announced it was launching a similar service for Instagram.
According to a recent Business Insider report, 67% of TikTok’s users are likely to look up music on a music app after hearing a song on TikTok.
TikTok’s collaborations with the music industry itself are not quite so simple. In January, Universal Music Group threatened to pull its music from TikTok after the license expired. This resulted in millions of videos being muted temporarily. However, one of UMG’s biggest artists, Taylor Swift, took matters into her own hands in April and started re-adding her own music to the platform, undermining UMG’s bargaining position. TikTok and UMG resolved the dispute in May, seeing the catalog of music returning to the site and videos being unmuted.
Featured image credit: TikTok
