How TikTok Users Respond to Music in Brand Promotions

Music plays a key role in TikTok engagement, while TikTok now also plays an important role in music discovery, and connecting fans to the latest tracks.

Indeed, record labels are now changing the names of their artists’ songs to align with TikTok trends, while TikTok has also driven massive sales boosts, in varying ways, for many artists.

But what are the most resonant music genres in the app, and which music types drive the best response in brand promotions?

To find out, Adobe recently undertook a study of more than 65k TikTok clips, across various brand categories, and conducted a survey of 1k music fans in the U.S. to learn more about how TikTok users engage with music.

And the results could help to guide your own choices around soundtrack accompaniments for your campaigns.

First off, the data shows that 29% of music fans indicated that they’re more likely to buy a product if it’s featured alongside a song they like.

As you can see, indie music fans are most likely to make impulse purchases in the app. Those quirky, anti-establishment ideals in action.

Though it’s the hip-hop/rap genre that seems to be the most resonant in the app, with more hip hop fans using TikTok to find new music.

Rap music is also the most used in brand promotions that utilize official music:

Yet, according to Adobe’s analysis, rap is not one of the best genres for driving engagement, despite its popularity:

Which is an interesting weigh-up, in that more users are likely to buy a product if a song they like is featured in the clip, yet you may well get more response, and thus reach in the app, if you focus on genres that are less popular overall.

I mean, this is all relative, as it depends on your target audience, what music you use, whether you can afford to use licensed tracks at all, etc.

There are a range of considerations, but these are some additional data points to consider in your TikTok creation and marketing approach which could influence your process.

You can check out Adobe’s full TikTok music study results here.