TikTok’s looking to further solidify its connection to the recording industry via a new “Add to Music App” option in the app, which will enable you to add tracks that you hear in TikTok clips to your music library on your preferred streaming service.
As you can see in this sequence, now, when you hear a song you like on TikTok, you’ll be able to tap through and add it to your Apple Music, Spotify, or Amazon catalog.
What’s more, the system will learn your platform of choice, and provide you with more options to save your tracks to selected playlists or categories in your listings.
As explained by TikTok:
“TikTok is known for being one of the world’s best places to discover both new and catalogue music, constantly creating viral trends which drive music listening on streaming services. The new Add to Music App feature has been designed to help music fans capture songs that they love on TikTok in the moment of discovery, and to easily save the song to their preferred music streaming service to enjoy whenever they like.”
TikTok has indeed become a key music discovery platform, with research showing that around 75% of TikTok users discover new artists to listen to in the app, while 63% of users hear music that they’ve never heard before for the first time via TikTok clips.
That connection is so significant that TikTok recently partnered with Billboard on an official “TikTok Billboard Top 50 Chart”, which highlights the top trending songs on the platform each week.
Artists and music publishers are even changing the names of their songs in retrospect, in order to better align with in-app usage and discovery, while several TikTok stars have used their fame to launch their own music careers.
With this in mind, direct integration with streaming platforms makes a lot of sense, and will further align TikTok with music discovery, which could make it an increasingly important platform for artists.
And that could be a key trend that’ll help to solidify the app’s importance, and variation from competitors in some respects.
TikTok says that “Add to Music” is being launched initially for users in the U.S. and the U.K., with further expansion coming soon.