Creative, automated social media campaigns instead of cumbersome negotiations
Lip sync battles, remixes of favourite songs or dance performances - the success of TikTok has had a major impact on the use and marketing of music on social media. Music plays the determining factor in content production. But it’s no longer that easy in the TikTok universe to say who is benefiting more from whom - the content creators from the music or musicians and labels from the creators. The social media app is an important marketing tool for labels. Up-and-coming musicians can suddenly reach an undreamt-of target group here thanks to its international reach. But a TikTok video is fast-moving and the processes behind the machinery actually ought to be just as fast-moving. The opposite was the case till now: whoever planned a campaign on TikTok via content creators was faced with several weeks of negotiations and agreements with the creators or agencies.
The SongPush platform has set itself the task of closing this gap. SongPush brings labels, music, brands and creators together by automating the deals behind the videos and shortening the processes. It takes hardly five minutes from the first contact to the project’s approval. There’s no need for cumbersome agreements lasting several weeks or approval loops until a video using a certain piece of music is finally online.
A marketplace model for musicians, labels and content creators.
“Music is culture and creates emotion. It is the glue holding everything together. In advertising, it serves as a core element. But it’s often the case that the music market itself is determined by many things, but these don’t include music,” says SongPush founder and co-CEO Markus Cremer. He developed the platform together with his co-founders Stefan Kling and Zoltan Morvai and had been active in the music industry beforehand. Cremer had already set up on his own alongside his studies with the founding of a music agency offering digital campaigns via Google Ads and YouTube Ads. Co-founder Stefan Kling knows the industry as a rapper, songwriter, manager and producer. They know about the hurdles that need to be overcome before a release is really on the market.
SongPush emerged a year ago from previous projects, Cremer and Kling having been involved, among other things, in creating a live streaming product for the entertainment platform Twitch. This quickly developed into the idea of an interface between influencers on TikTok and the music industry. The associated web app was then developed into a mobile app (iOS & Android) and the marketplace model for Song Push. Being part of the MediaTech Accelerator meant that they received valuable feedback about the product and made some very useful contacts in the first few years.
Shortly after its launch, the app shot to number 1 in the German App Store chart. . “A huge pain point” is how Cremer describes the processes that brands and musicians usually face when they want to promote their music or a product with the help of influencers. And valid figures are often not available particularly for campaigns. “We quantify the processes behind the releases and have them based on data.” It’s made easy for those using SongPush. For example, if a label wants to launch a campaign, all it needs is a TikTok or Spotify link. A briefing for content creators is uploaded via the platform, video references are added and a budget is set. . Now it’s the creators’ turn. They can decide on a price in the app based, among other things, on their average views and the corresponding briefing in order to launch the campaign. They now have 24 hours to submit a video that meets the quality standards set by SongPush. Whoever reaches the minimum number of views over the next five days will receive payment for the cooperation. SongPush provides a marketplace that works here for both sides - for creators as well as for musicians/brands. It doesn’t require any tedious planning, and SongPush also focuses on micro & nano creators as a target group - i.e. profiles that only have a few hundred to thousands of followers registered on social media.
The app model in the background is scalable. . SongPush works independently and has its own tools for retrieving and analysing data. This is a way to categorise the creators, their reach and the quality of the videos, track analytics and then, for example, use this to determine the price. “What we initially did manually - for example: why is this song working well and where is it working well? - will soon be done by an AI tool,” says Cremer. Even content creators who only have a few videos online are categorised this way. How many edits does a video have, what is the quality like? “Each video can be analysed and the content creator ranked accordingly,” Cremer says. The analysis decides which songs are offered to them. “We are first and foremost a tech platform. Product first - we focus on our product, on understanding the market and learning something new every day.”
Global distribution with TikTok campaigns
TikTok isn’t just a springboard for unknown musicians. Time and again, classics or remixes suddenly become worldwide hits. The creator Nathan put Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (which was released over 40 years ago) as the soundtrack to one of his skate videos and it went viral, bringing the song back into the charts - and Fleetwood Mac band member Mick Fleetwood then had his own “Dreams” lipsync video on TikTok. Something similar happened to the song “Makeba” by Jain, which suddenly became a summer hit seven years after its initial release. And the comedian Otto was recently pleased to see the remix by Berlin rapper Ski Aggu of “Friesenjung”. Following a TikTok video, the two have now re-released the song as a collaboration. The platform is a springboard even for musicians who do not have their own accounts on the platform: the chances of becoming known increase exponentially if their song is used by others.
SongPush’s tools make it possible to place campaigns simultaneously with hundreds of creators and thus change the face of (music) marketing. It will soon be possible to have targeted promotion of songs promoted in particular countries or communities. Collaboration with brands is also being expanded. Apart from working with major labels like Universal and Warner Music Group, the team is already collaborating with the About You online fashion store, NIVEA and Paramount Pictures. Being embedded in the creative clips of the content creators and with the appropriate music is also a desirable environment for brands. The long term goal is to become the number one platform for creator marketing, according to Cremer. “Everything that is being promoted digitally can be handled by us - films, labels, brands. SongPush has music as its DNA, but it keeps evolving.Even though music will always remain the core element.”
© Image Credit: SongPush
About MTH Blog
The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector, but also in a wide variety of industries. Christine Lentz meets up with tech enthusiasts, established companies and researchers for our monthly MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog to tell the stories behind the innovative business models.