Before I dive into the details…
Here are the top Tik Tok promotion services for artists in 2022:
- Omari MC
- Playlist Push
- YouGrow
- Upfluence
- Fiverr
- Plugged Promotions
I want to note that this list is based on my informal survey of what’s out there (using the sophisticated research techniques of Google search and email). I strongly recommend doing your own research before working with a Tik Tok promotion service – even if you choose to work with one of the services listed here. But my hope is that this article is a good starting point to help you clarify your goals and narrow down your options.
Okay, before I run through each of those companies listed above, I want to discuss a few important concepts. Because the truth is that “Tik Tok promotion” is an overly broad term, and most Tik Tok promotions aren’t worth your money.
With that noted, here’s an important question to answer if you want to clear things up and spend your money wisely…
What is a Tik Tok promotion?
There are really three kinds of Tik Tok promotion. Two of them are legit. One of them is a scam. Let’s take a look at each.
1. You pay Tik Tok itself to show your video to new fans using their “promote” feature.
This is very legit; it’s literally Tik Tok’s ad engine, created and run by the company itself. Here’s how they explain it in their official support documentation:
“Promote is an advertising tool you can use in your TikTok app to help you get more people to discover your videos, guide more people to your website, and improve your chances to gain followers. This means that your video will be displayed as an ad for the time that you Promote your video.”
They go on to explain how to run a promotion. It’s very easy, and it’s available to literally anyone running any account. The drawback: As with Facebook’s “Boost” feature, it’s expensive and not necessarily effective. You’re giving Tik Tok the keys to your campaign, and they’re not particularly good at driving (plus they kind of want to take your money).
But you will get real engagement.
2. You pay an agency to connect you with influencers.
This can be legit; it depends on the agency you work with and the TikTokers they connect you with. You’ll often see this advertised as “getting your song in front of [a certain number of] followers.”
Here’s the way this works: An agency has a network of Tik Tok accounts or TikToker contacts. They pitch your song to their network. Some TikTokers decide to use your song in a video, which means that their followers hear your song.
That’s that. But there are a lot of nitty-gritty details to this on the other side of the curtain that impact the outcome of the promotion.
Some Tik Tok promotion services run their own massive Tik Tok accounts, so they have full control over what songs are placed.
I’m more skeptical of these firms. On one hand, they can literally guarantee results, since everything is within their control. On the other hand, unless they note that your song is being paid for, their service is technically payola, which is illegal but rarely caught and penalized. Still morally bad, though. Plus, because their accounts are literally built to run ads, they tend to be less engaged.
(Worth noting that some of these networks do run things legally by noting that their placements are paid. And some of these firms still get decent results.)
Other Tik Tok promotion services pay curators to review songs, with the expectation that they’ll use a few for their videos.
Playlist Push is an example of this model. It works and it’s legal, but the exact results you’ll get are more variable, because the agency has no way of guaranteeing exactly which TikToker will use your song in a video.
I usually opt for these agencies, though, because the placements they do get tend to be to more engaged audiences.
3. You pay an agency for a set number of followers or likes.
Avoid this type of promotion. It’s nearly always a scam.
Companies that promise a certain number of followers or likes are basically selling you bot clicks. They’re creating fake accounts and then having them follow people or like posts. Some of these agencies barely even try to hide that reality – just look at the sales page for UseViral:
Sorry if the text is small (you should be able to click and blow it up), but it literally says “these are likes with profile pictures but basic activity to their accounts.” In other words: these are likes from bots or fake accounts.
That’s ridiculous. You should never pay for likes from a bot account, because it’ll jack up the way Tik Tok perceives your profile in their algorithm. Translation: Paying for followers or likes might give you a quick ego boost, but over the long run, it’ll hurt you more than help you.
(Full disclosure: I know this from personal experience. I’ve bought social followers before, and that act of stupidity almost ruined my account.)
So, those are the three types of Tik Tok promotions.
For the rest of this article, I’m going to focus on the second type of promotion listed above: paying an agency to connect you with Tik Tok influencers. This method is not a scam, and it has the potential to be very beneficial for your music. It can also be less expensive than using Tik Tok’s official promote feature.
All right, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but I hope it’s been helpful as you think about promoting your music on Tik Tok. Now, let’s break down the top Tik Tok promotional services that are using this influencer-based approach.
1. Omari MC
Omari is one of my go-to promo companies on every platform, Tik Tok included. We recently reviewed their Spotify service in detail, showcasing real results from a real campaign we ran with them. Omari is a good dude, and his company is above-board; they have integrity and they care about artists. And yes, I’m an affiliate with them.
As you’ll see if you check out their promotional page, they run influencer-based Tik Tok promotions. Here’s how they explain their process in their FAQs section:
“We have a network of Tik Tok influencers with popular channels. We review your song, give some feedback on it, then send the influencers your material. They are only including your song in original video content they create for their channel. If they like your song, they’ll request it from us to add to their channel. We’ll cross-check the request to make sure it’s a good fit, then we’ll approve your song for them to include in a post! ”
That’s exactly the right way to do things – you’ll notice that they’re not promising likes or follows. Results may be variable, but they’ll be organic, and you are guaranteed a certain level of reach.
If you want to run a Tik Tok promotion with Omari MC, click here.
2. Playlist Push
Playlist Push is well-known in the Spotify promotion game (we reviewed their service here), but they’ve recently expanded their offering to include Tik Tok promotion, too.
As I noted above, they pay TikTokers to review songs (which, again, is not payola), and the creators that like a song will make a video using it.
Campaigns start at $500 and go up from there, and you’re basically paying for exposure to their massive network. Things are automated and very smooth; you won’t get a ton of hands-on communication, but you’ll get constant updates from their well-designed platform as your promotion runs.
As they explain on their services page, they offer the capability to “Send your music to over 3,500 creators with over 930 million total followers and potential new fans.” The language is a bit hype-y, but the reach is impressive.
Run a Tik Tok promotion with Playlist Push here.
3. YouGrow
YouGrow are my guys. I’ve spoken with Matt (who’s on their Spotify team) a bunch and have always been impressed with their work. They’re incredibly prompt communicators and very professional.
The company is based in the Netherlands, which can be a pro or a con depending on what you’re looking for; their network, from what I’ve found, really is global. If you’re looking for international promo, that’s a boon. But I’m also of the opinion that it’s not quite as strongly developed in the US as the two firms I’ve listed above (although they’d probably disagree).
Campaigns start at only $207, which is solid. And again, these guys use influencer-based promotional campaigns. Here’s how they put it:
“Once we receive your song, we pitch it to our network of creators who then create videos with your music, which generate hype around your track and encourage other creators to use your music simply out of influence from the original creator.”
That end result – other creators using your music – is ultimately what you’re hoping to generate from paid placements. With YouGrow, you’ve got a shot at making it happen.
Run a Tik Tok promotion with YouGrow here.
4. Upfluence
Okay, the three Tik Tok promotion services listed above are all geared toward musicians / artists. Upfluence is not. That’s not really a knock. They’re built to work with pretty much any brand, from mega corporations to small businesses to, yes, musicians. And they actually have a different suite of tools than any of the agencies I’ve mentioned so far.
Here’s how they work: They give you software that helps you discover influencers that will be a good fit for you, using a deep database of creator info. This means you’ll work with influencers directly, which can potentially lead to long-term relationships with creators – something the agencies above won’t really give you.
But it is more work and they are pricy; you’ll need to contact their team for a quote.
It’s also worth noting that in addition to Tik Tok, they run Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and basically every other social media platform promotions, too. In other words, they’re legit – they get the influencer game.
Check out Upfluence here.
5. Fiverr
Ah, Fiverr – the wild west of music promotion (and pretty much any freelance service). I’ve included Fiverr on this list because I’m naively optimistic; I harbor the belief that someone on this site can provide you with incredibly affordable, absolutely legit results. I’ve used Fiverr enough to know that it can happen.
But in no world will I claim to know who your best bet is.
Omari reviewed a few Fiverr services and recommended Chocolate Land and Taylor Red; both of these offerings are basically individual creators offering to post to their own popular Tik Tok accounts. Personally, I’d probably opt for a multi-influencer campaign instead, but hey, these are affordable.
If you want to sort through the jumble of Fiverr Tik Tok promotions for the gold, click here.
6. Plugged Promotions
For my sixth and final Tik Tok promotion service, I’m calling out Plugged Promotions. I’ll be honest: I don’t know these guys very well, and by that I mean I literally just found them on Google as I was researching Tik Tok agencies.
But I’ve included them on this list because, after digging, they seemed legit, and they also run influencer-based campaigns as opposed to bot-follower / bot-like scams, which sets them above 75% of the Tik Tok promoters in the world.
They offer really affordable options; their entry-level campaign, for 20k-75k views, is $150. So, again, I can’t personally vouch for these guys, but if you want to give them a shot, at least you won’t be risking too much money.
Give Plugged Promotions a try here.
Final thoughts on Tik Tok promotions
Okay, those are my top six Tik Tok promotion services. Now, here are a few final words of advice.
1. Know what you’re going for.
I think some artists have this idea that, if they throw money at Tik Tok, they’ll go viral and their worries will be over. This is not true.
Here’s the truth: Tik Tok isn’t the best platform for every artist. Yeah, it’s a huge platform, but a lot of the songs that blow up are the ones with quick-hitting, dumb-funny hooks. If you’re making music that requires more than 10 seconds to appreciate, you should probably focus on other avenues for promotion. And before you ever pay for a campaign, you should know what you want to get out of it.
Set specific goals and look for a promotional company that’ll help you reach them.
2. Contact the company before paying them money.
Rule of thumb: Wait until you hear from a real person before paying for a service online. There are some exceptions to this rule (I’ll vouch for Playlist Push and they don’t give you much human contact), but, in general, it’s a good one to follow.
3. Ask about their curator network.
If you do get in contact with a Tik Tok promotion service, ask them what their curator network is like. They’ll probably hit you with the overall size (1,000 creators!), but try to get a little more specific – ask how many creators they have in your genre, and, if possible, if they can send you a few examples of TikTokers your music will be sent to.
The whole value of these services is in their network of creators; the more you understand about the network going in, the better you’ll understand the value you’re getting.
All right, that’s all I’ve got.
I hope this article was helpful as you consider your options for promoting music on Tik Tok, and I hope you find the right partner that gets your song to blow up.
But hey, even if you never go viral, I hope you keep making music and connecting with people who care about it. That’s what’s most important.