If you are a musician trying to make money on TikTok, hear me out. By now, you recognize that revenue through Spotify is supplemental. Touring can be lucrative, with merchandise sales often making or breaking your success.
The good news? Social media has caught up and created a marketplace that is open 24/7.
Let’s get into it.
Do You Even TikTok Shop?
Plenty of bands frontload merchandise releases before an album to create hype and drive record sales. A well-planned campaign can be the multiplier many artists need to rationalize spending money for studio time. But what if you don’t have music yet and need to make some money to fund the recording? Introducing: TikTok Shop.
An album’s artwork and merchandise are often rolled out after the record is written. Merch gets spun up later, to match the feel of the music and complement its mood. Or that’s the traditional order of operations, anyway.
Sometimes you’ll find someone who gets the same answer but uses a different formula. Some of the most influential bands have flipped the script, leading with logos, stories, merch, and characters before writing the music that made them famous.
Let it flow, bro
Such an approach works very well for people who like to “see where things go,” as you might imagine a session with Rick Rubin. Instead of jamming with your bandmates until notes come together, you are putting together visuals, playing with fonts, creating characters, and reverse engineering the process, creating a vibe before any music or lyrics get put to paper.
Gorillaz, Gravediggaz, and Devo: Merch Universe Before Verse
In the music world, lyrics, melodies, riffs, and beats are the starting point for many artists hoping to create an album. And that would make a lot of sense — you are writing music after all.
But what if you created the design, logos, and storyline to reference as the album is written? In some ways, the record writes itself because the vibe is set. With a solid aesthetic, you can start printing shirts, hoodies, bags, and patches to include in your TikTok Shop.
The Gorillaz: Manufacturing a jungle
Yeah, you know Clint Eastwood, Feel Good Inc. fame? This project started with Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn, an artist and musician, creating the Gorillaz universe. In comes the creation of 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russell, who put their creators’ ideas into action. If any of those characters had come to be in the TikTok era, they could have existed as fully monetizable accounts on the platform.
Each character can sell their own merch line, making it easy to sell posters, comics, and videos in a TikTok Shop, which are already baked into the crew’s DNA.
They started with the concept of a cartoon band that lived in a media-saturated, postmodern world; you know the aesthetic if you’ve seen any of their music videos. A similar approach would work well for the modern music marketer who knows how to build on character and build up a shop.
Putting convention to rest: The Gravediggaz
The 1990s were a decade of incredible innovation that bridged art forms, thanks partly to television and grassroots efforts to spread new music. Although not a mainstay on MTV, The Gravediggaz brought a new approach to making and marketing music. Hopeful TikTok monetizers take note.
When the group dropped 6 Feet Deep, they brought Horrorcore to the front of hip hop’s collective imagination. Vivid imagery of grim reapers, coffins, and scythes cut through some of the heaviest beats. Shirts, logos, and posters brought to life a new way of branding, with the soundtrack soon to follow. A TikTok shop with a similar merchandise approach would make a killing. ☠️
Devo: Evolving how a band brands
Before playing any keyboards or synths, De-Evolution, or Devo for short, had a good handle on how they wanted their brand to present. The band’s entire identity formed around satire and a slick aesthetic; it was conceived as an art project based on a philosophical concept.
Musically, they leaned into jerky, mechanical, and futuristic sounds based around sequencers and manipulating tones to create something entirely new at the time.
Ironically, many of the band’s logos, graphics, and merch were designed as part of a commentary on consumerism. Brilliant! Devo brought a whole new way of monetizing merchandise that can serve as a prototype to anyone trying to sell on TikTok today, selling everything from yellow hazmat suits to corporate logo tees with a unified visual aesthetic.
So, I’ve got the Merch — but no Music. How can I Promote it?
Creating a merch line is easier now than it ever has been. You can go the DIY path and screenprint your shirts, hoodies, hats, and bags for very little. Purchase a pin machine and think about getting some stickers to hand out to friends or raffle off through your TikTok page.
If you are just getting your TikTok page off the ground, there are a ton of directions you can go. Take advantage of the fact that your audience is growing with you. Behind-the-scenes (BTS) songwriting sessions, a TikTok Live transmission of the band hanging out, a carousel of lyrics from your journal — clever content can create hype (and cash flow) as you write the record in earnest.
Eventually, you’ll need something to show for the music you bring to the world. It doesn’t have to be polished at first, and honestly, B-sides that are wildly different from the album cut to hold a special place in fans’ hearts a lot of the time.
You can sell digital copies of scratch tracks on your TikTok Shop and put on TikTok Live performances, for which you can also bring in some money through gifts.
Write a melody, then loop it. Post and look for feedback from your base. Now, tie in some visuals. The band walking together down the street with a leaky light filter — throw a fisheye on the camera. Overlay the band’s logo with transparency as the riff builds, and the direction the blueprint of a song is going becomes more apparent.
Striking a chord with your audience before even recording a single note proves that your image and approach resonate with fans. That’s attractive to advertising partners and brands looking to collaborate — and you automatically have an audience invested in your success.
And just because you are attracting attention doesn’t mean you need to start feeling weird about it. There are ways to build an authentic following without feeling icky. There’s no room for self-consciousness or nervousness about writing the music unless that is your muse.
No Music, no Problem: How to Hype
You need to have a hook. Like everything in the biz, you will have to draw your audience in with whatever you’ve got. Usually, this begins with a concept. Drop an announcement with a bit of mystery.
Be vague. Drop hints about the theme and the direction the album is going. If you’ve got your aesthetics down, you will use this. Letting fans be part of the writing process is priceless. Including polls and having Q&A Live Sessions will make your fanbase invest in you as an artist.
Have your followers send in sounds and samples for inspiration. “The best one that makes it onto the album” is music meant for fans’ ears.
Bring it all together
Add to this hype with limited edition pre-album merchandise in your TikTok Shop, which builds mystery and a sense of community before the music drops. Cryptic symbols and album title placeholders on merchandise create a world for your audience to exist in while testing different approaches. Scrapbooks and zines document the creation process, allowing fans to participate while driving traffic to your shop.
Teaser content can be short mood videos that include short cinematic loops. Use sonic elements from your environment or check out what is available from sound libraries to fill in the audio. Studio photo dumps, pictures of band practice, and drawings can all be monetized with access to a quality printer.
And just because you don’t have a band yet shouldn’t stop you from actualizing the dream. Lean into whatever your strengths are. If you are a visual artist who wants to make an album, start with the art. Consider a theme if you are a writer, and let the words flow onto the paper. There are plenty of people out there who want to do the exact thing you are doing.
Once you find your audience? Let TikTok automation help you stay connected with them as you grow, together.
