To scroll the Viral 50 Italia by Spotify, these days, it can happen to come across an interesting story. Together with the veterans of Sanremo, such as Tananai and Ditonellapiaga, and Martelli, competitor of Italia’s got Talent, at number 2 appears Gianni Celesteone of the most famous Neapolitan neo-melodic singers.
What is surprising, in addition to the presence of an author who is not exactly in fashion these days, is also the song that allowed the 57-year-old Neapolitan to enter the playlist: a 2005 song, which is called Tu comm’a mequite unknown until a couple of weeks ago.
To trace the reasons for this surge, we need to move from Spotify to TikTok: it is on the social network owned by Bytedance that the song found an unexpected notoriety, so much so that it has been used as a soundtrack for nearly 50,000 videos in recent weeks. The contents with the hashtag #poverogabbiano, which take up the refrain of the song that became a catchphrase, received nearly 70 million views.
Tracing the paths of this kind of virality is really hard. Apparently, the song was used in a piece of content for the first time by Duracell and Franco, two tiktokers from the Zen district of Palermo landed on TV in recent weeks, between Le Iene and Sanremo, together with Nicolò De Devitiis. Starting from here, with the complicity of a few pages that search and share trash videos like Mimmo Modem on Instagram, the song literally exploded, up to become a real meme first, and then a phenomenon also on Spotify.
After all, on TikTok sounds are one of the most effective ways to reach a very large number of people. Popular ones are considered a positive sign to get to the For Te feed, the TikTok homepage, curated by the algorithm. In other words, when a sound goes viral on the platform, a virtuous circle is activated, so that those who use that audio have a better chance of reaching a wider audience. This generates a race for viral soundwhich is used by a very large number of users to reach as many people as possible.
social network
All the secrets of TikTok, the most downloaded app by Italians in 2020
by Emanuele Capone
tiktok: the lion and Poor seagull
How TikTok is changing the music industry
Music is a core component of TikTok, which is already changing the music industry and how we discover new songs and new artists. According to an analysis commissioned by the same platform to analysts Mrc Data and Flamingo, 67% of the users of the social network they said they were inclined to look for a song they listened to on the social network on a music streaming service. Such an impact that the “I heard it on TikTok” is increasingly widespread: over 7 out of 10 people associate certain songs with the platform. And it is not uncommon now to hear of artists born and raised within the space of the Chinese social network: just think of Matteo Romano, who from TikTok reached the Sanremo stage.
The platform’s power of discovery of new music Bytedance it is naturally well known to the music industry. Record companies have been working for years to interpret, identify and analyze social network data and predict trends, new popular sounds. According to an insight from Business Insider, many record labels have dedicated teams monitoring the app, with the aim of identifying and predicting new trending songs. Which, as in the case of Gianni Celeste, can also be dated and partially unknown.
“Our entire music catalog is actually monitored on a daily basis,” explained Andy McGrath, senior vice president of marketing at Legacy Recordings, a division within Sony Music focused on the label’s catalog of older songs. Of course, there is not only analysis. Almost all record companies implement strategies that involve influencers with large following on the platform in the launch of new songs.
TikTok is taking over the world
by Riccardo Luna
Will TikTok be the real alternative to Spotify?
In short, what more than anything else TikTok has changed is the dimension of discovery, of music marketing. Listen to an excerpt of one new song on the app, maybe several times, and then you go to a music streaming platform to complete the work. Here, Bytedance is working to enter into this process as well.
In 2020, the Chinese company made its debut Resso, a new paid streaming application designed for Generation Z and Millennials. The platform, available only in India, Indonesia and Brazil, is constantly growing: in India (where TikTok is not available) unique users increased by more than 300% between January 2021 and January 2022; in Indonesia and in Brazil the growth strategy is as simple as it is effective and when you discover a song on TikTok, just one click is enough to listen to it in full version on Resso.