TikTok Is Creating Overnight Stars—But Many Struggle to Find Real-World Success

TikTok, with over 46 million downloads in 2024 alone and around 1.9 billion users worldwide, has become a catalyst for music trends. In the U.S., TikTok users are twice more likely to discover music on the app than the average user of other social media platforms, according to a 2024 study commissioned by TikTok and conducted by Luminate, an entertainment analytics company. From pushing the biggest pop stars with dance trends to supporting the rise of a breakout artist, going viral on TikTok is a promotional dream for every musician. Yet, the song everyone has stuck in their head one week is quickly forgotten the next, which makes planning live shows and tours that depend on an artist’s longevity increasingly difficult.

Before TikTok was bought by ByteDance in 2017, it was called Musical.ly, which was built around sharing lip-syncing videos to songs and started trends through lip-syncing challenges, dances and even seemingly random actions paired with a sound. “[New] artists were able to get picked up…even with artists that have been around forever, like Fleetwood Mac, [we saw] how they were able to come back to life amongst Gen Z all because someone just happened to ride a skateboard and film with it,” Eric Dahan, a co-founder of the influencer marketing company Open Influence, told Observer. 

A viral sound doesn’t just benefit artists through exposure; it also leads to profit. “The main way that artists can monetize on TikTok is through music royalties. The app pays artists based on the number of videos that use an artist’s sound,” said Sarah Boyd, Co-CEO and chief revenue officer at The Digital Dept,, an influencer marketing agency.

Luminate’s research found that engagement with an artist‘s music on TikTok is strongly correlated with streaming volumes on other platforms. After finding a song on TikTok, users will often search the lyrics or song on another streaming app. Spotify (SPOT)’s “Viral Hits,” a regularly updated playlist of viral songs, has over 4 million saves. Capitalizing on the benefits of a viral sound, talent managers often encourage artists to self-promote a snippet of their songs to tease an album or a new song release on TikTok. 

However, using social media as a promotional tool isn’t enough to generate a viral sensation. “It’s just as important to use TikTok and social media in general to share why audiences should become invested in you as an artist ,” Ali Grant, co-CEO and CMO of the Digital Dept, told Observer. Grant cited Chappell Roan as an example of an artist who understands the TikTok ecosystem and has ridden that wave to record-breaking crowds at music festivals. “She found a balance between teasing and promoting her new music and also using TikTok to share everything from makeup tutorials to behind-the-scenes looks at filming music videos to funny memes using her music,” Grant said.

The overnight fame on TikTok doesn’t always last

However, the same algorithm that can propel an artist to fame overnight can also work against them when a new trend takes over. “A lot of it is out of the artist’s control, and it comes down to how people are going to interpret the work and use it and if any of that happens to pop. There’s a lot of randomness,” Dahan said. 

TikTok’s “For You” page algorithm is based on a recommendation system, which processes user interactions, video information, and account settings and ranks videos based on indicators of interest. If an artist’s content doesn’t get promoted on TikTok’s “For You” page, there’s not much the artist or their manager can do.

Musicians who found their fame on TikTok have had mixed success with real-world fans. Olivia Rodrigo, 21, released her debut single, “Driver’s License,” in January 2021 and broke the Spotify record for the most single-day streams for a non-holiday song (achieved on its fourth day of release) and the biggest first week for a song on Spotify and Amazon Music. When Rodrigo announced her Sour Tour in December of that year, tickets sold out in mere minutes. Some fans were disappointed to see Rodrigo touring small-capacity venues with fewer than 5,000 seats instead of arenas that typically hold around four times that maximum. Capital FM reported that a 3,500-seat venue where Rodrigo performed had over 40,000 fans in the Ticketmaster queue vying for tickets. 

Rodrigo defended her decision to start her touring career in smaller venues, saying she “didn’t want to skip any steps.” Still, Rodrigo’s team’s conservative estimate led to severe backlash and widespread disappointment for the tens of thousands of loyal fans who could not obtain tickets.

Meanwhile, many overly ambitious tours struggle to fill large-capacity venues. Even high-profile industry veterans like Jennifer Lopez and The Black Keys have canceled their arena tours, reportedly due to low ticket sales. 

Kim Petras, 31, whose fame comes mainly from TikTok (over 850,000 followers), faced significant challenges selling tickets for her “Feed the Beast” world tour. Despite having popular singles like “Unholy” featuring Sam Smith and “Alone” featuring Nicki Minaj, reports indicated that some concerts struggled to fill venues that aimed for a total audience of 190,000, eventually leading the singer to partner with Groupon to sell tickets at a discount. Joshua Bassett, 23, a singer-songwriter with over 3 million followers on TikTok, has been unable to sell the vast majority of tickets for The Golden Years Tour. Most recently, he began giving out free tickets to shows in an attempt to fill seats. 

A key issue for touring artists is forecasting demand. For artists coming from online fame, a primary concern is whether the artist can survive the trend cycle and keep interest from the time tickets are released to the actual shows. Yet, a larger issue facing the touring industry is not that artists cannot maintain their fame online but that artists are doing shows bigger than they can sell out. For artists like Petras, who consistently gets millions of views per video, their fans are spread across the globe. Even though an artist may have a large online following, certain cities may have a considerably smaller fan base.

In addition, pricing is crucial to the decision-making process for touring artists. When it comes to TikTok-based artists, it’s possible that the prices associated with bigger venues are too high for their followers. While a user may follow many artists online, they may only be willing to pay to see a select few live. If given the choice between the pricey tickets of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and several shows of other artists in similar or mid-sized venues, they may pick to see Swift anyway. In smaller venues with much lower ticket prices, however, seeing a show becomes less of a financial commitment, and it may encourage casual fans or new listeners to attend. 

As the music industry continues to grapple with TikTok’s influence, artists’ success will likely increasingly hinge on their ability to convert fleeting viral moments into sustained, tangible support from their audience.