In a move that may appeal to music fans as well as marketing professionals, ByteDance-owned video platform TikTok just announced the availability of a new promotional feature called “Share to TikTok” that enables users to share music, podcasts and audiobooks from Apple Music and Spotify to TikTok, directly from the share menus of the streaming services. Content shared to TikTok will feature links directing users to the original sources to foster discovery and engagement on the partnering services. The new feature follows the launch of “Add to Music App,” a tool for users to save songs they discover on the TikTok app to their streaming service of choice.

According to the TikTok news release, content can be shared two ways:

• Users can post to the TikTok Feed (FYP and Stories) by sharing tracks, albums, playlists and other content using the popular green screen feature or Photo Mode.
• DMs (direct messages) via TikTok Messages allow users to send friends their favorite content, which they can then easily open in the DSP (music streaming service) it was shared from.

TikTok had previously tested its own streaming app, TikTok Music, but eventually opted to shutter its efforts. That hasn’t slowed the growing popularity of its main app in driving music discovery. Songs trending on TikTok often make it to the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50, while “the company’s relationship with music labels, artists, and marketers also helps to keep the app flooded with new releases,” according to TechCrunch.

“TikTok is not the only social destination Spotify has added in recent days,” TechCrunch notes. “It also announced a partnership with Meta for sharing songs to Spotify from Instagram with a tap. Spotify has existing integrations with other Meta apps, as well as Snapchat, X, and others.”

“Today’s launch of ‘Share to TikTok’ is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to support music discovery and artist promotion in partnership with music streaming services,” said TikTok Global Head of Music Business Development Ole Obermann.

“‘Add To Music App’ has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of track saves and billions of streams on our partner music streaming services,” he added. “‘Share to TikTok’ takes the user experience full circle, and will be an amazing way of promoting artists and tracks to the TikTok community.”

Related:
Sharing Music on TikTok Keeps Getting Easier, Billboard, 11/7/24
Now It’s Easier to Stream That Song You Love from Instagram, Billboard, 10/18/24