What types of sounds are on TikTok?
There are 2 types of sounds on TikTok:
original sound
official sound
Only one of them can be used on our platform - official. Differences between these sounds are described below.
What is the original sound?
Users can create videos on TikTok both with music or without it. For instance - record how you’re sitting in a car and telling some story that has just happened to you in the mall. TikTok will automatically create sound based on the audio of the recorded video.
For example, your username in TikTok is @spxdupsounds1. So the name of the created sound will be the original sound - spxdupsounds1. The user can rename this sound but in the majority of cases, it stays the same.
So this is the original sound - the sound uploaded to TikTok by a user within a video.
What is the official sound and how to upload it to TikTok?
Official sound it’s a sound uploaded to TikTok by a digital distributor.
Big chances you already used at least one while uploading your releases to Apple Music, Amazon, and other streaming platforms.
There are a bunch of them on the market - Tunecore, CD Baby, Distrokid, Amuse, ONErpm, and many others. The crucial requirement is to choose the most suitable for you - TikTok has to be among the list of platforms the current service is distributing music to.
Pick your digital distributor, create a release on it and be sure TikTok is selected as one of the distributed platforms your track will get to. That’s how you’ll upload an official sound to TikTok.
A part of the official sound was used in the original sound. Now it’s official sound too?
TikTok developed its own system that works like YouTube’s Content ID system - the algorithm tries to find all cases of using music in videos uploaded by users on a platform.
So if you used somebody’s official sound in a video, TikTok will find it and put the name of the used track on a track page.
This is how it looks with the track Last Christmas by Wham! founded in somebody’s original sound.
There are 2 conditions you have to keep in mind about working with that matching system:
the official track has to be already uploaded on TikTok via the digital music distributor
the algorithm does not work in 100% of cases - more track is modified, fewer chances the system will find a match
How to differ the original sound from the official sound?
Official sound on TikTok has:
official cover of the release
track name
artist name
This is how it looks on the official sound Last Christmas by Wham!
If you don’t see at least one of the mentioned above elements on the track's page - this is the original sound.
How to find a link to an official sound?
The fastest way to get a link to the official sound of your track on TikTok is via search in the mobile app:
Go to the Discovery tab in TikTok app on your smartphone
Tap on Search and type the name of the track with the artist's name
Go to the Sounds tab
Find your track, press on it
Press the Share button and tap the Copy link button
How to differentiate official sounds and original sounds in search results:
the cover image of your track has to be the same as you uploaded via the digital distributor
artist name on the track’s page is displayed under the track name
If you uploaded several sounds of your track to TikTok, pay attention to the duration of the sound which you want to promote.
SoundCampaign provides promotion for only official sounds.