The SoundOn Strategy: Turning Tracks Into TikTok Viral Hits

James Cattermole and Josh Mateer from TikTok’s distribution platform, SoundOn, shed some light on the artists in SoundOn’s repertoire that are currently viral, what is resonating with TikTok audiences, and how SoundOn is leveraging opportunities in new verticals to push its artists to wider audiences.

How does SoundOn identify potential viral hits among the artists you work with?

Josh Mateer (head of A&R at SoundOn): We take a holistic approach to scouting and signing. Something can become a viral hit purely based on the quality of music with no prior digital footprint, or indeed vice versa – with a huge digital footprint and a secondary focus on the music itself.

It’s up to us to know what’s going on and identify opportunities in partnership with a wide variety of artists that we feel we can help. We hold firm in our belief that if the music is compelling, we have the resources to bring it to the right audiences. 

If something is already moving by the time we discover it, then our job is to demonstrate capability in scaling it for our artist partners. A great example of this is our recent hit, Charlie Jeer's Her Eyes. 

We saw extremely positive signs of a viral hit from our data, and moved quickly to get the track into our distribution system. The track has now gone on to do 30m+ streams on Spotify alone.

SoundOn offers tools for artists to maximise their presence on TikTok. How do these tools assist in creating viral moments and engaging with TikTok's community effectively?

We have an outstanding team of music promotion managers here at SoundOn, and between them they design a wide variety of influencer-facing ‘Work With Artist’ campaigns, which is our in-house creator marketing tool. 

They’re our secret weapon. As long as the A&R team can bring the heat with the right artist and record, the tools the promotion team provide are what can scale creations, views, engagements and followers, which ultimately is what leads to streams and career-spanning audience development.

What role does A&R play in optimising tracks for TikTok and other digital platforms?

A&R is about signing great artists and delivering the ambition behind the signing to the team that can make it all happen. Overseeing audience development across the overall music ecosystem is part of our responsibilities to the artists we work with.

Several labels artists in your repertoire are currently going viral; what is resonating with TikTok audiences?

James Cattermole (head of label services at SoundOn): It’s been an exciting start to 2025! There are two projects that jump out: MGEE’s LIKE ME (GAMBL/Stay Bizzy) – a catalogue release from 2023 – which quickly rose to over 300k daily Spotify streams and 450k TikTok creations following a viral trend where users poked fun at their non-street lives, perfectly juxtaposing the track’s themes and Drill sensibility. 

More recently, Scythermane & NXGHT’s NUNCA MUDA? (Purple Crunch Records) has quickly become a global viral sensation – currently at 900k daily Spotify streams and 1bn weekly TikTok views.

This track has seen numerous trends in a variety of verticals – initially starting in the traditional Phonk spaces (football, car and anime edits), but we’re now seeing the track cross over into global dance and selfie trends, helping propel the track into a top 20 entry into Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic singles chart, no. 3 on Shazam’s Global Dance chart and it's currently occupying over 40 Spotify viral charts – and it’s only been out for a month!

SoundOn emphasises leveraging TikTok's ecosystem for monetisation. Can you share a success story where an artist from your repertoire benefited significantly from this?

There have been a lot, but a great example of this would be Bsav GP’s Females Lingo (Mixtape Madness). Through leveraging SoundOn and Mixtape’s creator network, we saw a quick rise in organic creations in the football vertical – quickly identifying the wider brand potential of the track in this space. 

We then collaborated with our Commercial Music Library (CML) and Commercial Licensing teams to secure various editorial features on the CML, adding increasing visibility to the brand account community in numerous territories. 

As a result, global sports teams and brands started to use the track in their videos, including The Premier League and Borussia Dortmund – giving us more leverage to push the track further through our various XFN routes. 

A fast-rising trend amongst key football accounts – together with great cultural timing – led to England using the track in the lead up to the EURO 2024 Final – with the video quickly going viral, hitting over 25m views. This video led to numerous organic trends as a result, and helped push the track from 20k daily streams to over 100k on Spotify.

Access to TikTok creators is an advantage of SoundOn. How has this direct access contributed to boosting the visibility and viral potential of certain tracks? Do any specific strategies or collaborations stand out?

Creator marketing is a critical weapon in any marketer’s arsenal. Luckily, we not only have the most forward-thinking, TikTok-literate promotional team in the game, but numerous products that give us the ability to tap into TikTok’s wide creator network. 

We saw explosive growth in Pete & Bas’ T-Pain following a fairly simple creator marketing campaign – the duo launched an open verse challenge inviting their fans to jump on the track. 

We quickly saw the creations start to rise and made the decision to push the open verse to our creator network – further driving the virality of the SoundOn platform. 

The noise quickly caught the attention of the man himself, T-Pain, who jumped on the open verse challenge – with his version then being included on their debut album as an official remix!