🎥 Reactions Rack Up Views

The music industry has been turned on its head in the age of TikTok. New artists are emerging faster than ever by sharing their talents and going viral. Established artists are now writing songs with the sole purpose of it going viral.

So what happens if you produce a banger, a song that has huge potential to blow up and become a trend on TikTok? How do you get it there?

Jacob Lawson, who goes by the stage name JVKE, has mastered music marketing.

JVKE is a singer-songwriter who first got a taste of TikTok virality when his song “Upside Down” blew up in early 2021. Since then, he has had several other mega-successful songs because of a few specific strategies. 

Let’s look at how he managed to get hundreds of millions of streams on his song “Golden Hour:”

#1 Reaction Videos

As humans, we are wired to want to relate to other humans and seek points of commonality. Why react to a video alone when we could share the experience with our favorite creators? 

Reaction channels are some of the most popular on YouTube and TikTok. MrBeast created an entirely separate reaction channel for himself because he knows that content does supremely well.

JVKE captures his audience emotionally because not only do they want to see the reactions to his song, but they also want the experience of relating to the person reacting. It’s a double whammy, you’re being entertained while simultaneously being understood and seen.

One of the core concepts of persuasion is mirroring. JVKE draws you in with a great hook, then offers a look at someone who could be mirroring your same reaction to his song.

Golden Hour is one of the biggest songs of 2022 because of JVKE’s ingenious video strategy, and it’s fairly simple to replicate.

#2 Repetition

I first came across Golden Hour when one of JVKE’s videos popped up in my For You Page. He played his song for his childhood piano teacher and got her reaction on camera.

He hooked the audience in the beginning by using text on-screen that said “Playing my song for my childhood piano teacher until THIS happened,” and then he launched into playing the song.

A GREAT hook, and the song itself is good enough to make you stick around and keep listening.

After watching that first video I went to his profile to see what sort of other content he publishes, and discovered…not much variation. The kid gets millions of views because he knows how to milk it.

All of his top-performing videos are the same concept: people in his life reacting to Golden Hour, or JVKE himself reacting to people playing renditions of the song.

If you find something that works, lean in.

The other key aspect of his repetition strategy is he doesn’t assume you’ve seen any of his previous content. You don’t have to be “in” on the fact that he gets reactions from multiple people, it’s not a series. They are stand-alone pieces of content. He introduces the song fresh every single video, usually adding the caption “this song is called golden hour and is out everywhere.”

React and Repeat.

Have an ELITE Week,

Hannah

Elite Video of the Week:

In the podcast this week, Hannah interviewed digital collage artist Maisie Kane about how she grew her art business using TikTok.

Maisie shares how she found her artistic style and her #1 piece of advice for people trying to grow an audience.