Is it time to look for alternatives to TikTok to market music?

There’s a year and many lawsuits between now and when TikTok may be banned in the U.S. But a new report that TikTok owner ByteDance will shut down the app before it sells it does underscore the possibilty that this effective music marketing tool could disppear.

Rather than wait to see what happens, now is the time to explore alernatives.

There is no shortage of places to post sort form TikTok videos. This week Spotify said that they are going to start emphasizing the format.

But this week’s Hypebot Flashback Friday resurfaces posts about finding success on three platforms that we think are most likely “replace” TikTok if there is a ban

YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts has over 2.3 billion monthly active users. For musicians who already have a presence on YouTube, this may be the place to go.

Instagran and Facebook Reels

Instagram has 2.5 billion active users and this week Mark Zukerberg shared that half of the viewing on the platform was of Reels.

Snapchat Spotlight

With 800 monthly active users (425M daily), Snapchat is the smallest of our three picks to replace TikTok. But with use of Snapchat Spotlight short videos up 125% from last year, it a competitor that should not be counted out.

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.