Taylor Swift, promo queen, takes her partnership with TikTok to the next level
Just a week after her music returned to TikTok, Taylor Swift partnered with the social media platform to bring “exclusive in-app experiences to users” in promotion of her new album The Tortured Poets Department.
The in-app experiences are par for the course for the billionaire songwriter. When you search “Taylor Swift” on TikTok a Tortured Poets Department animation appears. If you follow Swift, her official fanbase Taylor Nation, add “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone),” and post a video tagged “TheTorturedPoetsDepartment” you can unlock a banner for your profile picture. Additionally, fans may be included in a “Fan Spotlight” carousel if they use the hashtag. The partnership is reminiscent of the singer’s YouTube Shorts challenge for Midnights a.k.a. the #TSAntiHeroChallenge.
Swift’s collaboration with TikTok comes after her music was removed from the platform in February after negotiations between Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok dissolved over artist royalties. However, last week the pop star’s music returned to TikTok ahead of the release of TTPD. (So far, she’s the only UMG artist whose music is back on the platform.) UMG also represents big artists like The Weeknd and Ariana Grande.
Her partnership is one of many to promote The Tortured Poets Department; she collaborated with Spotify on a “library installation;” if you search her name on Instagram, a writing emoji appears; and she curated five playlists for Apple Music, recontextualizing some of her biggest hits into the five stages of grief.
For Midnights, she partnered with YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, Tumblr, and Amazon Prime‘s Thursday Night Football. Not to mention, the promo queen continues to use the album variant method to maximize sales and profits.
