In brief
Sound.me is a two-sided creator marketplace: artists, record labels and brands pay creators to make short videos with their sound or product on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and creators use the Sound.me app to apply to daily paid campaigns and cash out via PayPal. It has 3M+ registered creators in 61 countries, who have made 90M+ videos with 181B+ organic views for 20K+ advertisers.
Sound.me publishes this guide and runs one of the options in it.
The four ways labels get creators to post with a song
| Way | What you control | How fast | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| The artist's own posts and fan content | Everything about the artist's videos; nothing about who copies them | Depends on the artist's audience | Giving the sound a story and a first wave of uses |
| One-by-one creator deals (outreach, managers, marketplaces) | Exactly which creators post, and the brief | Days to weeks per deal | A few hand-picked, larger creators |
| Budget-based creator campaigns | Budget, run time, targeting and directions; creators opt in | First posts usually the same day | Many videos behind one sound at once |
| TikTok One (TikTok's creator deals) | Project terms with each creator | Depends on the project | Brand-style deals on TikTok only |
One-by-one deals. You or an agency message creators, agree a price for each video and pay them one at a time. You choose every creator, but it takes time per deal and the number of videos stays small. Marketplaces such as Collabstr list creators with their prices so you can hire them one by one.
Budget-based creator campaigns. You set one budget and the rules (platform, run time, who can join, what the video should look like), and creators who fit apply and post with your sound. This is how a song gets dozens or hundreds of creator videos in a few days. Sound.me, Playlist Push, SongPush and SoundCampaign sell this kind of campaign. TikTok sound seeding explains why the number of videos matters.
TikTok One. TikTok describes TikTok One as the place where creators find brand opportunities from advertisers, run the projects and get paid through TikTok. It covers TikTok only. See TikTok Creator Marketplace alternatives.
What a label needs before creators can use the song
- The official sound on the platform. Creators post with your sound, so the release (or a pre-release snippet) has to be live as a sound on TikTok, in Instagram's audio library or on YouTube. On Sound.me you paste a TikTok, Instagram or YouTube link to your sound.
- The part of the song to use. Most creator videos use 10 to 30 seconds. Pick the hook or the line people will want to act out, and say so in your directions.
- Directions creators can follow. On Sound.me you choose creative freedom, lip sync, dance, transition, text on screen or your own brief. Short, specific directions get better videos than long ones.
- Where the audience is. Campaigns can target worldwide, one of 24 countries, or a region, plus age, gender, language and creator size (from 100 followers to over 50 million).
- A budget you can repeat. The first campaign shows which kinds of videos and countries respond. Most labels learn more from two smaller campaigns than from one big one.
How a creator campaign works on Sound.me
- Paste the sound. Paste a TikTok, Instagram or YouTube link to your sound. Each campaign runs on one platform: TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.
- Pick the budget and run time. $250, $1,000, $1,500 or your own amount; $100 for a first campaign during the flash sale in the 48 hours after sign-up. Run it for 72 hours, 7 days or 14 days (how long should a campaign run?).
- Choose who can post. Location, age, gender, language and creator size.
- Write the directions. Choose a video style or write your own brief.
- Check and pay. Before you pay you see the whole campaign on one card, so you can check the sound, the targeting and the directions. You pay upfront.
- Creators post. Sound.me's team matches and approves creators; on TikTok campaigns of $1,000 or more you can also approve creators yourself. Our team watches every video and makes sure creators follow your directions. If they don't, they don't get paid, and that part of your budget goes back into your campaign for other creators.
Creators are paid for each approved video based on the views it gets in its first 72 hours. For what a budget usually buys, see pricing and cost per 1,000 views.
Small creators or big creators?
Labels often ask for the biggest names first. For getting a sound used, many smaller creators usually do more than a few large ones: more videos, more audiences and more people who see the sound being used by someone like them. Large creators still make sense for a moment that needs one big post. Micro-influencers vs big creators compares the two.
How to tell if it worked
- Videos made with the sound. The number of creator videos on the sound page, and how many people used the sound after the campaign ended.
- Views on those videos. Sound.me reports the videos and their views for each campaign.
- Streams and saves. Watch the song's streams on Spotify and Apple Music in the days after the videos go live. Does TikTok promotion increase streams? explains what to expect.
Common mistakes
- Launching the campaign before the sound is live. Creators can't use a sound that isn't on the platform yet.
- Directions that try to say everything. One clear idea gets followed; five ideas get ignored.
- Targeting only one country with a small budget. It limits how many creators can join; widen the targeting or run longer.
- Judging the whole song on one campaign. Run a second campaign with what worked: the countries, creator sizes and video styles that got the most views.