By 2017, the global music business wasn’t just recovering, it was flying. Total revenues jumped 8.1% to reach $17.3 billion, and streaming single-handedly claimed a massive 38.2% of the entire global market.
As the digital landscape grew, the way music found an audience shifted completely. A few years earlier, South Korean artist Psy shattered the internet when his 2012 hit “Gangnam Style” became a global phenomenon. It wasn’t just a hit song; it was a cultural turning point. Its success illustrated how music could now spread internationally through digital platforms and fan participation, extending well beyond traditional broadcast and retail channels.
The growing importance of User-Generated Content (UGC) reflected this shift. During YouTube’s early years, rights holders adopted different approaches to fan-created videos. Believe recognized that internet culture was the ultimate marketing engine, viewing these videos as an opportunity to extend artists’ reach while generating additional revenues. By 2017, what had initially emerged as an organic form of online participation had become an increasingly structured component of digital music marketing and monetisation.
The birth of the 15-second hit
For us at Believe the goal is really to understand how technology is impacting on the artist’s journey every step of the way, from music creation, to music distribution, to music marketing. “You must really understand the impact of technology
Romain Becker
Group Chief Operating Officer
The playground for fan-driven virality evolved dramatically in November 2017 when Chinese tech giant ByteDance acquired a lip-syncing app called Musical.ly for $1 billion, merging it into a brand-new global short-form video platform: TikTok.
Suddenly, the video playbook Believe had spent years refining on YouTube transitioned into hyper-drive. On TikTok, tracks didn’t need a traditional four-minute radio edit to break records; they just needed a catchy 15-second hook that everyday users could use as the soundtrack for dance challenges, comedy skits, or lip-sync trends.
For Believe, navigating this shift meant treating new technology as a clear roadmap for an artist’s career rather than an administrative hurdle.
“For us at Believe the goal is really to understand how technology is impacting on the artist’s journey every step of the way, from music creation, to music distribution, to music marketing,” says Romain Becker. “You must really understand the impact of technology, then embrace it by testing, running some proof of concepts, doing a lot of research, and then offering the artist a solution that will help us to grow their fans, grow their audience, and grow their revenue.“
A different perspective on the value gap
As debates over the economics of digital platforms intensified in 2017, Believe’s own data offered a different perspective on the role of video services in the music business. That year, the company reported that around 20% of its overall global revenue came directly from YouTube. Even more revealing: 45% of that video revenue was generated entirely by everyday fan-made videos using their artists’ music.
These figures suggested that, alongside the concerns expressed by many rights holders about the so-called “value gap,” video platforms could also represent a significant source of audience development and revenue When nurtured and monetized correctly through automated tracking software. Rather than viewing fan-created videos solely as unauthorized uses of copyrighted works, Believe integrated them into its broader digital strategy, using automated identification and monetization tools to generate additional income while extending artists’ reach across online communities.
Short-form video as the new visual handshake
[TikTok] is an additional opportunity to create audiences. We see TikTok much more as a marketing and audience development platform rather than a streaming platform. This is the way we are using TikTok and incorporating TikTok in our strategies.
Romain Becker
Group Chief Operating Officer
When TikTok emerged as a music discovery platform, the industry debated how short-form video would affect music consumption and streaming revenues. Believe approached the platform as a new channel for artist discovery and a hyper-efficient visual handshake to introduce artists to younger demographics and complement more established marketing channels.
As Romain Becker points out, short-form apps don’t compete with traditional music platforms; they act as a massive funnel that feeds them.
“We don’t see TikTok as taking the value out of streaming platforms,” says Romain Becker. “That’s because it’s not a streaming platform and it’s not a replacement for streaming.“
Instead of treating video loops as a product to be sold, Believe integrated them directly into their core fan-building strategies.
“It is an additional opportunity to create audiences”, proposes Romain Becker of the power of TikTok. “We see TikTok much more as a marketing and audience development platform rather than a streaming platform. This is the way we are using TikTok and incorporating TikTok in our strategies.“
By remaining entirely platform-agnostic in 2017, refusing to favor one specific tech platform over another, Believe positioned its roster to capture the upside of internet culture. They proved that in the streaming age, the ultimate financial model wasn’t about trying to control how fans consumed a song, but giving them the freedom to rewrite it.
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Article written by Eamonn Forde. Eamonn Forde is an award-winning music business journalist and author. He writes for The Guardian, Forbes; Music Week, and Music Business Worldwide and several other publications.
