Amazon Music’s goal is to ignite fandom and connect young adults to the things they love. But TikTok is a tough stage, where users seek authentic, organic content and avoid overt brand messaging. So how do you break through the noise and reach an audience so ready to tune you out?
We set out to reach and engage young adults with content that doesn’t just speak to them, but sounds like them. Our primary objectives: increase awareness and engagement around Amazon Music as a streaming service by deeply embedding the brand within the trends and subcultures driving culture on the platform.
This is where fandoms thrive, after all. In their niche corners, their passion-driven creative spaces, showing up as their authentic selves. So we developed a high-frequency, always-on content stream designed to meet them where they were – with the aim to make them not just fans of Taylor Swift and their favourite creators, but of Amazon Music as well.
We couldn’t just exist on TikTok. We had to make sure we made sense there. Young music fans are overwhelmed by content on a platform where trends turn up the volume and brands are often nothing but background noise. So we embraced the chaos, creating content that felt like it came from the fans themselves. It wasn’t about cutting through the noise; it was about becoming a part of it.
We immersed ourselves in TikTok culture as obsessive, passionate stans who got it. From K-pop deep cuts to niche memes that only the brain rot afflicted understood – it was never about putting out ads, it was about reacting to TikTok’s vibe in real-time, with fast-paced, reverent content reaching our audience on a deeper level.
This is a platform that demands quick reflexes, as trends move faster than traditional marketing models can keep up with. We embraced this unpredictability, making reactive ideation the backbone of our output. Our content was always ready to ride the latest Moo Deng or Subtle Foreshadowing wave, but we did it with a distinctive Amazon Music take – from our use of TikTok’s green screen feature including our app’s UI to reacting in real-time to fan comments asking us how on earth we knew the things we did.
When every brand jumped on the Brat trend, we jumped 10 times harder. We were more obsessed. More weird about it. Transforming our whole TikTok into an unhinged, bright-green fan page wasn’t just about joining in. It was about embodying our strategy to the extreme. We didn’t just participate; we took over.
It wasn’t all small-fry social. We brought culture-shifting moments too, whether it was Amazon Music Live performances or Kendrick Lamar's The Pop Out. By seamlessly extending these onto TikTok, we ensured fans who couldn’t be there still felt part of the experience. The Pop Out was more than just a show; it was a headline-grabbing moment that reinforced Amazon Music’s place as a brand igniting fandom and connecting fans to the heart of music culture. Our TikTok didn’t just cover the event but fuelled conversation in real-time.
Fans began not just commenting on our posts, but talking to us like we were one of them. Our content became so deeply embedded in fandom that it was often shared beyond TikTok, with reactions spilling into saves, group chats and other platforms.
Our community management was an essential part of this. Every post was met with ongoing engagement that kept us connected, with some posts even achieving over 99% positive sentiment .
The audience was embracing us as a part of their online worlds. In a year, we achieved over 500 million video views. We generated over 9 million engagements, up 200% year on year. At one point, we saw a 834% engagement increase in a single quarter.
By not just leaning into fandom but obsessing over it, we transformed Amazon Music from just another streaming service into a culture-first brand with serious TikTok cache.
But don’t listen to us. Listen to the fans:
“OMG Amazon Music, you’re one of us!”
“I thought this was a fan account.”
“This is why I’m an Amazon Music girlie.”
“You’re just like us babes.”
