How TikTok and an Influencer Marketing agency helped one artist reach 420 million Spotify listens

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok, Instagram Reels or Youtube Shorts, you’ve probably noticed a few songs that appear—seemingly out of thin air—in every other video you watch. Before you know it, they’re stuck in your head for the next week until the next one hits, and the cycle continues.

‍While these might seem like random trends, this virality isn’t so random after all. In some cases, these are pointed campaigns meant to promote the songs. ‍

In this week's edition of Case Studied, we examine how Ubiquitous, a top Influencer Marketing agency and a partner of Vendry’s, helped propel Sleepy Hallow’s hit, “2055,” to meteoric heights.

The Brief:

By 2021, musician Sleepy Hallow had already built a strong following thanks to his previous tracks. However, it’d been 3 years since his last big spike, and with the relaunch of his most recent single “2055” set, his team was looking for a way to gain additional traction.

The team met with Ubiquitous and gave them 4-days notice to develop a creator-led campaign that would boost the launch of the song.

The Execution:

With time working against them, Ubiquitous quickly outlined a strategy and brief that could enable them to deliver results quickly, while ensuring the highest likelihood of success for the song to grow.

The team determined TikTok was the right channel for their efforts. Why?

Because there was a pre-existing playbook being developed to help increase the discovery of music through creator partnerships.

Ubiquitous made a list of influencers they felt were a great fit and gave them the simple instructions to “Create one TikTok to ‘2055’.” ‍The team believed that giving creators the freedom to do whatever they wanted would enable them to hit a tight deadline and give them a wide variety of ideas they could leverage for future iterations.

The initial campaign was successful, but only to a small degree. The videos generated a combined 1.5 million views, but it was one video in particular that sparked a meme and provided a format that could be repurposed across the internet.

Using these new insights, Ubiquitous did two additional rounds of influencer campaigns:

🎶 Campaign #2: Double down on the meme format that was so successful to further the trend and help seed it across TikTok

🎧 Campaign #3: Optimize for creators with high engagement rates instead of reach to better cater to TikTok’s algorithm‍

The Results:

Overall, the campaign was a sweeping success, with each iteration surpassing the last. Over 370k total videos were created and Sleepy Hallow saw organic participation from iconic TikTokers like Lev Cameron, Polo Boy, Payton, and Noah Beck— whose combined followers exceeded 60 million.

‍This popularity helped land “2055” onto numerous Spotify playlists, most notably holding the #7 ranking on Spotify’s Top 50—right below “Kiss Me More” by Doja Cat and SZA and just above Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits.”

To date, “2055” has been played over 656 million times on Spotify thanks to the impact of a great song, a top-notch influencer strategy, and the mighty power of TikTok.

The Takeaways:

Yes, music is very promotable with our modern social media. Still, there are plenty of applicable lessons from Sleepy Hallow’s win with Ubiquitous. 

Here are a few you can apply to your business:

1. Observe trends and emerging playbooks

Ubiquitous’ knowledge of how to leverage TikTok as a promotional channel enabled them to work fast without compromising speed. ‍

They didn’t invent the playbook for seeding music in influencer videos, but having that deep understanding enabled them to rule out other options quickly and identify the right strategy efficiently. 

‍2. Test a wide variety of creative options

By giving creators the opportunity to take an open-ended brief and make it their own, Ubiquitous unlocked a “meme” that wouldn’t have been possible if they went with a rigid set of instructions. 

‍If you’re going to work with creatives, let them lean into their quirks and creativity—it’ll help you maximize your investment with them.‍

3. Double down and scale the winners

Creative testing is only valuable if you learn from the wins and losses. Ubiquitous turned a niche meme into a viral TikTok trend by identifying an emerging trend and using it as the basis for future influencer outreach. 

You can’t always predict trends, but you can certainly harness them to help achieve your campaign goals.‍

4. Outsource to the experts

But it’s important to recognize when your team is outside of their comfort zone so you know when to outsource. Clearly, it can be worthwhile to partner with subject matter experts in areas where you need support. 

Quick PSA though: we’d advise giving your agency partners more than 4 days’ notice, if possible!

Music to marketing 👂: Are you looking for an Influencer Marketing Agency like Ubiquitous? Or are you curious about partners who can help with SEO, Google Ads, and Email Marketing? Vendry can match you with amazing agencies to deliver results. Learn more.