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Music for Social Media is Possible. It’s just limited for small business.
We all know that video is king on social media. Many use it in paid ads, too. Videos take 20x as long to make, but they get a zillion more views. (Very helpful technical figures, I know.) And those videos are more polished with music. For example, my friend and client Laura wants to use an instrumental version of New Order’s Blue Monday as a video with her fun photo slideshow. Because she’s smart and has great taste, obviously.
I’ve been following @lizthemusicmanager on TikTok, who knows *everything* about sync licensing, royalties, and copyright. She recently said that it’s not expensive to license certain songs, especially if they’re older and/or less well known. So I started wondering: how can I add music to my clients’ social media and marketing videos? So, I started Googling and poking around.
How Not to Get Music for Social Media
First, I went to ASCAP and BMI, which are the two big kahunas in music. That was NOT the place to go. That’s where Steven Spielberg goes. That’s where PepsiCo goes. I couldn’t even see the ASCAP and BMI catalog (much less any pricing) without a consultation with someone on the sales team. No thanks! Later, Songtradr did the same. (Backs away from keyboard slowly.)
Next, I asked Chat GPT4 how to get music for social media, and it instantly returned Lickd.co.
To sign up for the free trial with Lickd, annoyingly, I had to connect my YouTube channel. But in retrospect this makes sense. For licensing and pricing reasons, they need to know if I’ll have modest views or Hank Green-level views. And since I wanted the pricing, I proceeded. My credit card will be charged for $22.99/month if I don’t cancel within 30 days.
Immediately, I was able to see an unlimited number of tracks. You can browse by categories like “Featured Artists,” where you’ll see names you recognize, like Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Ray Charles, Paramore, and Sia. I didn’t see, for example, any Rihanna or Beyoncé. There are a lot of options. Unfortunately, every big-name musician only licenses for YouTube. Sorry Instagrammers.
You can also browse by Moods & Vibes, Eras & Decades, ‘SFX and Stings’ and others. But I always like to see the full range of choice available to me, so I went to the search page.
My mind was blown at the number of search filters. Do you want Premium or royalty-free tracks included in your Lickd membership? Instrumental? Which genres out of these 87(!) choices? Which moods from these 41 choices? And, most importantly for my research project: on which platforms are these songs licensable?
To round out the research at Lickd, I went to my cart to check out. I chose a song I’ve never heard of, but was listed as Premium. It was Concept 1 by Kodomo, which was described as Electronic and Chill. And it was licensable on most of the platforms I use. With a subscription, the licensed song cost $8. Without a subscription, it would cost $32. So that’s not something you’d do for everyday social media, but for an ad, or an introductory video? Sure! The pricing I’m using here applies to everyone who has 50K or fewer average views per YouTube video. I was immediately able to download the song, given the required attribution, and emailed the License. The attribution surprised me, as I hadn’t noticed it in the Licensing Agreement. But had I carefully read every word? Dear reader, no. No I had not.
I also checked the pricing for the instrumental version of Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean? Also $8, but there was an interesting, and reasonable extra step: You have to make the video, put it on YouTube as unpublished, then send that secret link to people who will decide whether or not to approve it. Also, on many more popular songs, I saw exclusions for certain topics.
Here are the Beebs’ no-goes:
When it comes to the unlimited royalty-free music, it’s okay; about on par with the free music you’d get on Canva, for example. But there are SO. MANY. CHOICES. For example with some typical filtering, I had 868 royalty-free songs to choose from. So, if you’ve got the time to kill, clicking through hundreds of songs, you’ll find something suitable for your needs.
Next up: Epidemic Sound
To get access to the catalog, I signed up for a free trial. Epidemic Sound will charge me $203.88 per year if I don’t cancel within 30 days. On a commercial plan, all songs can be published anywhere online, including digital ads. No attribution is needed.
Immediately I noticed a lack of starpower. There is zero. They have a Viral Reels category, but as a chronically online person, I can tell you that they’re using the term “viral” loosely. I’d only heard one of the many songs in that category.
Epidemic Sound offers a cool feature, if you’re like me, and tired of listening to eleventy songs before you find one that works for you. Once you finally find royalty-free music with the right vibe, (below) you can use the helpful “find similar” feature.
My favorite part of Epidemic Sound is the Hidden Gems category. Those songs were more creative, even a little weird, and refreshingly unpredictable.
Both sites offered sound effects, which the cool kids are calling “SFX.” So if you’re looking for a zoom, boom, swish or splash, you’re in luck. I grabbed this relaxing ocean sound…coming to a social media post near you.
Creative Commons Music Sources
I also found that royalty-free music is available under a Creative Commons license. No, there isn’t one site for all Creative Commons music. That would be too easy! The Creative Commons 4.0 License lets you share and adapt the music, sometimes even for commercial purposes. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do this attribution in any reasonable manner.
Creative Commons listed these places that have music for commercial use:
Free Music Archive
Jamendo
Icons8/Fugue Music
BeatPick
Free Music Archive
As with the other places, you can do your filtering, including “for Commercial Use”, and start browsing. Predictably, you’ll need a free account to download anything. So I signed up, chose a song, confirmed that I will give appropriate credit, and presto, I had my song.
The attribution looks like this:
Butterfly by Kate Kody is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.
On the Free Music Archive, It was a little harder to find anything I considered “good” and the majority of the sounds were more like indie movie background mood music. But hey, free is nice!
Jamendo
Yes, it’s royalty-free, but the song I chose was 89€ (about $98) for the type of usage we’re talking about here. You can also get a yearly plan, but that doesn’t make things any more attractive. The selection is fine. Unremarkable overall.
Icons8
I really appreciate the straightforward pricing here: $9 per track for commercial use. Or pay $139/year to get 15 downloads for commercial use per month. Attribution is requested but not required. This site allows you to download a “watermarked” version, meaning a test version to play around with, but it has aural artifacts that make it unusable for your marketing.
BeatPick
BeatPick tells you right up front that the pricing varies, but it was still a nice and straightforward process to get the pricing. Pick your song, click on the type of license you want, and it gives you a price. The one I chose was 96€ (about $106.)
So after all of that exploring, Lickd is the only place I found where smaller businesses can easily buy popular music for social media.
What Does Your Music for Social Media Communicate About Your Brand?
While doing this research, I kept thinking: what would Client A want? What would Client B want? And so on. I learned quickly that there’s a great deal of nuance to adding sound to a brand. Which of these might describe your brand and/or messaging?
Are you uplifting? Indie? Serious? Quirky? At some point, as music gets even more popular in social media, branding packages will have to include musical styles.
Additionally, I was asking myself: I feel that this sound is “me.” But is that what my clients think? And do I want to match or oppose that? I don’t care for acoustic guitar, but when people think of my powerful-but-comfortable-ocean-themed brand, does that mean I need a ukelele? Sorry friends, you’re getting happy electronic vibes. Because we’re techy over here!
A Practical Tip for Getting the Best Value When You Buy Music for Social Media
If you get a two-minute song with a license that grants multiple uses of the song, it’s nice when that song has a lot of variety within the song. Because a varied song, for example a song that builds energy over time, can yield two great clips. You can get a good clue about the song’s changes just by looking at the soundform for a second. You can do one 20-second video with one mood, and another 20-second video with a completely different mood…from the same song. Look at the two songs below. It’s pretty clear that we’ll have more variety with the bottom song.
I hope that this helps you make your search for music for social media easier, and more fun!