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TikTok has been celebrated as a revolutionary platform for music discovery and fan engagement. The video-sharing app has already helped over a hundred artists land on the Billboard charts, and it has made several more household names. In less than five years, TikTok has become one of the—if not the most—influential platform for artists looking to raise awareness for their talent worldwide.

But there's a catch. There's ALWAYS a catch.

When TikTok ushered in a new way for musicians to market themselves, the company unintentionally broke music marketing. It didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't intentional, but TikTok has created a space where the lines between fact and fiction blur in ways never previously thought possible. Users now question the legitimacy of everything, the good and the bad, which makes getting any message across increasingly difficult.

In his latest video, Music Biz host James Shotwell examines how we reached this point and what actions artists should take in response. Through numerous examples, James explains how misdirection and deception have fueled an age of discovery where every success story has another, often far less surprising, truth behind it.