Taylor Swift is promoting “The Tortured Poets Department” on TikTok in a huge way under a special deal with the app — while other artists on her label, Universal Music Group, remain locked out of TikTok in a licensing dispute.
After Swift dropped her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department” at midnight — followed by a surprise 15 additional songs, revealing that it’s a double album — TikTok on Friday announced “The Tortured Poets Department” in-app experience, featuring what it says are multiple “first-of-its-kind” features.
On TikTok, Swift fans can dive into the album with playlists to create their own videos with, and they can engage in challenges to unlock exclusive artwork for their profiles. In addition, users have the opportunity to be featured in a Taylor Swift Fan Spotlight carousel by using the hashtag #THETORTUREDPOETSDEPARTMENT with their videos.
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TikTokers can discover the Taylor Swift In-App Experience by unlocking “special entry points,” such as a TTPD icon across their For You feed or by searching “Taylor Swift” on TikTok, where a “Tortured Poets Department”-inspired animation appears. People can also share their favorite content with friends by choosing a custom Swift share image.
Swift’s music catalog returned to TikTok on April 11. Her songs were among those pulled from TikTok in February, after the app company and Universal Music failed to renew a licensing pact that expired Jan. 31. It appears that Swift cut a separate deal with TikTok, as tracks from other Universal Music artists are still largely unavailable on the app.
Swift had previously partnered with TikTok for the 2022 release of “Midnights.” For that album, she supplied a track-reveal video for every track exclusively on TikTok.
Since joining TikTok in 2021, Swift (@taylorswift) has garnered a following of more than 25 million fans and has earned more than 225 million likes across her content. (Her bio on TikTok reads, “This is pretty much just a cat account.”) Hashtags related to the singer continue to see high engagement, with the #SwiftTok hashtag growing to over 2.4 million videos and #TaylorsVersion earning more than 2 million.
Meanwhile, TikTok faces the prospect of a potential ban in the U.S. The House last month passed a bill that would require parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok or be outlawed in the country; that has been revised to allow up to a one year for ByteDance to find a buyer in fast-tracked legislation that has support in the Senate.
