
TikTok Italy Electronic Music Content Opportunity Analysis™ 2019-2022
Content Opportunity Methodology
- Measure & Categorize: Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
- Identify Top Themes: Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
- Identify a Benchmark: Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
- Identify Opportunities: Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
- Repeat For Each Platform: Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

TikTok Content Bucket Definitions
- Mashup Challenge: Similar to Live mashups and Premade mashups, however this content focuses on user submitted examples and challenging content creators to recreate said example through a variety of mashups.
- MIDI Controller Performance: Videos that focus on a content creator recreating or performing parts of songs on a MIDI controller. Videos in this category on Tiktok specifically tend to blur the lines between other categories. The defining aspect of clips like these is that they are simply playing a melody without identifying any specific song.
- Song Production Breakdown: Artists or creators go over their own, or another, specific track showing the different components used to engineer the final product. These tutorials often stop to give tips and tricks to those interested in music production as well.
- Faithful Recreations: Not to be mistaken with MIDI Controller performance, this category is similar to “Remade” songs, but focuses on short clips that reproduce a very specific style of sound, i.e. “The lead synth sound from Van Halen’s “Jump”. The identifying factor to these clips is that the song is overtly stated in a caption, hashtag, or in the video itself.
- Styled Remix: Although similar to “Remade Songs” this content is purely just focused on the remix of a song with its existing parts, as opposed to creating entirely new production for the song.
- Pre-made Mashups: As opposed to “Live Mashups” these are mashups pre-recorded and typically done inside a production environment relative to live in front of a camera or crowd.
- EDM History: Videos showing a condensed version or lesson of some small piece of EDM history, i.e. where a certain sample in a popular song comes from.
- Production Tutorial: Instead of exploring one specific song in technical details, these clips aim to educate on generalized concepts that are involved within the production of Electronic Dance Music.
- Live Mashups: Live Mashups where DJs will take multiple tracks and tastefully mix through their most prominent elements live or on camera.

Mashup Challenge is a extreme performing content opportunity, averaging 3X the views & engagement rate on TikTok.


Excellent performing content opportunities for the Italian electronic music audience on TikTok include:


Good performing content opportunities for the Italian electronic music audience on TikTok include:


Substandard performing content for the Italian electronic music audience on TikTok include:


Low performing content for the Italian electronic music audience on TikTok include:


Extreme Performing Segment:
1. Mashup Challenge
This content category sits in a similar realm to Live Mashups and Premade mashups, but focuses on followers creating and tagging content creators in a video vaguely describing a song and then challenging the content creator(s) to recreate that example through a mashup of different songs and videos.
Tactics to Implement:
- Gifs & Memes: As seen in both videos, the creator doesn’t speak, however they use a variety of gifs and memes to react to the challenge video they’re tagged in, adding an element of humour.
- Song Footage: In addition to the added memes and gifs, a consistent element in this category is showing footage from either the music video or live show after the challenge is completed. On occasion, footage from bad song covers of the songs in the mashup are used for another layer of humour.
Content Opportunities:
- Length: 0:14 & 0:15
- Hashtags: 1 & 1
4M Views
3.1M Views

Content Opportunities:
2. MIDI Controller Performance
Videos that focus on a content creator recreating or performing parts of songs on a MIDI controller. Videos in this category on Tiktok specifically tend to blur the lines between other categories but the defining aspect of clips like these is that they are just simply playing a melody without identifying any specific song.
Tactics to Implement:
- Quizzing Viewers: Given that no specific song is identified within the clips in this category, captions are often seen asking if a viewer may know the song being played.
- Full View: Clips will always have the playing hand fully in the frame along with the controller they’re playing on.
Content Opportunities:
- Length: 0:17 & 0:10
- Hashtags: 1 & 4
2.5M Views
2.2M Views

3. Song Production Breakdowns
Artists or creators go over their own, or another, specific track showing the different components used to engineer the final product. These tutorials often stop to give tips and tricks to those interested in music production as well.
Tactics to Implement:
- How It Changed: A consistent theme across this type of content is a walkthrough done by the creator where they briefly touch on each prominent element they put in the song, and ultimately showing a demo of it by the end of the video.
- Fine Details: As seen in the video below, the creator points out the intricate details of a song by counting how many totals notes are in a song, versus how many are in the core melody.
Content Opportunities:
- Thought Leaders: These styles of videos help establish creators as a leader in the space they curate, attracting more viewers curious about the topic.
1.9M Views
1M Views

4. Faithful Recreations
Not to be mistaken with MIDI Controller performance, this category is similar to “Remade” songs, but focuses on short clips that reproduce a very specific style of sound, i.e. “The lead synth sound from Van Halen’s “Jump”. The identifying factor to these clips is if the song is overtly stated in a caption, hashtag, or in the video itself.
Tactics to Implement:
- Novelty: Iconic sounds are iconic for a reason, so when a content creator showcases an identical or very similar version to the original, it garners viewers’ attention.
- Nostalgia: Due to the rise of EDM and the positive association that comes with synthetic sound design versus what was traditionally acoustic, recreating synth sounds is in a way, a gateway to nostalgia for younger generations that frequent TikTok.
Content Opportunities:
- Authenticity: Content pieces from this category replicate different sounds one-for-one through the use of the original synthesizer used on the recording. They’ll sometimes leave comments saying “The lead sound from Abba’s “Gimme Gimme”.
2M Views
1.6M Views

Outliers:
These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.
Faithful Recreations
Length: 0:17
Content: Focusing on nostalgia, this clip shows the creator creating and playing the popular theme from Mortal Kombat.
14.2M Views
Live Mashup
Length: 0:26
Content: This live mashup centres itself and the use of mashing up popular audio clips from TikTok into a short performance.
3.5M Views
Rave Throwback
Length: 0:59
Content: This viral video featured a breakdown of how you can extrapolate the melody of a song by comparing one song with the iconic “Blue” by Eiffel 65.
3M Views
Styled Remix
Length: 0:48
Content: This video goes above and beyond by not only styling the remix, but having an outfit and performance to accompany it.
2.4M Views
Make your digital strategy bulletproof.
Get insights like these, customized for your audience and competitors.
Learn about Research-AS-A-SERVICE →