Teens want to become social media influencers. It’s probably because they like having lots of friends but the money follows too. The most popular TikTokers could charge close to $200,000 per post when promoting brands. Researchers claim that TikTok is growing so fast in popularity that some influencers could charge nearly $1m per post by next year. Aashika Bhatia, a 19-year-old Indian actress, is one of most popular on the platform, with 194 million followers. She currently has 14 million and is gaining tens of thousands per day. The Bollywood actress posts TikTok classic videos of her lip-syncing and joking around.
It’s unbelievable how companies are willing to throw that much money into a post.
I can actually believe those numbers if you look at how much money has been thrown at Instagram,” says the Snapchat founder, Evan Spiegel. “[TikTok] is the hot new thing and tonnes of money is being thrown at it. The fastest way to get traction on TikTok is to get the number-one influencer to promote your stuff. Just this week TikTok and [computer game] Fortnite announced a partnership deal with a competition for a TikTok dance to be recreated on Fortnite.”
“Every year there is always a new platform and clients want to put 10% of their budget towards it. Last year it was Instagram stories, before that Snapchat. TikTok is the darling of 2020.”

If Marana Blake doesn’t get any traction with the track California Waves, then I hope Lana Del Rey cuts it. In fact, Lana Del Rey hasn’t released a song that gives off California vibes in a long time. Back to Marana Blake. She’s an indie singer-songwriter born in Chicago. She  released a few tracks as well as several cover videos. We added the track to our Indie Invaders Playlist. Give it a stream.

We’d be better off if  more tracks like The Whole 9 flooding the streaming platforms. It’s simple, the French singer-songwriter Marina Kaye delivers the goods – the video is well crafted too. The video has already clocked 300k YouTube streams since it’s release on Feb. 10th. Her first track Twisted landed on Spotify’s New Music Friday Europe with tastemaker support from Wonderland Magazine, Hotpress, and Celebmix. I would love to see this 22 year old have more U.S. presence. Give it a stream.

Spotify gives New Music Friday a makeover. With 3.5 million followers, the playlist remains one of the most popular which highlights tracks by established artists and emerging talent.
The playlist which launched in 2014 will be given a celebration with new cover art and New York and Los Angeles billboards. Spotify’s New Music Friday Playlist became a-much-needed-force that helped artists reach a new level of audience. The playlist helped launch Billie Eilish, Tones and I, Lil Tecca, as well as Lizzo – after these artists appeared on the playlist, their stream count went through the roof.  In fact, I remember when I first discovered Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Bruises’ on NMF.

Per the doctors order, Lana Del Rey is cancelling her European Tour. Sorry to let everyone down so last minute but this illness has taken me by surprise and have totally lost my singing voice,” she said. Currently, future dates have not been re-scheduled. Lewis Capaldi also had to cancel dates after he lost his voice.