The Essential Guide to Selecting the Right Music for Your Social Media Channel and Where to Get It

So, you’ve made a great video, and you can’t wait to get it on your social media channel or feed.

You eagerly await the reaction to your work, and then, and only then, you realize you don’t have any music to give it that extra dimension you need in order to really grab your audience’s attention.

Some may, at this point, choose to steal music and place it as the background for their videos, and others might forgo music entirely and hope that the audio you have on the video will suffice; both of these choices are wrong for altogether different reasons.

First of all, using music without getting the relevant permissions isn’t just morally wrong it’s also likely to see you get into real trouble (more on this later), and opting to not use music at all will often result in a video that feels amateurish (in a bad way) or one-dimensional.

Music can help to add an additional layer to your visuals, and when you select the right track or effect, then you can instantly notice the difference in the overall quality of your work, and more importantly, so can your audience.

Music Can Add and Enhance the Mood and Effectiveness of Your Video

We all spend a great deal of time on social media channels, some of us endlessly scrolling feeds for hours at a time, and the amount of content we consume via these sites and apps is incredible.

Often the music that is used alongside the visuals is a hugely important factor when it comes to grabbing the attention of viewers as well as providing an additional dimension to what we see. 

The right choice of music can do wonders for the growth and reach of a video, and similarly, the wrong selection may lead to someone instantly scrolling on or closing the video entirely, and it’s a delicate balancing act to find the right piece of music or track to fit your post.

Not All Social Media Channels are the Same

A big mistake that many make is treating all social media channels as if they are one and the same.

All the main networks, from YouTube to Facebook, Instagram to Twitter, all have different environments; indeed, that’s why they all manage to succeed.

Therefore your approach to using music for your video should be planned accordingly.

This can firstly be in relation to the length of the videos you upload, and therefore the way you use music as an accompaniment, but also as a reflection of the networks themselves. 

For instance, TikTok is a far younger market, and you may therefore select music that is different from what you might use to accompany a Facebook video.

The immediacy of a platform like TikTok means the bursts and tempo would be sharper and more pronounced.

It should go without saying, but you should never use music you don’t have a license for, and failing to do so on a video that is posted to a major social media network will not end well for you.

Using Music Without Permission

In the age of royalty-free music, there really is no excuse for ripping off someone else’s hard work, and you really shouldn’t go down the path of using music without permission.

At the very best, all that will happen is that the social media channel you are using will suspend your account and then, in all likelihood, delete your entire page.

Clearly, this means you’ve wasted all your hard work up until this point, building your audience and a name for yourself, all gone and wasted.

At worst, you’ll be the subject of a massive financial penalty, and if you are a repeat offender, things could get even worse.

Some might think it’s worth taking the risk, but all social media channels now adopt technology that can spot unlicensed use of music within minutes.

So basically, it’s not a risk worth taking.

Where Can I Get Great Music for My Social Media Channel?

Unless you happen to have access to the appropriate musical equipment and know how to play them effectively or have perfect pitch, you are going to have to cast the net wider in order to find the right music.

Royalty-free music may well be the right location for you to start that search.

Royalty-free music as a service has grown dramatically in recent years and is a great way to find an ample supply of great music for a relatively low fee and without the headache of trying to secure the relevant license to use it.

A royalty-free music provider will typically host a library of musical output made up of great music produced by singers, DJs, musicians, and bands and offered to a subscriber who pays a monthly or annual fee for the ability to use the music on whatever project you need it for.

This tranche of musical output is very useful for aspiring musicians looking for a steady income and is often a great starting point as their tracks can be used on a video that gets seen and heard by millions, and that level of exposure is priceless.

And for social media influencers or those who run YouTube channels or other social media endeavors, it’s a perfect one-stop-shop of great music that you can use whenever you need to.

The best providers also offer additional SFX libraries, which can be very useful to add a further dimension to your videos.

The use of royalty-free music has led to the market getting larger and larger, and now is very much the right time to sign up as the top brands are not fighting each other for your custom; this has helped to keep prices down and the quality of their services up.

So what are you waiting for?

Get out there and get hold of the right tunes and effects that will make your video stand out from the crowd and help you achieve social media stardom!