Your Complete Guide to Using Musical.ly for Business

Musical.ly is an “instant music video” app with a very community-centric platform, and over the last six months or so has become an essential app among the tweens of the world. Gary Vaynerchuck describes musical.ly as a mashup of Vine, Snapchat, and Dubsmash, and he’s not far off. (Is he ever?) They’ve created a platform that showcases creativity in 15 second clips of lipsyncing, dancing, or acting.

As Vaynerchuck describes, musical.ly puts the power into your hands, much in the way Instagram started as a way to make high-quality photography accessible to everyone. They provide the music and the platform to share it, and you provide the kick butt video.

Why Musical.ly Is a Big Deal

The best social media platforms are about creating a community, which musical.ly provides. Tweens (and other users) are showing their creativity, building relationships, and finding confidence.

By giving users the utility of creating music videos and the community of other users, musical.ly is becoming the next big thing.

Sure, it could be seen as self-serving and self-involved, but all social media is if you let it be. By showing their love of music and the world through these behind-the-scene glimpses into their lives, users are able to create something unique and share it with the musical.ly community.

Celebrities are getting involved, as well. Ariana Grande lip-syncs to her own music and Megan Trainor announces contests on the platform, and it’s a matter of time until others realize the potential.

Why Your Company Can Benefit from Musical.ly

Musical.ly is a way to have fun. Period. Every social media outlet has a personality, so don’t expect to use the same content strategy for LinkedIn as you use for Snapchat or musical.ly. It also shouldn’t be too sales-y.

This isn’t the time to do a hard push of your new product or service. You can certainly work it into a clip, but don’t make it the focal point.

The goal is to be visible on the platform and to connect with other users.

Ways to Use Musical.ly as a Company

• Showcase each department in your company.
• Have departments compete with each other and have followers vote on the winner. (Bonus: show the behind-the-scenes on Snapchat.)
• Create a “lunch break dance break” each day. (You can tie it in with showcasing each department.)
• Showcase your new product in a comedic video. (Again, don’t push it too hard, but you could still do it.)
• Use Top 40 songs as culturally-relevant inspiration.

How to Use Musical.ly to Create Content for Your Business

So you’ve decided you want to start using musical.ly (go you!), but how to begin? After downloading the app (iOS & Android), you’ll need a Facebook to Twitter account, or an email address. I chose Twitter, and it’s a quick process; you need to give the app permission.

Once set up, you’ll see the home screen, showing feature musers (users). Take some time to scroll through the featured section; you’ll be able to get a grasp of the types of content users are creating. Live.ly has recently launched as well, giving users a chance to live stream to the app.

Ready to create some content? Let’s do it. Just give musical.ly permission to access your camera and microphone, and choose your song. You can use music from their library or your own, giving you a wide range of options.

There are also editing options available, and once you’re done, you can share your work of art with the world!

Well done, we’re so proud we’re leaving you with our own musical.ly, done by our very own Mikhail and with a cameo of Otis. You’re welcome.

Have you been using musical.ly? What have you created with it?

Did you know that it existed? (No hard feelings, we forgive you.)

We want to see your creations! Tag me, @ hjmoyer.

— Hannah