Many of the songs by older artists that have exploded on TikTok have been flukes - like Fleetwood Mac’s 45-year-old “Dreams” - and younger artists who are social-media natives tend to say they “just do what feeling” when asked about strategy. Most significantly, last month he inked a long-term deal with Atlantic Records, after launching several singles embraced by a rabid TikTok audience. Not only is Derulo the most followed artist on the platform (he ranks 12th overall, behind social media personalities Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae) but he has a graphic novel, a podcast, a vodka line and a book about social media strategy in the works. “That is astronomical growth in just 12 months.” “That was last March, when he had about 6 million followers - and now he has 43.7 million,” she marvels. “So I went to his house, just before lockdown, and we spent about two hours going through best practices, how to create content and talking through a content strategy. Early in the process, Derulo met with Isabel Quinteros Annous, TikTok’s head of music partnerships and artist relations. Needless to say, it didn’t explode by itself. More than half of the top TikTok videos are comedy, so I’d post things and be like, ‘OK, they don’t respond to this, but they seem to like that,’ and learned what made it tick,” he laughs, “for lack of a better word.

But because I was at home, I started to experiment with it.

“And when it started, TikTok was more of a dance app, and I tried a challenge or two. “I was never really a social media guy because Twitter and Instagram didn’t really speak to me,” Derulo says.

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