Cofounded in 2018 by Omid Noori and Ramzi Najdawi, ATG is a music marketing agency that works with artists on song campaigns across apps like TikTok and Instagram. The company also has separate divisions focused on artist management and distribution.

ATG said it’s worked on over 10,000 campaigns for performers like Tiësto, Travis Scott, SZA, and Future. The company built its reputation by tapping into music marketing on TikTok, but now it’s working more broadly across social media apps like Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

“To really build an artist’s brand and things like that, you need additional content,” Najdawi told BI. “You need to create additional moments across different social platforms and really touch different audiences.”

Lately, the company is focused on getting artists to create content and participate directly in song campaigns versus just relying on influencers to post videos that promote a particular track.

“If you’re an artist who posts on platform and kind of understands how to promote your own music, you save money at the end of the day,” Najdawi said. “If you can make your own song go viral, that’s priceless.”

Founded in 2015 by Jahan Karimaghayi, Benchmob works on marketing and creative strategies with artists, labels, brands, and celebrities outside of music.

Recently, the company has worked on campaigns or projects for artists like Dom Dolla, Gorillaz, Justice, and the Portola Music Festival.

With Dom Dolla, the company helped run promotions for songs including “Rhyme Dust” and “Saving Up.”

It worked with artist and creator Rebecca Sugar to grow their audience on TikTok.

Alongside Karimaghayi, the Benchmob team includes partner and COO Collin Sommers, as well as account managers Nathasha Farah, Nico Villa, Keith Walsky, and Natalie Rulon.

Creed Media is a marketing agency founded in 2018 in Stockholm. The company now operates globally with additional hubs in New York and Abu Dhabi.

The firm said it’s worked on over 7,000 campaigns for performers like Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Meghan Trainor, and Ed Sheeran.

It recently worked on promotions for Lipa’s “Dance The Night,” Laufey’s “Bewitched,” and Libianca’s “People.”

Creed’s team includes cofounders Timothy Collins and Hugo LePrince, CEO Christian Birch, operations head Camilla Larsson, and coheads of commercial, Alex Falck and Sanu Hariharan.

Cofounded by Cassie Petrey and Jade Driver in 2007, Crowd Surf is a music-marketing and artist-management firm based in Nashville, Tennessee; Los Angeles; and New York. The company, which said it has over 50 staffers, has worked with artists like Paramore, the Backstreet Boys, Prince, and Camila Cabello, as well as record labels including Universal, Sony, and Warner. It also counts comedians and consumer brands as clients.

Crowd Surf’s recent artist-marketing projects include a campaign for Paramore’s 2023 album “This Is Why,” a project to grow a following for Michael Gerow on Instagram, as well as helping TikTok-famous artist Loren Gray promote a song tied to a State Farm ad during the 2024 Super Bowl.

Hundred Days Digital is a marketing agency founded in 2022 by Ben Klein and Sean Kane.

The company, which said it works with clients like Sony Music, Republic Records, Atlantic Records, and Disney, has a network of over 2,000 creators across different content categories on TikTok and Instagram that it enlists to help artists and songs find new audiences. It’s worked on campaigns for artists like Burna Boy, Zach Bryan, Cardi B, and The Rolling Stones.

Hundred Days worked with Polydor Records to promote the launch of The Rolling Stones’ TikTok account, for example.

“One of the interesting things that has emerged out of this TikTok ecosystem is that catalog is never really dead,” Kane told BI. “A record is new as long as there’s momentum around it.”

Hundred Days’ recent music campaigns include Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit,” Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” and Fred Again’s “Adore U.”

While influencer marketing is often central to Hundred Days’ projects, the company also thinks about ways to get artists involved in content creation. Its goal is to target its campaigns to fan communities that can really help an artist’s track rise.

“You have to figure out these niche pockets of audience to reach people because if you’re just kind of spraying toward a mass audience, it’s not going to land the same way as if you really understand where this artist’s core fans live,” Kane said.

Launched by Ian Rodriguez and Sam Saideman in 2014, this Nashville-based company began as a music-management firm before expanding into marketing services for labels and eventually a separate division focused on influencer management.

Recently, the company ran an influencer campaign and created an augmented-reality filter to promote Caroline Romano’s song “Girl in a China Shop.” The company also rented a house to shoot content with influencers for Universal Music Canada artists Preston Pablo and Rêve.

Several of Innovo’s team members are independent artists themselves, which Saideman said helps them better understand the needs of performers when it comes to social campaigns.

“Most independent artists cannot afford influencer campaigns in the truest sense, but they might be able to afford a filter creation with some micro influencers using it, or they might be able to afford a batch of consultations with someone on my team or a content calendar,” Saideman told BI. “Always the goal is to price things in a way that works with artists.”

Founded in 2022 by Steph Rinzler, Prophet Media said it’s worked with labels like Warner Records, Capital Records, Universal Music Group, and Atlantic Records.

At first, the company mainly offered social-media services. It’s since expanded into music-video direction and production, website design, motion graphics, press photography, and other creative services.

“Influencer campaigns don’t really work in the way that people think they do,” Rinzler told BI. “It’s so much more worthwhile to invest in the artist, actually, and build the world of their art visually around them.”

To date, Rinzler said the company has worked with over 50 artists and 20 record labels to promote music.

“There’s a lot of anxiety around public perception and just putting stuff out online, especially for artists who have become well-established in the era pre-TikTok,” they said. “We’ll oftentimes step in and are like, ‘Okay, hold our hands.'”

Founded in 2019, Round is a marketing agency based in London that specializes in music and brand campaigns.

Recently, the company worked on social campaigns for Olivia Rodrigo’s album “Guts,” Calvin Harris’ track “Miracle,” and Lana Del Rey’s song “Say Yes to Heaven.”

“We work with all the major labels, tons of indie labels, events, clients, venues, anything around music,” Simon Friend, the company’s COO, told BI.

Lately, the company is leaning into hiring creators who are fans of artists rather than turning to influencers with large audiences who may care less about a particular track.

“When you find someone who is an Olivia Rodrigo fan and commission a piece of content from them, that is going to fly on TikTok versus if you get the professional creator who turns around 20 audio bookings a day,” Friend said.

Songfluencer, which operates under parent company Genni & Co., is a marketing firm that runs several divisions focused on music promotion. These include its namesake brand Songfluencer, a short-video-focused brand called Yo Suzy, run by former Elektra Music Group marketer Suzy Yoder, and a song-promotion-contest platform called Preffy.

Cofounded by CEO Johnny Cloherty and CTO Louis O’Reilly, the company said it’s worked with artists like Lil Nas X, Harry Styles, Bruno Mars, and Luke Combs.

Across its different divisions, Songfluencer deploys a variety of strategies to help songs gain traction on social media, whether that means hosting a song-promotion contest, pushing a remixed version of a track, or creating an augmented-reality effect for an artist.

Recently it worked on song campaigns for Idina Menzel’s album “Drama Queen” and Sabrina Carpenter’s track “Nonsense.”

Founded in 2020 by Ed Winters Ronaldson, Strudel is a music- and brand-marketing firm that built its business around TikTok influencer campaigns.

The company said it’s worked with record labels like Warner and Sony Music, running campaigns for PinkPantheress’ “Boy’s a Liar,” Tyla’s “Water,” and Paul Russell’s “Lil Boo Thang.”

As TikTok has become more saturated, Strudel recommends artists create content on their own to help spark interest in songs on platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels.

“Everyone is spending money on TikTok, brands included, who have much bigger budgets than the music side,” Ronaldson told BI. “What can work really well is working with the artists to build up some initial traction.”

Ronaldson also founded a separate creator agency called Grail that works on influencer campaigns and products like TikTok Shop.

Super Evil Genius Corp is a music- and brand-marketing agency based in Long Beach, California. The company aims to be a one-stop shop for artists and managers looking to execute social strategies.

The company’s CEO, Ryan Jaso, and head of content and accounts, Colby J. Reis, previously held music-marketing and promotion roles at companies including Live Nation and the nightclub Avalon Hollywood. The firm said it currently has 14 full-time staffers in its Long Beach office.

TikTok and Instagram are Super Evil’s main focuses, but the company also works on campaigns through platforms like Discord, which recently served as a useful tool to push song releases for the artist Flume.

Recent campaigns by the company include a brand-building project for John Summit’s independent electronic-music label, Experts Only Records, and a promotional campaign for electronic-music artist Peekaboo’s debut album.

Jaso compared the company’s music-marketing strategy to sneakerhead marketing, where drops of products can help build hype for a brand.

“Applying that same thought process to social where there are all these clips of this band on all these pages, and you’re like, ‘Dang, didn’t know that that was that big,'” he said.

Launched in 2019, Teammate is a creative agency that shoots, produces, edits, and helps distribute digital and social content for artists.

The company focuses on creating behind-the-scenes content that captures what it’s like to be an artist when shooting a music video or preparing for a concert tour. Its team of around seven staffers often shoot content with artists who are on tour. The company also works on an artist’s digital-marketing rollout to determine whether a clip should land on TikTok, Instagram reels, or YouTube.

“A lot of times we’ll do behind-the-scenes stuff at music videos,” Teammate founder Cynthia Parkhurst told BI. “It’s kind of crazy to see an iPhone clip get nearly the same amount of views as a fully finished music video on YouTube.”

Some of Teammate’s recent projects include working with the Jonas Brothers on an album release and tour, helping Shania Twain promote her Queen of Me Tour, and working with Tate McRae on releasing the single “Greedy.”

The company takes the lead on monitoring “fan chatter” on social to help performers understand the best way to communicate with their audience, Parkhurst said.

“As an artist, personally, I think you shouldn’t be on social media all that much because that’s going to affect your art down the line,” Parkhurst said.

We Generate is a music-marketing firm that conducts social campaigns with a focus on using memes and community pages to promote artists and songs on apps like TikTok and Instagram.

Its team is primarily based in the UK and Colombia, which helps the company win budgets for Latin America-based campaigns, its global vice president Alex Moore told BI. We Generate aims to leverage social-media success in one market to bring attention to a song in other parts of the world.

“What we’re finding is that putting spend in the right places in terms of geography would often benefit us massively in terms of other geographies,” Moore said. “We will work with more city-specific creators or pages because we know if it does well in that city, it’s likely to translate into chart success.”

The company has worked on song promotions for Tiësto’s “Lay Low,” Doechii’s “What It Is,” as well as a campaign tied to Lizzo’s “2 B Loved” as it was rolled out on the “Beat Saber” virtual-reality game.