If you don't know what K-Pop is then we strongly suggest you force yourself out of the cave you've been living in for the past decade and get yourself firmly into 2020. As music genres go, K-Pop is most definitely the most successful of the past 20 years, the sheer size of the growing market is a living testament to that fact.
K-Pop first began to make in-roads into the world music scene in the 1980s, originally being part of the Korean cultural movement known as Hallyu, but it first started to make a genuine impact in the western world in the early 2000s and hasn't looked back since.
When K-Pop sensation BTS released the video for their single Dynamite it attracted over 101 million views within 24 hours worldwide. It topped the US Billboard charts and hit the top 10 in over 40 other countries.
But K-Pop isn't JUST BTS, there are a wealth of talented acts that are making waves worldwide, from the relatively newcomers that are SuperM to the likes of BlackPink, EXO and long-standing superstars Fly to the Sky, who've been performing since the 1990s.
The sound and style of K-Pop has wowed the world, from the United Kingdom to Uruguay and as such when it comes to selecting music to accompany your social video posts, from YouTube, to Facebook and TikTok, and many other platforms, you'd be wise to select a K-Pop track to really make the visuals pop.
So Damn Catchy
Whether it's down to the production style, the infectious beats or the key melodies, K-Pop music is a real earworm. The kind of sounds that just won't leave your head, even if you wanted them to.
The use of such a style of music will be of great value to your video as the sounds have universal appeal and clearly when looking to make your video as viral a sensation as possible, you will be looking to secure an audience outside just your own region.
Music Free from Copyright
It's well known that acts from the US and the UK do not allow the use of their tracks with the acquiring of a relevant license, at great cost, K-Pop acts see the long term value in copyright free access and the link between K-Pop and royalty free music is a strong and long-lasting one.
The very ethos of K-Pop music revolves around fan engagement and they actively encourage the use of their music, on the whole, as many bands and singers (and their record companies) see that this is in many ways a homage to them and can see the long-term financial benefit of allowing relatively cheap access to their product.
Style AND Substance
Clearly the predominant market for the production, and consumption, of video led social posts comes from the teenage and youth market and the popularity of K-Pop as a whole to this market is unrivalled and therefore the use of K-Pop style music is a sure-fire way to effectively engage the core viewers you will be looking to entertain.
The whole K-Pop market is strongly supported by the latest technological and cultural trends, acts make the most of apps, websites, forums and all other ways of directly communicating with their audience, and this also inextricably links the whole musical phenomenon with the video based social post environment.
The Ideal Finishing Touch to Your Video Post
Anyone interested in the social video market will tell you that it's not just about the visuals, or indeed only about replicating the latest dance craze, your whole product has to tick every box before it has any chance of really gaining traction.
The video post consumer market is not one that is easily secured. Pretty much all of us, especially during the recent lockdown periods we've been experiencing, spend a huge amount of time scrolling through tens, maybe even hundreds, of video posts a day.
We do this via YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, pretty much wherever we can and as users we tend to be very easily distracted. Very rarely do we hover too long over one video, endlessly scrolling until we find something that takes our interest.
So this means that while we consume a large amount of visual media, it takes a lot for a user's engagement to actually 'take'. This means that your social video post has to be pretty special to retain our interest to the point of completing an entire play, or perhaps more than one, of your post.
A Runaway Train
The use of music derived from the K-Pop style often acts as an ideal accompaniment to this type of content as it has an immediate appeal that locks itself on a viewer, allowing them to become more immersed in your social video post and therefore far more likely to properly engage with it.
There are not many musical genres, if any, that are so perfectly adapted to this function and as such you'd do well to get yourself on board the runaway train that is K-Pop.
