How to Use Music on TikTok Business Account

The notification hits you right when you think you've made the perfect video: This sound isn't licensed for commercial use. It's frustrating. You have a TikTok business account, you want to use the sounds that are going viral, but you're stuck with a much more limited library of music. This guide breaks down exactly why this happens, why you shouldn't fall for risky quick fixes, and gives you actionable strategies for legally and creatively using audio to grow your brand on the platform.

Why Can't I Use Popular Music on My TikTok Business Account?

This is the number one question business owners ask about TikTok, and the answer comes down to one word: licensing. The platform is not trying to make your life difficult, it's trying to stay on the right side of copyright law and, by extension, help your business do the same.

To understand this, you need to know about TikTok's two different music libraries:

• The General Music Library (GML): This is the vast collection of music available to personal and Creator accounts. It's filled with everything from the latest Drake release to obscure indie gems and vintage hits. The licensing agreements for these songs cover personal, non-commercial use. In simple terms, someone can use a popular song in a video of their cat, but a brand can't use that same song in an ad for cat food without a different license.
• The Commercial Music Library (CML): This is the library available to Business Accounts. It contains over a million tracks and sounds that have been pre-cleared for commercial use. This means the artists and rights holders have agreed that businesses can use their music to promote products or services without facing a copyright infringement lawsuit. While it's smaller and lacks many chart-topping hits, every track in it is safe for your brand to use.

Using a popular pop song to promote your brand is legally considered an endorsement. Those licenses cost artists and record labels big money, and TikTok's agreement for the GML doesn't cover that type of usage. The CML is TikTok's way of protecting both your business from legal trouble and itself from costly lawsuits.

The Temptation to Switch: Should You Ditch Your Business Account?

After discovering the music limitations, many marketers and business owners consider a seemingly simple workaround: just switch their Business Account to a Creator Account. This gives you instant access to the entire General Music Library. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. While it's technically possible to do, it's a very bad idea for several reasons.

First, it's a direct violation of TikTok's Terms of Service. If you are operating as a business (promoting products, running ads, representing a company), you are required to use a Business Account. Misrepresenting your account can lead to penalties ranging from having your videos muted or removed to receiving account strikes, or even getting your account permanently suspended. Losing everything you've built for a single trending song is a terrible trade-off.

Second, and just as important, you lose access to all the tools designed to help you succeed as a business on the platform. By switching away from a Business Account, you give up:

• TikTok Ads &, the Promote Feature: You can no longer run paid advertising campaigns or boost high-performing organic content.
• Website Link in Your Profile: The ability to include a clickable URL in your bio is a business-only feature essential for driving traffic and sales.
• Business Creative Hub: You lose access to insights that show you what's trending with other businesses in your vertical.
• Advanced Analytics: While Creator Accounts have some analytics, Business Accounts get more in-depth data on audience demographics, traffic sources, and performance metrics crucial for calculating ROI.
• Third-Party Integrations: Features for social media management tools and an all-in-one message inbox often rely on the business API.

Staying with a Business Account isn't about accepting limitations, it's about playing the long game. It keeps you compliant, safe from legal issues, and provides you with the right set of tools to actually grow your brand.

Smart Strategies: How to Effectively Use Music and Sound on Your Business Account

So, you're committed to your Business Account. Fantastic. Now, let's talk about how to get creative and make fantastic content with the tools and sounds you do have access to.

1. Use the Commercial Music Library to Your Advantage

Many people dismiss the CML without ever really digging into it. They assume it's all generic "corporate" background music, but that's not the whole story. The library is massive and constantly being updated with new tracks, including music from established and emerging artists who have opted in for commercial licensing.

Here's how to make it work for you:

• Don't just scroll, search: Actively use the search bar. Instead of looking for a specific artist, search by mood ("energetic," "chill," "inspiring"), genre ("hip hop," "acoustic," "lo-fi"), or theme ("cooking," "workout," "tutorial").
• Check out the playlists: TikTok curates CML playlists just like they do for the main library. Look for sections like "TikTok Viral," "New Releases," and "Trending," as these are often updated with tracks that are gaining traction.
• Save what you like: When you hear a sound in the CML that you could see yourself using, save it to your Favorites immediately. Build your own library of pre-approved sounds so you have a go-to collection when you need to make content quickly. Spend 15 minutes a week just "sound shopping" in the CML.

2. Create Your Own Original Sound

This is one of the most powerful and underutilized growth hacks on TikTok. When you create an original sound, it becomes a clickable audio link attached to your video. If other people use your sound, every single one of their videos will credit you and link back to your original post, driving a steady stream of traffic directly to your page.

Creating an original sound is simpler than it sounds:

• Do a voiceover: Tell a story, share a tip, explain your product, or offer commentary. Educational and narrative content does exceptionally well on TikTok, and a clear voiceover is far more engaging than text on a screen.
• Record atmospheric sound: Are you a coffee shop? Record the ambient sounds of the espresso machine and beans grinding. A woodworking shop? The sound of sawing or sanding can be oddly satisfying (hello, ASMR community).
• Make a brand jingle: If you are musically inclined, creating a short, catchy jingle or sound effect can become an incredible audio branding tool.

Your unique audio becomes an asset that generates passive traffic over time, something using a trending pop song can never do.

3. Find High-Quality Royalty-Free Music

If you have a very specific vision for your video and the CML just doesn't have the right vibe, your next best option is to look outside of TikTok for music. Royalty-free music services are a great resource for businesses.

These services operate on a subscription or per-track fee model, giving you a legal license to use their music in your commercial projects, including social media. Platforms like Epidemic Sound, Artlist, and PremiumBeat have vast libraries of studio-quality music.

The process is straightforward:

1. Find and download the perfect track from your chosen royalty-free service, making sure your license covers social media use.
2. Use a third-party video editing app (like CapCut, InShot, or a desktop editor like Adobe Premiere Pro) to add the music track to your video clip.
3. Once your video is edited and the music is attached, upload the final video file directly to TikTok.

When you upload a video that already contains audio, TikTok may prompt you to add a sound from its library, but you can simply proceed with your "original sound" which includes the royalty-free track you added.

4. Use Trending Sounds... Creatively

Many of TikTok's biggest trends aren't based on popular songs at all. They're based on dialogue, skits, clever voiceovers from other creators, or viral audio clips. These types of original creator sounds often end up in the Commercial Music Library because they don't have the same complex licensing restrictions as Top 40 songs.

Stay on top of what's trending on your For You Page. If a sound is based on dialogue or a creator's voice, search for it in your CML - there's a good chance it's available. Brands are hopping on these trends every day.

You can also engage with trends more indirectly:

• Stitch or Duet: Use the Stitch or Duet features to react to a popular video that uses a song you can't access. Your contribution brings you into the conversation around the trend without you technically using the restricted audio on your own original post.
• Recreate the format, not the sound: If a trend is about a specific camera movement, editing trick, or joke format, you can recreate the *visual* part of the trend and pair it with a similar-feeling track from the CML. You get to ride the wave of the trend's format without ever touching the licensed audio.

5. Collaborate with Creators

What if you absolutely must feature a trending new song in connection with your brand? The safest and most effective way to do this is through partnerships. Influencers using Creator Accounts have full access to the General Music Library.

By sponsoring a creator to produce a video featuring your product, they can post it from their account using any sound they want. Your brand gets the benefit of being associated with that trending sound - and in front of the creator's engaged audience - without ever breaking the rules on your own business profile. You can then amplify that content through ads or by engaging with it from your brand's account.

Final Thoughts

Navigating TikTok's music rules as a business isn't about finding secret loopholes - it's about building a smarter, more sustainable content strategy. Rather than fighting the limitations, you can leverage the Commercial Music Library, create iconic original audio, source legal music, and participate in trends creatively to build a powerful presence on the platform.

Speaking of smarter strategies, we know juggling an entire content plan - thinking about which posts need CML sounds, which are original audio, and how it all fits with your Reels and Shorts - can be a lot of work. That's why we created a tool built for how marketing actually operates today. With a shared and visual calendar, you can use Postbase to plan your whole short-form video strategy across all platforms in one clean view, making sure your content mix is intentional and everything goes out exactly when you planned.