Social Media within our campaign

Marketing before the internet used traditional media such as the radio, TV, film, and print. When the internet came along this was followed by social media which made marketing much easier as it was cheaper, user friendly, targeted, spreadable, and it was personal and interactive. Social media is used to sell artists and bands, products and it is an ultimate tool to build the star image. Therefore you can construct a band which audiences consume. The band are being sold. As a result of this in order for the social media of an artist to be affective it has to engage and entertain. If it was purely based on advertising the artist or band member, the audience would get bored and would want something which is more personal and interactive as this is what audiences want. This is key to selling an artist/band. Posting on social media is a direct link to the target audience.

Depending on the social media platform you are using to promote your artist/band it has to relate and reflect to the genre of your music which you release. For example the social media platform Tik Tok would not be used to promote a rock genre band as the audience which Tik Tok is aimed at would not fit with the genre and the rock genre band would not get as much credit as it would if they were to promote their band on Instagram or Twitter. An example of an artist who would promote their music on Tik Tok would be Camilla Cabello who is a 24 year old female American singer and songwriter who's main target audience is females. Her music adheres to the genre conventions of a pop and electronic dance music genre. Therefore it makes sense for this artist to promote her work on this app. She is able to reach her target audience on this app as Tik Tok's main target audience is females (U.S statistics) , the statistics are shown that there are 80 million monthly active users on this app, 60% are female and 40% are male.

Camilla Cabello also has an instagram account, this artists main content is based on her as she shows her life to her followers and keeps her followers involved in her life. This makes her target audience more attracted to her as she is interactive and personal. She rarely promotes new song or album releases on this social media platform and mainly focuses on posting what she wants to post when and where. She does portray elements of her talent which is either videos of her singing in a very informal way or photographs of her during her live performances or on the red carpet. This artist sells herself as an artist very well as she portrays to her audience exactly who she is and what she wants to do.

Another example of a successful social media campaign for a band/artist is One Directions instagram and twitter account. Even though both these platforms and this band is inactive and have broken up, when they were a group their social media platforms were extremely successful and they had an extremely large target audience which was worldwide. Even since the band have broken up their twitter and instagram pages are still active with their fans and still receive an increasing amount of followers. This portrays how strong the band were and how large their fan base was/is. 

The social media platforms this group decided to base their content on was Instagram and Twitter as when this band were popular and at their peak, TikTok was not a thing. Otherwise if they still were together it would be quite clear that they would further create a social media campaign on this platform as well as that is where their target audience is based. Once Direction is an English pop rock boy band which formed in 2010, throughout their career their target audience has been mostly adolescent girls and this has not changed since they began. Their music and products further portray who their target audience is. The content which this band release and upload on their twitter social media platform is based around the band performing and either their live shows/concerts, music video clips, song releases, but not as many elements which show interactions with their fans.

Where their instagram social media campaign involves elements from every aspect, it shows promotion of the band and their new album/song releases, tour dates, award nominations, behind the scene elements, and interactions with their fans. The way this band have created their instagram page has been extremely successful as they upload a variety of media and do not just focus on the band and them performing, this therefore keeps their audience engaged and involved with the band. Their instagram campaign portrays the band members as individuals and actual people and not just as stars. This makes their audiences feel closer to the band members on a more personal level.

In my view I see both their social media platforms as focusing on different elements and subjects. Their twitter account is more based on the band and their songs and new releases, they use twitter as a way to inform their audience of new releases. Whereas their instagram page portrays much more of the band members and who they are as individuals, their instagram focuses on selling the band as a fun, interactive, creative, sociable, and talented group. Both their social media pages have done extremely well and they are/were very successful in selling the band and attracting an extremely wide audience.

The social media platforms which we will be using are going to be Instagram and Twitter as both these platforms follow more to our genre and link more to our genre. As our band is a pop rock genre we will further make our social media platforms adhere to the key conventions of this genre. For example a few of these key conventions would be to follow dark colour tones and dark lighting as presented in our music video, but with key hints of dusty yellow/gold. As based on the research we have completed we will make sure to base our social medias on behind the scene footage and interactive clips which engage and attract our audience. We will further release tour dates, ticket release dates, upcoming albums, and events. This will include a wide range of elements for promoting our band and will cover everything which involves the band, to make our audience feel as if they themselves are involved and included on their journey. This is the way we will link our album and music video to this form of media.

By completing this research it has enabled us to further look into social media campaigns and how they operate and what the best content to release is. It also allowed us to evaluate what social media platforms we could use to promote our band and what would work best for our pop rock genre band.