This part of my blog will detail our research & development for social media which was done by Regine.
— RESEARCH —
Men I Trust
What do they post on their social media page?
The band Men I Trust posts mostly promotional content; announcements of new song/album out, concerts, collaborations, etc. Their instagram page follows a dreamy, nostalgic aesthetic to appeal to their niche fanbase. The pictures and videos they post varies from their main singer (Emma), posters for their tour dates and location, and album covers. We can see by the frequency that their main singers appear on their social media, we can say that she is the face of the band. Most posts remain quite professional and straightforward but do add a personal aspect to them by utilising slang or emotive language through emojis like <3, hearts, magic wand.
Additionally, their Spotify: About Artist
Can you group the different posts into categories (eg Personal, promotional etc)
Men I Trust typically posts pictures that aren’t polished as more mainstream artists, conforming to the indie stereotype of being raw, authentic, and often amateur quality of video/cinematography. Although most posts are captioned with promotional details, there are examples of personal, fun, lighthearted jokes posted in their X (previously twitter account).
How has this social media influenced you?
Based on just looking at the visuals, I could be convinced that the account is run by amateurs with their unpolished look that results from their aesthetic. However, by analysing it more deeply, I felt as though the person running the account is very professional, minimizing the amount of personal content so it is possible that Men I Trust has a team behind their social media who uses an informal tone to appeal to their community and audiences. I think by the band’s visuals, I as an audience would gather that the band produced was quirky, fun in an easygoing manner.
Dayglow
What do they post on their social media page?
Dayglow posts a mix of content in his social media pages depending on the medium. Mcluhan suggested that the medium is the message and Dayglow conforms to this theory by utilising different mediums in various ways. Dayglow can be found in multiple online platforms which are typically used for younger audiences (tiktok, discord, instagram and X). He uses his instagram, facebook, and twitter to share promotional content that are more polished as most users of these platforms are often in search of information (As said by Bulmler and Katz in the theory of Uses and Gratification as surveillance). Meanwhile on tiktok, he targets the users by making more personalised videos- self-filmed promotional videos- that are less refined to appeal to audiences that are interested in content that fulfills their need of diversion.
Can you group the different posts into categories (eg Personal, promotional etc)
Most of Dayglow’s content is promotional by sharing album covers, tour dates, promotional photoshoots, etc. He rarely posts any personal photos or captions that take a deeper dive into his true personality and personal life.
Do fans have the chance to interact and engage with;
a. The artist : Dayglow has a website that would send fans who sign up to get the latest news on Dayglow’s activities so fans may be up-to-date with the artist.
b. Other fans : Dayglow has a discord server. Discord is an instant messaging and ]social platform which allows communication between global users. A server hosted by Dayglow allows fans to join and connect in a space dedicated to the artist.
How has this social media influenced you?
From a single glance, I quickly perceived his personality/persona and music to be very upbeat, bright and cheery from his use of bright colours (often a blue and red that contrasts well with each other). Beyond the visuals, his social media presence promotes the idea that music can be a form of joyful expression. His presence online also feels extremely welcoming and helps me to believe he’s well connected with his community as he’s interacting with them through multiple platforms and mediums. His inclusiveness helps build a sense of community that encourages active audiences rather than passive audiences. The way Dayglow builds his persona does reflect the themes in his music– embracing life as a whole/for its ups and downs– which does influence my outlook and perception of him being carefree and an optimistic person.
Seaurchrin/Rin
What do they post on their social media page?
This artist is only found on Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, Spotify (although not mentioned in her website) and Soundcloud. On instagram, she posts extremely personal content that varies from her hobbies (arts and crafts), selfies, her pet cat, her friends, and reposts of fans promoting her song on Instagram stories.
Can you group the different posts into categories (eg Personal, promotional etc)
It’s easily identifiable that this artist is very into publishing her personal life to fans. It's likely because of her small fanbase (less than 50k following on Instagram) that she’s more comfortable being extremely open with the content she posts. On Instagram, she captions her posts very carefree and unprofessionally with improper grammar (lowercase letters, pun silly, ‘immature’ jokes which are sometimes followed with an unserious emoji/emoticon.
Her youtube and tiktok follows a similar style of home videos (most likely shot on a laptop) of the artist singing original or cover songs or doing a trend online; striking a balance between personal videos and promotional videos.
Do fans have the chance to interact and engage with;
a. The artist : The artist regularly interacts with fans through her comment sections across all social media platforms, whether through replying to comments or liking them.
b. Other fans : Other fans connect with one another through the comment section
How has this social media influenced you?
The way this artist is very open and authentic about her personal life online has influenced my perception of her as an artist and individual. While other celebrities have a curated and selected professional persona that can make them seem “untouchable” , this artist shares her everyday life in a way that's relatable and genuine to her audiences. Fostering a connection through this allows audiences to see her more as a friend than a celebrity. In addition to always interacting with audiences through comments or likes, her willingness to engage reflects how she values her audiences. In this artist’s case, I would feel more encouraged and comfortable interacting with the artist when I feel as though I am seen and appreciated by the artist.
Here is the development of our team’s social media made by me and Cheryl. Since we did this as a duo, Regine’s work is coloured in green while Cheryl’s work is coloured in purple
DEVELOPMENT
Based on my research, I feel as though the most important/prominent social media platform that was used by all music artists was definitely instagram. A common pattern I saw was that older, more established artists had facebook profiles, meanwhile, newer artists were more on platforms that appealed to younger audiences like Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, etc.
Choosing The Username
After picking out our artist name, Vanya Viani, our next step was to make a username for her. This was quite difficult as we had to create usernames that would be available on Instagram since the name Vanya was very common in Indonesia. Here was some of our ideas:
@VianiMelody
@VanyaVianiMusic
@VanyaOnStage
@VanyaVMusic
@VanyaTheVoice
@VanyaMusik ; musik is the spelling for music in Bahasa Indonesia
@VanyaNada ; nada meaning tone and typically associated with music in Bahasa Indonesia
@VanyaKarya ; karya meaning work or creation in Bahasa Indonesia
After a discussion amongst our group, we agreed on @VanyaNada but had it altered to @nadavanyaa since it was an available username. A reason for choosing this username was to make it known that the artist is an Indonesian music artist which could increase the likeliness of our targeted audience (Indonesian viewers) that would recognise the familiar language and peak their curiosity.
Choosing The Profile Picture
I found that the profile picture is the one of the first visual impressions an artist can make towards their audience other than the overall aesthetic of the feed. Our teacher had given us a talk about how typically newer artists need to get their face out there in the industry to be known so I wanted to incorporate this idea into our profile. I took inspiration from Sabrina Carpenter, a widely known pop singer, that sets her profile picture as her most recent album (in this case, Short n’ Sweet.)
I drew inspiration from this idea by aligning our profile to relate to our music video themes. With emphasis on the sky, freedom, vibrant energy, I chose this picture of Vina– where her full face is in clear view against a bright, expansive blue sky– that I had taken on one of our filming sessions. Here, her face of determination would also reflect her personality to first-time viewers so they gain an image of our artist’s strong-will to achieve her dreams. The photo ties our social media profile to our music video to enforce the overarching message of overcoming struggles to achieve freedom.
Choosing the Content
Here are some ideas of what Instagram posts our team could make for our artist.
We knew we wanted a mix of personal and promotional content for our artist so we first made a small list of ideas on the type of content we’d post.
Post idea
Promotional Content:
Promotional poster for album
Release date for album
Tour date informational poster
Album cover release
Teaser for music video
Snippet of album
Personal Content:
Picture/selfie of artist and her pet dog
Picture/selfie of artist practicing guitar
Throwback photos of her and mom
Behind the scenes of making album cover
Draft of Instagram Feed
First draft made by Regine Second draft made by Cheryl
These are the rough drafts that Regine and Cheryl made on the star actor’s social media feed. This was made to help us know the arrangement of posts we would like to have taking into account that we aim to have a mix of both promotional and personal content. In correlation to the brand identity of the star actor where we want to resonate authenticity, we had to make sure we added a few personal pictures placed amongst the promotional contents. We had changed the order of the posts a few times so that even though it is not all necessarily in a chronological order, especially the personal pictures, it would still make sense to the audience.
Promotional Content
For the promotional content, we have decided to add music video teaser, album cover reveal, as well as a tour date. Taking into account that the star actor is a small artist and will be needing as much promotional content she can create to boost up her audience engagement and recognition. We started with consistent teasers with the aim of building anticipation within the audiences, therefore it may keep them tied to keep engaging with the star actor’s social media until the final product is released. In addition to that, they may feel included in the star actor’s journey through consuming these types of content and given their chronological order arrangement, they may be more interested in following through all the processes. Furthermore, posting promotional content revolving around similar designs or aesthetics will help strengthen her brand identity as a whole.
Here are a few main promotional content made by Regine and Cheryl that have been uploaded to the star actor’s Instagram page.
Music video release date teaser
This image featured items found in the childhood box, foreshadowing the theme of our music video, as well as a date and caption with no further explanation as a hermeneutic code (Barthes’ narrative codes) to get audiences to be curious and seek more answers.
Album cover release
Tour dates
Made in Canva using a serif font, which was a part of her branding.
Personal Content
To show her down-to-earth personality, we decided to take pictures of her that may come across as snippets of her daily life. This would be selfies or candid pictures. This effort is so that the audience may see a more realistic side of her in which this may make her seem more relatable and thus, more easier for them to connect with. These pictures will still stay within the natural element aesthetic that we decided for her to further strengthen her brand identity. When we still had spare time after some filmings, we used a few minutes to change the star actor’s outfit as well as the setting to take these pictures. On other occasions, we arranged a different day from the filming day to take time exploring different locations and mise-en-scene to use.
Here are the personal pictures taken by Regine and Cheryl that have been uploaded to the star actor’s Instagram page.
Inspired by Lizzy McAlpine’s Instagram Posts
Behind the scenes for that post
Teaser
To build ‘hype’ around a new release, I’ve seen multiple examples of artists sharing small sneak peaks to the song in a short teaser released on social media. I researched various artists and how they teased their new music. I found examples where they would post the first draft of the unreleased song, have the song in the background with the lyric on screen and a matching scenery to the song’s atmosphere, or have the singer sing the song. I took inspiration from Rina Sawayama’s visualiser of the song and Charlie Puth’s ‘Attention’ ending to do a mix of listening to the song’s first draft and visuals that matched with the song's vibe.
I had Vina hum a part of the song and edited it to fade into the instrumentals. I found the instrumentals through Youtube and converted it into mp3 using this website, https://y2mate.nu/en-2VkJ/
I added a caption, similar to Charlie Puth’s ‘Attention’, some establishing shots of the beach that we took during one filming session and added few effects to the videos which included grain, noise, sharpening, and a light leak overlay I found on Youtube to conform to our branding/style of an old film.
Website/LinkTree
I found that a lot of artists have a website that houses all the important links that they would want to share with their audiences and fans. This includes information and promotions on tour dates, merch store links, links to other social media the artist is on, and promotions on upcoming releases of songs and their music videos.
Regine had decided to create one for our star actor as well to resonate professionalism and to create an effort for audience engagement. Through this audiences can access an organized medium to easily reach the star actor’s different varieties of media products. Furthermore, because it is all laid out to be viewed at the same time by the audience, it may increase their exposure towards the other products and thus boost the star actor’s overall engagement. Below is the carrd.co Regine had made for our star actor.
I had chosen a website called Carrd.co rather than LinkTree (a free website that I saw some artists use) mostly because I was familiar with how to operate it and was completely free to make and upload online.
I used features like the use of emoticons, pictorial representations of facial expressions such as :D and :) for smiling faces, to display the artist’s playful, youthful personality/carefree attitude.
After more thought and discussion with teammates, I realised the current design didn’t align with the branding we created for her. This consideration led me to change the fonts. This is the final website
Increasing interactivity
Ways we did this:
Community group chat
Originally, we were inspired by how several artists had created a community broadcast channel to engage in conversations with their fans, such as the one above. However, we found out that this feature was only available for accounts that have accumulated 10 thousand followers. Because our star actor is a small artist and obviously did not have that many followers, we could not use this feature. Therefore, Regine suggested using a normal direct message group chat instead in which this worked well for us in the end as it makes much more sense if she chose to have a normal group chat with her presumably small fan base since she is a newly starting artist.
Questions in the caption & Responding to comments
We had included questions on most of the posts to encourage interaction between the star actor and the audiences in a way where audiences may answer the questions in the comment section and the star actor may respond back towards that as well. Audience knowing that the star actor is going to respond to them may provoke continuous interactions between each other and therefore boost interactivity.
Provided a link to the star actor’s carrd.co in their Instagram bio
We used this as a method of call-to-action as placing it in the star actor’s Instagram bio would allow the audience to easily notice the link in which they may feel intrigued to immediately click on.
Community group chat
Questions in the caption & Responding to comments
Provided a link to the star actor’s carrd.co in their Instagram bio
- As I was busy with my own digipak tasks, I was unable to contribute as much as I would have liked into the social media page. However, I helped how I could by providing feedback & opinions on things such as the artist's social media page and encouraging the use of hashtags to boost our artist in the algorithm.
No comments:
Post a Comment