Social Media Strategy 

When I first put together the social media strategy in semester 1, I chose to prioritise TikTok with Instagram as the secondary platform. I made this decision purely based off of how successful short form video content has become in the music industry, particularly in emerging artists who are trying to reach the younger generation. I felt that Myer primarily focusing on TikTok would give her the best chance of getting visibility from people her age that were into the sort of music she creates, while Instagram would be used to be a support platform for presenting more visual posts such as, photoshoots and advertisement posters for upcoming gigs. The main idea of mine was to put together interactive posts, content from her most recent gigs, and photoshoot pictures that would really reflect her aesthetic for her genre (electronic downtempo grunge) in a way that felt consistent and personal to connect better with fans.  

When this started out, I was quite confident with my first approach to this part of the project because it aligned with what I was seeing throughout social media posts I had been looking at and doing successfully.  I thought that if I kept the content posts consistent and engaging with the fans it would build up the engagement with her social media pages over time, because consistent audience interactions links to stronger relationships with the audience in the digital world (Baym, 2018).

However I had one huge problem through this whole process, which was when I tried to reach out to Myer through email. I tried sending a couple of emails to organise some content and get some kind of input from her on what route she wanted to take regarding her social media posts and content uploads, but I didn’t receive any response. At first, I thought it might just be a delay, but as time passed and I still had no replies from her, I felt quite stuck. This made it quite clear to me that continuing the project by myself would be the best and most efficient way of getting the project moving forward.  

What did I do to work around this? 

Rather than just stopping completely I tried to continue working around the situation. I started think more independently about what kind of content would still work (see Appendix A) and what I could do to move through this communication issue. I looked at similar artists to see what they were posting and what about their posts made them so effective (see Appendix B). I saw that what stood out with the other artists’ posts was their consistency of posting, how often they were posting, the type of visuals they used and how they interacted with the audience. This helped me develop ideas but I did keep running into the same issue of not being able to feedback and communicate with Myer. Even something as simple as creating a short video would need some sort of communication with her which made it extremely difficult for me. 

I had built the entire structure around how she would be consistently involved, without thinking about what would happen if she wasn’t. I hadn’t prepared for any sort of backup content and I did not consider alternative approaches to work independently which is what created a downfall for me during this period, and looking back I feel as if this was the main blip, considering how unpredictable working with other people can be in these types of creative projects (Hesmondhalgh, 2019). 

I also think I could have approached could have been a lot better from my end considering I only tried to contact her though email, and as I am not a huge social media user, this limited me in ways that I should have been able to resolve.  

Another thing I didn’t take into consideration at the time was how this could support Myer medium to long term. If I executed this properly, focusing on TikTok and Instagram could have helped her gain a consistent online presence, which is extremely useful for an artist over time. Medium term, this could have helped increase her visibility and gained a small amount of audience engagement, especially with her type of niche genre, and over long term keeping consistent with posting could have helped become recognisable, which is important for standing out in the music industry. 

Despite this I still think the overall direction of the social media strategy was good. The choice of platforms that I decided to use made sense for her and the type of content that I had planned was very relevant to both her target audience and the genre of music that she makes. The only problem was it wasn’t enough to be able to work and do this alone. What this has showed me is that even when there is a very strong strategy in place, it can easily fail, all dependant on many factors that you cannot control and I should have done a lot better to try and find ways round these problems. If I was to do something differently going forwards, I would prepare content in advance and make multiple options so there is more choice and so I’m not just depending on what feedback I get on one specific thing. 

Live/Touring Strategy 

For the live touring strategy, I focused on identifying a lot of different venues that would really be able to support Myer’s development. I looked into a few places, such as Sela Bar, Belgrave Music Hall, The Key Club, and Headrow House, as these venues are all very well known for hosting emerging artists that are based around Leeds (see Appendix C). I felt that these chosen venues were solid choices from me because they matched both the size of the audience, not too big of an audience but then not too small, and also the type of audience that I had in mind.  

I thought that performing live would be a great way to build a bigger presence, even if it started off small, and playing these local venues seemed like a great way to develop her as an artist and gain exposure (Frith,2007). Potentially growing her following on social media. Even though this wasn’t my main role in the group, I still wanted to help out and contribute my opinions to the group.  

When I tried to move forward with this, I again tried to contact through email, but did not receive any response, which made it extremely difficult to move past the initial planning stage. This also meant that I wasn’t able to contact any of the venues as everything depended on getting confirmation and details for doing certain gigs.  

I did however continue to look into venues and think about how a live strategy for Myer could possibly develop over time, but this remained quite basic. I think that I didn’t feel comfortable moving forward without the presence of Myer to support me in helping her. But looking back I probably could have taken this slightly further independently, even if it meant it was more theoretical. 

The main thing I need to reflect on here, as I said earlier, is being proactive and making sure that I have multiple things planned and in place to present to the artist. With social media this is more do able as I can sit at home and create different things to present rather than looking around aimlessly for something I’m not even sure she would want to do. I think my other main flaw with this side of the project was the planning stage, as I focused more on the ideas than the practical side. 

If this strategy had progressed further, in the medium term Myer could have been performing at small local venues to build a stronger more loyal fanbase and audience and in the long term, performing and doing gigs consistently would open up opportunities to perform at larger gigs, create more exposure for her and help her grow as an artist. 

Overall, I think my work and effort for this section was poor and there were a lot of things I could have done differently to save myself time and effort. I did try to make some effort to grow this area of the project, but this again just shows me how key it is to have clear communication with the artist to be able to develop her musical talent. 

Target Audience Strategy 

During the time of me trying to develop this section of the project, I tried to think about how the audience might behave rather than who the actual target audience is. I took into consideration that the listeners and supporters of this genre of music and Myer’s music might have engaged with the music in a different way, and by this I mean, because this genre is so down low and not well known, the listeners would engage more in interactive posts expressing how they feel about this style of music. I also thought that this type of audience would really appreciate, and take into account, the aesthetic and atmosphere of the posts more than the information on the post itself, which is why I tried to link the target audience closely for the visual direction I had planned for the social media strategy.  

The thing I look back on most while writing this is how I didn’t test or support these ideas with any concrete research. I could have looked at the audience data, streaming trends for example, and I didn’t look for how similar artists find their intended target audience as much as I should have done. Going back on this makes me realise that this was a huge gap in my approach, as I had some understanding of the genre and the audience that might be drawn in but I didn’t turn this understanding and use it to find what I needed to find. All this meant was that the target audience stayed quite broad which would make it a lot harder to use in a practical way if anything was to move forward with either content of live performances. 

One of my other cons of this process was that I relied too much on my own judgement when making these decisions. At the time, this felt reasonable because I had a general idea of the kind of music scene that I was working with and who the target audience might predominantly be, but without any structured research from my end, plus the lack of communication from the artist to help me with this section made it quite difficult to experiment and move forward. This is something I know I should have taken more care and thought with because audience targeting should ideally be based on a combination of things which include data from posts and similar artists posts and success rate with those posts and the artist themselves, in terms of how they want to present themselves in a way that attracts the right audience for them too. Rather than doing this, I tended to jump more to assumptions seeing that the input from the artist was limited. But by not grounding my decisions, I really limited how much I was able to do and how effective the strategy might possibly be.  

Another issue I ran into after review over this section was I did not revisit or adapt her profile tailored to the audience as this project progressed. Even when the communication situation came to a halt, I continued working with the same assumptions I first started out with, rather than trying to refine them into something a lot more specific to her page.  

I think, looking back that this would and should have been a part where I strengthened this area as it was one of the few areas that I could have developed independently, but instead I kept the progress on this part of the section extremely limited which meant it didn’t move forward in line with my thinking and stay on top with the other parts of this project.  

Even though this section was quite underdeveloped, having a clear target audience would have been good for Myer. Medium term she would have hopefully been looking at me being able to make more focused content to her making it a lot better for the listeners who enjoy her specific genre, and over the long term, a more loyal fanbase could have been built as the content that is made would hopefully align well with what the audience want to see.  

Looking on from this, I was able to make some minimal levels of progression, but it didn’t reach the same level of work that it should have compared to the other parts of this project and more could have been done to rectify this. The audience I was able to identify was appropriate for Myer and tailored well towards her genre of music, but it lacked the research and development needed to be able to make a next step for this area in the project. If a were to look at this differently and change some things, I would try to focus a bit more on making a detailed and well researched audience profile, as this would intern provide a much more detailed profile for Myer and a stronger foundation for all of the marketing and live gigs opportunities.  

Conclusion  

Overall, for this section, I can see that I kept making the same mistakes of relying too heavily on a response from Myer without properly preparing for what would happen if the involvement wasn’t there and what I should have done if the situation that happened, happened. I did try to continue to work independently when the communication stopped but in almost all the scenarios this only allowed me to develop ideas and not actually be able to execute them as I was adamant on having the artist approval before moving forward with anything.  

At the time I thought that continuing with my original plans would be the best option, even when it became clear that the situation had changed due to the lack of communication, and instead of adapting to this situation and trying to find a better way around it. I stayed close to what I had planned rather than changing the plan.  

I think that I should have been a lot more flexible and made adjustments earlier on. I also could have been a lot more proactive with trying different communication methods with Myer and looking at other ways of progressing on this project. 

At the end of this whole project, while the outcomes were quite small and limited, this experience has helped me understand the importance of solid communication and proactive planning before projects. It has also shown me that having a plan and or a strong idea on its own is not enough and that the main strategy depends on how well all these things can be executed in proper situations rather than just theoretically.  

Reflective evaluation  

Looking back on the overall process of this project, the main thing that stands out to me is the lack of communication that affected the team dynamic and my ability to be able to work effectively. I thought that going into a project like this would involve a lot of regular communication, shared input and a clear sense of direction, but this was not the case. The situation ended up becoming much more of an individual process for me than I imagined. There wasn’t much I could have done about this, but I made my best effort to try and work past it.  

At the very start of this process I approached the project in a very straight forward way assuming that some of the plans that we introduced in semester 1 would take place. I relied on the fact that everyone would complete their work and that communication would be a smooth process that wouldn’t need to be brought up in this essay what so ever, and because of this I didn’t really think about what would happen and what I would do if the structure broke down. When I began to experience a lack of communication from Mye I did not immediately adapt to the situation and instead I continuted to try and follow the original plan which considerably slowed my progress and made it extremely difficult for me to move forward. Looking back on this I can see that I was too focused on my actual approach and not flexible enough to be able to deal with the changes as and when they happened.  

One thing that I kept noticing when looking back at this was how much I actually relied on communication, without thinking at all what would happen if there was a lack of it amongst our group. At the time of me actually working through this I didn’t really think twice about it, as in my mind this was not the main worry, I assumed that just sending emails and awaiting a response was enough, and even when nothing changed, I still failed to change how I approached it. Looking back, this feels quite passive from me and I could have been a lot more proactive as I mentioned earlier. I thought that it was such a small thing at the time, that it would just sort itself out, which obviously didn’t happen.  

I think that part of this came from the actual role of the project I was given. I felt like I needed constant input from the artist before I was able to move forward with anything, and because of this I didn’t trust my own decisions and judgement. Even when I had ideas that I knew had high hopes of working I didn’t push them very far because I wasn’t sure if they alligned with what Myer wanted.  

At the same though, I just jumped to assumptions that email would be the best form of contact, which now, was clearly the wrong choice. I chose to use email because I thought it was the most professional way of contacting her, but in reality, this was really not the best option.  

The thing that stood out the most to me during this project, was I did not stop and think about what my approach might be when things first started to go wrong with the communication. As I said earlier, me trying to follow the initial plan that I made was the downfall to this project. I wanted to make sure I was consistent and stayed on the same track rather than trying to conger up a second plan that could easily fail and cost me even more with this project. I tried to force this situation when there was no need to do so, which made things feel a lot more difficult, even hopeless. This is the main thing that I would approach differently now, being more open to changing the direction earlier on rather than holding on to something that clearly is not working.  

There were still numerous times where I tried to stay engaged with this project, and I don’t think, despite all the setbacks, that I completely disconnected from the entirety of the project. I did my best to carry on powering through, looking at similar artists, thinking about content ideas and trying to develop my ideas slightly. But even then, it didn’t really go much further beyond this point. I also think my decision making played a vital role in how the project developed. I kept second guessing whether it was the right thing to do, which meant nothing really progressed as much as it should have done. I think a big part of this project, was being able to take risks and tank the responsibility for the mistakes of the risks, but this wasn’t my thought process at the time. At the same time though I do partially understand my thought process as to why I was doing this. The main reason was I didn’t want to make decisions that didn’t match Myer’s requests. 

Another issue I did not tend to very well was the lack of communication itself. I didn’t really treat it as something that needed to be tended to promptly. I tried to get a response, and didn’t, and then just tried my best to work around it rather than actively trying to fix it. I could have followed up more or slightly changed my ways of thinking about this situation, and because of this, the problem just lingred and continued to affect everything else I was doing.  

It would be easy to put all of the blame on the lack of communication, but there were still a lot of things that I could have done differently. Recognising that I could have been a lot more proactive is important, showing that Im focusing on what went wrong and trying to reflect on this to see what I could have done a lot better, so that next time, it can be different, and I won’t continuously run into this problem. 

At the same time I think it is important to take into consideration how unpredictable these type of projects can be. Not everything is going to go exactly according to the plan, and its almost guarenteed that something will go wrong at some point. Especially when you are also relying on other people who have priorities that don’t match with yours.  

The I should haves: 

• Been aware of this outcome  

• Been proactive during the lack of communication period 

• Made sure I had better options in place 

• Discussed more options with the group rather than keeping to myself  

• More active communication/follow ups  

• Use multiple platforms to contact  

• Work through communication issues  

These are all things I should have looked closer at during my time doing this project, this is what caused my lack of progress and I need to make sure all these problems are outline so this does not repeat in future projects. 

Overall, even though the project didnt progress as I expected it to, the experience of this has been extremely useful. It has shown me that having a plan on its own is not enough, and that how you manage these unexpected problems that really matters, because as shown, these problems can create huge stalls in the process of projects like these. Those are the main things I will take away from this learning curve. Being able to adapt to tricky situations, take control of my role more so I am not reliant on anyone else, and not being reliant on things that are out of my control. 

References: 

Baym, N. (2018). Playing to the Crowd. NYU Press. 

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2019). The Cultural Industries. Sage. 

Frith, S. (2007). Live Music Matters. Scottish Music Review.  

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C