What is a social media page for?
1. Communication & connect with audience
2. Promotion and branding
Key conventions:
Establish a theme/style
Often artists will make several posts that promote the primary project they are working on. Along with the variation of camera angles and type of media (videos/photos), the overarching colour theme or central message remains consistent to create a visually appealing account.
Biography, profile picture, and other relevant links
A description of the artist, profile picture, and links to their music platform account or official site are often featured in this section. Extension links create additional promotions on their products such as music videos, vinyl, digipak, and other products. For instance, Ariana Grande promotes her R.E.M. beauty brand and her music career on her Instagram posts. Her popularity in the music industry will draw her audiences’ attention to other products made by her.
Promotional content
Tour announcements
Behind the scene shots while filming music videos
Stylistic photography
New release songs
Award-winning ceremonies
Performances at sponsored or live shows
Posts sharing personal life
Selfies
Photos with their friends or other famous artists
Interaction
Comments
Reacting to responses from fans
Signing autographs for fans
Example: Ariana grande's instagram page
Ariana Grande‘s bio section is creative and promotive containing a personalized signature and a personal link to her detailed bio. Her most recent album ‘eternal sunshine’ dominates the majority of her posts including album cover, behind-the-scenes, and official release of the music video. To promote this album further, she was invited to sing ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ at the Saturday Night Live show which drew more attention to her newly released album. The overall aesthetics and colour scheme are heavily based on the style of her recent product. For instance, the new album ‘eternal sunshine’ uses a beige, brown, and blonde colour pallet establishing simplicity and elegance.
1. Personal life shares:
she shares pictures of her friends, crew, and pet which showcases a different aspect of Ariana Grande to her audience.
2. On-set photos:
The lighting, costume, and makeup are unique, and portrays herself in many styles.
3. Social events:
Saturday Night Live shows and Oscar Awards of 2024 she posted photos of herself with other celebrities such as Billie Eilish which appealed to both her fans and Billies’.
4. Promotional posts of her album:
Behind-the-scenes photoshoots of her music videos have a strong sense of contrast in style. For instance, in the music video for ‘yes, and?’, the overall tone is cold and uses desaturated colours. Whereas, ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ video was influenced by the film ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ from which she borrowed the idea from the plot where the character undergoes brain surgery to lose all memories of their painful breakup. She has been posting photos and teaser videos of her dressed in the style inspired by the film’s main character.
5. R.E.M. Beauty:
Her beauty brand is a separate branch and business that she started in 2021. This brand established positive images for making ethical, thoughtful formulas and packages. Furthermore, they promised to be cruelty-free, vegan-friendly, and never test products on animals. Therefore targets her music audiences and people who admire and support their business motto.
Attention Interest Desire Action
Music album cover releases: She posted ‘eternal sunshine 3.8’ which is a simple and direct message alerting her audiences that her new album is about to be released. The precise date grabs peoples’ attention and interest. Furthermore, after the album announcement, she sent many relevant posts that centered around her new album and music videos. The audience will enter the ‘desire’ stage as more posts and information come along. She reveals things gradually to build excitement and curiosity and intrigues the audience wanting to know more. Grande also posted her vinyl designs to attract listeners to purchase them and to take action to support her new album. Once the song and music video are released, the preparatory posts will motivate audiences to actively consume the final product.
How does the page enable the audience to find Uses and Gratification?
Audiences browse through social media pages for entertainment, social interaction, and information-seeking purposes. People selectively and actively seek content that is intriguing and valuable. The new media platforms such as Instagram allow people to like, comment, and share easily with others which in turn satisfaction from audiences. She shares a diverse range of photos about her life, music, and makeup brand that constantly posts new content for consumption.
For instance, she advertises her beauty products herself which audiences find ‘gratification’ from seeing her ads, further providing the product for ‘uses’. Audiences could also find ‘gratification’ through her preview posts made that promote her new album, ‘eternal sunshine’.
Her Instagram page promotes her as a star and a unique individual. She posts stories of others’ posts and replies to comments.
As Dyer said, stars construct an image that appeals to audiences that are often ‘not real’. However, in her daily posts, she showcased herself from a different perspective. For instance, there will be more selfies, group photos, and interesting things in her life.
Additionally, she makes posts and stories of others commenting and reacting to her songs which increases audience engagement and interaction and she establishes herself as a talented but approachable individual to her fans. Her collaboration with other artists such as Mariah Carey draws audience attention as she did a remix version of the song ‘yes, and?’ with her which targets a wider group of people.
My social media posts
To promote our artists, I've incorporated both video and photos to diversity the type of media hence establishing higher audience engagement.
In the biography section, I've added a link to my digipak design which further promotes our package as a whole.
All 12 posts are centred around our music video release 'get him back', meanwhile including some other pictures of the artists' life. (traveling, friends, music recording, performance at live concert)
Example 1:
The caption of this post is direct and formal as it is a clear message of the music video’s release. Additionally, the word ‘officially’ carries formally announced and attention-grabbing purposes that create an impactful feeling when seeing this post. The video features the artist in an arc shot that is visually engaging through the use of vibrant colours and constant camera movement. Therefore, this preview grabs the audience's attention which makes them more prone to watch the full version.
Example 2 & 3:
Behind-the-scene photos preheat the official product (music video) by spoiling a fraction of the content to keep the audience anticipation process intriguing and motivated.
A few film stills were taken to 'reveal' the style of the music video for promotional purposes that are visually appealing for audiences, such as the use of lighting and costumes.
Example 4:
As a musician, posts around performance interest their audience as they enjoy seeing them singing at live concerts which often has a different feeling than listening to the studio version. This was a Musical show that our artist was involved in which showcased herself as a multifaceted musician being able to perform multiple genres of music.
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