Welcome to my Process Doc page! Here you will find my weekly contributions to my strategy and plan. It includes my initial proposal, down to my peer evaluation that shows an overall evaluation of my final plan.
PROJECT PROPOSAL & INTERVIEW SUMMARY
I would like to create a social media strategy for Olivia Noelle, a brand new and up-and-coming artist. Olivia was recently signed to Columbia Records, and has a team that consists of huge names in the music industry who have worked with some of the biggest artists in the business. Because of how new she is, she has a very small social media following, yet it is obvious that she has the potential to be a huge star. I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Olivia when I was in NYC for a Sony conference last semester, and was blown away by both her talent and star potential which is why I want to use her for my project. With the correct strategy, I believe that she can quickly become a household name. First, I think she needs to be promoted to the college audience initially, as although she only has three songs out, they all are extremely relatable to the demographic. I also think she needs to begin interacting with fans often to create a personal connection with them and begin to create a close, dedicated fan base. Finally, I think she needs to heavily utilize social media platforms that use visual content, as she definitely has a very appealing image and aesthetic that she needs to promote.
For my interview, I talked to Brittany Hicks who was my supervisor at RCA Records this summer. Brittany is a marketing coordinator and works with both known and developing pop artists. One of her responsibilities is to manage these artists’ social media accounts and create content for them. From the interview I found out a lot about what she does and also the challenges she faces. Some of the artists she works with include Walk the Moon, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Amy Shark, BURNS, and MO. Although she thinks it’s awesome to work with the huge names like she does, she prefers working with the developing artists who’s careers she can truly impact and influence. There is also a lot more pressure when working with the big names, as they are much pickier about the content that is posted on their socials, and usually have more of a brand and voice that need to be mimicked perfectly. Furthermore, there are many more hoops that need to be jumped through to post for a bigger artist. For example, she recently sent copy for a single Tweet for Justin Timberlake that needed to be approved by a dozen individuals both in management and at the label, where it took nearly a full day to get it approved. On the other hand, she has direct access to Amy Shark’s accounts and is able to post freely. One of the challenges she loves is studying and analyzing an artist’s image and brand and translating that into a voice on social media. She said sometimes it takes a while to get it down perfectly, and every artist has a completely different voice on social media. Talking to her definitely helped secure the fact that I wanted to use Olivia Noelle for my strategy, I think it’s going to be challenging, but extremely interesting!
Brand Analysis
Olivia Noelle is extremely active on Twitter and Instagram, and somewhat active on her official Facebook page. On Instagram she has a little over 3k followers posts about once a day, but works hard to constantly update her IG story which primarily captures her everyday life. Her posts are comprised of a fairly even mix of videos and photos, and are all extremely aesthetically pleasing. Because her new single “High For Me” was recently released, her recent posts are primarily stills and clips from the single photo shoot and lyric video, and a couple behind the scenes shots. Her captions are somewhat inconsistent, as some are funny and “relatable” and some are very serious and work to support her badass and edgy brand. I believe this is somewhat confusing, especially for such a new artist as her audience surely doesn’t get a good grasp of what her personality truly is. However, her badass brand definitely shines through with a majority of her pictures which include her smoking a cigarette, laying in bed sensually with a guy and posing sensually just to name a few.
Like her Instagram captions, her Twitter is also a little bit all over the place and lacks an obvious and consistent brand. She has a little over 3k followers on this platform as well, and most of her posts include funny memes, and a majority of her other ones include her replying to fans who are supporting her music. I think both of these strategies are fine, especially the engagement part, however again they’re just not in line with her supposed brand. I believe that showing her funny and relatable personality is extremely important, especially when trying to grow her fan base, but she needs to do so in a way that mimics or at least supports the “bad girl” aesthetic that her cover art, videos and songs portray. She tweets original content only once every few days, but again she is consistently retweeting and replying to her fans. I definitely believe that it would benefit her to tweet more often to help give fans or soon-to-be fans a sense of what her daily life is like and what she is thinking.
Her Facebook, in my opinion does everything an artist’s Facebook should do and simply posts content promoting her new music. Recently this has included clips from her new lyric video and single cover art. There are some photos of her behind the scenes of photo and video shoots which is fine, however I believe those are much more appropriate to post on Instagram as people on Facebook simply aren’t seeking that sort of content out on the platform.
The artist I am going to use for my competitor analysis is Phoebe Ryan. Phoebe has a larger following than Olivia as she has been around for a few years longer, but is also in the running to eventually become the next big new pop star. Phoebe has about 60k followers on Instagram and posts about once a day. One thing she does extremely well is mimic her brand in every single picture she posts. Her new music has a cartoony, visually appealing aesthetic which all of her Instagram posts use. In this way, every post screams “Phoebe Ryan!” which is something that Olivia hasn’t quite been able to do yet. Her captions also follow the same sort of pattern in all of her posts which is extremely apparent after scrolling for just a minute. They are funny and relatable and her care-free, down-to-Earth personality shines through in all of them.
Phoebe has about 40k followers on Twitter and tweets around once a day, sometimes twice. She posts a lot of the pictures she posts on Instagram on Twitter as well and tweets a good mix of original content and replies to fans and other artists. In fact, I think that interacting with other artists is a strategy that is very effective as a lot of her most interacted with posts are ones that mention other artists. Like her Instagram captions, her tweets are funny and down-to-Earth, and after scrolling through it is obvious what her personality is like. She also favorite and retweets almost every time she is mentioned in a positive light which is a great strategy as it gets other people to retweet and like them as well.
On Facebook she, like Olivia, really only shares content in a professional manner, but occasionally lets her personality shine through in a post. Her posts are much less frequent on Facebook which, again, I think is very appropriate for the platform.
Competitor Analysis
Audience Analysis
Currently, Olivia Noelle does not have a huge following on social media, as she is in the very beginning stages of her career. Browsing through the followers she does have, they appear to be high school and college-aged, a majority of them being females. She also appears to have some major music industry executives following her, surely to track her engagement and progress closely. Her audience also appears to be very active on social media, posting on Instagram a few times a week and tweeting about once a day. They don’t appear to be interacting with Olivia’s posts as much as I would expect, as each of her tweets only receives a retweet and like or two and her IG likes and comments are fairly low. However, this isn’t entirely surprising as again, she hasn’t really developed a loyal following yet.
The target audience for my strategy will be high school and college-aged young adults, and I don’t want to specifically target a specific gender as I believe that everyone is listening to pop music like Olivia’s nowadays. I want to target people that are very active on social media and are also active socially in general. Olivia’s music is perfect for going out and hanging out with friends, so I want to encourage people who are social to add her music to their playlists. Going along with this, I want to target people who are social media influencers who can then share her music with their followers. Specifically, I think that people who are into fashion, makeup, and trends would be perfect candidates to target. My hope is to find people that will find Olivia and her music extremely relatable, who can then share her music with friends that will feel the same way.
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Rules and Regulations
Olivia Noelle is both an artist and a brand, and must be presented on social media in an appropriate manner.
Brand guidelines
All of Olivia’s post should be positive in nature and steer clear of anything that could potentially be deemed controversial. It is fine to talk about other artists and music as long as it is in a positive and supportive manner. A majority of the content posted should be centered around her music. Her brand is fun, confident, down-to-earth and relatable and all posts should reflect this.
Etiquette and Engagement
We encourage you to interact with and respond to positive mentions of Olivia on social media. We also encourage you to engage with potential fans that you come across. In any of these posts, please make sure you are tagging Olivia’s official social media accounts. We do not want you to respond to any negative mentions of Olivia, and want you to ignore them completely.
Confidentiality
It is extremely important that Olivia’s content (music, videos, photos, etc.) is NOT shared prior to its scheduled launch date. If you have questions about when specific content can be shared, please check the content calendar which is updated daily.
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Roles and responsibilities
2. Security risks
We have different passwords for each of Olivia’s social media accounts that are changed monthly or when necessary. It is important that no one shares these passwords with anyone outside the team. When logged on to her accounts, please do not click on anything or interact with anything that could potentially lead to phishing, spam, scams, etc.
3. Accountability
At the end-of-the-day, every employee is responsible for what they publish online. Remind everyone to exercise caution and common sense whether they’re posting on behalf of the company or on their personal channels.
Thanks blog.hootsuite.com for the guidelines!
Social Media Policy
Style Guide
Principles
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Always focus on the artist and music
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Keep content basic
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Be consistent with brand
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Use visuals often
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Don’t sound corporate
Voice and tone
Every post should be consistent with Olivia’s fun, relatable, down-to-earth, bad-ass persona that she expresses in her music and as a person. All posts should be as if she is saying the words in an interview, so they cannot come across as too professional or corporate. There is a conscious effort to make sure her social media doesn’t scream “major label artist.” The voice should be of a regular 20-something year old girl who is living out her dreams and making music.
Content Types
Facebook posts
Instagram Posts
Snapchat Stories
Tweets
Website updates
Grammar and usage
On Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, there are very few rules in terms of grammar and usage. To keep up with her relatable and down-to-earth brand, it is entirely okay to have grammar and spelling mistakes, as long as they are not too extensive. On her website everything should be spellchecked.
Web Style
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Caption lengths should not exceed 2 sentences
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Website titles should be short and to the point
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Fonts and sizes should stay consistent
Strategy Distribution Plan
Strategy Distribution Plan
My distribution plan will involve promotion Olivia’s latest single “High for Me.” The campaign is called ‘Would You Get #HighForMe’ and encourages people to create their creative take on the single whether it’s through a cover, dance, or original artwork. The goal of this campaign is to not only increase sales and streams of the track, but also increase Olivia’s following through interacting with fans and potential fans. For this campaign, we will use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The media assets that we will be using are a simple graphic and a short video explaining the nature of the campaign. We will use an organic launch, with Olivia sharing the campaign on her social media platforms, primarily introducing it to her fans. Kid Ink, who is featured on the track, will also share on his social platforms. Similarly, her label will share the campaign on its platforms as well while tagging Olivia in every post. The expansion phase will include a couple different aspects, including influencer involvement, where a popular YouTube singer, dancer, and artist will all share their own content as if they are simply participating in the campaign. Also in this phase, the contest aspect will be introduced, where it will be announced that one winner will be flown out NYC for one of Olivia’s first headlining shows. In the iteration phase, Olivia will make sure to not only retweet/repost every post, but also interact with the person who created the content. A winner will than be announced on Olivia’s socials, as well as Kid Ink’s and her label’s.
Content Outline & Examples
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Example 1
My first example is a graphic that will be shared across all of Olivia’s social media platforms at the beginning of the campaign. It is a relatively simple design with an image of the cover art for the single, as well as the question “Would You Get #HighForMe?” This question (which is part of the chorus) along with the hashtag #HighForMe will be used in every aspect of the campaign. The hope is that the ambiguity of it will get the audience’s attention right away. Participants also need to use the hashtag in order to enter. The hope is that getting fans and potential fans to use the hashtag will intrigue people and get them to do further research.
Example 2
My second example is a series of graphics that will be used as an Instagram story on Olivia, Kid Ink, and Columbia Record’s Instagram. As one clicks on the story, new text will appear that will introduce the the competition aspect of the campaign. The graphic uses the same color scheme as the rest of the campaign and outlines a couple of the details of the competition, and also encourages everyone to check out the single. Again, the first and most prevalent aspect of the graphic is the question “Would You Get #HighForMe which hopes to get the audience’s interest and attention.
Example 3
My third example is a Tweet that Olivia will post at the beginning of the campaign. The tweet will read:
“GUYS I’m so glad you’re all loving #HighForMe so much!! Now I want to see YOUR take on the track, whether it’s a cover, dance routine, single art… whatever you want! Post on your socials with the hashtag #HighForMe and I’ll retweet my faves! CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THEM!!!”
With this tweet, it introduces the campaign in a very natural and casual way, and doesn’t appear to be a big label push (which is what it really is). In this way, we hope that fans and also people who just want to show off their talents will want to post their content and take part in the campaign. Also, using Olivia’s own excited tone will hopefully help people get excited about the campaign as well.
Measurement Plan
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Our primary goal is for Olivia to gain followers on all social platforms, and to in turn increase sales and streams of her music, specifically for her latest single “High For Me.” We first will measure and analyze Olivia’s follower count on a daily basis, and specifically measure how quickly she is gaining new followers. To measure this metric, we will be utilizing the social media tool Falcon. Falcon allows you to schedule posts and also track follower counts and follower interactions. It provides charts and data tables that we will use for our analysis. We will be measuring and analyzing her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook followers. Next, we will be measuring and analyzing her streaming and digital download numbers. For streaming, we will simply look at her stream count on Apply Music and Spotify daily and build graphs and data charts with those numbers. For digital downloads, we will utilize Nielsen Soundscan which not only shows sales each week, but also provides graphs and charts to help better analyze the data.
When analyzing this data, we plan to see how different things happening on social media may correspond to streams and downloads. For example, when Olivia first announces the “High For Me” contest, we expect to see an increase in both follower counts and streams. At the end of every week we will compare the graphs for streams/sales and follower counts side by side, note the correlation if there is one and if not, determine why there is isn’t one. That will then determine the strategy that we implement the next week. If followers and streams are lacking on week, we will implement a more aggressive social media plan for the following week. If numbers are increasing at a steady rate, then we will hope that a more basic plan will be effective.
Rationale
My strategy involves a campaign that has the potential to put Olivia Noelle on the map in pop music. It involves utilizing her new single “High For Me,” and specifically the hashtag #HighForMe, encouraging fans to post their own original content using the single. First, this will allow Olivia to engage with her audience by sharing and responding to people’s entries. According to Shields, a brand must serve four purposes. One of them is “engage with your audience in a direct, two-way communication (91).” This will certainly allow her to accomplish this.
Next, this campaign focuses heavily on displaying Olivia’s personality, which is an extremely important aspect of her brand. This primarily because her we are relying a lot on her relatable and down-to-Earth personality to generate fans and sell her as a brand.
“Brands are uniquely positioned, because of the interactive, personal way people use social platforms, to foster emotional connections through social media (Shields 98).” To portray her personality, we are heavily focusing on Olivia’s voice throughout the campaign, or “the expression of your brand’s personality through content (Shields 116).”
A primary reason we are including a competition aspect in the campaign is to encourage fans to post content and get as much content online as possible with Olivia’s new single. Where there’s a small chance that any of this content will go viral (this isn’t a necessity, but would be amazing for the campaign), Shields notes that “practicing effective social media management means grounding your content development approach in the underlying goals, audience, platform and brand decisions driving your social strategy (113).”
Another large aspect of the campaign is going to be investing in influencer media. Surely this an expensive endeavor, however we believe that we have chosen the right sort of influencers who have fans that will relate to and enjoy Olivia and her music. We are going to combine the right influencers with right timing to make sure that it’ll be as effective as possible. Using influencer media allows someone other than the brand to communicate your message at a scale that is greater than what you can achiever through shared media alone (Shields 151).
Workshop
