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Social Media : Research & Development

This blog post, written by me (Beatrice), details the research into social media pages of several artists within the same genre of our star, explanations of how this research shaped our decisions, and the development process for our star's social media page. 

RESEARCH
Artists in the indie / indie pop genre's social media profile : 


Through my research, I observed that most artists in within these genres include a link in their bios to connect their audience to their profiles on other social media platforms. Additionally, many use Instagram highlights to keep fans engaged by frequently sharing updates about their lives. While not all artists use their own image as their profile picture, I decided that our star will feature her face in the profile picture to make sure that her account is easily recognizable to fans, while also enhancing her personal branding.

Below is a more in-depth research of the artists I selected. I chose them because their content style closely aligns with the vision I had for our star’s social media presence. ↓ 

Laufey

Laufey’s Instagram includes promotional posts about her performances, new albums, world tours, and behind-the-scenes moments. Her pinned post highlights her Grammy Awards achievements, showcasing a key milestone. However, her account feels personal and informal due to its spontaneous nature. She often shares unpolished, casual images without a consistent theme, which creates a more authentic and relatable vibe. Unlike many artists, she doesn’t heavily emphasize promoting her merchandise or albums and rarely shares frequent performance updates. Moreover, her captions enhance this casual tone with conversational language, often using pronouns like “my,” “me,” or “I,” along with playful phrasing and cute emojis that reflects her natural speaking style.

Technological convergence allows Laufey to engage with her fans more effectively by integrating multimedia content within a single platform. She actively interacts with her fans by replying to comments on her posts, whether they're questions, compliments, or casual remarks. She mirrors the energy and enthusiasm of her fans to strengthen her connection with them. Interactive features like polls, Q&A sessions, and live streams further allow fans to connect with her in real time, creating a more personal and engaging experience. Fans also interact with one another in the comment sections, as they bond over their shared admiration for Laufey and her music. Additonally, dedicated fan accounts and hashtags like #Laufey also foster tight-knit communities, making it easier for fans to connect and share their appreciation for her artistry. This reflects Blumler & Katz's Uses and Gratification theory, as fans engage with her content to fulfill needs such as building social relationships and exploring aspects of personal identity.

Laufey promotes her music through Instagram by announcing upcoming releases and encouraging her fans to sign up for early access. For example, in October 2022, she posted images of her performance with the caption "i have new music coming 🤍 sign up at the link in my bio to get an early tease :)”. She does this with a lot of upcoming music. In addition, she acknowledges and shares fan-made contents to promote her music while creating a sense of community among her fans. She often shares behind-the-scenes moments, which provides fans an intimate look into the process of creating her music. These glimpses make her promotion feel more personal and engaging. Furthermore, she shares personal stories and insights related to her music, which helps to add depth to her promotional efforts, making them more appealing and meaningful for her fans. 

I like how she maintains interaction with her fans, even amidst the huge amount of comments she receives. Additionally, I like how she subtly establishes a unique brand identity by consistently using an aesthetic that authentically reflects her persona.

Beabadoobee

Beabadoobee’s Instagram is primarily promotional, with around 90% of her posts dedicated to content such as performance clips and images, world tour schedules, and awards. Despite this, her page maintains a personal feel, as she frequently shares personal photos, including selfies, moments with friends and her cat, and even screenshots of personal chats. These spontaneous and unpolished posts add an authentic, raw layer to her image, giving the impression that she actively manages her account. Her captions style is also consistent, often informal and playful, featuring emojis, which builds a personal connection with her fans. While her promotional content showcases her professionalism, these more candid posts humanize her, making her more approachable.

Though Beabadoobee’s direct engagement with fans is limited due to the amount of interactions, she occasionally replies to or likes comments. This gesture helps to maintain a sense of appreciation and connection. She also hosts live streams from time to time, which provides fans with real-time opportunities to interact and ask questions, creating a more direct and personal connection. Fans further engage with one another in her comment sections, sharing interpretations of her music and bond over shared interests, which helps to foster a strong community. Fan accounts play an important role in this, as they frequently repost her content, sharing fanarts, and using hashtags related to Beabadoobee to connect her fanbase. Fans use these tags to share their own creations, explore others' posts, and participate in broader conversations about her music and events. This strengthens the overall community and enhances fan experience.

Beabadoobee promotes her music effectively by sharing clips and announcements of performances, such as her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live to perform one of her song, “Beaches.” She also celebrates milestones, like her album reaching number one in the UK or her recent nominations for two Brit Awards (Artist of the Year and Alternative/Rock act). These acknowledgments invite fans to share in her achievements, deepening their investment in her music. Sometimes, she interacts with her fans. By engaging with fan pages and allowing her fans to be part of her journey, she strengthens her community while promoting her music. 

I like how she shares both her public and personal personas, as it makes her more relatable and approachable to her fans. I also admire how she uses her posts to create a 'narrative' around her life and career, as it allows her fans to feel connected to her journey. Additionally, I think it's a great touch that she uses Instagram highlights, as they give fans easy access to important updates.

Clairo

Clairo's Instagram offers a balance between personal and promotional contents, which offers a glimpse into her life. While much of her feed includes promotional posts, such as merchandise and tour dates, her casual and conversational captions create a sense of authenticity and approachability. Alongside these, she shares personal moments, including selfies, polaroid photos, sunsets, and videos of her playing instruments or spending time with her dog. She even includes images of her fans, which fosters a sense of community and appreciation. Captions like “tour starts next week” keep her audience informed while adding a personal, friendly tone that strengthens her connection with fans.

Although Clairo doesn’t frequently engage directly in comment sections, she uses Instagram stories to share updates and personal moments, allowing fans to interact by reacting to these stories or participating in polls and Q&A sessions when she includes them. This provides an alternative way for her fans to feel connected to her. Fans also engage with one another in her comment sections, while fan accounts and hashtags dedicated to her allow for further interaction. These platforms provide spaces for fans to repost content and share updates related to Clairo, strengthening the sense of community within her fans.

Clairo’s promotional strategy includes creating excitement and anticipation. For example, on 11 January 2024, she teased her upcoming album with a post captioned “maybe this year,” which sparked speculation among her fans. She also announces music releases, such as lead singles, through her page, which provides fans with immediate access to her new music. Furthermore, her album 'Charm' received a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, which further highlights her achievements on multiple platforms.

I like how she balances promotional and personal content, as it keeps her feed dynamic and engaging for her audience.


DEVELOPMENT
To begin the development process, I sketched out a layout for the main star’s (Jasmine) social media page. Due to Instagram’s latest update, the grid view has shifted from a 1:1 format to 3:4. Therefore, I decided that portrait posts would be more effective than landscape ones. I also planned possible contents while considering what needs to be posted on the account. 


Based on our audience feedback, our target demographic prefers weekly posts, so I decided to have 12 posts in total. The majority of it will focus on personal posts, as this aligns with our audience preferences and helps create a sense of relatability, which will allow fans to feel more connected to the star. Additionally, there will be promotional posts, like teasers, MV release, behind-the-scenes, and digipak to remind fans to stream the music video, increase engagement, and expand the star’s audience by marketing her music.

According to David Hesmondhalgh’s Cultural Industries theory, the creative industries operate within a commercial system, which means it balances between aesthetic appeal and marketability. This applies to creating an Instagram username, which should be distinctive, memorable, and discoverable for fans. I wanted the username to reflect the star’s creative and fresh persona, while incorporating her (Jasmine) name for recognizability while also referencing music. However, the word “music” felt too direct, so I decided to use the word “tune”, which has a softer, and more artistic feel. The goal that I’m trying to achieve is to strike a balance between personal connection and professionalism, which makes the username feel both relatable and professional. Indie pop artists often use unique usernames that align with their branding (e.g., @honeymoon (Lana Del Rey), @skyferreira (Sky Ferreira)). Since Jasmine’s name is already linked to a flower, I decided to keep it this way. While some artists use their name (e.g., @laufey, @matthewmaltese), securing a single-word username is difficult, making this not possible.

Here are some username ideas that I came up with that aligns with the star’s brand identity, alongside with the meaning and pros and cons of the username.


Truthfully, coming up with the usernames was quite a time-consuming process, as many of my initial ideas were either already taken or unavailable. After several trial and error, I narrowed down the final options and shared them with my teammates to gather their opinions. Eventually, we all agreed on the first option, @tunesofaflower, as it is both catchy and unique, while reflecting the star's persona through its soft and poetic connotations. 

Personal Posts
Since our target audience prefers more personal content and we aim to establish our artist as a relatable, down-to-earth figure, we decided to incorporate more personal content To achieve this, I asked Jasmine to provide some personal photos that could be shared on her social media platforms. Below is the list of images I requested, which she then compiled into a Google Drive folder. This greatly helped the content selection process.


To reinforce both her reel and real persona as a cheerful and optimistic person, I mostly selected and uploaded images where she is smiling or laughing. Additionally, I experimented with multiple filters that I made to ensure a cohesive visual aesthetic for her Instagram page. I tried to maintain a consistent colour palette across her posts, as it was essential in strengthening her brand identity.

These filters are made using Lightroom app.

After testing various filters, I narrowed it down to two options. While the differences were subtle, the first filter created a brighter effect, whereas the second had a slightly darker, warmer tone. Eventually, I chose the brighter filter, as it best complemented Jasmine’s persona and enhanced the overall vibrancy of her image. Below are the adjustments I used to create this filter ↓


I then applied this filter to all her social media posts, except for the videos, to maintain visual consistency across the page. 


 
I also created Instagram highlights featuring Jasmine’s photos, her hobby (drawing), and her music career. These highlights provide fans with a deeper insight into her personal interests and what she is up to, which can help to strengthen her connection with her fans.



Promotional Posts
Since our star, Jasmine, is releasing her music video, I found myself focusing more on creating promotional content than I initially anticipated. This is because I noticed that when an artist releases a new song, they often posts promotional content to increase the song's popularity. Therefore, the ratio between personal and promotional posts ended up being more balanced than expected. However, I still aimed to maintain the star’s personal connection with fans by combining intimate elements into the promotional posts. I did this by posting behind-the-scenes pictures, giving the content a more unpolished and authentic feel. For more promotional posts such as teasers, digipak, and short scenes from the music video, I made the captions as friendly as possible using direct mode of address. I figured that questions like "what do you guys think of the mv ? 🤭" can help to foster a sense of intimacy and encourage audience interaction, as the star presents herself as more down-to-earth and relatable, aligning with Richard Dyer's Stardom theory.

Here are what some of the promotional posts look like :
  


I also designed a ‘release date’ post to remind the star’s fans of the official album release. Initially, I planned to create a teaser post before this, featuring a short video of the star reminding her fans that the music video would be released soon. However, due to the time constraints and how rushed everything was, Jasmine forgot to record the teaser and told me that she was unsure about what to say in the video. Instead, she suggested alternative options for the release date post, which is using an image of the birds we captured during one of our filming process. The birds could symbolize Jasmine and Viola, which adds a deeper meaning to the post. Below are the draft designs I considered before finalizing the post. ↓


Initially, I was in a dilemma on whether to position the text on the left side or in the center of the post. After experimenting with both layouts, I chose to center the text, as I felt it created a more balanced composition. To make it more readable, I also increased the font size to make sure that the information stood out clearly. Additionally, I experimented with changing the text color from white to yellow to see if it would add a unique visual element to the design. However, after gathering feedback from those around me, the majority preferred the white text, as it was easier to read. With this in mind, I decided to move forward with the white text for the final post.
 
 

'Get to Know Me' Q&A 
To further understand how pop / indie pop artists engage with their audience through social media, I conducted research by watching several Q&A sessions on YouTube that features various indie/pop artists. This allowed me to gain insights into how they shape their reel personas and build a sense of relatability with their audience.


From analyzing these examples, I learned that many artists use Q&A videos to present a more personal and authentic version of themselves. This aligns with Richard Dyer’s Stardom theory, where the artist’s off-stage persona plays a crucial role in shaping their overall brand image. Hence, I believe by incorporating a Q&A session post into Jasmine's Instagram content could help establish her as a more relatable and approachable artist. This will strengthen the parasocial relationship between the star (Jasmine) and her audience (fans), which will foster a sense of emotional connection that aligns with the preferences of our target audience.

Aside from Olivia Rodrigo's interview with Vogue, the interviews I've analyzed so far feature the artists seated while responding to questions with pretty detailed explanations. Therefore, I decided to implement this convention for Jasmine's interview, as it creates a more intimate and authentic atmosphere. Additionally, since the Q&A content will be posted on Instagram (a short-form content sharing platform), I decided to make a more concise version compared to the Q&A posted on YouTube, as it typically surpasses 10 minutes. I believe that this will help to maintain audience engagement and prevent the content from becoming monotonous.

Here are the questions I made for the Q&A : 
1. How would your best friends describe you in four words ?
2. What is one thing that never fails to make you smile ?
3. What is your go-to way of cheering yourself up on a bad day ?
4. Do you have any pets ? If yes, can you tell us more about them ?
5. If your personality was a colour palette, what four colours would be in it and why ?
6. What's one activity you love doing the most during your free time ?
7. If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why does it resonates with you ? 
8. What was your favourite moment during the filming process of your new music video, and why ?
9. Describe your character in the music video in four words. How are you similar or different from her ?
10. Lastly, what's your message to everyone who's watching and supporting you right now ? 

Initially, I was thinking whether I should write the answers for the Q&A myself to ensure that the star’s responses aligned with my vision. However, I decided not to, as I felt this would make the answers sound unnatural. Instead, I chose to send Jasmine the questions in advance so she could familiarize herself with them before we filmed on our final production day. Looking back, I’m glad I made that decision, as Jasmine delivered her responses naturally, using her real persona. However, one issue I didn’t anticipate was the length of the final Q&A. The finished video ended up being approximately six minutes long, which was longer than expected. To address this, I decided to create a shortened, cliffhanger version at the end. This strategy was intended to engage the audience and encourage them to watch the full video on when it's posted on her "YouTube" channel, as it will support her cross-platform branding. By sharing teasers on one platform and the full version on another, it helps to mantain a consistent and connected online presence, while also boosting audience interaction by keeping them updated across both platforms. 

Below is the final result of the short video cliffhanger I created ↓
 
 
Here are some processes that I screenshotted from my tab while editing : 


These are edited in CapCut.

Fan Challenge
After receiving some feedbacks from my teacher, I decided to revise a few parts of Jasmine's social media page. Since creativity and a passion for drawing are the main aspects of her persona and branding, I decided to create a fan art challenge where fans are encouraged to draw Jasmine and post them with the hashtag #HeARTSforJas (Hearts for Jasmine). The few selected ones will be posted on Jasmine's official social media page as a form of shout-out. This will not only increase active audience engagement but also build a sense of community through shared interests. Moreover, it will strengthen the relationship between Jasmine and her fans by making them feel seen and valued, as their efforts are acknowledged and shared on a public platform. This aligns with Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory under the personal identity and social relationships aspect. It will also position Jasmine as an approachable figure, which further strengthen her branding.
 
 

Additional : 
Social media page before revision :



Since I added the fan challenge post, the total number of posts increased to 13, which exceeded the number of post I initially planned for (12). Therefore, to maintain a balanced layout, I decided to remove one of th existing posts. ↓


The reason I chose to remove this post is because on the image placed directly beside it (left side) shows Jasmine wearing the exact same dress, which suggests that both photos were taken at the same event. Therefore, I decided to remove this one, as keeping both would likely make her feeds appear repetitive and monotonous.

Furthermore, after reviewing the social media page, I realized that the cover image for the music video post wasn’t ideal, as it directly featured the opening scene, which disrupted the overall layout. Therefore, I decided to change it by selected a more fitting scene from the video, screenshotted it, and enhanced it using Lightroom to fit the Instagram feed better.

before

after

Here is the final result of our social media page :
[incase of any technical issue, click here].



Reflection : Conducting research before planning and developing the star’s social media page provided me with valuable insight into how an artist's Instagram presence evolves before and after an album release. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating the social media page, as it allowed me to come up with engaging captions, select background songs for almost every post using Instagram’s new feature, and experiment with different custom filters that I made to maintain visual consistency. Since most of the images used were Jasmine’s personal photos, I carefully selected ones that best aligned with the REEL persona we aimed to construct. Although I initially intended to follow the exact posting layout I had planned, the limited time forced me to adjust my plan. Despite reminding Jasmine multiple times to film a short video announcing the album release, she forgot, and given that it was the night before our deadline, there was no opportunity to film it. As a result, I had to remove that idea. Additionally, the digipak was originally meant to be the seventh post on the social media page, following the MV scene. However, due to the time required to finalize and refine it, waiting would have delayed the overall content rollout. Hence, to keep up with the deadline, I decided to post the digipak as the final (12th) post and pin it alongside the music video, ensuring the album release remained as a main point for our audience. Despite these challenges, I enjoyed the process of creating the social media page, as it deepened my understanding of how artists construct and maintain their online presence. However, I do think that my teammates and I really need to work on our time management to avoid last-minute adjustments in the future.
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