Context and Research

I started the project by conducting market research, surveying 10 musicians currently pursuing a career in the music industry, with over 50% having been pursuing it for over 3 years. 80% of respondents currently release or aim to release music onto streaming platforms, with 90% being a performer for at least part of their career. This was ideal for my research because these respondents fit my ideal target audience for the business. 70% of responses scored marketing a 3 or above out of 5 for difficulty, with content, embarrassment, followers and fund being the most cited struggles. 100% of the respondents use social media, so this validated my business’s focus on social media marketing, with only 1 respondent using email marketing. 100% of respondents use Instagram, with 60% also using YouTube, 50% Facebook and 30% TikTok. This again validated my business’s focus on Instagram and emphasised the need for advice around video content.  When asked what areas of social media marketing they needed the most help with, respondents mostly cited branding, content, graphics, time management and understanding, so I knew my courses needed to focus on these areas. Throughout the survey, respondents also mentioned low engagement, a lack of followers, inconsistent revenue and reaching their target audience are challenges. 

 

This survey led me to 8 different course topics I wanted to cover. However, for this project, it was unachievable, so instead I focused on 3 different assets all covering the same 4 key topics in varying detail. I wanted these 4 topics to cover the basis of social media marketing for musicians and give them a really solid foundation for working on their marketing. With my business being a new start-up with few clients behind it, I also wanted to ensure credibility and value for the clients, so I wanted to focus on areas I had personal experience with and the most knowledge about. Using this framework to look at the topics in the survey led me to 4 clear topics: branding, audience, content and engagement. Knowledge about these topics will allow clients to build a solid foundation for their social media work and develop systems to make the work more effective and streamlined. They are also topics in which I have done previous research and have used my knowledge to develop my social media pages.