It’s Sunday and the church in your town is starting to announce the upcoming mass. But instead of bells, songs by Taylor Swift sound. This is not a joke, but the reality of Heidelberg, Germany, where they want to bring young people to religion. The influence of the American singer on today’s world is so great that it is assumed that she has the power to intervene in the presidential elections in her country. Drive hundreds of millions of fans crazy for it, earn a similar amount of dollars – and show everyone how to do effective marketing on top of that. A beautiful example is her new record, for which even the biggest players in the industry are preparing.
A while ago, a new project of one of the most famous singers of today hit the airwaves. Taylor Swift’s eleventh studio album is called The Tortured Poets Department and it’s been awaited since at least this year’s Grammy Awards, where she publicly announced it while accepting the award for Best Pop Album Midnights.
It already confirms the acumen of her team, because they chose a moment for the announcement that the whole world was watching. But Taylor Swift’s marketing success isn’t just about announcing new records – the key lies in something else.
She has become a global megastar, whose fortune is estimated to exceed one billion dollars, mainly thanks to her fan community. He works with them, values them, gives them something extra. One thing is the last sold out tour The Eras Tourwhich also affected the economic conditions of some countries, but without loyal supporters, nothing like this would have happened.
The power of social networks
Taylor Swift has over 300 million followers on Instagram and TikTok alone, making her one of the TOP 20 most followed people in the world. She is far from the first, but she is one of the few who can work with her community. It took her years to learn the habits of her fans, their preferences, their joys, their fears. Once she read them, she adjusted the content accordingly.
She knows that the younger generation, who make up the majority of her fans, crave details, spicy escapes – something that will make them more excited. That’s why she tactically posts versions of her often unreleased songs on TikTok to keep fans interested. For this, she also created the hashtag #SwifTok, where all exclusive content is grouped together.
American pop singer Taylor Swift
Thanks to this, she has become a champion in gossip, when despite all kinds of leaks she manages to generate worldwide interest in her work. People chat, share information on their social networks, write articles – and often because of TikTok and Instagram, the media is looking for new employees exclusively to cover everything that happens around Taylor Swift.
Attentive fans can also find hidden messages in her posts, which together can hint at what she is up to next. Whether it’s snippets of songs or at first glance mysterious descriptions of photos. And that sometimes a lot of previous content disappears from her profiles? This is also one of the tactics. If hundreds of millions of people see that his feed has been cleaned up, something is up.
Taylor Swift is able to create an effective whole from relatively small things that leaves no one alone. In reality, you don’t even have to be her fan and follow her wherever you can – she will still find you through the cracks in the internet space. In short, it is a phenomenon whose creative social media marketing could be taught in schools. However, the fan and his needs must always be at the center.
Overlap to offline
Due to her influence, Taylor Swift cannot overlook the leadership of the platforms on which she publishes her content. Typically Instagram, which did the unconventional thing of adding a hidden themed countdown directly to her profile before the release The Tortured Poets Department. All you had to do was update the profile by moving your finger on the display to make it appear. This is definitely not a common feature.
Spotify and Apple Music did not miss the activation either, where Taylor Swift generates the most listens. The former has planned a special day-long listening event in Los Angeles ahead of the release, while Apple’s music service has prepared playlists for fans of her songs, arranged according to the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. By doing so, she partially revealed what the new record will be about.
Hidden countdown on Taylor Swift’s Instagram
All these steps did not come out of the blue, they are elaborate moves by the singer’s marketing team. And they bear fruit. Add to that the spread of QR codes across different cities that lead to YouTube videos that reveal specific letters, and guerilla marketing enters the mix, which by its very nature can often be more effective than anything created primarily in the digital world.
Concerts have also become a unique marketing tool for Taylor Swift – and although few people can sell them out at such a pace, there are lessons to be learned from this. No matter what position you are in, at any event, there is always an opportunity to bring content to fans from behind the scenes. In short, giving them something they can’t find anywhere else. If it’s attractive and current, that’s part of the success.
Not too long ago, a three and a half hour documentary of her last tour was released on Disney+ The Eras Tour, where “filming stories” also appeared. As expected, it is the most successful musical film ever to appear on the television service. And Taylor Swift has secured new attention with the potential to convert some of the mainstream audience into her fans.
Marketing a contemporary pop music icon is like an unstoppable machine that generates interest at the moment, even if it may not be the primary goal. It is a question whether she really wanted to fill the front pages of American newspapers when she attended the games of her friend Travis Kelce, an American football player for this year’s NFL champion Kansas City Chiefs.
What’s next? More than likely a just released record The Tortured Poets Department will once again break records in the charts and dominate music sources on social networks. And Taylor Swift’s relevance will rise again.
