A look at how Taylor Swift has successfully used social media to engage and interact with her fans over the years.

1. Artists & Audience
Engagement:
By: JavaAndPi101

3.  For my presentation on artists and audience engagement, I chose to interact with
Taylor Swift, my favourite artist for as long as I can remember.
 Taylor is twenty-four years old (born on December 13, 1989).
 She grew up in Pennsylvania before moving to Nashville, Tennessee when she was
fourteen to pursue her music career.
 She sings country music, writes all of her own songs, and plays both the guitar and
the piano.
 She released her first album at age sixteen, and has now released four in total (not
including deluxe editions and holiday CDs).
 She was the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV publishing house.

4.  Taylor has won
7 Grammy Awards,
12 Billboard Music Awards,
15 American Music Awards,
11 Country Music Association
Awards and 6 Academy of
Country Music Awards.
 She has also starred in two films:
“Valentine’s Day” and “The Lorax”.
 The main subject matter of her
songs is love, relationships, and
heartache.
 While she is a country artist,
many of her more recent songs have
a pop sound that has allowed her to
expand genres, audiences and radio
stations.

5. Online Social
Media
Presence

6.  Taylor has quite a large online presence, with
a solid representation across all of the main
platforms.
 Because of Taylor’s young age, she grew up
in the technology age just like her fans did,
meaning she was curious and experimented
with social media like everyone else.
 She created her online presence like many
other teenagers and young adults, and her
digital reach is much stronger than a lot of
older artists who had to learn it later on.
 When Taylor was first starting her career she
greatly utilized MySpace to grow and connect
with her fan base.
 Her social presence has grown as more and
more social networks have become popular, but
Taylor is very skilled at keeping up with the
times and experimenting just like her fans are.
 Taylor’s online presence feels natural and
personal (not like it is being run by someone
else or only used for marketing purposes).

7. If you are having trouble with any of
the links below, click here .
Some places online where you can
connect with Taylor or her fans are:
Facebook:
(https://www.facebook.com/TaylorSwift)
Twitter: (https://twitter.com/taylorswift13)
MySpace: (https://myspace.com/taylorswift)
Official Website: (http://taylorswift.com/)
Newsletter:
(http://www2.taylorswift.com/mailing-list/)
Official Forums: (http://taylorswift.com/forum)
Taylor Connect: (http://taylorswift.com/users)
YouTube: (http://www.youtube.com/taylorswift)
Vevo: (http://www.vevo.com/artist/taylor-swift)
Instagram: (http://instagram.com/taylorswift)
Official Store: (http://storeca.taylorswift.com)
iTunes:
(https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/)
CMT:
(http://www.cmt.com/artists/taylor-swift)
Ticketmaster:
(http://www.ticketmaster.ca/Taylor-Swift)
Google+:
(https://plus.google.com/+TaylorSwift/posts)

8. Online
Communities
Dedicated to
Taylor

9.  Due to the overwhelming size of Taylor’s fan
base, there are an extremely large number of online
communities dedicated to her.
 Along with the communities created on all of the
social networks and sites listed on the previous
slide, there are a number of fan-made sites.
 These sites range from being all-inclusive
(posting anything and everything possible and
related), to focussing on a specific aspect of
Taylor’s life (for example: pictures, videos,
news, sightings, etc.)
 Here is an example of a site
dedicated to everything Taylor Swift:
http://www.taylorswiftweb.net/
 Here is an example of a site that features
a gallery of thousands of pictures of Taylor,
organized by type and year, created and
supported by fans: http://www.taylorpictures.net

10.  There are also sites specifically centred on fan art creation for Taylor, in the form of pictures,
videos, wallpapers, and drawings.
 Fans are able to share custom-made covers, tribute videos, and manipulated images featuring
Taylor amongst themselves.
 A number of these sites exist, dedicated to lyrics, picture galleries, concert discussions,
personalized merchandise, video and picture montages, etc.
 All of these fan sites are created and maintained by fans, simply out of love, dedication, and
(in some cases) obsession.
 An example of one of these sites is a Fanpop club dedicated to Taylor Swift, where fans can
upload any content about Taylor that they want (whether it be real photos or videos of Taylor, or
manipulated ones designed by the fans): http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/taylor-swift
 The site above has many ways for the fan community to connect, as there are forums, quizzes,
articles, links, polls and a wall for posting, all written by fans for other fans.

11.  In addition to the previously
mentioned fan-run sites, there is
also a network of fans that
participate in the rare trading of
Taylor Swift songs, and there are
community sites to support this.
 Taylor has over one hundred
unreleased songs (some demos,
some studio versions) that can
only be obtained through
trading and sharing.
 A couple examples of some
of these sites:
http://safetaylorswifttrading.
weebly.com/index.html
and
http://whoivealwaysbeen.pt.to/

12. To obtain this
massive social
media following,
did Taylor follow
Debra Eckerling’s
five social media
tips for musicians?

13.  One of the reasons Taylor’s career has been so
successful is because she knows exactly who her
audience is (unlike a number of artists her age).
 Due to her age, her main subject matter, and the
fact that she writes all her songs from personal
experiences, Taylor’s audience is mostly female
preteens, teenagers and young adults who can
relate to her songs and lyrics.
 Throughout her career, Taylor has always
remained wholesome, level-headed and
tasteful in a way that allows her to grow with
her fans (instead of trying to outgrow them),
while also obtaining new younger fans all the time.
 Unlike many younger artists looking to experiment
and rebel, Taylor isn’t trying to expand her range in
such a way that pushes the boundaries and ends up
pushing fans away.

14.  Taylor has found her audience, and
they are always on her mind when she
is writing music.
 She knows what her fans will like
because she is going through similar
situations as them, and she chooses to
write about love because it is so
universal that anyone can relate to it.
 Because
Taylor writes her own songs,
she has a lot more personal control over
what she wants to present to her fans
and how she wants to be portrayed.
 She
has a direct hand in the creative
process, and her personal stories allow
fans to feel closer to her.

15.  Taylor loves to interact with her
audience, and always makes sure to
thank them in award show speeches.
 In return, Taylor’s audience is
passionately dedicated to supporting
her constantly and endlessly, leading
to record-breaking album sales and
awards for Taylor.
 Whether you are a fan of
Taylor or not, there’s no
denying that she has found
a formula that works.

16.  Taylor seems to use her online social media
accounts for both business and personal use,
in a way that fits together easily.
 She uses her main accounts (Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube and Instagram) to share
important updates, new songs/videos, tour
schedules, concert and award “thank-yous”,
and calls to fans to vote.
 Everything is also added to her official
website, where users can sign up for emails
containing these updates.
 She does a fairly consistent job of
distributing these posts out on the different
new media sites, with all of her networks tied
closely together.

17.  In amongst these more “business-y” or
“marketing” posts there are personal posts to
let the fan see a glimpse inside Taylor’s life.
 This includes pictures of Taylor’s cat, the
cookies she just baked, the beautiful beach in
Australia where she is currently on tour, her
hanging out with her friends, relaxing at
home, getting ready for an award show, or
other everyday activities for Taylor.
 She is giving her fans the opportunity to
feel more connected to her and her life, as a
way to thank them for giving her the life she
has.
 All of these posts seem natural and honest,
and Taylor enjoys talking to her fans instead
of just treating social media as part of the job.

18.  Taylor tends to engage with her fans on a
daily basis, whether it’s tweeting them some
news, asking them to vote for the Country
Music Awards, thanking them in an award
speech, sending them a cute home video, or
performing for them live on tour.
 She likes to Instagram a lot, engaging her
fans to let them feel included in her
adventures as if they were there.
 Taylor also has appearances on talk shows
for fans to see, and more recently has been
conducting social media countdowns when
big news is coming, teasing about big
releases a few days before they happen.
 In response to this, many fans create
trending hash tags and speculate with other
fans about what the news will be.

19.  At all of her concerts, Taylor
takes a panoramic picture of the
crowd, appreciatively spends a
few minutes standing on stage
soaking in the applause, and
tweets about the crowd
afterwards.
 Her website also includes the
“Taylor Connect” section, which
features fan forums and user
blogs to allow fans to interact
with each other.
 A lot of Taylor’s social media
strategy involves interacting
with fans as a whole and
engaging them to then react with
each other.

20.  While Taylor grew up with social media,
she is also conscious not to let it take over
her life and does not spend as much time on
it as other artists.
 While Taylor is vey good for letting the
fans know what is going on in her life, she
does not usually retweet or answer questions
from fans (unlike other bands/musicians I
have seen on Twitter).
 She tends not to engage with individual
fans as much, although she will try to
respond to a lot of fans on important days
(like album release days).
 However, she does include fans in some of
her music videos and her videos blogs
(like this one) and she does tweet or
Instagram pictures of them
(for an example, click here).

21.  Due to the successfulness of
Taylor’s music and the stage of her
career, Taylor does not do as much
“social pushing” as other artists.
 When Taylor was first starting her
career she did a lot of autograph
signings, appearances, and
advertising herself, which effectively
got her to where she is today.
 Nowadays, it seems that Taylor
doesn’t have the time or really the
need to do this anymore.
 She doesn’t need to do a lot of
outside advertising because of the
size of her fan base, which naturally
advertise for her.

22.  Taylor connects her social media to
the venues that she is playing, or the
award ceremony that she is attending,
by tweeting live from location.
 She tends not to retweet fans, but
she will retweet other celebrity or
artists that are there as well.
 She also connects locations that she
is visiting to her online accounts by
posting pictures of scenery or
landmarks.

23.  Taylor is very consistent in her use of
social media, posting/tweeting at least
every few days, sometimes multiple
times a day.
 All of her sites are kept up-to-date
with current information and modern
layouts.
 She also has a consistent voice and
style, so fans know what to expect from
her and nothing she posts sounds
forced or like a marketing tactic.

24.  Taylor has said that she is the only
one who knows her password to these
sites, so her online presence is
completely hers and true to who she is.
 She has also been quoted
saying that she doesn’t want
social media taking over her life
and she knows when to put the
technology down, so she tries to
balance the amount of time spent
online and offline.
 Taylor truly cares about her fans, and
because of that love she tries to interact
with them as much as she can.