Post 9: My Website and Social Media Pages

I analysed the online, social and participatory presence (website and social media) of a mainstream pop artist and how the constructed their online presence to reach a mass market and get their target audience to engage fully with their brand. This would be able to inspire me with branding, synergy and digital convergence ideas which I could include in my website and social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA: INSTAGRAM

Since the brief states we will be building star persona's from the 'Pop' genre, I decided to look at one of the most popular female singers in the Pop music industry right now, Ariana Grande. Ariana Grande also has the 2nd largest Instagram followings in the world, at a staggering 166 million, therefore, I thought it would be interesting to see how she constructed her Instagram for such a large and loyal following. 

One of the first things I noticed about Ariana Grande's Instagram was the link in her bio which immediately takes you to a website where you can by her new song. When clicking on the link, nine platforms where you can buy or listen to the song are digitally converged onto the page. The fact that this is the first thing the eye is drawn to in her bio, heavily promotes her new song and maximises the potential and reach of who can buy and listen to the song. 

When scrolling down her Instagram, there are several posts promoting her new perfume: 

In the first post, Grande hinted that the fragrance is called "thanku,next" which is the name of the album she released earlier in the year. Here, Grande has linked her album with her fragrance and heightened her brand and commercial appeal for her target audience.  The first post where she revealed she was releasing a fragrance was on the 8th August, there are several posts following this one where she reposts the photo followed with the last post, shown above to tell her fans to buy the product on the 1st September. Here, Grande has waited a month to release her product which creates an exciting build up for her fans and will cause them to check her Instagram for any updates. She has also tagged Ulta Beauty, which is where fans can buy the product. This convergence allows quick access to purchasing the product and shows the synergistic relationship with Ulta Beauty. She has also left her comments open where her fans can tag each other in the exciting build up to the release of the product and feel like their interacting and engaging with Ariana Grande and other fans across the world.

When scrolling down her Instagram, she has posts that make her fans feel more connected with her and her persona life:

  

Grande has posted a primary school photo of herself, her taking a nap with her dog and a photo of her and her mother, holding her fragrance. These photos reveal a more personal aspect of Ariana's life. With the large following Ariana has, it can be hard for fans to feel like they can connect with her since she's so famous. However, in these posts, fans feel like they can connect and get to know Ariana on a more personal level, gaining an insight into her childood life, her pets and her family. This humanises Ariana Grande more and makes fans feel happy that she is providing them with an insight to her personal life, not just her career, giving Ariana Grande a loyal and engaged audience following.

Ariana Grande also has a very distinct aesthetic to her posts which is conveyed throughout her branding: 

When scrolling down Ariana Grande's Instagram, her feed consists of mainly black and white colours and conveys a very classy, 1930s glamour feel. This aesthetically pleasing visual style is further conveyed to her website:

This style works synergistically through the link between her Instagram and heightens her brand and personal style.

WEBSITE: 
Websites are extremely important in promoting artists' brand as they contain everything the fan needs to know, from tour dates to merchandise to latest news.

At the top of Ariana Grande's website, there is a horizontal menu bar which has a social media bar, providing direct links to her Facebook, Instagram, iTunes, Spotify, Twitter and Youtube in the click of a button. This digital convergence allows fans to easily access her other platforms and interact with her brand more, whether this is listening to her music or buying her merchandise.

Her home page has direct links to what's out right now in regards to her work, such as her new song which is immediately linked to YouTube.

                           

When the fan clicks on the YouTube link, they are automatically revealed to more of Ariana Grande's content. Such as more hyperlinks to her social media and the brands she works with. This causes the fan to stay engaged with her content as one link leads to another through digital convergence. This is also the case for her other social media pages that are linked on the website. 

On her website, there is also an option to sign up to her mailing list:

This allows the fans to feel like they are a part of her 'family', keeping updated with Ariana Grande's brand and like they're 'top' fans for receiving updates on what Ariana Grande is doing. Also, in regards to keeping her fan base loyal, Ariana Grande released a song with another artist called 'Monopoly':

Right next to the song title, there is a message saying "a thank u to the fans". This helps maintain the audience loyalty and further make the fans feel like the have been rewarded for staying loyal and being a fan of Ariana Grande's brand.

TWITTER:
Ariana Grande's twitter is similar to her Instagram, linking her new song in her bio and maintaining her black and white theme as much as possible:

On Twitter, we actually see Ariana Grande interacting with her fans:

This contributes to maintaining a loyal fanbase as well as a growing one since more fans will tweet her to try and receive a response

 Her synergistic relationship with Ulta Beauty is further conveyed on her Twitter as she tags the Ulta Beauty Twitter page and the link to their website where you can purchase the product.

INFLUENCE ON MY PROJECT: 

- Through the research of Ariana Grande's social media, I have gained an understanding into how to cleverly digitally converge your platforms so they are easily accessible to an audience.
- I have also seen clever ways of making the fans feel special and more engaged with the artist. This is important in maintaining a loyal and growing audience.
- Although my artist's branding is different to Ariana Grande's, more vibrant and bold, researching her website and social media has taught me the importance of branding which has inspired me to put together a constantly visual colour scheme and aesthetic for my star persona which will help synergise my brand with my website and social media pages.