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- All Subjects: Social Media
- Creators: Department of Psychology
- Creators: Department of Finance
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Status: Published
Since the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, Black people have struggled for individual freedoms and equality in the United States. The notion that this long-lasting fight for equal rights ended after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s is a fallacy. The battle for equality is by no means finished but an ongoing struggle for a large percentage of our American population. In its broadest sense, Black Lives Matter is a grassroots social movement of activists called to action in the face of repeated instances of Black men and women being murdered in notoriously controversial and unjust circumstances. With the conception of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, a significant contingent of society has pushed to bring forward the voices of underrepresented and unequally treated members of our communities (Lee, 2020). <br/>When formulating a research study, I wanted to combat some common misconceptions about online activism. Living in an online media-dominated age, with the backdrop of a global pandemic and an increasingly polarized political climate, my overarching goal was to observe how social media has contributed to this modern-day civil rights movement. Indeed, this research was conducted during a period of political and cultural divisiveness not experienced in the United States since perhaps the Civil War. Following the 2020 U.S. election where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected over Donald Trump and Mike Pence, political polarization has reached a boiling point. As the foremost social movement in the United States during the era of social media, it is of utmost importance we gain a better understanding of how ordinary people, connected by a common cause, built Black Lives Matter.
Releasing music 20 years ago looks a lot different than releasing music today, and it is still ever-changing. Artists can make music in their bedrooms and release it independently by simply uploading it online. These artists can use social media to market their music themselves. But with it being so easy for new and small artists to put out a song it begs the question: in this customer era of marketing, how can new and small artists use co-creational marketing strategies, such as themes of nostalgia and hidden messages, to differentiate themselves? This project seeks to answer that question. In this partial creative project and partial research project, I tasked myself with writing and producing a song myself, then using that work to test these different marketing strategies. I distributed a survey where participants would listen to the song and then decide which of two visuals they preferred for a cover, merchandise item, and social media feed. Each set of visuals had one with a nostalgic theme and one that utilized hidden messages. This project discusses the importance of social media in an independent artist’s career and marketing efforts, as well as discusses customer-centric marketing and co-creation marketing strategies through nostalgia and hidden messages. I found success in a nostalgic strategy and interest in hidden messages. This research sets the stage for testing similar strategies by collaborating with other artists and their work in the hopes of creating guidance for independent artists when marketing their releases.