The ABCs with The Sarah Keith
Hi Friends!
I’m a 4th-year student about to graduate from RU’s School of Creative Industries with a specialization in the music business and communication studies. I’m also a singer/songwriter, which is the reason for my course of study. My genre style is versatile. I have the ability to jump from Rock to Country to Pop to R&B. I’m from the Dominican Republic, and that is prominently seen throughout my various feeds. For those that don’t know me, now you do! Pleased to meet ya.
I took this field of study strategically in order to get the tools I need to succeed both on the business side of music but also on the artist side of the industry, too. Over the past 4 years, I’ve taken general marketing, new media marketing, talent management, business, event planning, and now I’m on to the key course that acts as my channel to the world — #RTA902: Social Media.
This class has opened my eyes to the good, the bad, and the dark side of social media, which has allowed me to “turn that darkness into light” (yes, that is a John Legend lyric) and use my social media powers for good; to post with a purpose and inspire others (and hopefully get y’all to listen, like, and share my music in the long-run).
My Brand
Last summer, I launched my website, www.thesarahkeith.com. There were a few things that came from choosing the name of my website:
- sarahkeith.com was not available
- thesarahkeith.com was
- I took advantage of that limitation by branding myself as “The Sarah Keith”
- Since there are MANY Sarah Keith’s in the world, adding “The” to my name gives a sense of “the one and only” Sarah Keith
- I know what you’re thinking — that sounds conceited, but hey, as an artist you gotta stand out — and that starts with your brand.
Any who… after deciding on the website’s name, it guided me to rethink my entire social media strategy as an artist. I began thinking of the importance of consistency and went ahead and changed all my social media handles to @thesarahkeith. Luckily, the handle was available for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I couldn’t quite change YouTube just yet, as I need a number of subscribers to do so.
What I was aiming for
Like Bailey Parnell explained in class during Week 9, social media can and should be used to model good behaviour. As you go back in my feed, you see that it’s not all a highlight reel. Some posts do express some of my down sides but they always end in motivation to not only keep myself positive, but also to hopefully be relatable to others in a similar situation. I try to share my story — the ups, the downs, and getting past the obstacles. I don’t want my feed to just be a highlight reel. I’d like to be that support system that reminds my community that everyone has their off days, and that’s completely okay.
This purpose translates to the music I make. Obviously, you guys have probably not heard a lot of stuff because I haven’t yet released any originals (and also because you probably don’t know me that well yet). I’ve got a few casual cover songs up from some open-mic nights I’ve done, though my originals are currently in production to be released this summer. I’m not saying I’m a role model, but rather, my music speaks to who I am as a person. Through storytelling, I write about my experiences I’ve lived through — both good and bad — and what has come out of each.
Room for (lots of) improvement
Now that that you know who I am and what I’m all about…
How do I take my purpose as an artist and effectively get it out in the world that allows people to get the gist of my brand just based on its visual appeal?
How do I translate my storytelling into a content strategy that will build a community and encourage engagement?
A panelist in Week 5’s Community Engagement discussion said, “How you manage your personal brand is a huge indicator of how you manage a professional brand”. I need to focus on some major brand development to really express my value proposition as an artist-entrepreneur.
So, without further a due, here’s my step-by-step critique of myself (since we all know the reader looooooves when numbers are used to keep their attention).
1. Define my value proposition
With all that was outlined above, it would be smart for me to take the time and outline the pains in the music market and what I can offer as gains. I currently do not have a value proposition crafted. I have a purpose and a vision for what I would like to see happen, but still in need of that concrete message that is innovative and attractive to people.
This value proposition, if clearly stated, provides benefits for the fans/followers that they would not otherwise find elsewhere. To be an influencer, my story needs to have value for the community written out concisely in 8 words or less. Therefore, I need to find that unique quality, competitive advantage, and gap in the market to create a compelling value proposition that will then guide the rest of my social media strategy.
2. Improve visual consistency
On my artist Facebook page, both my profile and cover photos are outdated and they simply do not align with the cover photos on my other platforms. If I want my pages to be memorable, they should have a consistency in terms of its colour scheme, photos used, and content posted. Remembering Facebook is all about the people, I need to keep telling my story by regularly updating profile and cover pictures and pairing those visuals with new content.
I currently do not have an identifiable colour palette featured on any of my feeds. Each are just very colourful and absolutely random. However, my logo does have mauves, blacks and whites as the three colours that make up the image, which could be a starting point.
This leads us to step three:
3. Establish an aesthetic — The SK filter
In week 7, we got the best advice from the Instagram experts. They said to create your own filter by having pre-sets ready for each photo that includes a specific colour palette and mood that mimics your brand. I wrote a post that talked about which of my photos got the most likes just based on what was inside the frame but to go further, I should consider using the iconosquare tool to see how many likes a particular filter gets and use that moving forward.
Thank goodness I kept every single tutorial from that Photoshop 101 class back in 2nd year so that I can reacquaint myself with the savvy use of photo effects, filters, and different editing skills that would help me channel The Sarah Keith brand. One tool I will need to implement is the use of UNUM.LA, the very user-friendly application that helps determine an art style for your Instagram. Hamza Khan — thank you for giving us these much needed tips and tricks.
The strategy would be to launch my official colour palette when I am prepared to start marketing myself as an artist. This will most likely occur shortly after the semester ends. That way, people can see life before and after my platforms went from ‘personal’ to ‘professional’. I don’t plan on deleting all my previous posts just because they may not fit with the new branding. Everything in my past needs to stay, as that is part of my story moving forward. Why delete your memories?
Therefore in the short-term, one pre-set filter will be used while the brand develops and my community grows. In the long-term, I’ll change up the aesthetic based on the artwork of a particular album cycle or important release I’d be associated with. It keeps things looking clean and organized.
4. Get that content flowing
Over the semester, we were introduced to the wonderful world of scheduling in advance thanks to Hootsuite. We’re now certified — Yay! Through that, I need to start focusing on seeing the birds-eye view of all the platforms and strategizing what things get posted, when they get posted, and on what platforms to make the biggest impact on my community.
Planned Content
A. First thing’s first: outline the pillars of priorities my brand would like to convey that would create a consistent message with every post (this is TBD once the value proposition is created — stay tuned!)
B. Get all my tools lined up on the dashboard and plan certain content ahead of time in an organized manner (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.).
C. As spontaneous happenings arise, I can then be flexible with how I structure certain posts to tie that current event back to my brand pillars.
Sarah’s ABC’s: Art, Business & Communication
As of this moment, my website and artist Facebook page are slightly dormant, as nothing has really been going on for me musically. As my own critic here, I slap myself on the wrist for not having at least some sort of activity going on. I do post on my Instagram now and then about music I’m working on or of future plans, but that’s about it. Everything else is about my life in general.
When I graduate, I’ll have more time to work on my art — my craft, my music. This includes a plan to release one video per week of myself either performing a cover or an original song on my YouTube channel. From there, the video size would be adjusted for platform used and always having the video’s “link in bio” to connect back to my website for further viewing. I will also be utilizing my Soundcloud to be the source of all MP3s, as I have a plugin of it on my website. Currently there’s only one cover posted from over 4 years ago.
Another tier to the brand is the business side of my artistry. Thesarahkeith.com features a “Projects” page to feature music-related projects I worked on the past 4 years either for school or just passion projects that were done on the side. I studied the industry and all its elements for four years and came out with some pretty cool portfolio pieces I’d like to share with the world. Once May 1st 2017 rolls around, I’ll be organizing and posting those (cool) research essays and projects I was proud of doing as a student that could be an interesting read for the intellectual page viewer and music enthusiast.
I also started a page called “Let’s Review”, which is a music blog that reviews concerts I’ve been to. I currently have about 5 posts up, but there are many that have not been posted due to my writing priorities shifting from summer’16 fun to Fall’16 & Winter’17 assignments. As part of my brand includes a communication element, I need to get back on top of my music blog. Furthermore, as my music becomes available, I’d like to use that same blog to talk about the stories behind my lyrics.
5. Grow my following — expand the community
Through the Hootsuite Dashboard, I’m able to see the metrics in one place (views, followers, growth, click-through rates, etc.) to further adjust my strategy on how I go about posting content. Our fantastic instructor, himself, stressed the importance of building your community. Right now, here are the sad facts:
So, since Instagram is all about perspective, I already post what life looks like to me but it needs to become more music focused. As my own critic, I suggest that I be more active in the Toronto music community and share those experiences, especially through Twitter. I need to follow those in the community and engage with them by liking, retweeting, and commenting on their posts. Hopefully they do the same! I’ve made some great friends in the community that have an established following.
Another growth opportunity would be to connect with those influencers and work together on projects to hopefully expand both our networks.
I scratch your back, you scratch mine — right?
6. Monitor, Adjust, Improve
Finally, as an artist running her own brand like a business, I need to track the activity and use it to grow. Taking the vanity and actionable metrics learned in class, I will be able to see who that demographic is that follows me and further tailor posts towards them. To do this I need to bring in the wonderful world of analytics to focus in on the engagement belt of the ROI Solar System to continue to build that audience while coming up with “an ask” of them too. Hootsuite analytics and Google Analytics will be a huge help moving forward.
I don’t think I want to stoop to buying followers just yet. Over time I would like to just see my following grow organically and hopefully blossom knowing my content resonates with people. Overall, my goals are to first get my ducks in a row in terms of establishing a value proposition, creating a content strategy using Hootsuite, achieving consistency across all platforms, and getting quality content lined up to share with the world.
So, if you’d like to, please follow my brand transition to becoming more sleek, professional, and memorable. I promise I’ll follow you back :)
@thesarahkeith //// Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Youtube, LinkedIn
