Throughout our research and discussions with others familiar with the music industry, we uncovered that the way marketing is occurring today is undoubtedly different than it was two years ago before the pandemic. There are more platforms at play, like TikTok, Twitch, and Discord, and a higher demand for frequent content from artists.

Marketing strategies vary based on how new to the industry an artist is more so than before on certain platforms like TikTok, their dominant genre, and the level of engaged fans they currently have. For example, we interviewed Sam Theiste who works in digital marketing at Columbia Records and he said he has seen data that shows pop artists specifically do well on Instagram. (Thieste et al. 2022) 

One new method we have noticed artists using lately is what we will refer to as hidden marketing. For example, Harry Styles just recently created accounts on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter all titled “youarehome.” Throughout his whole most recent tour, Harry had been dropping the word home and making references to it using things like the Wizard of Oz’s “click your heels twice to go home.” The day after he created the “youarehome” Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok accounts and followed them, he dropped his next album. The “youarehome” Instagram account already has 938 thousand followers aside from Harry’s personal Instagram account which has 44.1 million followers. The Twitter account has 663.4 thousand followers and also has a link to a Discord account dedicated to the album attached to the account (Styles 2022).

This multichannel strategy created buzz while he was touring his current album, generating sales, and getting fans talking and excited for his next album at the same time, which was largely possible because of how engaged his fan base is (Fan To Band 2022). This is an example of album release marketing that was planned even before an entire tour, and was extremely successful. For example, the first single that Harry released from the album “As It Was,” broke Spotify’s single day streaming record reaching 8.3 million streams in one day, reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 where it currently sits at #2, and remains at #1 on Billboard’s Global 200 (Billboard 2022) (Iasimone 2022).

This is not as easily done for all artists depending on their resources and where they are at in their careers, but other artists have been engaging their fans in creative ways but simple ways to expose some sort of new music. For example, Charlie XCX released a blurred and cracked version of her tracklist for her most recent album before it was announced and let fans know that as they presaved her album portions of the tracklist would be uncovered. This was a great way to help her chances of charting and getting pre-saves, while simultaneously exciting fans and engaging with them.