Ben's Blog: Post 9: My Website and Social Media Pages

Khalid's main page

I researched multiple artists' websites for macro research and analysed Khalid's website for micro research. This was in order to find the conventions of the medium and research into why they were there and how they keep the audience engaged. Through this research, the convention of immediately showcasing any new music on the front page surfaced, which immediately informs the audience of it, which promotes extra sales and streams. This was seen on Katy Perry's website, Ed Sheeran's website and all of my other researched ones. On Khalid's website, his newest single, 'Talk', has the music video playing in the background, with a watch now link attached to it. The music video is muted, and this is because members of Khalid's target audience find it annoying when audio auto-plays when on a website, which may cause them to immediately click off. I used this idea in my initial flat plan, which included a muted performance bed on the front page, with a link to watch the full video. This clickbait on the website accommodates for audience interaction, keeping them engaged and using the website to look for more content.

Khalid's social links

Social media integration also plays a key role in the artist's website. All of my researched websites included links to the artists' subsequent social media pages, including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Khalid's website features a section noted 'FOLLOW', which presents all of his social media links, being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music and also features an email list sign up. This allows the user to interact with the website, and feel closer to the artist, while also accommodating fans to keep up to date on Khalid's news. My initial idea flat plan included an email sign up and social media links, which connects to Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 theories, where Web 2.0 websites should include clickable links to access additional content, for example, social networking sites. This increases the synergy of my website, which allows users to jump between platforms allowing them to view the content they want to see. This increases the use of the website and social media pages due to the audience being engaged. For my target audience of 16-25-year-olds, social media takes up a large part of their lives, directly appealing and gratifying them with entertainment.

While researching Ed Sheeran's website, I found his news section, which contains content related to Ed Sheeran's current affairs, for example, a new remix for 'Take Me Back To London', featuring 4 more artists. Users can click on these links to find more information about the topic, adding clickability to the website and rewarding them for using it. I chose to include a similar idea for my website and planned out several pieces of extra content to be put on this page.

Ed Sheeran news story expanded

Hot Ones script

Hot Ones research

One of these pieces of extra content planned was an intertextual reference to the extremely popular YouTube series 'Hot Ones'. This show features interviews with famous celebrities, e.g. Gordon Ramsey, Billie Eilish, while they eat progressively spicier hot wings. Episodes regularly get 10 million-plus views, with the most popular episode achieving 45 million views. This show features a crossover target audience with mine, which is why I chose to parody it. Artists with currently running tours have their tour dates featured on their websites, allowing fans to easily book tickets, increasing sales. I chose for my tour section on my website to have a large prominence in order to attract the user and persuade them to purchase tickets through obvious links.

Khalid's tour section

Merchandise plays a large role in the artist's website. Khalid's website features a snippet of available merchandise on the front page, with a button to view the entire store placed next to this. This gives the user an important insight into the style of merchandise products available, enticing them to view the full range of products to make a purchase. I chose to incorporate a similar technique on my website flat plan, with 3 products being shown, and then a link to see the rest. This increases the clickability of the webpage, which helps to keep the audience engaged. Competitions allow for users to have a chance to win a prize, which entices them to enter which

Khalid's news snippet

rewards them for using the website. This extra interactability further helps to keep the user engaged, which is why I incorporated a competition into my flat plan. It would feature a quiz style, with users scoring high enough being entered into winning a piece of merchandise of their choice. To further reward users for visiting my website I created a behind the scenes video which was exclusive. This engages the audience and promotes the use of the website to others who want to access more content on Venture. I also researched the social media pages of multiple artists, giving me an insight into
creating an artist identity. For Instagram, Khalid chooses to promote his music, however mainly

Low production quality photo by Khalid

chooses to promote himself as an artist, done through posts deemed relatable by his audience. I chose to use similar techniques, by posting behind the scenes content on my Instagram so the audience can see the process that goes into making content, instead of just the final product. Twitter is also used by artists to interact with their audience, therefore I created a Twitter and posted social meet up information along with further promotion of my music in order to increase sales. All of my social media included links between each other in order to create synergy and convergence, allowing for ease of use from the user.