Tidal - the Need for a Better Music Service

Brand Selection: Tidal

Tidal is a music streaming service co-owned by many artists including Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Calvin Harris, Chris Martin, Shawn “JAY Z” Carter (and many others) and Sprint owns 33% of the company as well. The idea of having artists own this platform is to “restore the value proposition to music” by paying featured artists the highest royalties of all music streaming services. Tidal has 48.5 million tracks and 175,000 music videos. Furthermore, some of the artists that are contracted with Tidal release albums and singles exclusively on Tidal to entice more people to subscribe. They provide a standard subscription fee of $9.99 per month as well as a premium subscription of $19.99 per month. Compared to its competition, Tidal’s membership is slightly more expensive; Spotify premium is $9.99 per month and Pandora is $3.99 per month.

Assignment #2

Advertising Strategy

There are numerous benefits that any business can make use of by using social media. Social media provides a fantastic way for business to engage and talk to their customers and learn what is and isn’t working.  Using the same tools of talking to their customers online by social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, businesses are also reaching new potential customers that they would not have had exposure to otherwise.

Social media has a perception of being the new way to communicate with potential and current customers. This is great for older businesses who seem out of touch where social media can help them seem relevant and it is also good for newer companies who want to capitalize on the fast paced social media environment and this will allow them to keep their brand relevant and important in the everchanging online landscape.

Following his own advice from “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, Gary Vaynerchuk gives a lot on his social media accounts in between opportunities to ask for something.  Vaynerchuk currently has over 1.6 million followers on both Twitter and LinkedIn.  He posts pictures and videos of himself building people up and inspiring his followers with his advice on social media, business, and life in general as well as posting music and art he likes in addition to posting updates and links for the sale of his new book. And that’s over a 4 hour period.  He also contributes lots of articles on LinkedIn covering a wide variety of topics from Twitter to wine tasting and has a YouTube channel with over a million subscribers as well where he posts videos meant to teach and inspire others to go after what they want in life.  He has daily shows on both YouTube and Facebook where he goes into detail about his business and strategies to succeed in content marketing and in life and answers questions from viewers and followers. He also shares fan videos about himself and regularly posts “Thank You”s he receives from supporters.

            In Gary Vaynerchuk’s article, 5 Best Tips For Salespeople, he reiterates many of his points which he stresses all over his social media content.  Vaynerchuk often speaks about the idea of reverse engineering any goal which you have in mind in order to create the best path towards attaining it.  Once the goal is established, with a specific timeframe to work within, one can begin to implement the optimal plan and choose the most effective tools to be successful.  Some of the most crucial concepts to understand include that we, as salespeople, do not dictate The Market.  We have to understand the market, the trends, and where the consumers are and meet them there with quality content that they want to see, like, share, and invest in.  The world is changing and adaptation is necessarily required from businesses and marketers to become and stay relevant in the current market.

However, Vaynerchuk points out one key area where change is not necessary, and in fact, is harmful.  Possibly more than ever, business is about relationships.  People want to connect with people, with businesses, and with brands.  They want to know what you stand for and trust your company as they do a friend.  To this point, technology can be your enemy.  In order to succeed as a brand, your brand needs to be personal and attentive.  Easy, automated responses can kill a brand’s reputation.  Social brands need to have the right amount of human touch from their salespeople and representatives to foster resonance with their fans and strengthen loyalty and advocacy for their brand.

Mari Smith calls herself a ‘Top Facebook Marketing Expert’. She strives to consistently deliver valuable, actionable and relevant content that helps her audience of brands, business owners, executives, entrepreneurs and working professionals achieve their personal and professional goals. Smith’s most important advice to her audience is to treat their followers as real friends, not as followers. She has 538k followers on Twitter, 550k followers on Facebook and 500+ connections and 33k followers on LinkedIn.

Mari’s Twitter feed provides followers with valuable content and information about the best and most organic ways to grow followers and to reach their desirable customer base. However, most of the content and articles provided via Twitter do not seem to be original, instead they are links from credible publications such as Forbes magazine.

Mari’s Facebook content, on the other hand, seems to be more innovative. In one of her posts (posted January 23) she asks if Facebook’s recent changes to their newsfeed will cause the ‘death’ of publishing and if as a result, organic reach will go to zero? Her answer is no. She says that the best way to continue publishing is by creating a conversation, which will create engagement by followers and readers. In her words, comments are king. The way to know if the content you post resonates with the audience is if the audience engages, if people read what you write and then comment on it. Additionally, Smith says that including live video content is the best way to reach organic engagement. In the end of the posts, she asks readers for their thoughts which is a great strategy to really engage followers and practice what she preaches by asking her readers to start a conversation and to comment on her content.

Jeff Bullas gives quite a plethora of information with his social media activity. He gives tips, tricks, and advice on digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing; such as “5 Tools to Increase Your Traffic Fast Using Pinterest”. He has 564K followers on twitter, 328K Tweets, and 2.9K likes. All of his tweets include a captivating picture to grab your attention and several popular and relative hashtags, and he doesn’t just use hashtags at the end of the tweet he also integrates them into the tweet. The only right hook he really throws on twitter is actually a jab. He periodically plugs his book 101 + Tips and Tactics to Grow Your Web Traffic; while he is plugging the book, it’s a free book.  He gets retweeted on a consistent basis with about 20 minutes between retweets.  He has 28K followers on LinkedIn where he also employs captivating pictures to introduce you to the story. His content on LinkedIn is consistent and in sync with his content on Twitter, his website, and his blog. His Facebook page has 99K likes and follows.