Marketers, bring your pen and paper out — we will take note of marketing tips from Taylor Swift! 

I know you’ll ask me, “Why Taylor Swift?” She is a singer, not a digital marketer. 

But what if I tell you that behind her music success, Taylor Swift is also a marketing genius?

Being the highest-paid woman in the music industry, Taylor Swift dominates her name in the industry. Almost all of us know her. And even if you’re not a fan, you can’t deny that there’s a phase of your life where you encounter her songs. Her music will often play in your Spotify suggestion, at the malls, or even a karaoke pick of your loved ones when there’s an event. She had a massive impact that paved the way to become a global sensation.

But observing her career, she won’t be in her position right now if she just relies on her talents alone. Being successful in mass media needs marketing strategies to set you apart. It increases your chance for more visibility, the right brand positioning, and building community engagement.  And so far, we see how Taylor Swift masters that. 

She is not a total stranger to marketing. She is aware of the recipe for a great marketing plan. And some marketers called her one of the greatest digital marketers of our generation.  

In this blog, I’ll give you 4 marketing tactics that Taylor Swift masters to elevate her music career. From how to come up with a personal branding strategy, storytelling guide, the importance of content repurposing, and community engagement — you’ll have an idea of how to strategize your personal brand and the brands that you’re handling.

1. Strong and Consistent Personal Branding Strategy

From her early career, Taylor Swift has been consistent in her personal branding. Please take note that reputation and personal branding are different from each other. Reputation is the collective impact others hold when they see you. So, your reputation can be positive, negative, or neutral depending on how people observe your behavior or interactions. It is something that is challenging to control. 

On the other hand, personal branding lies in how you want to portray yourself to others. It is building a set of images of yourself, which makes you stand out from your competitors. To do that, you need to come up with an effective personal branding strategy. When you have good personal branding, it will result in a positive reputation. 

It is crucial for your personal branding to be rooted in your core values. It should be aligned with your principles, personal, and professional goals. It is because personal branding should be connected with your authentic self. It will be hard for you to consistently work with your brand if you know you don’t agree with it.  It’s hard to resonate with your audience if you don’t find your brand message meaningful to you.

Take a look at Taylor Swift. Her personal branding is true to herself. It is evident in her songs, interviews, movies, and principles. Her crafts speak the narrative of her life experiences, her victory and vulnerability, and her standing up for her values. That genuine honesty led her to resonate with her fans and gain respect in the music industry. And even though she evolved progressively every time she released her new albums, we can still see that her personal brand is still with her. 

Aside from that, if your personal branding is rooted in your authentic self, it is easy for you to address any disputes that are thrown at you. A good example of it is when people see Taylor’s ex-partners as a way to write her new album. That controversy is still noticeable up to this year, but how does Taylor Swift handle that? She embraces it and uses it to her advantage. She didn’t deny that her past relationships became motivation in writing some of her works. Another one is when people called her a snake when they had a feud with Kanye West.  She used the snake as a symbol to marketize her Reputation album.  Doing these ways, she transforms the controversy to her benefit and profit.

You see strong and consistent personal branding will lead you to marketing success. You just need to make sure that it aligns with your goals and values. Do intentional self-reflection and strategize on how you can work with it in creating your brand image and voice.

2. Storytelling

Storytelling played a significant role in Taylor Swift in her music success. We can’t argue that she is a great storyteller. Compared to other musicians who aim to improve their melodies or phrases that will give their fans an LSS, Taylor focuses on how she can transform her stories into music. That’s why, when you listen to her songs, most of them feel like you are listening to her autobiographies. 

But what is good about it is she can make her autobiographies a universal experience that can resonate with her listeners. Even though her songs talk about her own experience, listening to them reminds you of your own heartbreaks, friendships, insecurities, revenge, etc. When Taylor Swift released the 10-Minute Version of ‘All to Well’, which is Taylor’s story with Jake Gyllenhaal, most of us felt that we came from a devastated heartbreak. That’s how powerful storytelling is. Stories can make you feel something on a personal level and provoke your emotions. And this is what I feel like most brands are lacking. They forget that their audience is not a robot that will simply read their content. The audience has an emotion that you need to trigger to engage with your brand. And if you create content that doesn’t even make them feel like they’re talking to someone, then it will be scrolled down immediately.  

I do believe that all of us are storytellers. We all have our own stories to share. We have different experiences, lessons, and mistakes that we can tell to others. We just don’t know how to use it properly in a marketing scenario.  Look at famous brands out there — Louis Vuitton, Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola, they are not just brands that sell things. They give you a story. Those stories provoke emotions in their customers and build a brand’s loyalty. A reminder that these are simply brands that are composed of collective people. How much more if it’s a personal brand like Taylor Swift that has one narrative? It can be easy for you to come up with a personal story.  

3. Importance of Content Repurposing

Many people overlook the importance of content repurposing. Some may see it as a lazy approach to content creation. But I tell you that content repurposing is a valuable strategy. It also does not have a lesser value to your old content. It’s the opposite. As you repurpose your content, you can polish your past mistakes and add more valuable things. You can also maximize your content value and leverage it on different platforms. 

Taylor Swift is a master in content repurposing. When she had problems getting her old music back from her previous record label with Kanye West, she recorded her first five albums again. But she doesn’t just copy it; she adds fresh twists like adding new lyrics or releasing a new MV to make it more exciting. The result? Most people are looking forward to every time she releases her re-recorded albums. More people prefer to listen to her songs that have ‘Taylor’s Version’ in the title.  Then, last October, Taylor released her “THE ERAS TOUR” Movie. It is a compilation of her experiences in her sold-out concerts in different countries. It earned $123.5 million at the global box office in just its three-day debut. Imagine, by content repurposing, Taylor Swift increased her profit by lowering the content production costs. 

So, don’t underestimate the importance of content repurposing. It can help you have a wider range of visibility, a sustainable marketing strategy, and increased revenue. And aside from profit, the more you redistribute your content, the more your brand message becomes clear to your audience. 

4. Relationship with her Fans/Audience

Taylor Swift has the biggest fanbase in the whole world right now. There is no doubt about that because it’s hard to secure a ticket to her concerts, her merchandise is sold out every time, and her social media platforms gained massive followers. She has strong and unwavering support from her brand community that we call “Swifties”. But that community will shatter easily if it doesn’t have a mutual bond with the artists. Despite her fame, it is noticeable that Taylor Swift has a good relationship with her fans. In her recent tour in Philadelphia, she defended her fans from her security while she sang Bad Blood. She also communicates and engages with them on her social media and always appreciates the support and gifts from her community. 

But the best interaction Taylor Swift had with her fans was when she put clues or subtle hints to her music videos to puzzle her fans on what her next album would be. It creates an interactive game with her community that solidifies their genuine connections and loyalty. In addition, Taylor makes sure that her songs will still be relatable to her listeners. She doesn’t forget to include the preferences of her brand community in creating her music. 

Just like Taylor Swift, you need to make sure that you cherish your brand community.  Remember that your brand community can be your best marketer.  If they feel valued, heard, and part of a collective goal, they are more likely to become your brand advocates, driving loyalty and revenue growth.

Why is Taylor Swift a Marketing Genius?

Now that you know the marketing tips from Taylor Swift, you can also relate to why I call her a marketing genius. Her strategic and innovative approach to building her personal brand, incorporating storytelling and content repurposing, and genuinely engaging with her brand community, makes her successful today.