Audience Research

 

16-25 Year Olds:

Digital era and social media:

Social media and technology makes up a large component of this age range's life. Growing up this generation was fully influenced by the new tech innovations: they experienced change from VHS tapes to streaming services such as Netflix. Because of this, they have appreciation for both old and new technology. Older items offer nostalgia and depth that newer items do not. For example, it is now in 'trend' to own headphones and vinyls even though latest developments include Spotify streaming for free music and noise cancelling wireless earphones. This can be incorporated into my music video by:

- recording some elements with an older 90s camcorder so the image quality has a 'vintage' tinge to it

- featuring diegetic sound coming from record player but also headphones/earphones

- mobile phone notifications
The users of these 3 main social media channels are 30-40% 16-25 years old. This would make sense as the rise of social media was experienced first hand by 16-25 year olds. Instagram was created in 2010, Snapchat a year later and then 2018 was the arrival of Tik Tok. Over the decade these apps have grown and developed heavily, allowing influencers to rise in popularity and creating new ways of marketing to younger demographics. 

However, this makes them largely suceptable to the negative sides of social media: depression, addiction and sucicide. Due to this, 16-25 year olds will have a keen interest in protection of mental health and will be aware of actions and charities combatting mental illnesses.

These adverts directly addresses 16 and 17 year olds. The theory app advert has nearly 200,000 views and the prom post has had many interactions with it, including 1000 likes. Similarly music Artists can reach the target audience by growing a fan base on tik tok and instagram.

This artist 'Raye' grew her fame on Tik Tok and reached 22 on the charts. She still uses Tik Tok to advertise releases and tours. 

Tik Tok can be used to build artist persona. Raye here is presneted as a relatable average person. This isnt a 'star' persona, it creates more of a down to earth identity that fans can identify and interact with. This can be seen by the fact these two videos combined have over 12 thousand shares and over 4,000 comments.

This can be applied to this brief as it shows many young people engage with music and pop culture. This highlights the key importance in digital convergence and hypertextuality: 16-25 year olds WANT to interact. Websites promoting artists should contain links and interactive things that fulfill the users gratification (as suggested by Blumer and Katz), and enable audiences to be able to share the media they consume (website and music video)