For our major work our group developed a TikTok account titled ‘Future Aus Music’ that confronted issues in the Australian Music Industry. We focused on topics such as diversity and representation but also covered other problems like radio’s percentage of Australian music, the effects of COVID on the industry and gender representation. As well as this heavier content we strived to create a hub for discussion, promotion and entertainment related to Australian music. As an extension of our project we also created a spotify account that hosted playlists of music we curated.
We created a diverse range of content across our 22 videos ranging from makeup tutorials, interviews with industry insiders, playlist and artist promotions, educational videos explaining issues and trends we followed or created. Each of our videos took a large amount of work to create, from brainstorming, interviewing, filming, editing and posting and responding to interaction.
As a group we all offered varied skills and interests and each of our respective contributions to the account reflect our range. It was extremely interesting to see which videos did better and a challenge to continuously evolve our content to reflect our learnings. By checking our analytics, applying A/B testing and listening to commenter feedback we began to understand our platform better and use this knowledge to achieve more successful results. One of our most challenging tasks was replying to our comment-section. Our comments were often supportive but sometimes disagreed with us, especially concerning racial diversity. We responded politely and informatively while keeping a professional front. Some of the most rewarding moments were when big players in the music industry who also championed diversity commented on our videos. These interactions came from Cub Sport, Tkay Maidza and Kira Puru to name a few.
We consider our project a great success. Our reach extended to an unexpectedly high number of people and many showed their interest in our topic and agreement with our messages. We ended up with approximately 500 followers and one of our playlists achieved over 100 followers. Our passion for the issue grew as we continued our research and we are proud of what the account has become. We have decided to continue @futureAusMusic after this assignment is due.