Marketing Strategies and The Midsummer Music Dream Festival

BY: KAREN AGNEDYS RODRÍGUEZ ROA                                                                     
2022 Global Leaders Program (GLP) Cohort

Introduction 

Working with Midsummer Music Dream Festival (MMD) helped me realize just how important social media platforms are for any business or artist. As a teaching artist, my focus is typically geared towards performance or education, not the management of virtual content. Social media previously only played a role adjacent with my online courses as a student or via my own personal accounts. However, my fieldwork internship reshaped the way I leverage my social media and marketing skills. 

About MMD

MMD is a not-for-profit charitable organization who created a musical community showcasing international musicians and garnering a consistent audience throughout the years. One of their goals includes reaching out to local spectators, such as new sponsors and artists, to attract a broader audience. Through the Global Leaders Program (GLP), I was granted the opportunity to work as an intern during this important step of the MMD life cycle, providing social media management support.                                       

 Activities during the MMD festival (2011 - 2012)

My Experience

The festival's supportive and cooperative advisory board guided me through this transition. We gathered and organized information via frequent meetings, emails,and WhatsApp chats, which was fairly straightforward; nevertheless, building the strategy took more time. I started by researching how bloggers and YouTubers began their businesses. My goal was to develop a social media plan while also creating original content. At the same time, I proposed ideas about activities that could be implemented right away and modified for future implementation. This provided me with a space to mix my limited marketing background with the new information in order to create a plan. In addition, they invited me to perform at the festival in the summer.               

Understanding Social Media                   

During “Module 10” from the GLP, we studied how to create communities organically through social media. 

Topics involved:

  • Evaluating the necessary stakeholder persona.

  • Creating events of various scopes

  • Managing the promotional assets, timeline, and communication channels such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube (all apps utilized by MMD). 

MMD provided us with a social media plan to devise routine content and publications.

Furthermore, I found a great deal of information online about managing social media. After more in-depth research, I noticed an article outlining how Starbucks addresses its social media presence and how they claim to be the most successful online brand. They built a powerful narrative, created massive content, posted frequently, used high quality pictures and videos, and promoted famous artists to draw in their fans as new consumers. You can find more information here: CASE STUDY: How Starbucks leveraged the power of Social Media and 8 Ways Starbucks Creates an Enviable Social Media Strategy.

Additionally, Marina Mogilko is a great YouTuber with a significant and successful company aimed at teaching the English language, dubbed linguatrip.com, and is viral on Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube. She has two YouTube channels that focus on business and marketing strategies in the United States. I evaluated how she worked and noticed she implemented the “Shorts” strategy to reach out to her millions of followers.

Applying New Skills

My role involved the distribution of all MMD images and videos, some with no edits and others as compilations, indicating date and time to be posted. Simultaneously, I boosted the presence of all artists who were participating in this new season by posting their biographies, as I believed the current and new followers needed to know not only about the organization and activities but also about the artists who give life to this festival. Besides, the creation of flyers helped promote individual artists' concerts and the pictures worked perfectly for this activity. I also wanted to integrate the festival artists to support MMD social media by recording videos about their experience and asking the artists to invite people to the concerts; however, they could not initially contribute to this initiative, which delayed the process. 

Posting/Advertising

  • Initially, I posted on Wednesdays and Sundays.

  • One month before the festival, I started posting every day to boost the interaction and gain more followers/interest of potential audience-goers.

  • Social media advertising also helped gather a more authentic audience interested in assisting the festival. This strategy focused on our target audience living in Lambton-Quebec or just nearby for the festival purposes.

Reflection

These new social media tactics employed by MMD are helping increase the online community's support. It takes hard work to see results, but the world of social media is ever changing and they need to keep exploring this medium for a more sustainable future. Representation as a portfolio and as a face to connect with new audiences is only the first step. The next step for MMD is to apply and adapt similar dynamics to keep growing organically in the media and throughout Quebec as a renowned festival. 

This experience expanded my vision in understanding the parallels between social media and its relevance to an artistic business. Nowadays, how you sell your product has the same significance as the outcome; the more audience you can draw, the greater the impact will be on your product. 

Karen Rodríguez is a Venezuelan musician. She has a Bachelor of Music degree specializing in Choral Conducting. Rodríguez's eclectic background in music and curious personality has allowed her to perform different repertoires such as Venezuelan popular music and Latin, European and Jazz music. She was a music theory teacher in El Sistema as well as a Soprano section leader and trainer in the Foundation Cantoría de Mérida. Also, she was the leader of Promúsica Foundation, a non-profit choral organization. Looking to expand her knowledge, she got an executive graduate certificate from the Global Leaders Program in 2022. Currently, she works performing as an independent musician in her city and as an online curriculum writer at the Music and Language Center.