How Taylor Swift Built A Billion Dollar Brand Identity

“Best believe I’m still bejeweled / When I walk in the room / I can still make the whole place shimmer,” – Taylor Swift from the song, Bejeweled.

Taylor Swift is an American singer, songwriter with 12 Grammys under her belt. Not only have her musical talents captured the hearts (and wallets) of millions worldwide, she has built a massively successful multi-billion dollar brand established on authenticity, personal connection, and relatability. Additionally, she occasionally utilizes her brand to tackle social issues, advocate for gender equality, artist rights, and to encourage political literacy amongst her young audience.

One of the main reasons that her brand has been so successful is because she makes her fans feel valued by showing an interest in their wellbeing. Swift is renowned for liking their posts, sharing their content, and responding to their messages. When it comes to interacting with fans, she is in a league of her own, instead of charging fans to meet her, she invites them backstage at the end of her concerts and has gone as far as opening her home to hundreds of fans for cookies and dancing. The sense of intimacy that Swift has created amongst her fan base keeps them coming back for more. She has built a strong community that extends beyond her music.

Taylor Swift has been in the game for almost two decades, during which time, she has built a multi billion-dollar brand identity, here are four of the strategies she has used to achieve this.

Swift Is An Expert Storyteller

Taylor Swift is known for her storytelling skills. Her song lyrics read like private diary entries capturing details about boy troubles, personal growth, and friendship dilemmas. Apart from her phenomenal talent, it is her extraordinary storytelling abilities that set her apart in the music industry. The way she entwines her emotions and experiences into narratives that have you hanging on her every word is genius.

Swift has created her own storytelling world, and unless you are a die-hard Swiftie, it’s hard to put together the pieces of the puzzle. For example, in her album ‘Fearless’, several letters throughout different songs were capitalized. When combined, those words spelt, “I CRIED WHILE RECORDING THIS.” Her fans were then led to find out which song made her cry while recording it.

Swift Leverages Social Media

With approximately 526 million followers, Taylor Swift is in the top 5 of most followed accounts on social media. But her social media strategy is unique and extremely effective. By creating once in a lifetime experiences, there is not a dull moment within her community, and her fans are constantly left wanting more. However, not only does Swift use social media to showcase her talent, she is also extremely generous. When one fan commented that she is struggling to pay her student loans, Taylor Swift sent her a handwritten note and a check to pay off her debt. Perhaps one of the most memorable things she has done was donate $15,000 to a firefighters GoFundMe page set up by her fans. The firefighter responded to a 911 call, when he arrived, he discovered it was his wife and son in the accident.

Taylor Swift also uses her platforms to highlight social issues. She encourages her followers to vote and is an advocate for the LGBTQ+, speaking out against many of the potentially harmful policies that affect the community.

Swift Is Constantly Evolving

For a brand to succeed, it must evolve because the business landscape is constantly changing. If you want to maintain a competitive advantage in your industry, keeping up with the latest trends is essential. While Taylor Swift hasn’t built her career around keeping up with the latest trends, she has evolved as an artist over the years. She started off as a country singer, her songs ‘Tear Drops on My Guitar’ and ‘Tim McGraw’ propelled her into stardom. However, her sound developed as she began experimenting with pop on her sophomore album ‘Fearless.’ She then ventured into more mainstream pop with ‘Speak Now,’ her third solo album. Throughout this process, Swift was constantly reinventing herself while remaining relevant in the industry. As she matured, her music revealed a darker side to her personality. With the release of her song, “Look What You Made Me Do,” the star took a huge creative risk and emerged with a completely different image. While the critics did not hesitate to insult her transformation, fans were all for it, and the song was a huge success. The video was played 43.2 million times on YouTube in 24 hours which is the most views any music video in the history of YouTube has ever had in that time frame. The song also topped the Hot 100 for three weeks in a row.

Swift Is Relatable

Most people can relate to the coming-of-age, dating and career struggles that Taylor Swift creates lyrics around. She also expresses universal emotions through her music such as frustration, sadness, anger, joy and pain. These emotions are all connected to relationships whether romantic or platonic. Many of her song lyrics are personal and related to experiences she has had in her own life. Therefore, her fans feel a strong sense of empathy with her, especially if they have been through similar experiences. What makes Taylor Swift unique is her ability to express herself in such an honest and personal way. Her lyrics are insightful and thought provoking and she is not afraid to sing about controversial topics such as anxiety and self-doubt. While a lot of people suffer from these internal battles, people still struggle to speak about them openly.

Through her music, unique connection with her fans and her authenticity, Taylor Swift has created a brand that will stand the test of time. Firstly, emotions drive human behavior, and according to psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, humans often make decisions that defy logic when they are in an emotional state; therefore, if you want to influence people’s decisions, tapping into their emotions is essential. Whether Taylor Swift is a clever businesswoman, or she genuinely cares for her fans is up for debate, but what we do know is that she has used the power of emotions to a secure a fan base that will stick with her for life.