How Shazam is Making its Mark
By now, almost everyone knows about the magical app, Shazam, which can detect and identify virtually any song, TV show, or commercial and even images from movies, books, magazines, and advertisements. In 2016, Shazam and Snapchat joined forces and all of the sudden, Shazam was inside of Snapchat. After the merging of the apps, Snapchat allowed its users to identify songs on Snapchat itself by holding down on the camera screen. A year later, almost every feature of Shazam is on Snapchat, including sending songs to friends, looking at the lyrics, watching the music video online, looking at songs saved in the past, and looking at recommended songs. If there is one thing Snapchat does best, it’s working to become the omnipotent and all-doing app.
However, Snapchat is not the only one benefitting from this. More and more people are using Shazam, whether it is within Snapchat or on the app itself. Now that Shazam has built its brand and established its reputation, they are constantly making efforts to improve their relationship with its customers through – you guessed it – social media. Shazam has its brand on Instagram and Twitter, and is making its way in interactive marketing. On Instagram, every now and then, Shazam lets musicians do a “takeover” on the account and host their Instagram story for the day. Some musicians that have made it to Shazam’s Instagram story are Elton John, Walker Hayes, Nervo, Akon, and Fergie. This allowed Shazam’s followers, as well as the rest of the public, to connect with a variety of popular artists and see a day in their lives.
Shazam’s Instagram also pays tribute to artists by posting pictures wishing musicians a happy birthday every few days, sometimes asking followers to “comment below” to wish them a happy birthday, too. The account also has posts celebrating milestones in a song’s number of times being “Shazamed” by users. The account even uses photos of musicians to inspire memes, in which they caption the photo popular phrases like “mood” and “that moment when,” which most social media users know as trends. Shazam’s Instagram and Twitter accounts both have posts encouraging the public to Shazam a certain song in order to get certain perks, including unlocking filters on snapchat, having access to exclusive Q&A videos with musicians and music videos, winning a prize pack, winning a trip to see an artist, winning products from partnering companies, winning VIP tickets to the Today Show, and winning merchandise from an artist.
Providing the public with up-close experiences with their favorite artists through Instagram stories, linking with Snapchat, and offering prizes for simply using the app is a surefire way to engage Shazam’s audience. Shazam is not the number one app in the music industry, but the company does know how to get its audience to interact to them and take advantage of the perks Shazam has to offer.