The strategic genius of Taylor Swift's rise to megastardom

Kevin Evers is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review. He has processed bestsellers and award -winning books on high performance, creativity, digital disorder, marketing and strategy. He also wrote popular articles about brain science, Hollywood blockbuster, the art of conviction and the unpredictability of success.

What is the big idea?

How does a mere mortal in this case dress an average American girl in a star-and-stripes dress with a red knitted jacket to a global phenomenon with Beatles-like global? Taylor Swift appeared at a young age and certainly showed the potential for success, but only a few could have expected the unprecedented degree of fame she would reach. By combining her talent and art with incredible entrepreneurial instincts, Swift not only builds up a musical heritage. It has developed a call for a brave, effective fan base.

In the following, Kevin gives five important findings from his new book. There is nothing like that: Taylor Swift's strategic genius. Listen to the audio version, which Kevin himself read into the next big ideas app.

1. Use possibilities that ignore others.

A popular meme appears in my social media feed when Taylor Swift breaks a new record or exceeds another milestone. There are several versions, but my favorite contains a picture of 12-year-old Swift, while she grabs a microphone with both hands and sings “The Star Spangled Banner” in a game of Philadelphia 76ers 2002. Despite the large area of ​​an arena, she looks like an ordinary girl. The caption reads: “Someone tells her that she will have the highest tour ever.” In one picture, the meme expresses the mysticism of the superstar in 14 words.

Taylor Swifts used to be successful as a teen -center -country music star was directly from the entrepreneur's game book. She took an opportunity to ignore other people. She had a clear view. She wanted to write her own songs. She wanted to write these songs for an audience of her colleagues – Teenage Girls – and she wanted to release an album as soon as possible.

But most managers and gatekeepers did not consider this to be a great strategy. Swift was announced that girls from young girls were not a sustainable market in Country music. But Swift stopped. And like Marvel in the 1960s, when college students and young adults pursued (a market for DC and other comic publisher ignored), Swift created its own category.

2. You know what people “hire” them.

Swift has demonstrated a deep feeling that her fans set them to do more than write songs and play music. Your fans want a connection. You want intimacy. They want to build deep and personal relationships with Swift themselves.

“Your fans want a connection.”

Swift infuses this knowledge in everything it does. You can hear it sings her songs. The way in which emotions – line by line, word according to word – conveys in an almost conversation tone. You can hear it in your hyper -specific texts that give fans personal insights into Swift's emotions and experiences. You can see it in your strategies for fan commitment. The way it drops indicates and encourages fans to dissect their texts, like scholarly analyze TS Eliot's poem “The Waste Land”. And you can see it as you organize your live shows. They are more like theater extensions of the topics of every album than traditional concerts.

Her deep knowledge and execution of the jobs that want to do their fans have made it possible for her to stay what their fans love and appreciate while they change and adapt at the same time.

3. Be people.

Taylor Swift is obsessed with fan and its obsession has increased because their popularity has grown. Your game book comes directly from Amazon. In a 2016 shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos wrote that it is customers always Beautiful, wonderfully dissatisfied, even if you report that you are happy and that the business is great. Even if you do not yet know, customers want something better and their desire to inspire customers, they will make them invent in their name.

This was Swift's attitude in her entire career. She has always done everything for her fans. She sent the fans of Christmas presents. She organized listening sessions at her house. And it is constantly finding new opportunities to fall information and increase the commitment online.

The ERAS tour is a top example for Swift's fan. Swift could have played a biggest hits show for two and a half hours. She had never done anything like this and her fans probably loved it. Instead, she played for three and a half hours, her setlist stretched over 40 songs and she devoted herself to almost every album in her career. This was exaggerated. She didn't have to do these things. But she did it. She gave the fans more than they expected and maybe even more than they deserved.

Swift understands that superstars are not homemade and are created by fans. Her ability to constantly delight her fans is one of the reasons why she is constantly growing her fan base and encourages old fans to stay with it.

4. Be productive paranoid.

No matter how successful Swift has become, it has always shown a special property that large managers have: productive paranoia. The term refers to the ability of a guide to anticipate future changes and challenges, even if things are going very well. According to Research, managers who are productive paranoid can better able to shoot and deal with challenges than those who are not.

Throughout her career, Swift has repeatedly expressed that she feared that her popularity would disappear, and she has had this fear positively by making major changes if otherwise not necessary.

“Managers who are productive paranoid can turn better and deal with challenges than those who are not.”

In 2014, after three albums in a row, she completely switched from country music to pop music. For years she had the best of both worlds. She had driven the country market into the tightness and her songs were widespread on pop radio. By moving completely to Pop, she risked half of her fan base.

At that time, Swift was four albums in her career – a dangerous time for many artists how many flames surrounding this milestone. Swift, who trusted her instinct and further developed musical taste, decided to take a great risk. She decided to change the status quo and it paid off. Her step to Pop expanded her fan base and her global reach.

5. Be a radical adapter.

Taylor Swift is on an unprecedented run. Her ERAS tour, which included 149 shows, achieved more than two billion income and was the highest tour ever. In 2024 according to information Double every dayIt alone made up almost two percent of the total US music market. None of this would have been possible if Swift had not radically adjusted their strategies to adapt to streaming age.

In 2020, Daniel EK, co -founder of Spotify, said in an industry event that the traditional model of the release of music loses purchases every two years. EK said: “Today's artists who realize that it is about creating a continuous examination of their fans. It is about getting the work to get stories about the album to keep a continuous dialogue with their fans.” Much of EKS description sounded very much like Swift strategies. The fan commitment, the hard work, storytelling. These were the things that she has done better for almost two decades.

“None of this would have been possible if Swift had not radically adjusted their strategies to adapt to the streaming age.”

But Swift had missed a critical piece: What EK called “the continuous dialogue with her fans”, which meant a constant flow of new content in the streaming age. So Swift radically changed your release strategies. In just 15 months, from 2020, Swift released two new studio albums and released 49 tracks, including bonus tracks, which are average on a track every one and a half weeks. She didn't stop there. Soon afterwards she published the first of her new admissions, Fearless (Taylor's version). That meant three albums in less than 12 months, with all three landed on the Billboard 200 – the first time for an artist. She followed that with Red (Taylor's version)which also reached #1. Whatever she could reserve was gone. Since then she has published two more new admissions and two other new studio albums.

By switching the realities of streaming age and its publication strategies, she not only achieved her hold, but also expanded its influence. The remarkable success of your latest projects is proof of your ability to learn from challenges and to turn mobility.

Swift has shown that she is an extraordinary songwriter and artist, but she has first -class entrepreneur instincts. It is a double threat. These instincts have played an oversized role in their career success.

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