The zeitgeist for years 2017 through 2019 seems incomplete without the global phenomenon that is BTS. How did a band of 7 Korean artists dominate charts worldwide? How did they gain the ground world’s biggest global fandom called the A.R.M.Y., despite singing in Korean? How did they beat Justin Bieber’s 6 year old streak to win the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards for 3 consecutive years now? The answer lies in BTS’s efficient use of Social Media in creating and maintaining their personal brand.
Since their debut in 2013, BTS members have shared a single twitter account which drives more twitter traffic than Justin Bieber and Donald Trump combined. “Their label was the first to embrace the messy, unvarnished nature of social media, allowing the band to reveal more of their real personalities.” (Haynes 2017).
According to Akidearest (2018), “BTS has opened up their personalities on the internet long before they blew up.” She further explains how the agencies have always been a wall between the artists and fans, but BTS’ informal approach helps fans relate to them as people. K-pop Idols typically use Korean News channels and TV shows for promotions but BTS contradicted these norms of the Industry (Hookham 2018). Showing true personalities through content can make celebrities appear more human. “It’s about our daily life as a band on tour — and also as a group of silly friends who make fun of one another backstage.” Says RM (BTS’ leader), in an interview with Time (Bruner 2017).
BTS’ close interactions with their fans mainly through Twitter, Vlive and YouTube, has earned them the most powerful and diverse fandom in the world (MTV News 2018). They use a Crossmedia approach to engage audiences in a way that there’s something for everyone. For instance, Music albums produced by the members are uploaded on paid platforms like Spotify but they also post free music and mixtapes through SoundCloud.
https://soundcloud.com/bangtan/albums
While music videos are uploaded on the company’s main channel iBighit, another more personal YouTube account BangtanTV features videos of the members’ daily lives such as short ‘Bangtan Bombs’, Episodes, talk shows, vlogs and self-edited videos. Created in 2012, this account has garnered 23 million subscribers and 3.4 Billion views to date.
“Streaming platforms like Korea’s ‘Vlive’ give fans intimate access to the members as they do mundane things like eating and sitting in their hotel rooms after a performance.” (MTV News 2018). Other than going live to talk to fans, their reality series like Run BTS! and Bon Voyage, “invite audiences to laugh along as they do not random challenges and travel the world.” This content is posted as weekly episodes during tours or holiday period.
https://channels.vlive.tv/FE619/home
Recently an app called WeVerse was created for BTS and their ARMYs. Legend has it- if an Army memes a member of the group, the boys meme back.
This way, people all around the world get to virtually interact with BTS even when they are inactive. Profits of posting video content and advertisement driven revenue add to the financial growth of BigHit and BTS, while past musicians were dependent only upon album and concert sales. Adding to the free content available to stream online, BigHit urges fans to pay for premium subscriptions on Vlive+ & YouTube Red for more Behind the Scenes content.
Further, BTS’s creative team works to incorporate story-like elements throughout music videos, albums and even webtoons, hence their fandom works collectively to decode all these messages and clues. There are a plethora of theories on Twitter and explanation videos on YouTube about the storylines that represent the problems and lives of today’s youth. “Fan translators translate content from Korean to other languages, for free in their own time.” (MTV News 2018). Often, these videos are uploaded within a few hours of the release of new content, to overcome language barriers. Dedicated fans promote BTS via different means, whether Twitter campaigns and petitions to get radio spins for BTS Songs or music streaming parties on different platforms.
Taking full advantage of an amplified audience outreach, BTS has successfully created a personal brand identity to sell their content — whether it is music, video series, movies, webtoons, merchandise and way more. Their fans are prepared to buy anything. However, what they are really buying is the member’s personalities. Most fans are sold on the message BTS promotes, ending violence and Loving yourself.
References
Akidearest. “Does BTS deserve their Success?”, YouTube, 30 Aug. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPqHTMpBm8.
Bruner, Raisa. “BTS’s Rap Monster on the Rise of the Breakout K-Pop Band.” Time, 28 June 2017, https://time.com/4833807/rap-monster-bts-interview/.
Haynes, Gavin. “Why BTS Are the K-Pop Kings of Social Media.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 May 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/music/shortcuts/2017/may/23/bts-k-pop-kings-social-media.
Hookham, Jade. “BTS Is a Social Media Success Story.” Study Breaks, 25 May 2018, https://studybreaks.com/culture/bts-social-media/.
Kpopviralblog. “Google Reveals BTS Drives More Twitter Network Traffic Than Donald Trump[[MORE]]Google Facts Just Tweeted This Fact and It’s Probably a Fact That You Should Know. #Fact.” Kpopviral, 8 Jan. 2018, https://blog.kpopviral.com/post/169458677821/google-reveals-bts-drives-more-twitter-network.
MTV News. “BTS ARMY: Inside the World’s Most Powerful Fandom | MTV News.” YouTube, 16 Nov. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErsjsFpIz4s.
PopCandy. “[Bloomberg] BTS gets tweeted about more than Trump and Justin Bieber combined.” Allkpop Forums, https://www.allkpop.com/forum/threads/bloomberg-bts-gets-tweeted-about-more-than-trump-and-justin-bieber-combined.127676/.
TIME Staff. “25 Most Influential People on the Internet in 2018.” Time, 30 June 2018, https://time.com/5324130/most-influential-internet/.
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