Online Presence and Marketing

This week I decided to take a deeper look into the online communication skills of K-pop companies and why so many groups are as successful as they are. Most groups have the same type of marketing when it comes to websites or social media platforms like X. To make things a little bit easier, I decided to dive into just one group in specific and see how their websites and social media accounts are ran. 

The group I decided to look into is called P1Harmony. One of the main reasons I chose this group in specific is because they’ve been successful in gaining lots of global attention and recognition these past 5 years or so. So that got me thinking, are they doing something differently from other groups to be gaining this much global support? What exactly determines the main audience of a certain company or group? 

Does the company do a good job communicating on its website and social media platforms?

This goes for probably most kpop groups under a decent entertainment company, but their websites and social media accounts are constantly providing new content or news for fans. At least one new update every day! That could be new pictures, new videos, new music, interviews, anything you could think of. Every time something new is available for viewers to see, there is always a link provided for easy access, if the content was posted on a different platform. For example, new YouTube videos are always linked in their posts on x, or new videos on TikTok are embedded and include a link for immediate action.  

For their website, I’ll mainly be focusing on their Japan website. Similar to their social media platforms, the Japan website includes links for immediate access to new videos and content. They also have tabs at the top corner of the page with links to specific areas of the website that might be difficult to find if you were to scroll through the whole website. 

On the company website, what is featured at the top, middle, and bottom of the home page? Why?

At the top of the website, the first thing you’ll see would be the group logo, and a big picture of the group so you know exactly who/what you’re looking at. And at the top corner are the tabs I mentioned earlier that lead you to all the different sections of the website. In the middle are links to all the different types of content they provide. They are probably exactly what you’re looking for if you search for their website. Those would be their discography, music videos on youtube, links to purchase tickets for their concerts, etc. At the bottom of the website is links to their social media platforms like x, youtube, and LINE (a Japanese communication app). They also provide support links for navigating the website and links to sign up or log in to their Japan fan club which come with benefits like early access to concert tickets. 

I think their website was set up very effectively this way so that when you first open the website you know exactly who’s website you are on and are able to immediately search for what you are there for. If you aren’t exactly sure what you want to look for, scrolling down just a little bit leads you to all the different content they offer. Then if you have any more questions or are intrigued to find out a little bit more, scrolling just a little bit more to the bottom gets you exactly where you need to be. 

Does the business communicate an identity online?

I believe this company does a very good job of communicating an identity online. Like I briefly mentioned earlier, they are constantly providing their audience with new content to keep them busy whether that be through new music, variety show content, photos, etc. If you do find yourself signing up for their fanclubs, they send out emails every time something new comes out. I think another thing that k-pop companies in general do very well is the visual branding of their groups. They have group logos, specific orders in which members of a group stand, and even “signature sounds” in their music. I think one of the main reasons why P1Harmony in particular has a very large global audience is because they have a member who can speak fluent English. Even other than that one specific member, all the other members can speak English to a certain extent that is enough to be understood globally. Another reason would be that they constantly provide subtitles for video content in at least 4 different languages. 

Where could the company improve its online communication? 

There aren't really any specific areas that immediately come to mind when I try to think of how they could improve their online communication. They already have a huge platform with lots of loyal “customers” that don’t easily back away or turn their attention to other companies. In this week’s reading, rhetoric was mentioned as a way to influence a particular group of people (Campbell 2015). Companies with a good online presence use rhetoric to market towards their audience in all the ways I mentioned above and even other ways as well. Not only are P1Harmony doing a very good job at this, but I think the K-pop community in general are very good at using rhetoric to market towards their audience. I think that serves as an explanation as to why kpop is as big as it is now, and how they increased their global reach in such a short amount of time. 

References

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, Susan Schultz Huxman, and Thomas R. Burkholder. The rhetorical act: Thinking, speaking, and writing critically, Stanford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015