Plans changed for the Sports and Entertainment Marketing II (SEM) class when Kathie Russell, the manager of local band Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, called SEM teacher Ashley Wood and asked if the class could help with advertising the band to gain national attention.
“It’s been enjoyable, a good experience, something for us to learn and take later in life,” said senior Nick Roberts, a student in the SEM class.
When Russell made this proposal, she wanted social media to be one of the main components of creating awareness for the band.
Junior Tatyana Barrett is in charge of the band’s social media campaign. Twitter, Instagram, Folk and Facebook are the social media platforms being used to market the band. Barrett said that Twitter has been the most successful way of campaigning.
“It’s a good visual representation of how many people are looking at what we are doing,” Barrett said.
SEM has used Twitter to get the band’s top single, “Dwight Yoakam,” noticed.
“We tried to get our song on this XM radio station called Highway Find, and they play all these underground artists who haven’t gotten out yet,” Barrett said.
In order to urge the radio station to play the song, students would use the hashtag #HighwayFind. The class has also used Twitter to promote the band’s single in order to be noticed by Dwight Yoakam, a country music artist.
In addition to social media, Barrett and senior Emma Luft are currently creating a music video for the song “Dwight Yoakam.”
“My concept is a very heartbroken girl who drinks her sadness away but then also has flashbacks of their good relationships and also flashbacks to their biggest fight when they broke up,” Barrett said.
A photoshoot has also occurred. Some of Technical Theatre and Photography teacher Todd Lawrence’s photography students and the SEM class produced the photoshoot. Wood enjoyed the process.
“They got to see their work come alive, which definitely gives them a new insight and a new depth to everything,” Wood said.
Social and visual media aren’t the only ways SEM is gathering attention for The Disarmers. Roberts’ job is to get the band gigs at local restaurants and bars. The band’s next performance will be located at He’s Not Here, a bar in Chapel Hill. During the show, the band will sell merchandise designed by the class.
The students and teacher involved have had a hands-on experience with the project and understand the commitment involved.
“It’s been a little bit of a challenge for me, because it’s not in the curriculum standards, and I had to rearrange my activities…. They can actually see their work being displayed; like this got retweeted 30 times, this topic got shared 40 times, etc.,” Wood said.
– By Carter Owings-Hurgronje