almost | taylor swift au

chapter 37

A week later, the excitement has worn off. It starts to settle in that Taylor really did release her first song. But with every passing day, she doesn't become any less proud of that fact.

While a week ago, Taylor and Gracie were hosting a release party, tonight, they're sitting on their sofa watching reality TV. And they love that just as much, if not more, than the party. They're so invested in The Bachelor that they both jump when Taylor's phone starts to vibrate.

"Well," Gracie says, reaching for the remote to pause the TV, "you should probably answer that."

Looking at the called ID, Taylor agrees. "It's Anthony."

"Do you want me to get out?"

"No, you can stay... just don't scream or do any weird shit like that," Taylor winks at her friend as she picks up the call. "Hello?"

"Taylor, hi," Anthony says on the other end of the line. "I've got some stuff to discuss with you? Is not a good time?"

"Yeah, all good."

"Great. So, I've got the data from your song's performance in the first week. You surpassed 30,000 streams on Spotify for your first week."

Taylor gasps. "Wow. That's... that's insane. Oh my god." She can't even fathom that. Thirty thousand streams. That's a number she can't wrap her head around. That's so many.

"Yeah, it's good. It's something that you should be proud of. It's a really good starting point. But there's also a lot of growing that you're going to need to do from there. We've gotta jump the gun on this. I think that you can take off running, but we are going to need more than thirty thousand streams to do that. So, the social media promotion that you're doing... everything you're doing, but double it all. Whenever you can post about your stuff, do it."

Taylor bites her lip. "Isn't that going to drive everyone crazy?"

"It's a risk you've gotta be willing to take. It's all about going viral nowadays."

Taylor sighs. "I don't like that. I want it to be about what I'm creating."

"I know, I know," Anthony says, "but it's the reality of the world that we are living in. Viral content is the best advertising. Don't be afraid to be silly, be yourself, be sweet... be relatable and quirky, but not too weird. If you need opinions on a post, I'll look at it before it goes up. But I want to see at minimum one Instagram post and one TikTok video promoting the song per day. And some Instagram story posts that are just fun. Post about your life, your friends, the music that's on your playlist..."

Taylor closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "Okay." She can't help but feel disappointed. She really didn't get into this business for her whole job to be social media. And the templates for posts that Anthony wants her to make... she doesn't love them. They feel so generic. And Taylor wants to stand out.

"You don't sound thrilled."

"I'm not. I just... I want to differentiate myself from the other artists out there. I don't see Gracie making all of this content. She just makes music. And I know, it's totally different, because she's already got an established following, but... it's just frustrating. It feels like my lyrics don't matter nearly as much as my ability to put on a smile and be bubbly and just like every other singer-songwriter out there in a TikTok."

Anthony bites his lip. He doesn't know what to say to that. He knows that the young woman has a point, and he also knows that her talent really is special. She deserves to shine in the way that she wants to.

"Taylor, I'll tell you what..." Anthony says. "I need to see you putting out content. But if you come up with your own ideas, put your own special spins on things... whatever you want. Your content can be yours. It doesn't have to be a cookie cutter post. Just because those posts do tend to work for people... it doesn't mean that they're going to be right for you. I can't control the fact that you need to have an online presence, but you deserve to have one that feels like it is authentically you."