Abstract
The music industry serves as a potential for great economic gain, as evidenced by countries like the United States (US), which has made $US12.4 billion in a single year from streaming revenue. This, however, is not what is experienced in South Africa, as only 20% of streaming revenue made in the country is paid to local music companies, with the rest being paid to international record labels such as those in the USA. A lot of South African music artists rate their earnings from music as poor, and this is due to factors such as South Africans consuming international music a lot more than local music. Therefore, it is pivotal for budget-friendly strategies to be put in place to get more South Africans consuming more South African music, and this study is set to achieve that. The study adopted an exploratory design and a deductive approach. Given that the focus was on budget-friendly strategies, user-generated content on social media, being cost-free, was identified as the basis for developing a strategy within this study. So, the research aim was to analyse how social media user-generated content can be strategically utilised to increase music sales. This aim was addressed through a literature review and an empirical study. The latter involved interviewing record label Artist and Repertoire (A&R) representatives with a minimum of two years of experience in a registered South African music company. The findings were analysed through thematic analysis. Findings highlighted aspects such as content variety, consistent engagement habits and call-to-actions as relevant means to encourage fans to stream music via social media. Implications included the discovery of research gaps that were recommended for future research, such as the importance of content variety. The strategic plan developed in this study serves as a practical implication, offering South African music artists actionable steps on how to utilise user-generated content to enhance music sales. The strategy primarily focuses on increasing reach and visibility on social media, followed by the use of call-to-action prompts, such as “stream now”, to convert engagement into music sales.