Overall, a conclusion may be drawn that creating a recognizable personal brand with easily identifiable and distinctive brand attributes (logo, visual style, etc.) as well as maintaining an interaction between the brand and its customers (or, in case of music, artist and their fans) via social media platforms (posting content, engaging with audience through reblogs, likes or replies) is essential in order to both position yourself in the market and increase the level of loyalty to your personal brand. Instead of separating themselves from their music, artists should incorporate their music into their personal brand in order to be perceived seriously. Nevertheless, total disclosure of personal information can result in negative publicity and undermine an artist's reputation; thus, it is necessary to distinguish personal and professional live and carefully select what to post online. Also, merchandise products can be an effective tool of increasing an artist's public presence and the attitude of audience towards them and their brand, as suggested by Chiou, Huang and Chuang (2005).

After the analysis of previous studies on branding and marketing, the following research gap was recognized. First of all, although research on the topic of personal branding is available, there is a lack of research on the topic of personal branding for musicians in particular. There are no studies examining the importance of alignment between a musicians' stage presence and their online presence, of their interaction with the audience, etc. In addition to this, while exploring the phenomenon of “Industry Plants”, it was difficult to obtain any information on the attitude towards the topic of Russian people specifically. Hence, this gap in research was identified as an opportunity. Besides, while some previous research focused on internal motivations behind an individual interaction with content online (Tellis et al., 2019) and emphasized that an individual's desire to interact with music depended on whether the music was perceived by an individual as appealing to their emotions (Lacher, 1989), little research accounted for both internal and external factors behind motivation, providing comparative analysis between their impact. Moreover, provided technology constantly emerges, there is a lack of up-to-date research that explores users' online behavior accounting for currently popular Internet platforms and channels of influence. Finally, there is a huge gap in Russia-based research on music marketing, branding and music industry in general.

2. Statement of the research question

The research is aimed to explore the topicof “Music marketing in the digital age: building an identifiable personal brand, promoting records and adapting to market demands”. Two main aspects are to be assessed: the process of building an artists' personal brand and the promotion of their music. The main research question is, “what marketing tools are the most efficient at each stage?” The research question may be divided into the following three research questions:

1. How does an artist build a recognizable and easily identifiable personal brand?

2. How does an artist succeed in promoting their records?

3. How does an artist adapt to market changes?

Due to the lack of existing research on music industry in Russia specifically, an attempt was made to cover a wide variety of music business-related aspects (marketing, branding, adjustment to market changes); hence, the topic of the research was divided into three subtopics, or research questions, which are rather broad and include, in their turn, several additional subtopics. Those subtopics (motivations behind an individual desire to interact with music-related content online, attitudes of audience towards the alignment of an artist's online and stage presence) were based on the existing gap in the general research in the field of branding and marketing, previously defined in the theoretical foundations.

In order to obtain answers to the suggested research questions, a number of in-depth interviews with musicians will be held (to obtain their perspective on the relevant aspects of marketing, branding and adjustment to changing demand) and a survey for general audience will be distributed (to assess the attitude of Russian audience towards marketing, branding and changes in the market as well as get a detailed picture on their personal preferences). Once the information is obtained, it will be compared with each other in order to see whether practices implemented by musicians align with the preferences of the audience; finally, based on this comparison, the answers to the questions will be suggested.

The full list of survey questions is presented in appendix 1; specific questions will be further referenced by their numbers. The full list of interview questions is presented in appendix 2; specific questions will, too, be references by their numbers.

In order to collect data required to answer the first research question, “How does an artist build a recognizable and easily identifiable personal brand?”, a number of questions will be included in the survey (appendix 1) in order to understand the general perspective of audience towards an artist's personal brand.

Question ¹ 5 will help to understand whether a radical negative personal opinion of an artist could possibly undermine their audience's desire to listen to their music. Question ¹ 6 will help to evaluate the importance of an alignment between an artist's stage image and their personal brand and assess whether the way an artist positions themselves in their social media is of significance to the listener. These findings will either support or contradict the previous findings on the impact of negative publicity (Zhou &Whitla, 2013), disclosure of personal information (Labrecque et al., 2011) and the way artists position themselves on social media (Kucharska&Mikoajczak, 2018) on audience's attitude towards them and their music. In addition to this, these findings will help to fill the gap in the existing research on the topic of personal branding and positioning of musicians both on social media and offline.

Question ¹ 7 will help to evaluate the respondents' general opinion on “Industry Plants” (or musicians who are perceived to be generic music production projects due to their rapid success and lacking background); the main objective of this question is to fill the gap in the existing research on the attitude of Russian people towards “Industry Plants”.

In order to understand whether merchandize products can be a good way to establish an artist's public presence and brand identity, the respondents' preferences regarding merchandize items will be explored via questions ¹ 20, ¹ 21, ¹ 22, ¹ 23 and ¹ 24. Through these questions, customer motivations behind purchasing merchandize products, the channels through which they purchase merchandize products (offline and online) and their interaction with merch (whether they wear it after purchase or not, whether merchandize products worn by people in the streets affect their level of interest towards artists) will be explored. These questions aim to see whether the finding of the studies support the findings of previous studies, in which researchers suggested that people mostly bought merch impulsively (Brown and Knox, 2016) and that merchandize products could increase the level of interest towards an artist (Chiou et al., 2005).

To evaluate the topic of branding from the perspective of artists, they, too, will be asked a few questions concerning the branding practices currently implemented by them (below, corresponding questions from appendix 2 will be referenced).

Throughquestion ¹ 7, artists will be encouraged to share how they interact with their audience on social media and offline, how they perform in public, what information they share on their social media and whether they integrate their personal social accounts into their marketing practices.

Also, when studying the issue of branding, the interviewed artists will be encouraged to share their opinion on whether participating in concerts and festivals (question ¹ 5) helps them establish their local presence and recognition. Question ¹ 11 will help to evaluate if the interviewed artists produce merchandize, what are some of their motivations behind producing merchandize and what are some channels through which they sell their merchandize products; once the information is obtained, it will be compared to information obtained from the survey.

Artists will also be encouraged to share their opinion on branding outside of the given questions.

In order to collect data required to answer the second research question, formulated as, “How does an artist succeed in promoting their records?”, a number of questions will be included in the survey aimed to understand the general common tendencies of audience's interaction with music-related content, the channels through which they discover music, etc.

Answers to the question ¹ 1 will help to identify the most popular social networks among Russian Internet users, while question ¹ 2 will help to understand on which platforms people most often follow their favorite artists; the answers to these two questions will help to distinguish the most effective channels of reaching out to new audiences and maintaining contact with an artist's existing follower base.

Questions ¹ 3 and ¹ 4 will help to find out how often listeners leave likes and comments on an artist's posts on social networks; thus, they will provide information on general tendencies in an individual's interaction with an artist's content online.

Question ¹ 8 will help to understand how people generally listen to music. Moreover, it will be possible to see how often people listen to music using Apple Music / BOOM / Yandex Music / Spotify or other subscription services; how often listeners purchase digital albums and singles (in iTunes, Bandcamp or other digital marketplaces); how often people listen for free via illegally downloading albums from the Internet or through free VK player; how often they use Soundcloud service; how often they listen to music at concerts/parties and how often they listen to music on discs and other physical carries. Hence, by obtaining information on people's listening behavior, it will be possible to suggest the channels through which artists should distribute their music to achieve maximum engagement.

Question ¹ 9 will help to find out how people most often discover new artists. Questions ¹ 10 and ¹ 11will help to obtain information on music sources and music media to which the respondents are subscribed. This way, the results to these questions will provide artists with an understanding of the most effective channels of reaching out to new audiences.

These previous three blocks of questions will help to fill the gap in the up-to-date research exploring the online behavior of Internet users. Provided this research accounts for all the currently popular Internet platforms, both Russian and international (Doyle, 2020; Kurnosova, 2019), it will help to create a detailed description of users' patterns in online behavior, and thus, offer an understanding of currently effective channels of reaching out to new audiences and communicating with existing audiences online and offline.

Question ¹12 will help to understand whether people share music with their friends on their social networks and whether they generate UGC, while question ¹ 13 will help to comprehend their motivation behind their desire to share music-related content. Hence, it will be explored whether their motivation is based on their desire to share personal musical preferences and maintain their music identity, their desire to share content with friends, their desire to have quick access to content, their desire to support an artist without any tangible incentives or their desire to support an artist with possible material / non-material benefits.

First of all, the results to this question will provide artists with an understanding of which content is perceived by the individuals as the most appealing and which type of content audience are more likely to interact with or share with their friends. In addition to this, the results to this question will help to either prove or contradict the findings of previous studies on individual motivation to share content online (Lacher, 1989; Tellis et al., 2019). Provided this question includes both factors of internal motivation and external motivation, it will help fill the gap in the research on the motivations behind sharing content, which has not accounted for both internal and external factors.

Questions ¹ 14 and ¹ 15 will help to evaluate whether respondents engage with music-related content shared by their friends or acquaintances either directly or indirectly and whether they listen to music recommended by their friends, thus allowing for an opportunity to see if the findings of the previous research on the efficiency of `word of mouse' marketing (Bampo et al., 2008) are still relevant.

Questions ¹ 16, ¹17 and ¹18 will help collect information on whether respondents attend music concerts or local music festivals (and which concerts and festivals in particular are the most popular among the respondents); hence, the results to these three questions will help artists to understand which of the local festivals are currently popular among audience and thus, could be considered as channels of reaching out to new audiences.

Question ¹ 25 will help to figure out in which order people generally listen to music albums and thus, provide for an opportunity to evaluate whether the popularity of a song or a feature of a different artist on a song affect an individual's interest towards the song. Question ¹ 26 will help to evaluate the attractiveness level of featuring tracks (collaboration between artists). Thus, responses to these two questions will either support or contradict the findings of previous research, that suggested that featuring tracks (Ordanini et al., 2018) and high popularity of a song (Lynn et al., 2016) positively affected an individual desire to listen to a particular song.

Last but not least, question ¹ 27 will help to assess how an attractive design / artwork of a cover for an artist's new release affects an individual desire of audience to listen to it. This way, on the basis of the results, some additional factors behind individual motivation to interact with music content can be examined.

From the perspective of the musicians, the issue of marketing will be explored via the following interview questions (appendix 2).

Question ¹ 1 will help to identify the platforms which music artists use as a channel of interaction with their audience, while question ¹ 2 will obtain information on the offline and online tools / platforms used by artists for their promotional activity; through question ¹ 2, information on criteria set by artists for their targeted advertising campaigns will also be obtained. Question ¹ 9 will help to assess the actual impact of having their songs featured in playlists on streaming platforms on their audience inflow, and question ¹ 12 - the impact of collaborations with other artists.

Once the information is collected, it will be compared to the information obtained through the survey, and effective channels of reaching out to new audiences will be suggested. This information will either support or contradict previous research findings on the effective channels of attracting audience.

Responses obtained through question ¹ 3 will provide an understanding of how artists usually sell or distribute their music; this information will be compared to that obtained from questions ¹ 8 and ¹ 9 in the survey (appendix 1) in order to understand whether practices implemented by musicians align with the practices preferred by audience.

Through question ¹ 4, information on whether artists organize marketing campaigns preceding their upcoming releases will be obtained. By asking about the means through which they advertise their upcoming music and particular ways of their interaction with their audience, and then comparing obtained information with user behavior on social media, it will be possible to assess whether behavioral patterns correspond with the patterns anticipated in marketing campaigns.

Question ¹ 6 is aimed to find out how having an artist's release featured on music-related news sources affects artist's audience and whether it can be exploited as a channel of gaining audience.

Objective of question ¹ 8 is to figure out how artists engage with their followers and motivate their followers to share their music / content. After comparing this information with the data obtained through question ¹ 13 in survey (appendix 1), it will be possible to conclude whether the external motivation offered by artists appeals to their followers' actual motivation behind sharing content.

To obtain an answer to the third research question, formulated as, “How does an artist adapt to market changes?”, the survey and the interviews will once again be used. Nevertheless, the focus of this question will be mostly shifted to the attitudes of the artists. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the music industry, this question will be explored on the basis of how artists have adjusted their performance in accordance with current situation. Therefore, artists will be encouraged to share how their interaction with their audience have changed during the pandemic (whether they participate in online concerts, switch to new online platforms, etc.)

Accordingly, a question will be included in the survey (appendix 1, question ¹ 19), which will try to explore whether respondents watch online concerts, which have become a popular trend in the realm of pandemic (Knecht, 2020; Meduza, 2020).

Finally, once the information is obtained and a comparison between musicians' responses, general public's responses and findings of previous studies is made, the answers to the three research questions will be provided, and suggestions on the most effective marketing and branding methods which are relevant for current market environment will be given.

It is anticipated that by conducting in-depth interviews with the musicians and distributing an online survey consisting of 29 questions, a sufficient amount of information will be obtained in order to provide answers to the research questions. As seen from the survey (appendix 1) and interview (appendix 2) questions, the three research subtopics are divided into more subtopics and aim to cover a wide variety of marketing- and branding-related aspects, therefore filling the gap in the existing research and offering a basis for future studies. Although the instruments chosen for the research may not provide detailed information on each of those subtopics, they are expected to be sufficient for suggesting an answer to the main research questions.

3. Researchdesign

The main objective of the research is to answer the following question, “what marketing tools are the most efficient at each stage of an artist's promotion?”. The research question, as justified previously, is divided into three sub questions:

1. How does an artist build a recognizable and easily identifiable personal brand?

2. How does an artist succeed in promoting their records?

3. How does an artist adapt to market changes?

In order to answer these three questions, the following research design will be used.

The research is to be divided into three stages, the first being the evaluation of the topic from the perspective of a consumer (through a survey aimed specifically at listeners), the second being the evaluation of the topic from the perspective of anartist (through in-depth interviews with both musicians themselves and people generally involved in the music business) and the third being the comparison of answers obtained from surveys and interviews. Based on this comparison, an answer to each research question will be suggested.

The research is descriptivein its nature. On the one hand, it is aimed to acquire a detailed picture of consumer preferences (their response to marketing tools, their involvement with the artist, their listening and purchase behavior, motivations behind their desire to share content online and engage with music-related content, their attitude towards the ways artists present themselves on their personal social media accounts, etc.) and artist preferences (their overall view on the efficiency of implemented marketing and branding tools, their existing practices in distributing their music, engaging with their audience, marketing their records, etc.) alongside current trends in branding and marketing. On the other hand, on the basis of the comparison of consumer and artist preferences and behaviors,the research is aimed to offer suggestions on how to increase the efficiency of promotional and branding activity. These suggestions are aimed to help both established and emerging artists in Russia to align the existing practices implemented by them (the channels through which they reach out to new audiences, the platforms through which they maintain contact with their existing audience, etc.) with customer preferences and behavior and thus, increase the efficiency of their marketing and branding activities and maximize the involvement of their audience.

The data for the research is to be acquired through in-depth interviews with the artists or people involved in the music business (either via phone call or electronic mail due to the COVID-19 restrictions) and cross-sectional surveys distributed electronically on VK and Instagramamong young Russian people (few criteria will be set for respondents: they must listen to music on a regular basis, Russian music included; by distributing the survey on VK and Instagram, it is automatically assumed that respondents use social media, which, too, is a criterion for respondents).

The survey will include a number of questions aimed to explore the overall preferences of respondents in social media use, in interaction with music-related content, in their means of listening to music; it will also collect information on the channels through which people discover new music, which music-related sources they prefer, what their attitude towards personal branding is and whether they, themselves, produce music-related content. The questions to the survey are attached in appendix 1, and their relevance to the research question and the research gap is explained in the “Statement of the research question” section.

The interviews will, too, include a number of questions aimed to evaluate the existing marketing and branding practices implemented within the music industry. The primary interview questions are attached in appendix 2, and their relevance to the research questions is justified in the “Statement of the research question” section. Nevertheless, unlike survey respondents, interviewees will be encouraged to give their answers in free form, independent of the questions proposed, in order to obtain more thorough information.

The cross-sectional time frame will be used for the research: both interviews and surveys are to be held only at one point in time. The research will be held at a group level: the surveys will be distributed among young Russian people (supposedly in the age category from 14 to 27) who listen to music on a frequent basis, Russian music included. The focus on this age category specifically can be justified: at the age of 14, children become a solvent audience, because Russian legislation allows them to get a simple job and thus, start being responsible for minor financial decisions; at the age of 27, people in Russia are perceived to be established both professionally and personally, hence, becoming less susceptible to new trends (Çâóêâðóêàõ, 2020).

The population of the research are people of Russian origin and Russian citizens who can potentially be the target audience of musicians based in Russia. Although they come from a similar geographic location and thus may have similar listening and social media preferences (have access to similar streaming services, social media platforms, media channels, etc.), they may also have a number of varying characteristics due to the big size of a population sample.

Volunteer sampling will be used for the survey: the survey will be distributed electronically in social networks; anyone interested in the topic can submit their answers as long as they correspond with the pre-defined requirements (the requirement will be specified in the description of the survey). Specifically, survey will be distributed in music-related communities and chats on VK, whose participants correspond with the target respondents of the survey. It is anticipated that approximately 200 responses to the survey will be collected in order to make further conclusions on general audience behavior.

For the interviews, purposive sampling will be used: the respondents will be selected in accordance with pre-defined criteria (active professional accounts on social media, participation in live shows and concerts, etc.). The expected sample for the interviews will include representatives of different spheres of the music business (music managers, musicians themselves or producers). It is also expected that throughout the research, artists of different genre and audience size will be interviewed in order to obtain more general information, independent of genre and budget allocated for marketing and branding.

Throughout the interviews, qualitative data will be obtained in the form of expanded answers to the proposed interview questions (appendix 2). The relationship between interview questions, survey questions, research questions and research gap is explained in the “Statement of the research question” section. Once the data is obtained, it will be discussed in the “Results” section, and common tendencies will be distinguished in order to create a general understanding of the marketing and branding practices implemented by artists.

The survey (appendix 1) will allow to collect mainly quantitative (and some qualitative) data on the behavior and preferences of the general audience. The survey includes questions of several types. Some questions aim to assess the frequency of particular user behavior or the impact of particular factors on their motivationto interact with content via 5-point Likert scale (¹3, 4, 8, 13, 27). The majority of questions offer multiple choice answers, some - single choice with an opportunity to provide a detailed individual answer by choosing “Other” (hence, allowing to collect qualitative data). Some questions are aimed to collect data via encouraging respondents to reply in the form of an expanded textual answer (¹ 11, 18). Once the data is obtained, it will be analyzed via descriptive statistics in Excel. Measures of frequency and central tendency will be used in order to summarize general tendencies and preferences of the population sample.

Finally, data collected through the interviews and data obtained through the analysis of survey responses will be compared and used as a basis for answers to the research questions.

Regarding the variables for the given research, the dependent variable explored in the research is marketing and branding efficiency (expressed through attention from the media and audience, virality, level of recognition, etc.). It is controlled by the following independent variables: participation in concerts, social media activity (number of posts, nature of posts, etc.), number of reposts and shares, user-generated content created by the audience, use of different distribution channels, production and purchase of merchandise, collaboration and guest features on other artists' records, etc.

The research can be considered applied: the results of the research can be used by independent musicians and music enterprises to maximize the efficiency of their promotional activities. This research aims to provide them with suggestions on how to acquire new audience, how to market their music, how to build their fan base, engage their fan base, etc. as well as how to strengthen their brand recognition and public presence. By studying a variety of marketing and branding-related practices, this research aims to provide artists with an understanding of which social networks are the most popular among people (and, consequently, are the best channels for reaching out to audiences), which content on social media people are more likely to interact with and share (and thus, which content can be perceived as likely to increase virality of an artist's marketing campaign, etc.), which channels of promotion result in the biggest audience inflow, how should an artist position themselves on their social media accounts in order to increase the interest of audience towards them, etc. In addition to this, the results obtained throughout the research are expected to decrease the gap in the existing research and provide basis for future studies on the topics on marketing and branding both in the music industry and generally.

The following limitations to the research design may be recognized.

First of all, the cross-sectional nature of the study may not be sufficient to obtain information of how trends have changed over time and thus, will make it rather difficult to predict trends for the future.

Second, the surveys by their kind are unable to provide detailed information on the topic. Although the survey developed for the research provides for an opportunity to give detailed textual answers to some of the questions, the answers to the survey questions are short in their majority, and interviews are required for acquiring further details.

Finally, regarding the interviews, it is very likely that the musicians selected for interviews will come from a similar background and have a rather small audience (due to difficulty in establishing contact with big name artists). Thus, the data gathered in the interview process may only be relevant for emerging musicians but not for those who have already established a big fan base.

4. Results

The following section is divided into three parts; in the first part, the survey results are presented. In the second part, the interview results are presented. In the final part, a comparison is made between survey and interview findings, and answers to the research questions are suggested.

4.1 Survey

The following results are based on the responses of 207 respondents.

The most popular musical genres among the respondents were: Hip-Hop/Rap (chosen by 60% of respondents), Rock (52%), Indie/Alternative (49%), Pop (49%), R&B and Soul (33%) and Electronic (28%). Concerning the age of the respondents, people from 18 to 21 and from 22 to 26 equally compiled 70% of overall number of respondents, 35% each. 20% of the respondents belonged to the age group from 14 to 17; 8% were over 27, and only 1% - below 14.

The first question was formulated as: “Which social networks do you use the most often (on the daily basis)?” The purpose of this question was to find out which social networks were most actively used by the audience and thus, could potentially be a more efficient channel of both communicating with an artist's existing fan base and reaching out to new audiences. As a result, respondents identified two of the most popular social networks: VK (noted by 90% of respondents) and Instagram (noted by 89% of respondents). Telegram and YouTube were the second most popular, both used on a daily basis by 57% of respondents. The third place in popularity was shared bythe following two platforms: TikTok (27%) and Twitter (26%). The most unpopular platforms included Soundcloud (8%), Facebook (4%), Snapchat (3%) and Triller (1%).

The second question was the following: “On which social networks do you follow your favourite artists?”.Among the respondents, an artist's Instagram account was the most widespread choice (noted by 79% of respondents). The second most popular option was an artist's public page on VK social network (50% of respondents admitted to following their favourite artists on VK). An artist's YouTube channel scored the third place in popularity (38%), followed byan artist's Twitter account (21%), an artist's Telegram channel (10%), their TikTok (8%) and Soundcloud (8%). Facebook, Triller and Snapchat each were chosen by less than 5% of respondents. At the same time, 15% of respondents noted that they did not follow their favorite artists on social networks at all. Taking it into account, it is possible to conclude that there are three most popular social networks which Russian people use in order to follow their favorite artists: Instagram, VK and YouTube.

The next question aimed to evaluatehow often people liked artist's posts on social networks. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their likes on a scale from one to five (where 1 = never, 5 = always).

To understand how frequently respondents liked the posts of artists on social media, answers were divided into two categories: 3, 4 and 5 were considered positive indicators, signifying that people generally liked posts of performers in social networks; 2 and 1 were considered negative indicators, meaning that people engaged with an artist's content either very rarely or never at all. Thus, 69% of respondents gave positive answers (17% of respondents noted that they often liked artist posts and 31% of respondents put their answer in the middle). 11% of respondents admittedto had never liked an artist's post on social media (this, nevertheless, can be attributed to the fact that 15% of respondents did not follow their favourite artists on social media).

Similar to the previous question, the following question, “How often do you leave comment on artist posts on social networks?”aimed to evaluate how often respondents commented on artists' posts on social media on a scale from 1 to 5 (where 1 = never, 5 = always). In comparison with the previous question, the results to this question were more negative, signifying that in general, people engaged with an artist's content through comments more rarely than through likes. The vast majority of respondents (65%) noted that they never leave any comments on artists' posts. 27% of respondents admitted that they sometimes comment on posts, yet still quite rarely. 7% of the respondents put their answer in a middle and 1% picked rated the frequency of them commenting as 4 out of 5. It should be mentionedthat none of the respondents chose “always” as an answer, in comparison with 37% saying in response to the previous question that they always like content shared on their social media by the artists they follow.

One of the questions presented in the survey was the following: “If your favorite artist expressed a personal opinion that radically contradicted yours, would it affect your desire to listen to their music?”. In response to this question, the following answers were suggested: “It would not affect” (64% of people chose this option), “I would listen to their music less often” (23% of people chose this option), “I would stop listening to their music at all” (5% of people chose this option). Alongside choosing one of the provided options, respondents were encouraged to share their own opinion.

The majority of respondentsshared that it would depend on a situation. According to the responses, people believe that there arecertain personal opinions which artists should not express publicly and certain frames beyond which artistsshould not go when making public statements.Some respondents said that those“frames” included moral norms and standards. For example, one of the respondents wrote that he would stop listening to an artist's music if theyhad expressed sharp negative statements towards nationalities / minorities.

Most of the respondents agreed that the contradiction of the views of an artist and a listener was acceptable if the opinion of an artist was not presented as one ultimately true and did not offend the feelings and beliefs of other people. However, some respondents indicated that they often separatedan artist from their music, perceived their music as a separate product; for them, personal opinions of an artist, even radically negative, had no impact on whether they enjoyed listening to an artist's music or not.

One of the survey questions was formulated as:“Is it important for you that the stage image and personal brand of an artist corresponded to the image they projected on personal social networks?”.Several answers were suggested: “Not important” (46% of people chose this option), “Important but not determinant” (45% of people chose this option), “Crucial” (9% of people chose this option). Hence, it is possible to conclude that most respondents believe that the stage image of an artist does not have to precisely overlap with the way they project themselves on their personal social networks; this, too, can possibly be explained by the fact that people sometimes perceive artists and their music as separate entities and thus, do not expect an artist to always correspond with their stage image.

The next question was aimed to explore the “Industry Plant” phenomenonand the attitude of Russian audience towards “Industry Plants”.Respondents were suggested to imagine a hypothetical situation, in which media and streaming platforms were promoting a new artist who seemed to have no origin and background history and had previously been unfamiliar to the audience. Two types of reactionswere proposed: “I'd check their music out and if I liked their music, I'd add them tomy playlist” (85% of people chose this option); “It looks like a production project - I don't like that” (13% of people chose this option). Furthermore, it was possible to give a detailed answer on this question. Thus, some people explained that their attitude and reaction would depend on some additional factors, such as the overall image of an artist. To sum up, it can be concluded that the presence of “industry plant” characteristics does not really affect the general attitude of people towards an artist as long as their music appeals to their taste.

The next block of questions was designed to find out the general preferences of people in listening to music. Overall, according to the responses, streaming music on such streaming platforms as iTunes, VK or Spotify was the most widespread way to listen to music; listening to music for free via VK or illegal downloads from the Internet was the second most widespread option. A substantially small proportion of people reported that they listened to music on Soundcloud; the least widespread means of listening to music were on physical carriers (63% of the respondents never bought physical copies of music: vinyl records, discs or cassettes) and through digitally purchased albums (through the analysis of survey responses, it was discovered that 77% of those surveyed never bought digital albumsvia digital marketplaces: iTunes, Bandcamp and others). According to the survey, people would often listen to the music live in concerts; only 13% of respondents reported that they had never attended concerts, with 52% of respondents attending concerts frequently.

The ninth question was formulated as: “How do you most often discover new artists?”.

"Through friends'recommendations" was the most popular answer option (68% of respondents chose it). “Through recommendations on Internet platforms (suggested videos on YouTube, suggested artists on Apple Music, Spotify, etc.)” was in the second place by frequency (54%), while “Through collaborations / featuring tracks with the familiar artists” - in the third place. Hence, it is possible to conclude that in the digital age, when online communication implies convenient sharing of content, people mostly discover new artists through online channels;in addition to this, it is apparent that people do indeed often discover new artists through playlists compiled by streaming platforms and their algorithms designed to appeal to users' needs and interests. Interestingly, 34% of respondents shared that they often discovered new artists through Shazams in public places.

In response to the following question,“Which online music sources / mediaare you subscribed to?”, 32% of the respondents answered that they did not follow any music media, while a dominant majority of the respondents answered that they followedmusic communities on VK, podcasts on music related YouTube channels. In order to learn more about the music news sources to which the respondents were subscribed, respondents were encouraged to name some of those sources. As a result, it was possible to identify that the majority of respondents often read music news in VK communities / music-related public pages, one of the most frequently mentioned being the Fast Food Music community (predominantly sharing information on Hip-Hop/Rap music releases). Many respondents also noted a music source called “Studio 21”, both a news portal and a Russian hip-hop radio station. In addition to this, some people noted “Afisha Video” YouTube channel, a channelwhich uploaded entertaining and informative videos with the participation of popular Russian artists and video bloggers. A certain number of respondents mentioned “The Flow” website, a news portal covering major music and cultural events. Regarding foreign news resources, some respondents mentioned a music platform called “Genius”. This platform mainly focuses on the analysis of lyrics to popular songs, but also publishes news, articles and interviews with music artists and sometimes holds musical events.

In response to the following question,“Do you share music on your social networks? If so, how?”, 11% of the respondents noted that they did not share any music in their social networks, while 76% noted that they shared music directly with friends, by sending music to their friends personally. 50% of the respondents noted that they also sharedmusicwith their followers indirectly, via attaching songs to their posts in social media or by making user-generated content using a song.

A number of questions in the survey were aimed at identifying the main motivation behind people sharing music with their followers / friends on social media. Both external and internal motivations were explored. According to the results, internal factors were more determinant than external motivations for an individual to share music on their social media. Supporting the previous findings of Tellis et al. (2019), the majority of respondents did recognize that a very significant motivation for them was their desire to support their `social status', their image in the perception of their friends (22% of respondents chose this factor as determinant and 43% as very influential) - thus, they shared songs that, in their opinion, contributed to their social identity. Approximately the same significance was attributed to personal desire to support an artist without expecting anything in return (22% of respondents chose this motivation as determinant). Nevertheless, in general, the predominant motivation for respondents was to help their friends / followers to discover music that, in their personal view, their friends would possibly enjoy (56% suggested that for them, this factor was important). Thus, while Tellis et al. (2019) suggested that the main motivation for people to share content was their desire to maintain their social status, the findings of this research suggest that although this factor is important, altruistic motivation, or an individual desire to share content they perceive as useful for their friend, is dominant.

Finally, 22% of respondents suggested that they would very likely share music on their personal account in order to have easier access to it in the future; in order, to be able to listen to an album later without spending their time to find the particular album first. The least valuable motivation for the respondents was the actual external motivation in the form of a material incentive offered by an artist (a giveaway, etc.); only 17% of respondents said that they would likely reblog an artist's post in this scenario.

Throughout the survey, it was also assessed whether people would listen to music shared by their friends.

According to the results, 64% of respondents would almost always listen to the music that their friends send them directlythroughtheir inbox messages, 35% of respondents would listen to music sent by their friends to their inbox depending on a particular situation and 1% - would never listen.

As for the likelihood of them listening to music that their friends share with them indirectly through posting attaching music totheir posts on social media, only 9% shared that they would very likely listen, while67% of respondents would listen depending on the situation and 24% would not listen at all.

Throughout the survey, we also aimed to find out whether people attended music concerts.57% of respondents admitted that although they would sometimes attend concerts if there were given such an opportunity, they would not intentionally adjust their plans in accordance with the concert. Nevertheless, 28% of respondents expressed readiness to adjust their plans or even travel to a different city in order to attend a concert that aroused their interest. Nevertheless, 15% of respondents admitted that they did not attend concerts at all.

Using the survey, it was also possible to find out how many times (since September 2019) respondents attended either concerts of Russian artists or Russian festivals. 39% of respondents mentioned that they did not attend any Russian concerts or festivals since September 2019. At the same time, the proportion of people who attended concerts and festivals at least once throughout the period was 27%, 29% of respondents attended either a concert or a festival from one to five times, 2% - from six to ten times, and 3% - more than ten times. Thus, generally, the majority of people would attend concerts / festivals approximately once every two months.

In addition to this, we also aimed to find out which music festivals were the most attended by respondents. Despite the fact that all respondents gave rather different answers, some common tendencies could be distinguished. Locals Only music festival, a music festival held in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the summer of 2019, was mentioned by 7 respondents. In addition, 5 respondents noted that they visited Foucault Pendulum, a music festival held by Radio Record in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Both Locals Only and Foucault Pendulum were very big festivals with serious advertising campaignswhich had brought together the most popular artists of the new generation.However, such diverse responses could be justifiedby the discrepancies in geographical location of the respondents.

Another objective of the survey was to find out whether people watched concerts online. Due to the situation with COVID-19 pandemic, performers lost an opportunity to organize offline concerts and thus, shifted onto online platforms instead. Many artists adapted to the emergedsituation by conducting concerts online via live broadcasts. Using the survey, we found out that 43% of respondents watched such broadcasts. Hence, online live shows did provide artists with an opportunity to maintain interaction with their audience.

In response to the questions aiming to explore respondents' attitude towards an artist's merchandize products, the following information was obtained. While an approximate of 52% had never purchased merchandise products, 24% of respondents would purchase merch from the Internet and 20% - in concert venues. Nevertheless, the rest of the respondents explained that they also purchased merchandise products of their favorite artists from unofficial stores, thus, not directly from an artist. Some respondents explained that they simply could not purchase merch because they lived in remote areas and thus, had never visited concerts of their favorite artists. Among people who purchased merchandise products, predominant majority (71%) shared that they often wore products they had bought.

Exploring the factors which motivated people to purchase merch, 46% of those who purchased merch reported that they would buy it in concert venues as a souvenir to later remind them of a good night. A little more significant factors were an individual desire to support an artist (noted by 52% of respondents) and their desire to express their musical identity (noted by, too, 52% of respondents). When asked about which products they purchased more often, respondents distinguished clothing (75% had bought a clothing item at some point in their life), posters (30%), pins (27%) and CDs (18%). Tote bags had been purchased by 19% of respondents, vinyl records - by 18%, and cassettes - by 6%.

In response to the question, “If you saw a person wearing cool merch of an artist unfamiliar to you, would you Google the artist?” 41% of respondents shared that they would very likely look the artist up online; thus, supporting an assumption of Chiou, Huang and Chuang (2005), the survey confirms that merchandize products could be an effective channel of grasping new audience.

The survey also aimed to explore how respondents listened to new, freshly released albums.

Most of the respondents noted that they would listen to an album from the first to the last track (63%). However, 23% of respondents would listen in random order and 13% would listen to popular tracks first. The remaining 1% of people would first listen to the feature tracks (tracks with invited artists). Taking everything into account, it is possible to conclude that most people are accustomed to gradually consume new content in order to more thoroughly listen to the release and become more engaged.

Most of the respondents noted that singles and releases with featuring tracksincreasedtheir interest in a release, especially when it was a collaboration between artists from different genres (60% of respondents). Hence, it became obvious that collaborations between artists could lead to audience exchange and help to attract new listeners.