Taylor Swift on “Forbes” list: This is how cleverly she designs her career

It seems as if everything she does is superlative: Taylor Swift has just been officially included in Forbes’ list of the richest people in the world. As is usual for the singer, she achieved this with another record: She is the first musician in this illustrious circle to have earned her fortune solely from songwriting and performances. The 34-year-old is said to be worth an estimated $1.1 billion. Swift owes her success to some smart decisions she has made throughout her career. These five moments were particularly groundbreaking.

Daring Leap: From Country to Pop

She started writing songs at 15, and a short time later she got a record deal and moved to Nashville: For a long time, Taylor Swift was just considered the queen of the country music scene. But instead of making herself comfortable there, she took the plunge into the pop industry. In conservative Nashville, people didn’t think it was funny at first, but success proved them right: the change was complete with the album “1989” from 2014 at the latest. The danceable album with hits like “Shake it off” hit a nerve and positioned itself perfectly between the EDM scene, which was extremely popular at the time, especially in the USA, and classic pop fans.

Perfect marketing: She knows her fans

When Swift began communicating with her country fans on Facebook and MySpace in the mid-2000s, it was still considered a novelty. She realized early on that being an artist was also about becoming a brand and building a stable fan base around herself. In a 2014 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, she wrote: “In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans – and not the other way around.” The singer still acts according to this credo today.

She used to post cat content on Instagram or comment on fan posts on X, then Twitter. Today she keeps her fans on their toes with little puzzles and hidden messages on her social media accounts. She promoted the album “1989” with pizza parties in her private villas for selected fans, and she sent out the matching cardigan from the cover for the album “Folklore”. All of this has an effect: their fans call themselves “Swifties”, literally make pilgrimages to their concerts and can be sure that they are part of a large community. But Taylor Swift also knows when it’s enough: When there was nothing but shitstorms in 2016 and 2017 after a public argument with Kim Kardashian and others, she withdrew from social networks for a while.

Taylor Swift provided the soundtrack to the pandemic

It is undisputed that Taylor Swift is a gifted songwriter. It has often been joked that the American can knit an epic story out of even the smallest emotion – her source of inspiration never seems to run dry. This became particularly clear with the albums “Folklore” and “Evermore,” which she released one after the other in 2020, just a few months apart, thereby providing the soundtrack to the pandemic. Once again, Swift hit the nerve of the times, focusing on folk and indie music that got to the heart of the emotions and surreal living situations of millions of people in social isolation. Also typical of her: she wisely didn’t dare to change genres alone, but rather got professionals like Bon Iver on board.

Simply brilliant: Taylor’s version

It was perhaps the most megalomaniacal but also the most successful step in her career: Since 2021, Taylor Swift has been re-recording her old albums – always with the addition of “Taylor’s Version”. The background is a dispute with her old record company, which absolutely didn’t want to sell her the rights to her songs. The old versions are now virtually worthless, Swift’s effort is paying off. Not only did she get her property back, but she also ensured a repeated windfall of money through the old songs. Because her fans love the albums in which Swift often puts extras and which regularly end up in the charts again. The case is an example of how great Swift’s influence is on the music industry: Additions to record contracts now ensure that this legal loophole cannot be used again. Swift showed the industry who has the power.

The “Eras” tour

Since 2023, Taylor Swift has been setting records with her “The Eras” world tour. And timing plays a role here too: the spectacle is fueled by the hype surrounding their old albums and the collective urge for live experiences after the years of the pandemic. Swift sings songs from all ten studio albums and also delivered a concert film that made the box office ring. The tour is considered the most commercially successful concert tour that an artist has ever completed and is said to have already grossed over a billion dollars. It is now a pop culture phenomenon in its own right. The fact that pearl pendants were briefly sold out in Australia is due to the “The Eras” trend: fans tie friendship bracelets with messages or song lines in advance and exchange them at the concert. The idea comes – of course – from Taylor Swift. She sang in the song “Midnights”: “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and enjoy it!”. And the fans followed.