STAR of the Month: Shenseea used social media to catapult her into music

The power of social media to catapult regular persons into a life of stardom and fame has been evident since the turn of the digital era.

Social media has launched the careers of countless entertainers in Jamaica. Gully Bop is perhaps the biggest example of what social media can do for one's career as his rise to fame began from a mere video.

Our STAR of the Month, Shenseea, is also a testament to the power of social media. The digital space is where the artiste was first introduced to the local music scene.

Before she was signed to Romeich Entertainment, Shenseea had been using her social media platforms to introduce herself to the world.

Knowing she wanted a career in music, Shenseea, who was the mother of a newborn at the time, understood that social media could be the ticket to her achieving her dreams.

She began posting videos of herself doing cover versions of popular tracks and was encouraged by the responses from social- media users.

"I knew I had talent, but when I started to hear it from a lot of people, I knew that I really had something going on. I started to post videos more often, and somebody said I should start trying to write my own songs. I said I would try, and I wrote my song called The Perfect Sidechick, and I put it up, and it went about 86,000 views in less than a week," she said. "After that, I said to myself that growing my social, media following could get me where I wanted to go.

power of social media

Based on the fact that I couldn't get out there professionally just yet, I said I was going to do my own thing on social media, market myself there, and it worked. Romeich recognised me, and we just moved on from there."

Shenseea said if she wasn't sold on the power of social media before, she was convinced the space could work wonders for up-and-coming talent when her second single as a professional artiste went viral.

"The first song that we released was Jiggle Jiggle and it was the first song I ever recorded because before that, it was just straight Facebook and Instagram. The second song went viral, and then my third song was the Kartel song Loodi and everything just blew up," she said.

Having used social media successfully to launch her career, Shenseea has mastered the art of using the platforms to her advantage.

Shenseea has also introduced her two-year-old son to social media. Business was the furthest thing from her mind when she decided to activate an account for her son, but Shenseea revealed that companies have been reaching out via her son's page.

They have been showing an interest in using him for advertisements and other projects, and Shenseea has no regrets about her decision.