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Welcome back to another edition of our How to Go Viral series! As March comes to a close, so does Women’s History Month. What better way to wrap up this important month than by celebrating and highlighting the badass women who have utilized social media platforms to become household names in the Canadian music industry? This edition is a rapid-fire roundup of some of this year’s Juno-Nominated women. We watched the Juno Awards on March 24, 2024, and are spotlighting the viral success stories that lead the female nominees to being included in Canada’s biggest night of music. If you haven’t already, you can check out previous parts of our series, from Finding Your Niche, to Back to Basics, for more viral tips and tricks. Now, series writer and artist Maya Malkin is taking us to the Juno Awards – get ready for glitz and glam!

*Spoilers ahead*  

Charlotte Cardin 

Nominated: Single of the Year – “Confetti” 

Nominated: 99 Nights – Pop Album of the Year – Won

Nominated: Fan Choice

Nominated: 99 Nights – Album of the Year – Won

Nominated: Artist of the Year 

Nominated: Songwriter of the Year

Charlotte Cardin was the most nominated artist at this year’s awards, with six nominations. She first gained success on La Voix, Quebec’s version of The Voice, where she came in fourth place on the reality TV show. Mainstream TV success aside, Charlotte does a great job of putting herself out there on social media, with many viral Reels and Tiktok videos under her belt. Her unique voice and writing chops make her intimate home-made performance videos a stand-out, and a big part of her continued success.

Trend to try: At home live performance content

Other examples:

Confetti – Charlotte Cardin

Apocalypse (Cover) – Charlotte Cardin 

The Beaches 

Nominated: Rock Album of the Year – Blame My Ex – Won

Nominated: Group of the Year – Won

I’ve discussed The Beaches in this series before, and I’m going to do it again! Their viral hit and now award-winning song “Blame Brett” exploded on Tiktok, sky-rocketing the already buzz-worthy Toronto locals into international fame. As mentioned in our previous article, the band posted a Tiktok video of lead singer Jordan recording the song in the studio, which amassed 3.2 million views. The rest is history. The song landed them Spotify editorial covers like “Best bands in the Universe”, and slots on shows like The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Trend to try: In-studio recording content 

Other examples

Edge of the Earth – The Beaches

Me & Me – The Beaches

Lu Kala

Nominated: Single of the Year

Nominated: Breakthrough Artist of the Year

Lu Kala has one of those voices that penetrates your soul. From her first release, “DCMO (Don’t Count Me Out)”, she caught the attention of the Canadian industry because of the powerful message behind the song, as well as her unique vocal tone and writing skills. Kala started posting to Tiktok and Reels and captured buzz on a viral scale with her videos performing her original songs on stage and in the studio. In 2023, she was featured on Latto’s song “Lottery”, which was her first song to enter the Billboard 100 charts.

Trend to try: Live performance on stage or in-studio content

Other examples

Pretty Girl Era – Lu Kala

Nothing But Love – Lu Kala

Tate McRae 

Nominated: Single of the Year – Won

Nominated: Artist of the Year – Won

Nominated: TikTok Juno Fan Choice

At age 13, Tate McRae was the first Canadian finalist to appear on So You Think You Can Dance. At age 14, McRae wrote a song called “One Day”, which she posted on her YouTube channel. It was the first song in a series called “Create With Tate” and it amassed over 40 million views online. The artist posted songs on YouTube in this series regularly, which continued to rack up millions of views. Since then, Tate McRae has become a worldwide sensation with viral songs like “Exes” and “Greedy”. Many trends featuring her songs have popped up on TikTok and other social media platforms, most of which were made more popular by her dancing background. McRae posts tons of content dancing to her own music, giving it even more exposure.

Trends to try: Posting original songs to YouTube or dancing to your own songs

Other examples:

Exes – Tate McRae (Dance)

Hurt My Feelings – Tate McRae (Dance)

Rêve

Nominated: Pop Album of the Year

Montreal-native Briannah Donolo, known as Rêve, got her start singing the national anthem at hockey games. After one of the performances was uploaded to YouTube and started gaining traction, the singer got the media’s attention. After moving to Toronto, she started posting mashups on TikTok, landing her some viral success on the platform. With the releases of her mega hits “CTRL + ALT + DEL,” “Headphones,” and “Whitney,” her social media visibility grew, and so did her audience and content style. She now posts lots of performance footage, day in the life content, and more general music-related content.  

Trends to try: Mashups or YouTube performance content

More Examples:

Tongue – Rêve

Headphones – Rêve

Haviah Mighty 

Nominated: Best Rap Album of the Year

2022 Juno-Winner Haviah Mighty has been in the Rap game for over a decade. After releasing a few projects independently, she went on to win So You Think You Can Rap Canada. After the release of her fifth EP, Flower City, she was garnering critical acclaim and major press. Her first full length album, 13th Floor, won her the Polaris Prize, and her mixtape Stock Exchange, won her the 2022 Juno for Rap Album/EP of the Year. Recently, she’s been experiencing online viral success for collaborating with another Canadian rapper, Connor Price. As mentioned in our Collaboration Edition of this series, working with other artists can help take your music career to a whole other level.

Trend to try: Collab Content

Other examples:

Haviah Mighty – Collab content – Video Performance 

Haviah Mighty – Collab content – Live Performance 

Shawnee Kish 

Nominated: Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year

Nominated: Adult Alternative Album of the Year

Shawnee Kish is a Mohawk artist originally from Welland, Ontario. In 2020, Kish won the CBC Searchlight competition, and then went on to become one of the winners of the Allan Slaight Juno Master Class in 2021. On social media, Kish shares lots of varied types of viral content, such as day in the life content with her partner, as well as song request content. Letting people in on your day to day life or interacting with them by doing something like taking song requests, is a great way to engage with fans, create viral content, and build an even larger audience. 

Trends to try: Song Requests or Day in the Life content

Other examples:

Day in the life – Shawnee Kish

Live performance – Shawnee Kish

That’s a wrap!

There you have it! Happy Women’s History Month and congratulations to all of this year’s Juno Awards nominees and winners. Now it’s your turn! Take some inspiration from this year’s nominated female talent, and try your hand at the types of content that worked for them. As always, don’t forget to make it your own or add your personal spin to it, highlighting whatever makes you unique. Let this be an important reminder that you could be one viral video away from being nominated yourself. Anything is possible when you put yourself out there. 

For more viral content creation tips, check out Part 1 (Finding Your Niche), Part 2 (Collaboration), Part 3 (Christmas), and Part 4 (Back to Basics).

Written by Maya Malkin
Illustration by Holly Li