Mora Sabarots & Hear Me Out Berklee: Collaboration and Connection on Social Media

Graphic by Lily Hartenstein

By Karenna Umscheid

Berklee College, a renowned musical institution, boasts a large share of Boston’s underground music scene. Students, individually or in bands, jam together and hope to gain traction and success on social media. Mora Sabarots (she/her) is a songwriting major and psychology minor at Berklee, and she noticed that the artists being highlighted on social media were just the same ones, over and over. Through her classes, Sabarots saw the wide array of talent her community offered, and wanted to do something to highlight it more. Thus, Hear Me Out was born. 

One artist highlighted is Sabarots’s friend Arvin Ma, a jazz vocalist and international student. 

“I honestly could not believe that no one had really met him before or heard of him and that he just showed up in my class and he’s just one of the best vocalists I’ve ever heard.” Sabarots said. 

Hear Me Out focuses on musicians from all types of genres, not just the ones most popular at Berklee. Though the account is still gaining traction, it is working towards the goal of forcing students to expand on the artists they know and support, to allow a larger variety to find success online. 

“My main hope right now in the beginnings of it is for people not to have the excuse to be like ‘Oh, I don't follow them’ and I'm like ‘Oh, you could follow this one account that has a ton of like, really, really awesome people that you probably have never heard about before,’” Sabarots said.

Sabarots is a musician herself, with two singles “Johnny” and “Apartment”being released this year. 

“I'm gonna keep writing for as long as possible, the cool thing about songwriting is that it doesn’t really have a term limit,” Sabarots said. 

She plans on combining her love for music with her social media marketing savvy, hoping to work behind-the-scenes in the operation of a record label’s social media strategy and website. Sabarots said that “Aesthetically I think it's so important to know how to brand yourself and market yourself as an artist, and I'm obsessed with social media and the power behind it and you can really use it to your advantage.”

Despite the potent concentration of musical talent at Berklee, Sabarots iterates that the environment is extremely collaborative and supportive. She said that “For the most part you would think that in a building full of concentrated talent there’d be a lot of competition but honestly when you get here, as scary as it is and as daunting as your classes are, everyone is super, super, super supportive and just very encouraging.” 

Sabarots points out the importance of understanding one’s brand and goals in gaining an audience on social media. “I think they all act so differently and the second that you know kind of what works for you and what doesn’t and you analyze your audience it's pretty easy to post accordingly if that’s something that you’re interested in,” she said.

She reflects on her own musical career and how it’s grown through TikTok, informing the emphasis she puts on social media marketing. She said “It became very real to me the impact social media can have on your career, because I would not have probably half the streams I do on my music, which is not a lot already, if i didn't have the success that I had on TikTok.” 

“I think learning how to use it to your power and your advantage can be really, really instrumental in your field.” 

Sabarots hopes that Hear Me Out will keep growing and gaining traction, in order to help more artists grow and create a brand online. She explained that “the account doesn't have a huge following quite yet, but more than anything, an extra couple of clicks could mean a lot to different people, so really most of them have been appreciative that I sought them out, and everyone’s super supportive of each other.”