Britney Spears celebrated her 27th birthday yesterday. You may already know this.
But did you know her official birthday party video at a British nightclub on November 30 has been viewed on YouTube over 400,000 times and commented by 500?
By contrast, President-elect Barack Obama’s official YouTube video of his Election Night speech at Grant Park has been viewed 680,000 times with 180 comments — but it’s already been a month.
Can you think of a better metric to gauge the effectiveness of personal branding and viral marketing than YouTube?
Team Britney runs two YouTube channels:
- BritneySpears, featuring personal vignettes of the pop star, such as the birthday party, was launched October 2005 and has 6,900 subscribers
- BritneyTV, featuring Jive Records’ music videos, such as the director’s cut of “Womanizer” with 25.5 million views over five weeks, was launched December 2006 and has 102,000 subscribers
But don’t stop there.
In advance of Jive’s release of Britney’s sixth studio album, “Circus,” last week, her team hired Lauren Kozak to star as Britney’s social media manager.
If Lauren has her way, Britney will take the web by storm.
It’s already starting
The official website, britneyspears.com, born in October 1999, is home to a brand new photo blog.
In commemoration of the new album, CircusVP.com was created September 24 as a social network on the Ning platform. As I write this, the network has 24,259 members (including me) who individually signed up with a username and password.
Because I was a prior member of other Ning-built networks, I merely signed in (having never been there before) with my Ning username and password — and voila:
The Ning site is constantly growing with 25,000 photos, 877 videos, 457 groups, and 1,200 fan blogs as I write this, not to mention a chat room and a bulletin board.
Elsewhere online is an official “Circus” Facebook page with 21,427 fans (separate from the unofficial Facebook page with 374,373 fans). There is also an official MySpace page with 26,357 fans.
No social media marketing campaign is complete without a Twitter presence, and Lauren does not disappoint. @BritneySpears launched October 10, has a growing cadre of 9,800 followers, and between Lauren and Britney (yes, they both tweet to the same feed, distinguished by their tilde signatures), are tweeting several times a week.
Did I mention Britney is launching a global tour next spring? How about her new fragrance, Hidden Fantasy, cherry-scented with a hint of vanilla?
Lauren is working with Jordan Miller, webmaster of the Britney Spears fan site, BreatheHeavy.com, on enhancing social media branding so there is a single voice on new content. That’s neat.
As Lauren writes on her CircusVP blog, “Fans are our greatest asset and we empower them to help make Britney’s world better than ever.”
I await to see the next phase in the evolution.
If Britney can bare all online, remaining transparent to her fans, can’t you?
Are you?
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Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 6 comments }
Hey Ari, nice post and riveting content, sort of.
I think you really present a great example for us to work with here. However, I don’t hear – and maybe that just gives me the room to speak – much talk about the people who find themselves riveted enough … to comment 500 times.
Personally, and I am in marketing, I am in communication, I see the ‘need’ to be reflected as a large part of what the Spear’s Team has accomplished. And let me explain; Barack Obama, it was said during the race gave hope to so many – and particularly those (a) children who might come from a divorced home (b) the African-American community, (c, people hoping for an intelligent leader – whoops, d,e) etc. etc.
Spears, I believe, represents (possibly to an even more impulsive and compulsive crowd) this opportunity to represent the dreams of the enthusiasts, the music/ poster/ + buyers. Those girls get to pretend rock stars when she sings right?
What motivates these people (maybe us – certainly at times us) is a combination of both external and internal drivers.
(thanks for the chance to comment – will check back,
& best 2u)
Personally…I think the most important thing you can do online is be transparent. People will eventually find out if you are trying to hide something nefarious about yourself, it’s just the way things go. Perhaps because I am a Millenial I believe in this more strongly then others…but if you are marketer (say you are a marketer; if you are a customer service rep (say you are a customer service rep); if you are a pirate (say “aaaarggh”). Just be yourself…if Britney can, you certainly can too.
Stuart Foster´s last blog post..Finding Your Home Base
Ari: some questions and thoughts.
1. Yes there are comments but didn’t see too many real conversations. Did I miss something?
2. How many non social media geeks understand the difference between Lauren and Britney’s tweets. And how do we know who is doing them anyway for real.
3. A few months ago, most people questioned if Britney could even return. She represents well produced music with an emphasis on dancing and other productions – videos, shows etc.And now with millions behind her marketing machine. How can the majority compete with this level of effort. I say they can based on authenticity, transparency, and real conversations. In my opinion this is push marketing adapted for the social space.
4. Was this based on Lauren engaging you? Or you being interested in the effort.
Just wondering…
Duncan
I would say I am more transparent online than I am in person, since more of my true thoughts and feelings come out in my writing than when I am speaking to others.
I’m not sure how promising 500 comments on Youtube is though. I have read some of the worst comments on unmonitored videos than I have seen anywhere else.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Poetry, Photography, Blogging Tips´s last blog post..Guilty Pleasures
This is certainly an online media blitz, but where is the success metric?
Just because Twitter is a component to the marketing campaign you can not claim the campaign as successful as successful. The (perceived) authenticity of the communication needs to be intact for this to work — reading to Tweets from a marketing manager at AMC is not the same as reading Tweets from Don Draper.
Duncan: Lauren or her team didn’t engage me or otherwise ask me to write about Britney. I found it a fascinating project, as it related to similar pieces I’d written about Barack Obama and Tina Fey, err, Sarah Palin.
Anon: You provide useful comments but why be anonymous and why hide behind a fake email address? I feel baited if I respond.
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