The Beyoncé School of Social Media

If you are similar to me, you worship Beyoncé. If you are a human on this planet, you know who Beyoncé is. Beyoncé turned to social media instead of traditional marketing methods to promote her surprise ‘Beyonce’ album. What she really did, however, was showcase the true power of social media.   

Who is Beyoncé?

For anyone who has been living under a rock for the past two decades, Beyoncé is an American singer. In the 1990’s, she was in all girl R&B group – Destiny’s Child. Later, she established a solo career and become one of music’s top-selling artists with sold-out tours.

How is Beyonce relevant to promoting yourself on Social Media?  

Beyonce is a very talented singer, like most artists! However, unlike most artists, Beyoncé didn’t use traditional marketing strategies of spending millions on promoting through ads on billboards, buses, bus stops and even pop-up’s to promote her surprise album – Beyoncé.

She used her own blog – Beyoncé.com, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and without warning, dropped her album over night and allowed social media to market it for free.

Now, you might be thinking that’s all fine and dandy but I’m not a celebrity with thousands of fans, how will using Social Media benefit me? Well in comparison to other celebrities Beyonce doesn’t actually have many followers. Let’s take Katy Perry as an example.

Beyonce                                                                      Katy Perry

60 million Facebook followers                                   72 million Facebook followers

13 million Twitter followers                                       69 million Twitter followers

11 million Instagram followers                                  19 million Instagram followers

When Katy Perry dropped her last album Prism, she had been promoting her upcoming album via traditional marketing methods and through social media to 160 million followers and in the first week sold 286,000 albums. Katy Perry followed the conventional marketing method of generating buzz over time and then capitalizing when anticipation peaks, Beyoncé did not.

Beyoncé posted one short Instagram video with the caption “Surprise” that led to 1.2 million tweets in just 24 hours. So many people were trying to download her new visual album it crashed iTunes! All this, despite having 76 million less followers than Katy Perry, she sold an epic amount of 800,000+ in the first 3 days. What’s more, Beyoncé saved a ton of money on promotion.  

bing.com

She took the smart approach and went directly to her fans through social media and you can too. Let’s break down which Social Media platforms Beyoncé used.

Her Blog – On Beyoncé’s blog, she has information about her albums, music videos, tours, campaigns, fragrances, photos and videos of her personal life and a shop with all her merchandise available for purchase.

This blog is updated daily, providing fans with the feeling of direct contact with her. It also provides press with lots of content to keep writing about - probably why you keep seeing articles about her everywhere.

Instagram – Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is simply a photo or short video. One of the things Beyoncé does best is keeping it real with her fan base. By providing photos of personalised gifts sent from her fans, and photos with her fans, allows her fans to feel connected to her. Hardcore fans aka ‘Beehive’ will find clues in photos, and then spread the word. These busy bees work hard to promote ‘Queen B”.

Facebook – Beyonce uses Facebook to inform her followers on upcoming events, events she attended, to wish other celebrities happy birthday, promote campaigns she supports or to share videos of her fans dancing to her music.  

Twitter – Surprising, Beyonce doesn’t use Twitter much. But when she does it usually begins a trend of tweets. #Beygood is usually the hashtag she uses. This hashtag plays a major role in her reputation as a good Christian woman and also provides the campaigns she supports with a lot of attention.

You’ll notice each social media platform has a different use. If you put out the same content on all these platforms, your followers will get bored. Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, you need to recognise their differences and your target audience and then select the appropriate way of delivering your content.

Let’s summarize how to use social media’s main platforms correctly.

1.      Build a website or blog. Provide information daily on what you are trying to promote. Keep your information current to maintain and grow viewers. Post photos, videos and topics relevant to your product. Allowing viewers insight to your world can make them feel a connection with your brand. Make it easy for your followers to purchase your products from your blog.

2.      Set up an Instagram account. Take photos of your brand in the environment that supports your target audience’s lifestyle. Promote your brand with clear, attractive photos of your products. Use fillers to make your picture pop out. Use free Iconosquare or Websta to find the most relevant hashtags for your updates. Take photos of customers with your brand and post them onto Instagram. Use incentives like discounts or prizes and suggest to followers to tag photos with your products. Attach links to your blog, Twitter and Facebook.

3.      Create a Facebook Page – Ultimately, Facebook has the most information about people, which is creepy but is ideal for your business. Adverts are generated to each individual based on their age, location, interests and then shared. Also Facebook provides you with feedback and for a small fee will promote your page further. Create a banner for your Facebook page and appropriate profile picture. Create events for customers to attend and consistently post photos and updates about your brand. Ask questions to keep your followers engaged and circulating interest.

4.      Tweet on Twitter – Learning to write in less than 140 characters may challenge you but usually you will receive more attention if it’s short and sweet. Use catchy hashtags to help draw attention and create your reputation. Support brands that support yours on Twitter by retweeting them and if they are good business partners they will retweet you. Interaction with other twitter followers will help your social interacting climb and help your brand grow.

 Jessica Smith 

Australian girl, Jessica is loving England but is missing the sunshine! She loves writing, dogs and plays hockey! Follow her @JessicaAtSMF

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