Marketing with Social Media – What Michael Jackson, Iran & Domino’s Pizza Have in Common

The ever-pervasive social media seems to be taking over our lives. On one hand we have people sharing photos and spreading rumors and gossip. On the other, advertisements, marketing spiel and spam.

Since its inception, there have been some landmark moments where its value in society has been truly validated. I’m going to highlight those moments for you, after which I’ll show you some resources and tools that you can use to get started or up your game in social media marketing.

Personal Branding

The first glimpse of the true power of social media manifested in the amazingly huge number of fans and followers of the Twitter elite – @garyvee, @stephenfry, @guykawasaki and even the controversial @perezhilton – proof that it can help propel people from both sides of the coin to celebrity status.

The story of Gary Vaynerchuk is both admirable and intriguing. This 33 year-old multimillionaire started his online journey as a podcast video presenter on a wine tasting show. He was quick to recognize the role of personal branding in social media, and adopted forward-thinking marketing tactics that have projected him to online super-stardom. Many could argue that the term “social media marketing” was actually a by-product of Vaynerchuk’s ability to engage his audience and convert them into avid, zealous fans. Check out his recent accomplishments:

• amassed around 90,000 viewers on his podcast channel
• accumulated 668,000 twitter followers
• made appearances on programs such as CNBC’s Mad Money and The Ellen Degeneres Show
• landed a $1,000,000 book deal

Would Gary Vaynerchuk have had the same success without social media as a marketing tool? Possible, but improbable.

#swineflu search

Personal opinion: Personal branding is nothing new on the world wide web. However, social media marketing has taken it to a whole new level. It’s even common-place these days to find blog posts talking about the best 10 twitter backgrounds. Twitter hashtags enable topics of discussion to be indexed on the twitter search engine, ripe for plucking by the odd curious surfers wishing to know more about #swineflu for example.

Running for President

Then, we saw the campaign for presidency in which (the now President) @barackobama marketed himself largely through social media – again, namely twitter. By tweeting messages of “hope” and “change” (personal branding anyone?) he was able to accumulate an incredible amount of followers in a very short space of time.

Personal opinion: Even if Barack Obama would like to think that he could have won without the help of social media marketing he will be undoubtledly grateful to people such as Jack Dorsey & Mark Zuckerberg for the free, viral advertising they provided him.

A Following Worth a Slot on the Oprah Winfrey Show

Soon after, @aplusk reached a record 1,000,000 followers on twitter… just barely beating @cnn and @britneyspears to the title of most popular person on twitter, in a showdown that was documented all over the web and read off of a number of prominent blog headlines. As a result, Mr. Kutcher was invited to sit in with @oprah on one of her shows – which directly resulted in her choice to sign up for her own account (and a subsequent half a million followers in a matter of days).

Personal opinion: I don’t think Ashton has anything really spectacular to share with people, having had a good read through his feed. It just goes to show that anyone can get to the top…

The Creation & Addressing of Catastrophic Public Relations Events

Next, @dominos had a huge PR catastrophe in which two employees decided it would be funny to make a video of themselves performing disgusting acts with the food – and then upload it to youtube.com. Exacerbated by social media and leaking like crazy through every media outlet, Domino’s decided that the quickest, fastest and most effective way to reduce the damage would be to meet consumers on their level – the level of social media. A recorded apology was uploaded to youtube within a very short time frame, which can be seen here.

Personal opinion: Dominos handled this situation extremely well. Whilst they could have retaliated like a lot of other businesses, they took the blunt of it all and the CEO addressed new changes in Domino’s policy that would refine their employment and hygiene standards. Result? Domino’s saved face and the public knew they cared and were taking measures to address the matter.

The General Public Takes a Seat in Politics & Scares the Crap out of Politicians

The acknowledgment by governments the world over that social media is in fact a force to be reckoned with is the next landmark. The Iranian Election of 2009 is splashed with blood. When the people of Iran stood together to fight back the oppressive regime after a supposedly rigged election, the government hit back with such force that many were detained, injured or killed.

Normally, we’d hear about this kind of human rights atrocity in the morning or evening news, either on the tube to work or at home in front of the TV set. The problem with the traditional approach to information sharing is that before it reaches the person in front of the TV or reading the paper on the tube, it needs to be filtered through a hierarchy of bureaucrats and tabloid spinners. The end result is more often than not, a lot rosier or a lot worse than it really is.

However, with the inception of social media the entire globe has since been kept up to date about the circumstances unfolding in such brutal world affairs.

Videos of the violence were uploaded to Youtube (disturbing footage), articles were scribbled onto blogs, support pages materialized by the dozens on Facebook and Twitter, and social media bookmarking sites such as Digg were a powerful viral tool to spread news to more people.

On twitter and facebook, we saw an unbelievable number of people from all corners of the globe, wearing their avatars and profile pictures in bright green – a color that symbolized the unity of the rest of the world with those that were suffering in Iran as they fought for their freedom. When the Iranian government announced that it would be punishing iranians spreading news of the violence via the web, the twitterverse responded by changing their profile locations to read “Tehran” in an effort to confuse government officials. It was heart warming to see how many people were willing to lend support.

The girl that died in the video above, is now regarded as a martyr. It can be said that without sites like youtube, she would not have been covered by major media organizations after the event.

Personal opinion: Governments are used to being able to buy out stories that talk of their shortcomings – partially because they own or co-own many of the publishing and media companies in question. They’re used to bending the truths with hard cash and rarely have to deal with any significant consequences or public upheaval. BUT they shiver with fright at the mention of social media – because social media is not controlled. Social media is an organic, versatile, dynamic and pervasive phenomenon that cannot easily be regulated. Social media is the true voice of the people, and if strong enough can have an impressive impact on government.

International Icon Spanning Generations Dies at Age 50

Finally, the biggest social media explosion to-date, has been the response to the death of Michael Jackson. On June 25 2009, @michaeljackson died at his home in Los Angeles.

MJ’s death reverberated through social media chasms and expanses - echoing around the digital sphere many times over. Social media sites such as Twitter & Facebook experienced such high levels of traffic through their servers that some temporarily lost functionality and reported very slow service.

One man’s death shut down entire server farms.

Personal opinion: It is not a surprise that someone as iconic as Michael Jackson would receive anything less than massive media coverage, but the world has never seen anything like what it saw when sites flooded with tributes, well-wishes and grieving messages of loss.

So What DO Michael Jackson, Iran & Domino’s Pizza Have in Common?

Well, they all mark the dawn of a new era – a social media era. A time when information is abundantly available – so much so that transparency & reciprocation seem the only way to go in a world where anything can be scrutinized and stripped down from every conceivable angle.

You’ve read the post and you’ve understood that SM can:

• make or break Presidents
• bring huge corporations to their knees
• kill server farms in an instant
• push for regime change in totalitarian governments
• project individuals to super stardom in a matter of months

…but what can it do for you?

1. Social media marketing is about generating direct and indirect profits. If you engage people correctly, they’ll become customers and avid fans (sales people).
2. Social media marketing is VIRAL. There is a very real potential for your brand to be shared with hundreds of thousands of new prospects in an incredibly short time frame.
3. Social media marketing will reduce your overheads substantially, right down to a fraction of the marketing costs you’re incurring at the moment.

I’m not going to lie to you and say that social media marketing is free. Yes, you can market yourself online for free – but if you really want to get an edge in the game there may be some tools and services that you’ll be willing to pay for that will give you more power to engage and grow your audience.

And where do I start?

IF you have aspirations of success in personal or business endeavors –  get started on your social media marketing strategy TODAY. Play your cards right and maybe one day you’ll achieve any of the above – it’s completely possible.

(If you didn’t catch it already, listen to our interview with Michael Stelzner about Social Media and how you can use it to market yourself online. Listen here.)

Social Media Resources

Here’s a list of things you can do immediately to kick start your social media journey:

• Get a twitter account Twitter.com - Twitter is a tool at the forefront of the social media age. It is a broadcasting application that allows users to gain “followers” that will read his/her “tweets” (messages of up to 140 characters). Limiting each tweet to 140 characters means that twitter is short, sharp and effective when used properly. The character limit hasn’t stopped people from getting interested either – if anything, it’s served to challenge people to fit their message into the small space provided.
• Get a facebook account Facebook.com – Facebook boasts the ability to share not only messages, but photographs, videos and links. Facebook is more like an online personal website where you can store an abundance of information about yourself and/or your business. You can even create groups and fan pages. Use this site as a way to engage with people on a more personal level. Show them what you love doing. Be playful. Give them a peek into your life and they’ll appreciate you for it.
• Start a blog WordPress.com / WordPress.org – If you’re serious about building your own personal brand, getting a blog is the way to go. You can even integrate this blog into an existing website you own making it easier for people to consume all your information from one place.Wordpress.com will give you the ability to have your own blog, but hosted on the wordpress.com site. This means that you won’t have a cute domain name, but you won’t have to pay anything for hosting either. WordPress.org will let you download the core files needed to host a blog on your own server and configure it as you please. Drive traffic to your blog through twitter and facebook by placing links in your content and tweets.
• Get a youtube account Youtube.com – A great way of making a name for yourself is through viral video. Sharing video is really easy in today’s world with sites like Youtube.com. If you have a video camera and you’ve got something to say – film and upload it. You can share the video link on your blog, facebook page and you can tweet it to your followers. Starting to see how social media works yet?

OR Browse the social media universe for the applications and tools that are best for you:

• 35+ Social Media Tools That Make Life Easier
• Top Social Media Sites

Advanced social media users

If you’re already using social media but you haven’t really gotten into anything major on the marketing front, try out some of these pro-tools that will help you generate leads and convert them faster:

1. Hummingbird – This is the ULTIMATE twitter software. Hummingbird will automatically follow people for you. You literally sit back, have a coffee and you’re done.
2. Twitter Traffic Machine – Learn from a real social media guru in this educational package. It details how to automate your twitter accounts so that you don’t have to be in front of the PC all day, every day.
3. Twixplode – This course comes from my personal friend @seanmalarkey. In it, he discusses how to get the most out of your twitter marketing with some real gem’s of information that I would have otherwise never known!

Some Basic Strategies for Engaging in Social Media Activity

1. Have the end in mind. All too often we start moving in a direction and we don’t know where the destination is. In a recent article @marj_galangco highlights why it is essential to start with the end in mind: How to Manage Yourself and Massively Boost Your Productivity
2. Find out where your dream audience hangs out. Everyone has their favorite places to frequent. I personally love visiting design & technology sites for tips & tricks. Marj prefers personal development & finance blogs. Where does your target market like to go? When you find out, become a regular and you’ll start to meet tons of prospects.
3. Build relationships. Engage in conversation with the people you meet. Show them what you’re like – be yourself. Don’t sell to them immediately and don’t just talk about yourself. Imagine you really need to gain these people’s trust (which you do) and you’ll find it easy to connect.
4. Give them something to do. Once you’ve established a connection, give them something to do. This could be to read a blog post you’ve written, sign up to a newsletter, visit a website you own or any number of things that tickle your fancy.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this article and I’d like to encourage you to leave your comments below. If you liked the time that you spent on this blog please sign up for our newsletter and in return we’ll send you relevant, important information such as invitations to free webinars, reports, white papers, videos and tips and of course, notifications of when we’ve made a new post so that you can read it while it’s still fresh.

Have a great day and see you shortly!

P.S. If you’d like to talk to me about anything regarding social media, you can catch me on twitter or facebook.

Other articles you may be interested in:

• Social Media Marketing Interview with Mike Stelzner
• Using Social Media to Market Your Business

Related posts:

1. Social Media Marketing Interview with Mike Stelzner
2. How to Use SavorChat to Boost Your Social Media Branding & Productivity
3. Using Social Media to Market Your Business
4. Social Media Marketing: Why You’re Better Off to DIY
5. 6 Ways to Increase Social Media Productivity