Social Media Strategy and Branding: How a Modern Brand is Created by the Embracing of Content

Social Media Strategy and Branding: How a Modern Brand Is Created Through the Embracing of Content

In the Social Media Era, a marketer can create a brand through the wise of a brand’s resources. Social Media is a great equalizer. Social Media creates great scale. Brands who have limited resources can become the pre-eminent brands in their market spaces through the wise use of social media.
In the music space, because of social media a singer no longer has to produce album after album or go on tour, to create a great music brand. Great music brands are not created by the marketing departments of major labels. Instead, great music brands are created by fans embracing the content of an artist.
In the social media era, any kid, any kid, with the technology available to them, and the social platforms at their disposal, can produce a record in their own bedroom, create a video, and upload that video onto YouTube, or on a Facebook Page. Because these video housing sites have great scale, many people can see this song. Social Media is viral. According to Reed’s Law, a network of 2 can become 1,092.
If people enjoy a song, that song is going to be shared among many friends who share with many friends. If the stars line up, a kid, in a small town, can become an overnight sensation. This is how Justin Bieber was created. Contrast this to old media.
In the early ‘90s a successful businessman in Houston, Matthew Knowles, had a talented daughter, Beyonce. He started a girl group. He quit his job and leveraged all of his family’s assets to make a demo tape for his daughter’s group to get a contract with a major recording label. He then went to all the labels, trying to market this tape. The family lived off the mother, who was a hairdresser.
Matthew almost went bankrupt. His marriage almost ended in divorce. By sheer luck, through a series of unusual events, Destiny’s Child was signed by one label, dropped, and picked up by another label. Destiny’s Child did go on to become one of the most successful girl groups of all time. In our social media era, this drama would not happen.
Today, if you have compelling content, if people embrace you, your content is going to be picked up. A big change in the creation of content is the emergence of Google. This search engine has democratized content. In today’s world, if you have content that is embraced, the critical search engine will put your content at the front of music search. It makes no difference if you come from a small town in Canada, or a rich family in Beverly Hills. If you have the most popular content, you will become the most important brand. In today’s world, parents no longer have to become bankrupt or divorced to create a brand of their kids. In today’s social media age, it is fans that create and develop the brand. Amazing!!!!!!

Dean Hambleton
dnhambleton@gmail.com