Two words. Taylor Swift. Her first official pop album released on Monday is expected to be the first album this year to sell a million copies, all while the music industry as a whole is on the decline. But what does that have to do with social media? Well, everything!
an expert to know the woman is a marketing genius. With a mere 70 million Facebook likes and 45.9 million Twitter followers, I can only imagine at least a few of those fans will pick up the album. Add in 12 million+ Instagrammers, over a million YouTube subscribers, and Tay’s newfound love for Tumblr, and I think she has the entertainment industry’s social media go-tos covered. It’s not about how many likes and followers she has though, it’s about how Taylor uses her social media presence. Basically, her content and engagement are on point!
Even if you are not aspiring to be a twenty-something entertainment superstar, you and your business could take a few pointers from Taylor Swift’s social media expertise. Here are 3 tips to get you started:
- Take advantage of your friends. No, I don’t mean use them for your own personal gain with nothing in return, but you do have to leverage the contacts you already have. Your business likely has industry partners, ties to charitable organizations, employees, customers, and already established social media followers. The key to doing this without being abusive is to share the wealth. When you tag your partners, you are sharing the publicity with both businesses’ followers.
Taylor Swift is known for building relationships with other celebs, and she and celeb pal Ed Sheeran are always Tweeting one another. By doing so, Taylor gets the additional reach of Ed’s 10 million followers and Ed is put in front of Taylor’s 45 million followers. The opportunity for their duplicate followers to see the message is then doubled. The same goes for tagging employees and customers–every time you tag someone, even just to express appreciation, you are putting your name in front of all of their social acquaintances as well as publicly expressing their value to you. Everyone wins!
- Be transparent. Transparency is the new big thing in marketing–consumers like businesses that operate in figurative glass buildings. The real-time aspect of social media makes it the perfect channel to put your business practices on display. Share how your company operates, how products are made, what events you are attending, and your processes down to the details.
Miss Swift is an expert at transparency. For her new album release, Taylor shared YouTube videos detailing her thoughts when she wrote each song. She invites fans into her personal life, sharing the views from her NYC penthouse and pictures of her life as a homebody who bakes cookies and snuggles with her cats. Recently, she even admitted that she is just like you, confessing she doesn’t really know how to use Tumblr or understand hashtags.
- Be approachable. Think customer service. Your business is sure to be invested in providing excellent customer service, as that is a big part of what keeps your customer base coming back for more. It’s important to regard your social media accounts as a valuable customer service tool by soliciting feedback and responding to your followers. Even more important is that your customers feel comfortable enough to contact you on social media and trust that they will get a timely and sincere response.
Taylor Swift took the time during her live talk-show style album announcement to answer questions she received over Twitter, Instagram, and Skype. She takes it a step further and builds trusting relationships with her followers by proactively responding to issues that don’t directly involve her–congratulating a fan on an engagement, consoling a fan going through a breakup, and encouraging a fan who has experienced bullying.
Achieving and maintaining a superior social media presence is a lot of work. Rumor has it Taylor Swift handles her social media all by herself. But let’s face it, developing content, taking time to respond, working on proactive engagement–it’s not easy and it’s time consuming! That’s why many businesses employ professionals to strictly manage their social media accounts. For these web presence companies, it is so important that clients provide the valuable information that leads to relationship building, transparency, and superior customer service.
When it comes to social media, let’s quote Taylor on her recent shift from country music to pop, “The only real risk is being too afraid to take a risk at all.