While many teens use Taylor Swift’s music as their makeup and break-up bible, marketing professionals could learn something from Miss Swift. To mention that Taylor has mastered her social media strategy is an understatement; let’s look at why.
Swift Strategy Tip №1: Make and Use Influential Friends
Katy Perry and Tay Swift’s feud keeps making headlines. KP can RAWR loudly, but Taylor has called within the reinforcements, squad of fans, and influential celebrity mates, including her “Bad Blood” video co-stars. So what is the lesson here? Like Taylor, when researching influencers, make sure that they add relevance to the social media strategy. “Bad Blood” features only young, female celebs, bringing girl power to a brand new, receptive audience and producing great content at the same time. Her famous friends then helped spread the work through their own communities.
Swift Strategy Tip №2: take part.
Stalking on social media are some things we’ve all done but usually do not like to admit. However, to promote her album 1989, Taylor did just that, signing off with #taylurking. She browsed posts uploaded by fans and reposted their content via her Twitter account. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for #taylurking to trend worldwide, a real badge of honor for a flourishing social media strategy. User-generated content campaigns are an excellent way to increase social engagement, also show that we recognize and appreciate interaction from our community.
#taylurking is simply one way Swift continues to interact together with her some 38.2 million Insta fans. The social media strategy takeaway here: Forge personal bonds with community members. Play games with them, like their photos, ask them questions, and answer their concerns. Such activities have proved to be very successful in profiling Taylor as a typical girl next door that would easily be our bestie and taking her image beyond a music icon and into a relatable brand that resonates with the audience.
Swift Strategy Tip №3: Surprise and Delight Online and Off
Brand love is the ultimate aim for any company, and what better thanks to receiving love than to give it. Taylor often keeps her fans on their toes by surprising them (and building loyalty), both on social media, as we discussed above, but also IRL. Taylor makes her fans feel special by posing for selfies and even inviting them into her home for an exclusive album listening party, which she then documents on her own channels. A little surprise can make a person’s day (or an entire year within the case of ‘Swifties’) and encourages them to spread positive word of mouth. Understandably, delighting customers with gifts is often expensive, so to avoid blowing the budget, we will always use media monitoring tools to help point us in the direction of the brand advocates.
