Beyoncé taps the power of social media

Beyoncé

You see, the power of social media, for vast hordes of us small business owners, brand managers, or community leaders, is more latent than manifest.  It's something to nurture over time, be patient with, and regularly work at.  

In this light, it is very difficult to replicate what Beyoncé just did, that is, in eschewing traditional album launches and being wildly successful at it (rf. Beyoncé Rejects Tradition for Social Media’s Power).  Obviously it helps to be a star to begin with, but at some point she was an unknown but she and her backers worked at her act, her brand, and her marketing.

What lessons can we draw from her move?

• Buck convention.  Question the people who say `It's how things are done around here!  Then, do it differently.
• Tap convention.  It may sound like I'm contradicting myself, but that's because the article - Beyoncé herself - fools us into believing it was all, or mostly, social media.  You can count on her to do the usual touring, TV spots, and radio play.    
• Make it multimedia.  Music is so much more than just music (i.e., sound).  It's visual, it's technical, it's emotional.    
• Take a pulse.  It is impossible to know everything or to script everything.  But keeping your eyes an ears open and keeping tabs on what's going on around you, your target market, media and technology developments position you to do what Beyoncé just did.

Sometimes it's easy to attribute any successful effort to the very things you did leading up to that success.  In reality, so many more things are at play, which are out of our hands.  So besides the four points above, I'd say it's a lot of hoping, praying, and seeing how it all turns out.