I wish half of all marketers were half as talented at marketing as Taylor Swift.
That statement breaks down to be a pretty small percentage (25%), but don’t focus on my silly math. Focus on the fact that Swift is not only a good songwriter but a more-than-capable marketer, and the entire industry could learn a thing or two from her.
Swift has owned digital media for the last 30 years (OK, that’s not technically true since her first album only came out in 2004, but it certainly feels like 30 years when you look back at it). She has a plethora of hit songs and number-one albums, but I’m more interested in how she manipulates the media to her needs.
She dropped an album last week — rather, she released 1.5 albums by providing an extended version a few hours after she dropped the proper album.
Prior to the album release, she owned social media by tweeting out song titles. Not lyrics — titles. There were thousands of tweets and articles guessing what the songs would be about — all because she announced song titles.
That’s like Apple announcing the name of its new OS, and fans predetermining what they think the new features will be, based on the name (in fact, they do that already, so maybe Apple and Swift have more in common than we thought).
Swift also will crush album sales this week because she sold four versions of the same record that could be assimilated into a large wall clock, which of course required you to buy a specific modular set to make the clock. It’s a crazy gimmick to get people to buy four times as many vinyl records as they normally would, but you have to give her credit for coming up with the idea! She will singlehandedly be responsible for more vinyl sales than any Record Store Day through the course of the year.
But it’s not just about her innovative ideas to drive album sales. It’s about understanding her audience and the ability to generate buzz.
Swift is an expert at releasing just enough information to get her fans excited, igniting the flame they are dying to fuel into a full-fledged internet fire. She rolled out a little bit of info every day, building on the previous day. She embedded Easter eggs through the messages and in the images she released.
She called her album Midnights, and then released an even longer version at 3am to further satiate and infuriate the fans and critics who thought they’d figured it all out.
During the pandemic she released two records with no pre-release buzz and generated more attention than most artists can capture through their entire careers. You only do this if you are tapped into an audience whom you understand and can manipulate to your needs.
But how does she do it?
In traditional marketing terms, she has an earned and owned infrastructure that is at her disposal and easy to tap into. I didn’t tally it up, but I would hazard a guess that Taylor Swift has the largest aggregate social media ecosystem of anyone on the planet when you look at all the channels combined. She knows her every move is tracked and commented on, so why not put that to your advantage?
It’s a Machiavellian move to take those looking for the story and give them enough to let them run with it, knowing that the worse they portray you, the more ammunition you have with which to respond. For Taylor Swift, that negativity becomes the art, and you have the largest platform in the world to go tell your story. From what I can tell, there’s noone who stands between her and her fans, and her fanbase continues to grow.
Cheers to the owner of social media. Forget about buying Twitter. Elon, you should invest in Taylor.
This story was first published by MediaPost.com and is republished with the author’s permission.
Cory Treffiletti is SVP at FIS. He has been a thought leader, executive and business driver in the digital media landscape since 1994. In addition to authoring a weekly column on digital media, advertising and marketing since 2000 for MediaPost‘s Online Spin, Treffiletti has been a successful executive, media expert and/or founding team member for a number of companies, and published a book, Internet Ad Pioneers, in 2012.
