By Richard Scarlett
Whether it’s Ashton Kutcher versus CNN, breaking news of international disasters or Stephen Fry stuck in a lift – every now and again, we get glimpses of the relentless and persuasive force of social media.
Of course, the most recent example was ITV unwittingly hitting the PR jackpot with dreary Susan Boyle – or SuBo as she is more affectionately known these days. From the moment she first stepped onto that Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) stage back in April, I’m sure she had already been reserved a place on the blooper reel and condemned to a year of patronising ITV2 spin-off shows.
However, the ensuing – and somewhat surprising – hysteria and SuBo-mania must have had ITV’s marketing department hi-fiving. They sent her out to the wolves and then just sat back to watch the viewing figures stack up (before cruelly spitting her out to The Priory once she was no longer lucrative).
Now, as someone who has never watched an episode of BGT, I was in the rare position of seeing this viral masterpiece unfold from a total outsider’s perspective. I’d never heard of this woman, nor heard her sing, but all of a sudden she’d become an overnight sensation with millions of YouTube hits and I just couldn’t get away from her – I even found myself confronted with a show about her during a recent trip to Florida.
Annoying as it all was, it did get me thinking about how quickly Boyle went from being a humble talent show contestant to one of Simon Cowell’s most successful global PR tools.
In the business world, so much time is spent predicting and speculating as to what the next ‘big thing’ will be in social networking, that I sometimes worry we’re in danger of missing out on the opportunities already out there.
YouTube had only just found its feet before MySpace took over, but that was thwarted when Facebook was hailed as marketing’s new sweetheart – but that didn’t last either, because before long, everyone wanted to be Linked In. Nevertheless, that’s all old hat because everybody who is anybody is now Tweeting. Unless, of course, you live in China – in which case this all becomes irrelevant.
I guess my point is that, while it’s good to embrace new technologies, and while the rate of innovation is increasing, we shouldn’t forget the enormous impact that simple, ‘old school’ favourites such as YouTube can still have on marketing and publicity efforts. How did Ashton beat CNN in the Twitter race, why did Susan Boyle become the phenomenon that she did? Because both Ashton and Simon Cowell have a good understanding of social media and know how to effectively manipulate various mediums to create a buzz among savvy bloggers.
I’m not saying that every video that you upload or Facebook group you create will have the SuBo effect, but there could be value in stopping to consider how best to get the most out of social networking sites, rather than frantically trying to just ‘stay ahead of the curve’.
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