Why you need to be following Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber and his management team are some of the smartest people going around at the moment.

Justin started out posting dozens of homemade videos on YouTube in 2007, he racked up over 10,000,000 views doing covers of famous artist. This was purely from word of mouth. He then got signed by Usher and Island Records and has become the biggest thing to hit teens since Twilight. via Wikipedia

Hypebot wrote this amazing post on why Justin Bieber is so big.

Basically he sipping on the Lil Wayne syrup of – ‘Release more songs, more often.’ He has been in the eye of teenage girls for the last year releasing new material every month, be it a new song or video. He never turns off.

A couple of the other points of interest from the article, about Justin's songs, such as:

• Short Intros - the longest intro to one of his songs is 14 seconds, but "One Time" is only 7 seconds before it gets to the meat of the song. Always a good thing if you want to your song to chart.
• Chord Changes - There's not a lot of changes in his songs but according to Frank, they happen when it counts - at around the 2 minute mark. This is just about the time that a bridge would enter, so it makes sense. Good songs tend to have a bridge.
• Repetition - If you want to chart, repeat the title over and over. In fact, in his hit "One Time," Bieber repeats the title 32 times in the song and the word "one" another 17. via Bobby

Endorsed by the established

One of the other things that has stood out for me is his alignment with established artists. He has collaborated with Ludacris, Usher, Taylor Swift, Sean Kingston, Nick Cannon, Drake, P.Diddy, Wyclef Jean, Asher Roth and gets the endorsement from The Game?!!?


Hidden Talents
The boy can Rap
On Sunrise the other day and rapped Ludacris’ whole verse, this is a rapper who has been rapping for 20 years and Bieber puts it down with no trouble.


Comedian
For April Fools Justin Bieber took over Funny or Die and renamed it Bieber or Die, I was genuinely surprised I thought he was going to be average but he is actually quite funny.

Bieber Takes Over from Justin Bieber

Who cares if he is a one hit wonder? He has absolutely nailed it, with this one album. This boy is pretty much owning at the game of life and I take my hat off to him.

Kate's Party - Meme jumping for money

You may have got a Facebook invite to Kate’s birthday over the weekend.

According to ericritic

‘What was supposed to turn out to be a small birthday party for a woman named Kate at her small apartment is turning out to be an event of the century. That’s because over 60,000 (as of this writing) random Facebook users have taken it upon themselves to invite themselves to Kate’s party.

The event’s description now reads:

“WTF??????????
WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? WHY ARE THERE 10000 PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN INVITED??????
THIS IS A PRIVATE PARTY AT OUR APARTMENT.”

Tons of groups are forming related to Kate’s birthday party, including: Which Turban should I wear to Kate’s party?, Who needs a ride to Kate’s party?, and best of all: Who in the hell is Kate?’

Meme Jumping
I think it is interesting the people that jump on the back of these memes and try to make some quick money of them. Kate’s Party is a good example of this. The model is simple, catch the trend, secure the most SEO friendly URL, publish a little bit of relevant content and set up the advertising on the site.

The new 4Channers?
Facebook users are getting a better understanding of the platform now and with this knowledge they are better able to play pranks and have a laugh. Expect to see more of these style memes start to pop up. It is very 4chan-esque.

Update: I have it on good word from Asher Moses that David Thorne of 27b/6 fame (Spider Drawing and Dear Neighbour) is behind this prank. Amazing!

The effect of ‘fan’ to ‘like’ on Facebook Ads

Which one of the following three is an ad for a Facebook Page?

It is near impossible to figure out which is an ad for a Page or an external website.

If you are running Facebook ads prepare to see a decrease in action rate (how many people become a fan without clicking through to the site). The action rate accounts for about 70% of your fan growth, with the rest coming from people who check out the site and then fan or get an update in their newsfeed.
I can understand why Facebook did this because they realized the language is not right, you do not become a fan of KFC, you become a fan of a Sportsteam, you like KFC. However calling it a ‘like’ which is the same as the rest of the external ads on the site seriously effects the amount of people who will click on those ads or the direct fan action that we used to see.

I have got some live campaigns running at the moment, so I will let you know if I see an effect.


R.I.P Become a fan ads

Illegal Facebook Promotions

The following activity is illegal on Facebook and could result in your page being permanently deleted by Facebook;

A promotion that requires a user to;
- tag themselves in the photo.
- to change their status in any way
- to change their profile picture
- to answer a question in a status update
- any kind of response in the status
- like a photo or an update
- add friends
- respond with a photo not in a specific application

All promotions need to run through an application that does not use any of the basic functionality of Facebook.

However, I have not heard of any Brand Pages being deleted for this type of activity. I am not game enough to take any chances though.

Types of media - owned, earned and bought media

I thought I would just do a quick post on something that is pretty much owning my working life at the moment. Bought, Owned and Earned Media.

Simply put these are the three ways that content is getting passed on for brands.

Bought Media – Buying adspace off publishers with audiences! E.g Banners

Earned Media – Media that your audience pass on for you, think passing on a youtube clip/article to a friend. E.g Viral Video

Owned Media – Are a brands direct channels with their consumers, this could be their email database, Facebook Page or employees

2010 has really brought Owned and Earned Media to the fore.

Owned Media
The biggest effect for Owned Media has been the introduction of Facebook Branded Pages, brands are now getting scale and audience which are rivaling their bought media channels. Other smaller brands that didn’t even have email databases are going straight for these channels.

Earned Media
A lot of people think that earned media is something that brands cannot control. It is up to the quality of the content. Wrong. Getting to the front page of Digg, the most viewed clip on Youtube or on a highly trafficked blog is not a fluke for a number of agencies but now a product that they are selling. Understanding and having the relationships to hit these earned media sweet spots is becoming a valuable commodity in this market.

Here is a great post on Mashable on Social Objects and Earned/Bought and Owned Media

Carsales AFL/NRL iPhone App – The 3 stages brands can get involved with Properties

I recently saw that Carsales have sponsored Rugby Live (NRL) and Footy Live (AFL) iPhone Applications. Last year the applications were selling for $1.19 in the App Store and is now free.

CarSales have also made a number of improvements to the app which have made it the closest thing to having Rex Hunt/Ray Warren in your pocket.

This got me thinking about brands sponsoring properties. I really think that there is three distinct times that brands can get involved with a property. When I say property I mean an idea, artist, product, event, sport, application, meme.

Embryonic Stage
This is where a brand can come up with a property or get involved with a property before it launches.

Positive – The brand is intrinsically linked to the property from the start

Negative - Higher risk, if the property is a flop, they have invested a lot of money in the idea.

Example – Rexona Ultimate Athlete,– V Festival


Infancy stage
Brands have identified the property on their radar and get involved with the property after it has had a small amount of success.

Positive – Chance to get involved and linked to the product before it hits a critical mass

Negative – Property may be seen as selling out
- May have hit its peak without the brand knowing it.

Examples – CarSales Footy Live, RedBull Air Race

Maturity Stage
This usually looks like a sponsorship of an established property. The brand does not get a lot of involvement in shaping the property.

Positive – Lowered risk of reaching the desired audience as the property is established and they have good knowledge of the size and type of people who are involved with their property.

Negative – The brand has to fight hard to define how they are adding value to the property otherwise consumers may only see it as a marketing activity


- There is usually a number of brands that are involved with the property so clutter and cut through are an issue.

Examples
Toyota AFL, KFC Cricket