All hail Taylor Swift, queen of Instagram. With 50 million followers, Swift just overtook Kim K to take the coveted crown of most followed on Instagram.
It’s no surprise that Taylor is number one. She’s built a devout following and become incredibly influential just by posting fun pictures of her cats, friends, and baked goods, making herself seem like a regular girl. But, we mustn’t forget that there’s clever marketing at play behind every picture.
Taylor Swift, just a regular girl with really cute cats
One of her greatest marketing achievements is her Bad Blood video campaign earlier this year, breaking the Vevo record with 20.4 million views in only 24 hours. The music video, premiering at the Billboard Music Awards, was counted down ahead of the release by branded images of the stars (mostly her friends) in the video, like Selena Gomez, Karlie Kloss and Cara Delevingne.
The posts created hype around the release and received hundreds of thousands of likes within hours.
Inc.com explains how to replicate Taylor’s strategy in 4 simple steps:
1. Create suspense
Taylor did it by releasing the images with not much information but still giving some away, making people excited as they didn’t know what was coming next.
2. Establish partnerships
Partnering with 15 celebrities, Taylor broadened her market to untapped areas not in her typical genre, like popular rapper Kendrick Lamar and Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo.
3. Perfect timing and execution
Even though Bad Blood was on Taylor’s album 1989 released in October 2014, she managed to make the single relevant again by showing it from a different, dark angle. Then, she posted the images every day in the 10 days leading up to the video’s release.
4. Don’t oversell
She didn’t overhype the video by not giving away too much, but it’s important not to leave the customer disappointed if you don’t have Taylor’s budget.
And here you have it. A Taylor Swift approved marketing strategy.
No bad blood here.
– N