TAYLOR SWIFT: BECOMING A GLOBAL MEGASTAR

Morning!

Firstly, I finally began creating an audio version of Growing Viral.

Right now, it’s essentially me reading the whole breakdown + some extra snippets that didn’t make the cut - you can find it HERE. 

Let me know what you think :)

But now onto today’s breakdown - which is on a person you have 100% heard of before.

Yet, you probably haven’t heard of the marketing tactics that made her so mainstream.

• She’s arguably the most famous singer of our generation

• Has broken countless music sales records

• And is currently on a tour set to do $1 BILLION in sales

She’s no longer just an artist, she’s a walking multi-million-dollar business.

And this is how she grew viral…

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Breaking Down The Strategy

If you haven’t heard of Taylor Swift you must have literally been living under a rock for the last decade.

• She’s dominated the charts

• She’s been all over the news

• But most importantly for her, she’s had fans dying to hear her new music and watch her live

In the last month alone there were 8.9 million searches for her on Google.

That’s more than:

• Donald Trump (5.5M)

• Elon Musk (2.8M)

• Or probably any other famous person you can think of

My point is, Taylor is one of the most talked about celebrities of our age, and her fan base is STUPIDLY strong.

Arguably the strongest you’ll find on the planet.

But it wasn’t always this way.

And it certainly isn’t that way just because she’s a half-decent singer.

It’s this way because Taylor crafted it to be this way over decades upon decades of what I call “Relationship hacking”.

Taylor makes every fan feel like they are closer to her than any other artist they listen to, by adding depth to her marketing rather than just width.

Gary Vee calls this “The Taylor Swift Principle”

She may be known as a great singer, but she’s also one of our generation's greatest marketers/community builders.

I spent 8+ hours this week going down the T Swift rabbit hole.

Here are 3 of the greatest ways she has relationship hacked her way to superstardom (+ the takeaways you can use in business):

1) Viral Fan Moments - Surprise Wedding Appearance

In 2016, Max Singer and Kenya Smith, a young couple from New Jersey were celebrating their wedding day.

But just as they were about to begin their first dance, an uninvited guest slipped through the door and sat down at the piano.

That guest was of course - Taylor Swift.

The moment was obviously very much enjoyed by guests at the wedding, but it also went majorly viral.

It was all over the internet, all over social media, and all over the news.

On the surface, it may seem like just a viral moment.

But to Taylor’s fans, it’s her showcasing to every single one of them that she cares about them.

You see Max and Kenya (the couple getting married) had actually officially got married beside the hospital bed of Max’s dying mother a few weeks earlier.

And as they got married, they danced to Taylor’s song “Blank Space”.

So when Taylor turned up and sang the song live, she wasn’t just crashing a wedding. She was showcasing to all of her fans that:

A) She sees them
B) She cares about them

It’s arguably the best thing that could go viral for Taylor and I can only imagine what it did to all of her fans that this resonated with.

2) Unscalable Interactions - Tumblr With Fans

A lot of people wonder where Taylor’s massive fan base comes from.

Of course, you have millions swooning over the likes of Harry Styles or Shawn Mendes.

But these fans don’t identify as fans of the artists like Taylor’s fans identify with her.

They are “Swifties” and they are very proud to call themselves that.

It’s a feat very few artists pull off.

But what people forget is that Taylor has been nurturing this audience since she was 15.

Not by cranking out music and posting on Instagram like the other artists do. Instead, Taylor literally spent years interacting with fans on Tumblr 1-on-1.

On the Acquired podcast they said they found 27,000 interactions between Taylor and fans over the years.

Again, on the surface, this may just seem like Taylor interacting with fans.

But to the fans, it was Taylor showing them:

A) She appreciates them
B) They can reach her if they post about her

The next minute she has millions of fans shouting her name across the internet.

It’s unscalable, yet it scales.

3) Moments With Depth - Invite Fans Around For Cookies

In 2014, Taylor was preparing to launch what she hoped would be her biggest album yet - 1989.

But in classic Taylor fashion, she wanted to know that this new album was for them.

So, she invited hundreds of fans to her house, baked them cookies, and played them the album before it was released.

She called them “1989 Secret Sessions”.

And it was arguably one of the best album launch stunts that I’ve seen to date.

It’s a prime example of adding depth to her marketing rather than width.

It wasn’t a campaign that reached hundreds of millions of people, but it was one that touched the right people.

It let every Taylor Swift fan out there feel like one day they could meet Taylor Swift too… all they had to do was keep supporting her.

The actual result of the campaign:

• The album went platinum

• It was the most successful record debut since 2002

• The YouTube video of the sessions picked up 3.4M views

Like I said at the start, Taylor isn’t just one of the greatest artists of our generation, she’s also one of the best marketers.

So the next time you hear someone proudly announcing that they are a “Swiftie” - remember what Taylor did to make them that.

But for now, that’s all from me.

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Taylor Swift’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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