Lady Gaga, like her or not, has achieved an amazing amount of recognition across the globe, both online and offline. One would have to say that Gaga’s presence in social media is key to the ‘Gaga phenomena’.   Styling herself as a brand has proved bountiful for Lady Gaga and much like any brand, Gaga needs the right the promotion and as we can see she clearly has it. Here are some facts to show you just exactly how successful Lady Gaga’s online marketing really is:

Lady Gaga: More Than Just Downloads

• Lady  Gaga has sold an ever increasing  15 million albums and 40 million singles and countless Lady Gaga downloads are completed worldwide.
• Lady Gaga is the first living person to achieve 10 million fans on Facebook, which has grown by a  further 2 million in a fortnight
• Gaga has nearly 5 million followers on Twitter
• Currently and globally, on Google, ‘Lady Gaga’ is searched 151,000,000 times a month
• Gaga is the first currently producing music artist to reach one billion YouTube views, based on data provided by video analytics company Visible Measures
• Gaga is a huge hit on Vevo and YouTube. YouTube and Universal’s joint venture music video site Vevo attracted 35 million unique visitors in its first month of but apparently one-fourth of those visitors were for Lady Gaga, although this was greatly helped with Vevo’s affiliation to Youtube
• Gaga led Last.fm’s charts as the most listened-to artist of 2009, with 18 million hits, 6 million more than The Killers who were in second place
• A Facebook group of more than 100,000 people initiated National Lady Gaga Day on January 29th 2010
• If you type in ‘Telephone’ on google instead of seeing endless results on communications devices as you would expect  the top 10 results are 5 of pertain to Gaga and Beyonce’s video hit ‘telephone’, comparably Katy Perry has a video called Fingerprints, type this into Google you get only one result
• As we can see below ‘Lady Gaga’ is  consistently one of the top searched contemporary figures. Searches for Ronaldo and Michael Jackson, peak respectively during the World Cup and the anniversary of Jackson’s death, however ‘Lady Gaga’ as a search term consistently outshines them all

What are the reasons for Lady Gaga’s ever growing fame and success in the world of Social Media?

Lady Gaga as a Brand

Reasons cited are comparable to Madonna’s early and continuing success:

• Madonna was a marketing tour de force and trademarked her own name extremely early in her career, thereby establishing herself as a brand, much like Lady Gaga has done.  This recognition of themselves as brands has proved integral to their success.
• Both Women maintain control over all aspects of their image, music and management
• Both Madonna and Lady Gaga have relied on chameleon-esque images, readily packaging themselves as something to be idolised and followed
• Gaga and Madonna alongside many other rock/pop stars have utilised controversy both with their image and actions. For example, both Gaga and Madonna used religious iconography in their videos, which has played a great role in creating discussion, therefore brand awareness and in turn record sales

Facebook and Twitter Success

• Gaga’s constant engagement with fans on Facebook and Twitter creates a feeling of ‘friendship’ which is reinforced by pet-naming her fans, “Monsters” thereby familiarising them and creating a definite loyalty to her brand

• She named her second album “Fame Monsters” in tribute to her fans thereby further compounding her brand loyalty

• Gaga is so popular in social networks such as Facebook because the greatest source of Lady Gaga content is Gaga herself. She will tell fans anything worth knowing first.
• Before Lady Gaga premiers any of her videos she uses her Twitter and Facebook accounts to tease all her fans with photos and clues, creating the feeling that they are receiving something exclusively

Lady Gaga: A Youtube Phenomenon

• With 1 billion YouTube video views Lady Gaga is doing something right.
• Gaga’s manager, Troy Carter said that he and Gaga, “create music videos for YouTube”, and that “GaGa is a digital baby… There can’t be any layers between the artists and their fans.”
• Others speculate that Gaga understands the global nature of the internet, that social media is created by an international community and therefore she has deliberately written her songs to be simple to sing to in any language, with videos that appeal to any age gender or nationality.
• By creating a new, enticing and immersive story world, with each video, Lady Gaga has made sure that each new release is a different package to any other, her audience does not get bored.
• According to the Wall Street Journal, Gaga is wisely doing what is called, a 360 deal, “in which a label invests more money up front, for marketing, for example, in exchange for a piece of merchandise sales, touring revenue and other earnings that artists had long kept for themselves”.
• Gaga’s video’s also feature product placements, but her record label is quick to point out that most money does not come from video and record sales revenues, it comes from concert tickets. Understanding that marketing the Lady Gaga brand in order to achieve concert sales and endorsements is key to her success and utilising every avenue of social media marketing possible has proved bountiful for this one woman brand.

Lady Gaga – Telephone ft. Beyoncé Video

Sources:
The Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Ali Magazine, TechCrunch, suite101.com ,The Social Robot

1. Jenson Button (The_Real_JB) – Formula One Driver

Twitter Followers: 82,364
Jenson Button Twitter BIO: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 driver

Jenson Button is the current World Champion and is in a pretty impressive position in this year’s championship, Jenson still has time to tell his fans about his races: ‘Ferrari’s were all over the back of me. Mentally pretty draining I must say!! some points though. looking for a big haul of points in China!’.

2. David Lloyd (BumbleCricket) – Cricket Commentator

Twitter Followers: 64,179
David Lloyd Twitter Bio: Start the Car!

Possibly one of my favourite and when the Ashes was on he came out with brilliant questions like: “What do Athers and Beefy eat in the media canteen? Is that a stain on Gower’s trousers?”
David Lloyd or Bumble as everyone calls him is definitely one of cricket’s finest Twitterers and has got the whole Sky team interested in Twitter. He has even instigated a friendly competition with Jonathan Agnew on the BBC to see who can get the most followers.

3. Darren Bent (dbthetruth) Football Player

Twitter Followers: N/A (Told to turn off by manager)
Darren Bent Twitter Bio: ?????

Darren Bent wasn’t very happy about the amount of time it took to get a move from Spurs to Sunderland so much so he sent out a message on Twitter stating: “Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go stoke NO do I wanna go sunderland YES so stop f****** around, Levy. Sunderland are not the problem in the slightest.” So this seems to be the reason that new manager Steve Bruce has told Darren to turn off his Twitter account (until the next time Darren want to move clubs).

4. Will Carling (willcarling) – Ex-Rugby Player

Twitter Followers: 29,561
Will Carling Twitter Bio: Old, useless ex England rugby captain, has set up a rugby website, www.rucku.com, and is fascinated with the Twitter world.

Will Carling seems to love Twitter and is happy to chat away with other users. He likes to tweet live on England’s Six Nations performances and has been known to stick the boot into Martin Johnson’s England team.

5. Ian Poulter (Ianjamespoulter) – Golfer

Twitter Followers: 981,409
Ian Poulter Twitter Bio: Global tour golfer, play pgatour & europeantour. Massive Arsenal fan and also Orlando Magic fan. Love all Sports, Cars, most of all love my Family time

Ian Poulter was slammed after branding Tottenham fans “Yids” on his Twitter Poulter wrote: “Not talking about football after being beat by the yids.”
Maybe he should stick to talking about golf.

6. Andy Murray (andy_murray) – Tennis Player

Twitter Followers: 142,080
Andy Murray Twitter Bio: I play tennis.

Andy likes to tell people how lucky he is by Twittering after the Australian Open “Just bak from dinner. Bumpd in2 the guys from The Prodigy in hotel lobby.’

7. Helen Chamberlain (HellsBellsy) – TV Presenter

Twitter Followers: 19,861
Helen Chamberlain Twitter Bio: N/A

Ok well she’s not a sports personality but if you know football you know exactly who she is. Helen Chamberlain is the presenter of one of football’s longest-running shows – Soccer AM on Sky Sports. Hells Bellsy loves to tweet talking to her fellow Soccer AM presenter Max Rushden and telling him off for ‘you know you always wake me up honking your horn.’

8. Laura Robson (laurarobson5) – Tennis Player

Twitter Followers: 11,169
Laura Robson Twitter Bio: Hi, I’m Laura

Laura Robson doesn’t tweet that much, but hey she’s 16, she’s probably on Facebook and Bebo. In a similar way to a lot of other sports stars stars she likes to talk about other sports other than just her own. Like this comment where Laura talks about the recent Golf Masters ‘I’d just like to point out that as I predicted Mickelson took the title Unlucky to Westwood though, he played great throughout the week!’

9. David Haye (mrdavidhaye) – Boxer

Twitter Followers: 24,603
David Haye Twitter Bio: I’m a Pro Boxer from London England, I’m currently The Heavyweight Champion of the World. Welcome to my Twitter page

Another British World Champion on our list. And David is respectful to his fellow competitors in his tweets: ‘I’ve just heard John Ruiz has retired. I wish him well in the next chapter of his life. He was, is and will always be a Gallant Warrior.’

10. James Anderson (JimmyAnderson9) – Cricket Player

Twitter Followers: 38,031
James Anderson Twitter Bio: N/A

James Anderson likes to talk and wind-up his fellow cricketers and his friends through twitter including Darren Gough, Ronnie Irani, and Graeme Swan. The funniest moment for him on Twitter must have been when he said to fellow England international Tim Bresnan that he is a ‘at, cheating, smelly, fish-pitted, Yorkshire pie-eater.’

The whole point of social media is to understand what the customer is saying about brands and life in general. Try to stifle the dialogue and your brand will be the lesser for it.

Embracing anarchy

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said “The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had”. It is precisely this great experiment in democracy that is so invaluable.

No longer do marketing executives need to indulge in expensive and often fatally flawed focus groups to get insights into what people are thinking, feeling and how they are behaving. They just need to click onto the social media sites and forums and read. This is not fool’s gold. This is the real deal unencumbered by intermediaries with an agenda.

The power of word of mouth

Customers’ word of mouth has always played an important part in the development or decline of a brand. Hoteliers for one have discovered the power of customer advocacy through websites such as Trip Advisor which has en-powered customer opinion.

Fiat engaged customers through the web to help design the Cinquecento, and Comcast to improve their service. If you have a cable problem in the US, Comcast use Twitter to ask customers “Can I help”. When customers respond, Comcast send out their Field Support Teams to solve the problem.

Through this process of finding customers to help, Comcast develops a reputation for pro-activity in customer support, reinforced through relevant and timely interaction with customers in need. This experience produces a word of mouth endorsement that is another powerful dimension of social media.

Word of mouth sells

Indeed the experiential, word of mouth, advocacy is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions according to McKinsey: “Its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, factors that tend to make people conduct more research, seek more opinions and deliberate longer than they otherwise would.

And its influence will probably grow: the digital revolution has amplified and accelerated its reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. Some customers even create Web sites or blogs to praise or punish brands.”

Adjusting to a new paradigm

Marketing professionals need to adjust to this new customer democracy. It will take the savvy marketer on a wild and exciting journey that is more far complex than conventional channels of communication where dialogue was absent or paid lip service to. It is a journey where the marketer can win friends and just as easily lose friends. In many cases the marketing effort must change: from less focus on brand advertising at the initial consideration phase to developing internet properties that help customers gain a better understanding of the brand when they actively evaluate it.

This may mean that a process change is necessary from pushing a brand message onto customers, to providing information, support, and experience of the brand (even if just a virtual one) that engages the customer in a dialogue so that they can make their decisions based upon their authentic experience or that of others.

This is the power of social media’s free speech and experience exchange. Embrace it and learn to let its freedom to express an opinion help to sustain and develop your brand.

Garry Titterton , Intelligent Positioning, April 2010

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site. We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.” Mashable

But for how long will they remain humbled, I wonder? Can we really see Facebook simply adopting a stance of contentment; happy with merely stamping their name on the title of News Feed Inventor?! Doubtful.  Or will they, as many suspect, be sueing  all who infringe the technology ?   With the extremely successful launch of Google Buzz only last week- a network that’s been said to merge the most popular features of Facebook and Twitter- is there a chance that Facebook will use the patent as a tool to stand in the path of their newest rival?

The patent in question is awarded to Facebook specifically for “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network”. About being the operative word according to Allfacebook.com, who say this rules out legal action against networks that only use status update feeds, i.e. Twitter.

So this gets Twitter out of the firing line, but what about Google Buzz? The network has already been criticised regarding issues with privacy, namely the fact that it works alongside its user’s Gmail accounts, giving a large number of people free access to private email addresses.  Its this, and it’s timing that highlights a rather uncanny parallel to the “Invasion of Privacy” headlines that were (ironically) doing the rounds when Facebook first introduced us to the even then- contoversial News Feed? Despite it now being a popular feature on most if not all social networking sites, when it first launched in 2006 it was thought by some media experts that,  “If Facebook is broadcasting your every move to your friends, you might be more cautious about using the site.” (Mashable.com)

Interestingly, the sceptics also asked- “Will users poke around less now they have all the updates on one page?”, and, “Perhaps the feeds will entice them to visit more pages, and become addicted to the stream of updates?” Despite our knowing that the latter is very true of today’s social networking culture, the point is, that as little as four years ago we didn’t have the foggiest which way it was all going to go. Until Twitter exploded that is!

We all know that out of all sites people spend the longest on Facebook but where’s it all heading next? Can it get even more popular? What’s going to be the next revelation in social networking technology?  And most importantly how big an impact is Facebook’s rights to the News Feed going to have on the shaping of things to come? Who will it affect the most? And how?

The figures below are from Comscore, and as Business Insider reports:

We don’t have Digg’s unique visitors from this time last year, because comScore changed the way it measures the site’s traffic this past July. Still, a comScore rep says, “Digg is definitely growing strongly.”

Why the surge? A Digg rep cites “recent implementations like integration with Facebook Connect, DiggBar launch, Digg Dialoggs and the continued flow of great content submissions from the community.”

My personal favourite is Stumbleupon – it’s just nice to use and much easier to find something you like. But Digg has been around a but longer and it very much looks like it is here to stay. However we may have thought the same about Propeller which has seemed to have bombed this month from figures of last month.

Digg buries competitors

When Google recently introduced the search options within their platform – many searchers were unaware that these options existed and allow you to limit your search. The impact of Twitter and real time search has made Google aware that they must introduce an accurate and competitive solution – to aid the ever growing search population.

It is possible to modify the querystring so that a searcher can specify fresh results within the past five seconds, one minute, sixty minutes – for example. This can be done by changing a parameter called QDR – Query Date Range – in the URL (its displayed as tbs=qdr:x) with the ‘x’ time frame. Time frame options currently only work on English versions of Google; so Google.com and Google.co.uk, but hopefully this option will be introduced within other version.

For example, to limit a search to the last ten minutes all you need to do is change the default value proposed for “The past 24 hours” – that appears as “d” – to an “n” and you’ll be limited to results from the last minute. Simply adding a numeric value behind that, you can increase the time frame. If you set it to “n5″, you’ll see results discovered in the last 5 minutes, or, if you are interested into seconds time frame simply use “s30″.

What makes real time search so special?

To be honest nothing! It mostly depends on you and your passion for a specific topic, or if you are particular interested in the last key fact that has happened (just because you are working on something particular) to this person or event. This is because – most probably – the search options are generally hidden away from the average user. The majority of web users don’t really care about what’s happened in a second or in minute, they just want to read something up to date.

Real Time search example

Suppose you are interested in the latest comical rant from US rapper Kanye West – the following search query will display search results for him in the last 30 minutes:

http://www.google.com/search?q=kanye%20west&output=search&tbs=qdr:n30&tbo=1

Once the query has been executed the following result is returned:

Google real time search 1

At first glance the Google news results look quite useful, however in order to obtain a direct comparison with Twitter – we must sort the result by date:

Google filter by date

Once this has been selected – the following results are returned:

Google SERPs ordered by date

On first glance – although the results do not have the same visual impact as a normal search (i.e. the search query isn’t included within a number of titles tags) – they are extremely relevant as each entry focuses on the rapper’s conduct on stage, his eventual apology and the general reaction to his behaviour. We can then compare this to Twitter search:

Kanye West Twitter

Since I started writing this post – Twitter has informed me that 905 more results relevant to this initial search query have been posted – something Google does not offer. The four results included within the screenshot show one spam result, one user comment on current events and two useful Tweats including links to an apology by Kanye West and an interview with Jay Leno.

If Google made their real time search more prominent within their search platform – users are more likely to use such a service to check for the latest chatter and opinions from around the web on a specific topic. Google could always introduce another search button – which would enforce real time search.

These marketers defined it as “ …seeking to influence social behaviours not to benefit the marketer but to benefit the target audience and the general society.” It in short, created a dialogue between consumers and the brand and leveraging the value that was created in that process.

Social media is primarily Internet based: whilst your website provides company and product information and Internet tools such as search, pay-per-click, and webinars enable customers to reach further, social media is all about leveraging the connecting of people through dialogue and the formation of networks.

Social media is one part of the marketers’ multi-channel marketing tool kit. Its importance is in its ability to get under the skin of the consumer and gain invaluable insights into attitudes and behaviour of the consumer.

Social media sites represent a major entry into the internet. As current data from Alexa demonstrates, users spend more time on social networks in an average day than do most major portals like Google and Yahoo (as we point out here in Where do we spend most our time online).

So how do we measure social media?

We are in an age of metrics. There is a constant pressure to measure the effects of every activity and to refine and reassess every aspect of the marketing budget. Marketers are asked to be effective (do the right thing) and be efficient (do the thing right).

So we use return on investment (ROI) as a measurement of output (return) from input (investment).

One of the dangers of measuring everything that is done within the marketing context, is moving to the default tactic of using communication tools that are more easily and accurately measurable. The problem with this is that the most effective channels of communication are not always easily measurable. This is especially true in social media marketing where qualitative measurement is needed rather than quantitative.

Marketing Sherpas carried out a Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Study in 2008. (See the chart below).

How accurately can you gauge the ROI of Social Media tactics?

What this study demonstrates is that the respondents feel that advertising on blogs or social networks are the most easily and accurately measured. The cost of “advertising on blogs or social networks” is usually based on pay-per-click and conversion metrics, so advertisers are more motivated to use these tools and are more easily able to measure these tactics.

Near the bottom of the chart is “blogging on a company blog.” With this there are fewer direct costs other than staff time. This means that there is little inclination to measure the return on investment.

However, there can be considerable return if you measure this on a qualitative basis. Here we need to measure the quality of the comments on the blog rather than the quantity. You can have many comments but if the majority are negative then I would suggest that this particular metric is unhelpful. It underpins the need for quality measurement to be able to gain a deeper and richer insight and to see if the blog is, in Kotler and Zaltman’s metric, “ …seeking to influence social behaviours not to benefit the marketer but to benefit the target audience and the general society.” Quite simply, if a blog is seen to be placing a blatant brand message it has a far lesser impact than if it is seen as authentic, balanced and objective. The latter is far more effective for brand development.

The ability to measure qualitative values in these blog interactions is more challenging but not overtly difficult. If we don’t include qualitative factors in the measurement of effectiveness and efficiency, then we will find ourselves utilising marketing tools that are more easily measured, rather than those that more fully meet the brand’s development objectives.

So, even if social media is producing a good return in terms of a quantitative metric, if it isn’t increasing the business outcome it will be necessary to review the content of your social media programme and investigate and refine how you are measuring its contribution to your business objectives.

To Find out more about Social Media and how you can get a decent return on your investment give IP-SEO a call.

Contributor – Garry Titterton, CEO IP-SEO and Author of Brand Storming.

More popular than a cool pint of shandy on a bank holiday Monday, Twitter was positioned by many as the best thing that had ever happened to the Internet. There is no denying the fact that it is popular, very popular, with around 1 million user in mid-February.

We Love Twitter…

Everyone was using it and every single article and TV show seemed to be mentioning it. There was Barack Obama famously using it to win the US presidential election. The cleverest man in the UK, Stephen Fry was telling his 100,000s of followers about his travels, oh how we laughed. And then there was Oprah. Infact the “Oprah effect” on Twitter, as TechCrunch suggested, encouraged more than one million people to sign, and Hitwise said it led to a 43% spike in Twitter traffic. Plus many many more celebs (Shaq, Wolverine, Russel Brand, Jonathan Ross and my favourite Jeremy Paxman, got involved).

We Hate Twitter…

Now just a few months later, we have a bit of a morning after feeling and embarrassing hangover. President Obama didn’t write anything for weeks after he won, this great marketing machine seemed to stop once people had spent their vote. The Oprah effect too may have brought people online, with a massive 850,000 followers Oprah has managed just 29 updates after she first posted – The chat show hostess is now reportedly bored of Twitter.

Twitter is Boring – The Facts

These hard-hitting celebs are not the only ones who think Twitter is a bit like Ricky Martin. Apparently most people see it as a short-lived craze, enticing and the centre to everyone’s conversation at first, then a bit of a one-trick pony later. Twitter’s traffic is not as good as first thought, numbers are high but people are not getting into it. Apparently a Nielsen study has shown that 60% of Twitterers don’t return after the first month of joining.

Apparently at this current rate, Nielsen say that Twitter will only reach about 10% of online customers. – Something that probably needs to be told to the plethora of salesmen frequenting the said website.

Twitter still very popular and lots of traffic

Twitter may be like a large room of lots of people shouting and not a huge amount listening, but whatever we think, there is still many people turning up to have a yell. But if Twitter traffic is slipping we shouldn’t blame Twitter for the tedium, we should blame the content providers – us.

Monthly Attention – Facebook, Yahoo, Google, MySpace

(The total time spent on a domain as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. Internet users, February ‘07 – February ‘09) from compete.com

This is pretty interesting stuff. But what we can see from this data is the sharp fall of Myspace in June 07 and another cliff-like drop exactly a year later in June 08. Myspace however has had more support in the US and therefore longevity. Though time spent drastically reduced. After you have spent time building the look and feel of your page, there wasn’t a hell of a lot more to spend your time on. So was this drop due to the relatively unfriendly usability of the site, or the comparatively single dimension experience?


Saying this however, search data has been strong for Myspace over the last 12 months, Facebook only overtaking them in the first month of this year. As you will see from the trends graph (US only. A worldwide chart shows Facebook dominating MS many months before)

Trends - Facebook takes Myspace at the Last

So search has no affect on the length of time the audience stay on the site.


We’ve all got our own opinions about the qualities of Myspace and Facebook, usability issues and the types of people and behaviour related to each. These ultimately are the reasons why one is succeeding and the other has seen better days. Why one was bought for record amounts by a media mogul and why the other surely will be, and will definitely make the owner a billionaire.


As for Google’s position in this data… well Yahoo has all the web-mail time spent on it, but Google (a few seconds for each search) is fast catching. This time next year, it will be the big G out in front.


Author Sam