What Susan Boyle teaches us about social media
Image by Bert Kommerij via FlickrIt was just a week ago that Susan Boyle performed I Dreamed a Dream from Les Misérables on Britain’s Got Talent. And in that week over 35 million people have viewed her singing the song on YouTube. By anybody’s measure this has been a true viral success. Indeed, this video has achieved much greater success than many videos designed and seeded as part of viral campaigns for big brands. Many of them would be delighted for quite so many people to have viewed, commented on, shared or talked about their video. Even more would wish for the kind of brand recall that Susan Boyle is now getting from her video, or indeed the access to the lucrative US market that happened in a matter of just days.
So what makes this video so special and what can we learn from it about social media. The answer is probably quite simple – people watched, commented on and shared this video because the content is good. This is often overlooked when people talk about social media. Too much time can be spent trying to find the right people to seed a video, or working out the optimal viral strategy. And too little time may be spent on making the content good in the first place. Susan Boyle’s performance is good content, and that’s why it has spread so much and so quickly online. Why people think it is good may vary – because she is a good singer, because her performance is a surprise or because the attitude of the judges before she sings highlights the way human beings can make prejudices based on appearance. The reason people think the content is good does not matter, that they do is all that counts.
Of course, this leaves us with a dilemma – if we cannot tell what people will think is good content then how do we make such content in the first place? Well this is one of the benefits of social media but also one of the problems for brands and marketers. The proliferation of shared content online means there is more for us to choose from and more for us to enjoy. There is great content out there and now it is probably easier for us to share it. But good content is in the eyes of the person who views it, and it can be difficult to predict what will be good.
So Susan is not only a good singer, but also teaches us a lot about social media. The key to making a good viral video is to have good content in the first place, but what makes good content can be difficult for us to predict in advance. The best we can do is to understand our target audience and then create something we think will appeal to them. But maybe we’ll never be as successful as an unassuming singer from Scotland.
Some more reading
- YouTube Sensation (nickwagman.blogspot.com)
- Viral Friday: Susan Boyle On Britain’s Got Talent (viralblog.com)
- Singing Scottish spinster a global media sensation -Britain Got Talent 2009 (funtoosurf.com)
- Susan Boyle, An Unlikely Singing Sensation (cbsnews.com)
- Susan Boyle Knows Something You Don’t
Tamar Weinberg:
“The answer is probably quite simple – people watched, commented on and shared this video because the content is good.”
I think you missed a key point here. A lot of people on Britain’s Got Talent produce good content. The important lesson in Susan Boyle’s case is that she *surprised* people with good content. They never expected it of a person of her “type,” which is articulated clearly by the judges after she performed.
That may help to figure out how to predict good content: what you need to do to succeed is to really surprise your audience.
20 April 2009, 4:33 amsusanboylefan:
absolutely right! that’s how it gets started…but the key is that people are the ones that finish it. the only difference between 10 years ago and now is that social networking acts as a CATALYST to the distribution of information…the result would be the same either way…it’s just that social networks speed up the process.
20 April 2009, 5:16 amMatt Rhodes:
@Tamar – I think we’re saying the same thing, except I would express it in a different way. For many people the fact that the performance was (in their eyes) ’surprising’ is what (for them) makes the content good. There are undoubtedly many good performances on Britain’s Got Talent, but not all of these are as good content from a social media perspective.
@susanboylefan – I think that social networking (and indeed other social media) is more than a catalyst – I don’t think this video would have got the exposure in the US, nor would there have been subsequent TV and press coverage over there with other means. Social networking is more than a catalyst, it lowers the barrier of distributing content to (practically) zero and so makes it easier than every before for us to reach areas we could before reach in a way we could never do before.
20 April 2009, 6:01 amErnest:
I think that many people like music and watching television series like Britain’s got talent and other music based shows.
20 April 2009, 6:07 amThe market is very broad for a new voice singing a well know song so well, and she seems to be a real talent find.
Not much more marketing needed to take her to the top.
I did not find out about Susan Boyle from Social media by the way, it was a news item on BBC radio.
Steven Devijver:
I find Susan Boyle’s video which spread through just about every channel out there is a textbook example of disruption: many people suddenly getting access to new options and opportunities.
In this case the options and opportunities were sharing Susan’s video, talking about the video and about Susan, searching for more info on Susan, searching for more info on her performance, and so on. Before Susan’s video we just didn’t have these options and opportunities.
The way I’ve experienced things one of the first things that has happened after Susan Boyle’s video was posted on YouTube was a Twitterstorm emerged. On April 16 the term “Susan Boyle” became the top trending topic on Twitter, out of nowhere. It is that emergence of a Twitterstorm – totally unexpected – that is a symptom of disruption.
Susan Boyle enabled us to act. I believe this is the true lesson about social media here. Social media give people that chance to create channels. Once we want to share something we do it through those channels. Susan gave us all the desire to share: the fire up our channels and send that video through them.
Marketers need to cause disruption if they want to succeed on social media. The only way to create disruption is to suddenly give many people access to new options and opportunities.
20 April 2009, 10:45 amVictoria Buyer:
Content is key! That what we regularly talk about here at HealthEd….but Susan is priceless, people want to see an underdog rise to the top. It makes them feel good! Marketing is a great tool but the power from within people is a much greater force.
20 April 2009, 1:54 pmSocial networking is brilliant when we all communicate and share our ideas, views and knowledge.
So take a leaf from Susan, use your inner talent and go create!
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1 May 2009, 6:24 amVince Stevenson:
Had Susan Boyle been a lousy act, she would be in room 101 by now. However, the judges were rather unkind and somewhat sceptical and patronising in the way they treated her. There was lashing of humble pie from the judges after her performance. Content was great. Surprise factor 100% A star is born and thanks to YouTube she will become a global star. It’s the content that drives the interest. Rgds Vince
3 June 2009, 3:35 pm