Monitoring Bieber Nation

The Tiniest King of Social Media (For Now)

Justin Bieber

2 Years Ago..
 
Now...

You know you've heard of him, whether on purpose or not. The baby-faced pop sensation has been turning up everywhere from radio, tv, the internet, to your kid's bedroom wall. Well we've all seen teeny bop phenoms come and go, but what makes Justin Bieber's presence a little different? What makes him social media royalty? And how does his journey reshape the traditional track to becoming a famed musician? 

Let's start with a stat... Bieber's  most recent music video, Baby, currently ranks as the most viewed video EVER on YouTube with over 250 million plays; it recently knocked Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance to number two and the infamous Charlie Bit My Finger - Again! to number three. If anything, there's no denying YouTube, people are tuning in.

The 16 year old pop star we know today was essentially born online. His modest first YouTube video was posted 3 years ago…. So what’s happened since then to sky rocket his fame?

Bieber’s journey to stardom isn’t a unique one, but the magnitude of it is something unmatched. Since the advent of SoundClick, MySpace, and YouTube, musicians have been able to market themselves in a way that makes producers and record labels come knocking on their doors for a change. Soulja Boy Tell’em is a prime precursor example to the Justin Bieber method. In late 2005, Soulja Boy posted his original songs on the website SoundClick, an online social community focused around music. From there he made pages on YouTube and MySpace and in just a year and a half signed a deal with Interscope Records.

The key difference between the stories of Soulja Boy and Justin Bieber is that Bieber was discovered online whereas Soulja Boy independently produced his album after his online success and then was signed to a major label.

So what has Bieber done differently?

Worldwide attention for the pintsize celeb exploded exponentially from 2009 - 2010.

But where has this attention been centralized? 

Bieber has utilized Twitter to keep up to date on communicating with his fans as well as a means to comment on his media presence; and although it has been said, “All publicity is good publicity” it would sure be easier to rise to fame if that publicity were positive. Here is a progression from the last month to the last 12 hours to illustrate how quickly Bieber’s online Strength, Sentiment, Passion, and Reach have increased.

For Reference (from SocialMention.com):

• Strength: the likelihood that your brand is being discussed in social media (Calculated: phrase mentions within last 24hrs divided by total possible mentions)
• Sentiment: the ratio of mentions that are generally more positive to those that are generally negative
• Passion: a measure of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly (for example: if you have a small group of very passionate advocates who talk about your products or brand all the time you will have a higher Passion score. Conversely if every mention is written by a different author you will have a lower score) 
  Reach: a measure of the range of influence. (Calculated: # of unique authors referencing your brand divided by the total # of mentions)

Not only is Bieber’s online presence growing stronger in sheer numbers, but it is also gaining strides in positivity.

So why are people jumping on the Bieber bandwagon?

To understand that we need to dissect the primary members of Bieber Nation: Girls 12-24. Although social technographics are not available for US women under 18 it can be seen that US women 18-24 are represented by a large majority of Joiners and Spectators.

This means that social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are regular outlets for his audience. Bieber has used these sources to connect with his fans in order to give them a peek into his life and form a deeper relationship than just listening to his music; instead they're listening to his life. Bieber has given his followers front row tickets to watch his day to day particularly through Twitter. Bieber has the 7^th most followed Twitter account, two down from President Obama and one up from Oprah, and his growth isn’t slowing down. Just take a look at the numbers he's pulling...

By connecting to his fans through Twitter, Bieber is utilizing the main feature of social media: building relationships. The platform of his campaign has been getting him as close to his fans as possible, giving them the opportunity to "get to know" Justin. By positioning him in a reachable way to fans, he has become the boy next door celebrity. The videos on the original YouTube channel that launched him, provides fans with "behind the scenes" looks and a collection of his early videos. Fans can be one of the millions watching "Baby" but they can also watch a quaint video tribute to his grandmother recorded before his ascent to fame. This type of social media campaign creates fans who feel more intimately connected with the artist. He could be anyone of us or anyone of us could know him.

In order for Bieber's success to continue, he needs to keep giving fans the ability to follow not just his music and career, but also him as a 16 year old. His fans have become so loyal because the social media efforts already made have kept them closely connected with him; social media has made them feel like they all have a one-on-one relationship with him. The negative aspect of his social media campaign will be the day when he wants his privacy back. Transparency is helping him today to become closer to his fans, but now that he's given people access to his life, it's going to be a hard thing to get back and Bieber Nation is only growing bigger, stronger, and more powerful.

Here's your last chance. Stop fighting it, you know you want to be one of the now 260 million (and yes, it jumped that much since I first started writing this)