Social Media Marketing - external benefactors

It’s interesting to see how companies fully utilize social media channels to effectively market their offerings.  It’s even more compelling when the benefactors aren’t even involved in the process.  Two such benefactors are Sanjaya of American Idol, and an idie band.

In the case of Sanjaya, www.votefortheworst.com  tries to get as many voters to vote for who the sites users deem as the worst of the remaining contestants. I don’t know about you, but in my opinion it’s working! If the difference between contestant votes is minimal, the impact of this site can be potential huge. I can’t say that this tactic is an example of ethics in social media, but I can say that the effect of the site can’t be understimated.  During a lunch session I mentioned the site to a co-worker that never watches American Idol.  My co-worker has built a social network of around 200 people in his myspace zone alone.  He was so amused by the idea, that he promised to support the site, vote for Sanjaya, and spam,  i mean announce to all his friends of the site utilizing myspace’s bulletin feature. Needless to say, for those friends that don’t know of the site, the chances are they now will.

Another site utilizing social media to promote a band not even affiliated with the site is www.bumrushthecharts.com. The site advises the use of myspace bulletins, podcasting, stumbleupon, youtube, the blogosphere, and digg as effective means of promoting their artist. The goal is to get their band to the top of I-tunes charts on Thursday, March 22.  Something cool is bound to happen.

 Well, naturally something happens. I mean, you put the vibe out to 30 million chicks, something is gonna happen. ($1 to the first…)

Posted by Rick Garcia in Social Media, Social Media Marketing