“Can’t believe I have 18, 000, 000 TwitterMonsters, really rad, was just a few years ago I had barely any.” – Tweet from the “Mother Monster” herself
Whether her music and personality makes you ‘goo goo’ or just gag, Lady Gaga is a formidable force in pop music. Following the release of her debut album The Fame in 2008, Lady Gaga has 5 Grammy Awards and 13 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) to her name, just four years later. Despite her popularity, she is sometimes written-off as an overrated Madonna-lite wannabe; but know that wealth, fame, and fortune wasn’t always the Lady’s tune. Similar to any business trying to get off the ground, Lady Gaga and her management team had to make tough entrepreneurial decisions in order to get her where she is today.
Many thanks to Anat Bird, founder, president and CEO of SCB Forums, Ltd for this awesome article; we just had to share!
In 2009, Lady Gaga was set to launch a tour with Kanye West—yes, Kanye West of the acceptance-speech-crashing variety. After stealing the microphone from Taylor Swift and insisting that Beyoncé deserved the award, instead, at the 2009 MTV VMAs, the beleaguered rapper made a public statement declaring he was taking a break from the music industry. West’s departure left Gaga with three options: continue the tour solo, which would require millions more in production costs but could possibly achieve sold-out revenues of $2.5 million per concert; move the tour to smaller venues, reducing investment risk but also potential payback; or cancel the tour and lose the $4 million she had already invested. Lady Gaga chose the first option and ‘The Monster Ball Tour’ was strategically launched November 27, 2009, three days after the release of her second album, The Fame: Monster.
Besides the singer’s talent and flair for the dramatic, Anat Bird underscores another ingredient in Gaga’s recipe for success, a passionate marketing strategy. Lady Gaga built her fan base using social media sites like YouTube and Facebook and she was writing her own Tweets, long before every other celebrity. Because of all this, Lady Gaga’s fans feel a deep and genuine connection to the artist. Affectionately calling them “little monsters,” it is not unusual to see Lady Gaga personally reply Tweets from fans who send her tiny pics of anything from portraits they have drawn of the singer to tattoos bearing her name. Gaga has even used social media in lending her celebrity to It Gets Better, a project started to show LGBT youth there is happiness past what may be turbulent adolescent years.
To tie it all in, Anat emphasizes how banks can implement passionate marketing strategy through social media. “Social media is a powerful tool if used effectively,” says Anat, and at Far West Capital, we can vouch for that statement. We’re on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and we like being able to connect with our fans and provide insights to help them grow their business. We’re in the business of helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals and we love it when any entrepreneur, anywhere, finds success like this! And like Lady Gaga, we know that discovering your passion and then assembling a great team willing to take on challenges alongside you, is what business is all about. We should all be more like Lady Gaga, minus the meat dresses.
