Two hours ago, I discovered Cee Lo Green’s new single, F**K YOU, on YouTube. Imagine that. Actually, I first discovered it on Facebook, and swiped it from my friend Redheadwriting’s wall, posted it on my own and ultimately ended up on YouTube, where it had a little more than 750,000 views.
It’s a brilliant example of how effective the combination of a little strategy and a whole bunch of good luck can be when it comes to viral marketing. Cee Lo, with a paltry 8,000+ followers on Twitter and only 3,000 some fans on Facebook, used a combination of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook marketing to drive some almost 750,000 views in the space of a three day period, since its posting on Thursday, August 19th. Do you know how many brands would kill for that kind of exposure and viral buzz?
Not to take anything away from my man, Cee Lo, but this doesn’t appear, at least to me, as a slick marketing campaign carefully orchestrated by an agency and a slew of “social media gurus.” Rather, it seems to be someone who created a great “product” … put it out there, combined it with some timely PR – and then let the public do the rest. I could be wrong. I’m just guessing here, but after spending a fair amount of time looking through Cee Lo’s Facebook feed and Twitter stream, it really appears to be a bit of historic dumb luck. But part of the beauty of this, at least for this consumer, is the inherent lack of slickness in the whole thing. – it appears to have just happened. And that is often a critical ingredient when it comes to the magic of something going viral. Oh, and let’s not forget the power of social media marketing.
The geek in me is compelled to point out some stats here. YouTube has some 2 BILLION views a day and is in an enviable spot as the second most popular search engine in the world. Add to that Facebook’s 45 million daily status updates and 700,000 new members joining on a daily basis, and it’s no surprise that this strategy was effective for Cee Lo. Combine that with a song that’s sure to make even the most curmudgeonly among us laugh – even for just a minute or two – and you’ve got yourself a viral phenomenon.
Cee Lo. Dude, what can I say? A few hours ago, I’d never even heard of you. Now, you can count me among your biggest fans. Hat tip for a job well done. Oh, and your song – well, it rocks! Gawker calls it the song that should have been the song of the summer. I say that no matter when it’s “officially” released, it’ll be at the top of the charts.
Oh, and in the FWIW category, in the time it took me to write this blog post, the YouTube video has had an additional 80,000 views, bringing it to 830,741. In two hours. That’s 80,000 – in two hours.
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
