If you’ve been on social media, watched anything on Netflix or saw the Brit Awards you may have heard of the Fyre Festival. This hotly anticipated music festival promised celebrities, personal chefs and amazing accommodation all on an idyllic island in the Bahamas. While the tickets cost up to an eye watering £75,000 the event completely sold out, all thanks to the power of social media, some clever marketing and of course influencers.
The festival was targeted at millennials looking to escape their everyday life. While social media has allowed individuals to share experiences with the rest of the world, it has left others chasing a version of reality that doesn’t necessarily exist. Those behind the festival used this to create the perfect social media campaign.
Fyre Festival drafted in the help of super models Bella Hadid who has 59.2 million followers, Hailey Beiber with 58.2 million followers and Kendal Jenner who has a staggering 277 million followers on Instagram. Simultaneously celebs from around the world posted an image of an orange title promoting the festival, along with video content that showed a music festival paradise. However, as attendees arrived, they soon realised everything wasn’t what it seemed. With many unhappy customers, staff and musicians the owner of Fyre, Billy McFarland, soon found himself facing law suits as well as a prison sentence.
Now we’re not saying you should buy an island, host a questionable music festival or hire a model or two in order to create some cracking marketing content, but the festival does demonstrate the power of social media as a platform to promote your business. It also clearly shows that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on your feeds and why it’s vital to be honest with your target audience.
Engaging with influencers can be a great way of raising your businesses profile. And influencers don’t necessarily need to come equipped with millions of followers to have an impact, simply being able to provide comment on a trending topic can help increase engagement with your audience. Interestingly, of all the social media posts created to promote the festival it was an image of the disappointing food from a Twitter user with less than a thousand followers that became the most famous post of the event.
Creating appealing content can work wonders for your business over social media, whether it’s your employees at work, products being assembled or footage from an event. Remember to keep it short, simple and interesting. Give it a go!
