Twilight is not my cup of tea, but you have to admire the internet marketing behind it. Pretty much anyone, male or female, young or old, would have to be in a media-less bubble to miss the release of New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight series.
Not only are the traditional advertising venues – movie previews for months, television commercials, and print ads – being plied by the advertising machine behind this series, but social networking sites are buzzing with discussions on this movie. I saw a blog by Jeremy Muncy that was talking about this trend, and he mentions that on Twitter alone, Twilight holds 3 of the top 10 trending topics, so I decided to go over there myself and have a look.
By the minute, day, and week, New Moon actually ranked first for the day and week and fell only to second in the exact minute of my visit. Consider that this is just on Twitter! Facebook and MySpace are also burning up with discussion of New Moon, both with intended, focused marketing and then the casual mentions of its membership. Fully half the people I have on my Facebook account alone have mentioned this movie at least once since the middle of last week. And I am not even in their targeted audience!
It’s obvious that the marketing machine here has inspired discussion across the board for social media venues. Wouldn’t we all love to hire the person or team who got this ball rolling? Even if Twilight itself is not your thing, as a business person, brilliant marketing of this magnitude is something to step back, evaluate, and admire. It’s art.
Gone are the days of casual word of mouth advertising, simple print ads, and a few television commercials. It’s been replaced by this vast network of social media marketing. The Superbowl of marketing has arrived, if you will, with New Moon. If you didn’t recognize its existence before (or you were not completely convinced of its strength), surely the release of the latest Twilight flick brings us all to a new understanding of the breadth of the marketing power we are looking at with social media.
It’s a brave new world of internet marketing. One that changes and morphs at an incredibly fast pace. Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace were only created within the last six years, but they’ve been embraced in the online community and most people are just having a load of fun while they are engaging them. And that’s the part that sells it all the best: it’s fun and engaging. The best marketing strategies pick up on these trends, connect to the sense of play, and jump into this new world with both feet.
It certainly has paid off for Twilight.