What Lil' Wayne Taught Me About Social Media

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 5 years, you’d know that Lil’ Wayne is probably the hottest thing to come through the music game since Biggie Smalls. His fan base is incredibly diverse – pulling in people from every walk of life, every socio-economic background, and every Facebook fan club.
His twitter presence is so-so, knocking down about half a million fans daily, but his Facebook page is unreal. 8.2 Million and counting….all while he is in jail?

Breaking Down Lil’ Wayne’s Facebook Page

Let’s take a look at why this fan page is so successful. First and foremost, there are consistent posts about things relevant to his brand.
He gives exclusive insight to footage and music and gives the fan base a look at what life is like inside prison. Where else are you going to get a straight dialogue from Weezy besides his Facebook page?
This is him capitalizing on his comparative advantage, the most important element when doing anything related to marketing. There are thousands of musicians and rappers out there, but only one has the story like his.
When writing web copy, the biggest thing to keep in mind is the call to action. Everything on a webpage should always be telling you what to do next. Wayne does this perfectly by telling fans to Like posts and link to certain sites and comment on posts.
“Like this post if you like getting prison letters from Lil Wayne!”
Similarly, almost all the copy starts off with a “if you like _____, then like this post.”
Brilliant.
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Why This Is Important

From a web marketing strategy perspective, this creates a powerful tool for search engine optimization. Facebook Likes are becoming a new way to measure popularity the way inbound likes and page rankings have traditionally been.
By creating an environment where Liking a post is the norm and the action, Wayne’s credibility goes up. The links he put on that page all of a sudden have more value and become a better tool for leveraging.
Interactivity is important for creating consumer habits. By having this in place, Wayne and Co are able to forecast future efforts and measure effectiveness of posts.
Look at the numbers of people that Liked certain FB comments – Young Money gets 32,000 Likes and Twitter only gets 15,000.
You can take that back to your social media manager and talk about how maybe the Facebook Lil Wayne community is more interested in the hip hop culture and less into the technology – translated into a focus on the Facebook efforts which are obviously paying off.
Literally.
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Conclusion

Beyond anything else, Weezy has 8.2 Million fans because of his popularity outside of Facebook. But through a web marketing lens, you can actually use his profile as a scorecard for what works on Facebook and what doesn’t.
The analytics are sitting right there in front of you with the number of likes and the number of comments.
If you have a business or an event or anything with a fan page, go out and find the biggest, most epic Facebook page out there and study the metrics they are seeing with much bigger numbers.
This will give you the best foot forward. Don’t reinvent the wheel – build a V8.
How much does it cost to put together a social media marketing campaign? Read this post, where I will break down the numbers.
If you want to meet the guy behind the massive social media success of Lil’ Wayne, read this post. He set a Guinness World Record for the most Likes on a Facebook page in 24 hours.