#FyreFest
The Fyre Fest team nailed it.
They have checked every box to tick in the handbook of social media and online promotion.This was a very successful digital campaign until it actually worked.
Now I am not aware if Ja Rule was the chief digital strategist for this campaign however let’s take a look at this
- Influencer marketing with credible reputation (@haileybaldwin - @ania000 - @iamcaseydiego - @katebock - @BellaHadid - @HaileyBaldwin - @kendalljenner).
- Build up posts from the ground before the event starts including the yachts, the models, tons of them and the private island sneak peek.
- Alignment of all the social activities, visual mediums user generated by influencers and branded by Fyre Fest ( Youtube video got more than a million views ).
- Finally lead generation. Keeping in mind that the event wasn't cheap or free. Some of the tickets went up to 250,000$ for a group rate and the whole event was sold out.
And that right there is the problem “ It worked”.
Social Media got great coverage with millions of followers and thousands of engagement and the tickets sold out. Perfect social media case study, perfect ending.
But wait it didn’t end happily ever after.
When guests arrived there was no music, no food and no shelter, the two weekend getaway that was promised turned to be a nightmare.
Bands cancelled, the food was just toast and cheese, guests were fighting over food the island was not private. Buses, private jets and transportation was not able to hold the number of people.
The infrastructure of the island couldn’t support either logistics or accommodations. Social media content was generated overwhelming from the ground and account under the name Fyre Fest Fraud was created.
In other words all hell broke loose. Social media horror.
Before talking about the catastrophe that is Fyre Fest. Personally I don’t think those guys are not smart or intentionally wanted to scam people or it was a fraud act.
The campaign was supported by over than 400 celebrities and influencers, the bands were already contracted, the partnership was strong. They understand the concept of over-promise and under-deliver, the YouTube ad started by saying “the on ground experience is unbelievable”.
The internet is now overwhelmed with articles saying why this campaign was a failure or simply stating the fact that happened from the New Yorker to Buzzfeed and everything in between.
While the failure of the campaign is visible, the numbers are clear and the damage done could be disasters.
The question the comes to my mind is, how could they have fixed it?
Well that's not an easy answer, as there are more than one factor. However here are some practices that maybe could have enhanced the situation and prevented the social media outrage.
1- Setting up Social Media Command center:
Endorsed by Dell, Cisco and the American Red Cross. This practice has proven to be vital for crisis management online.
Social media command center is simply a dedicated area where a company’s social media team can monitor and engage social conversation around their brand and market.
The command center handles daily workflow and triage, and is poised to ramp up and implement a crisis management plan. The command center coordinates with other departments in the company: customer service, public relations, sales, marketing, and others.
According to the Red Cross Eighty percent of Americans expect that emergency
responders will monitor social networks, and a third assume that posting or Tweeting a request for help during a disaster will get them help within an hour.
2- Social Media Functionality:
One of the main unique advantages of social media across all the platforms is being able to reach- update and engage with content instantly.
Where traditional media fall short in this specific comparison a bill board is both more difficult and costly to correct a typo than in a social media post.
One of the things that helped escalate the situation was the absence of online support even worse some of the influencers just deleted the posts which caused more panic and added the fraud pattern to the process.
Taking ownership of this situation by breaking it down to logistics - shelter and food, then directing those who are affected to solutions and alternatives.
3- Using influencers to actually influence.
Instead of deleting the posts one after another which looked to your audience as if it's rats escaping a sinking ship.
Using influencers to actually influence the audience by alternatives and solutions. Posting updates as frequently as possible with notes of who is working on the problem?, how is it being fixed?, most importantly how safe everyone is?.
And dare I say if there are more than 400 influencers support one campaign then the situation might needed some boots on the ground.
4- Before the flood.
To have an honest well informed answer about what happened internally before and in the first moments of the fest might be difficult.
However hitting a wall with the speed of 120 m/h i way worse than hitting the same wall with the same car with the speed of 10 m/h. With the first signs of disturbance when the team saw that the buses cannot load more and the food is not enough and they know that more is coming.
Damage control should have been number one priority and try to slow the speed and rate of the crisis before it floods. For example informing the people that are yet to come that the event is canceled, directing those who are in the airport to another hotel or a different island. Finally try to direct most of the on ground effort towards evacuation.
5- Anchors are the worst.
In their apology on the website the Fyre Fest team tried to promote #fyrefest 2018. This creates a cognitive anchor with the audience that Fyre Fest is associated with disaster and that 2018 event won't be any better.
The human brain uses cognitive anchors as a mental heuristic. So we remember situation when we hear songs or remember people in specific location or places. We simply anchor and promoting the coming event while the first event still going viral as a not so good event. Is just an anchor for failure.
My final thoughts are that this campaign is a very interesting case study for social media and another reminder that offline presence and delivering value that services a need to the target audience is still vital for any social media campaign.
As digital storytellers we are always reminded that part of writing a good story is managing the expectations of the audience. What do the audience expect from your protagonist, from the plot , from the story and most importantly from the storyteller.
Reference for this article can be found here
http://bit.ly/2qtAHIc
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