It was hard to miss the stories about the Fyre Festival. Thousands of people were stranded on an island in the Bahamas, just hours after they arrived expecting a blow-out beach-side music festival featuring the likes of Blink-182, Migos and Major Lazer. Instead, they found a bare, landlocked island devoid of the villas they had purchased and the luxury catering that had been advertised on social media. Luggage was distributed at random, water was scarce, and the crowds were left to fight over the FEMA tents Lord of the Flies-style.
How did this happen? Orchestrated by the since-convicted scam artist Billy MacFarland, Fyre Festival failed for a number of different reasons. But it succeeded in one crucial aspect: social media marketing. In the not Hulu and Netflix documentaries made about the festival disaster, the Fyre team has offered insight into the social media marketing techniques that convinced thousands of people to spend millions of dollars on a weekend festival that never existed. Here are some ways your organization can apply Fyre Festival’s effective social media strategies for a more positive purpose.
Use your Influencers
Possibly the most impactful thing the Fyre Festival’s social media team did was to pay celebrities to post about the festival – they reportedly paid Kendall Jenner $250,000 for a single Instagram post. They chose her because their target audience was the type of people who followed her on Instagram.
You don’t have to use Kendall Jenner or Bella Hadid, or even pay a single person. An influencer can be anyone who has the power to influence the behavior of their social media followers. For example, if you run a music school, strong influencers could be students, former students, teachers, or members of the administration who post about the music programs on social media and have decent followings. Have them post content about your upcoming event to draw in their followers. If you run a restaurant, reach out to foodstagrammers in the area and invite them to the event, where they can take photos and post. The goal is increasing your audience reach through people who influence others.
Create Unique Content
Even more important than consistent content is unique content. In the Hulu documentary Fyre Fraud, a member of the social media team from Fyre Festival points out that much of what we see when we scroll down social media is the same: selfie, beach photo, group shot, selfie, mountains, selfie, etc. Their main goal was to create visual disruption. They did this by having each of their hired influencers post an orange tile and nothing else. There was no branding, no information about the festival, just the image. This succeeded in doing something incredibly difficult these days: it got people to stop scrolling and follow the link.
As you post on image-heavy platforms like Instagram, try to keep in mind what your followers’ feeds may look like. If possible, switch it up with an eye-catching graphic for the event.
Track Other Tweets
As the date of the festival drew closer and closer, people began to doubt whether or not it was actually going to happen. And they doubted it publicly – on social media. To trample concern over its authenticity, Fyre set up alerts for specific words on Twitter. Any time someone tweeted words like “fraud,” “scam,” or “fake” in relation to the Fyre Festival, their team would remove the tweets. This is how they kept negative press about them under the radar.
Instead of tracking negative terms, track positive ones and interact with them. If you’re a museum in the Boston area, try setting up alerts for phrases like “museums in Boston” or “rainy day activities in Boston.” That way, when someone posts about these things, you can respond on the institution’s account suggesting that they stop by.
By following the strategies that almost made Fyre Festival a success, you can create a legitimate social media campaign that benefits both you and your organization.
