The Britney Spears universe: Social media and viral marketing at its best

an article by Andreas M. Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (ESCP Europe Paris) published in Business Horizons Volume 55 Issue 1 (January-February 2012)

Abstract

Britney Spears is one of the most successful female recording artists in contemporary music, world-wide. Herein, we analyse how Britney Spears and her team of employees rely on social media applications to communicate around this pop icon, and create and maintain her celebrity brand image. Specifically, we look at the use of social media during the launch of her single ‘Hold It Against Me’ and the associated album Femme Fatale in early 2011. The interplay of postings on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook – combined with comments on her webpage, BritneySpears.com – can be seen as a prime example of social media usage to support new product introductions.

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Participative Web: user-created content

I wanted to bring you a short summary of this paper but -- there isn't one. The summary included is what I would have called a "Management Summary" i.e. the bit that the manager reads when s/he is not particularly interested in the topic and it's 3 sides of 10-point New Roman (or similar) typeface! There is no abstract in the more conventional sense.

OK, let's just copy a bit of the 74-page PDF document to give you a flavour. OUCH (yes, that is screaming) the text highlight has been disabled. Back, almost, to where I started my working life -- copy typing!

The concept of the "participative web" is based on an Internet increasingly influenced by intelligent web services that empower the user to contribute to developing, rating, collaboration on and distributing Internet content and customising Internet applications. As the Internet is more embedded in people's lives "users" draw on new Internet applications to express themselves through "user-created content" (UCC).
This study describes the rapid growth of UCC, its increasing role in worldwide communication and draws out implications for policy. Questions addressed include:

• What is user-created content?
• What are its key drivers, its scope and different forms?
• What are new value chains and business models?
• What are the extent and form of social, cultural and economic opportunities
  and impacts?
• What are associated challenges?
• Is there a government role and what form should it take?

That's enough to prove that I haven't entirely lost my skill and to give you a flavour. I haven't read the whole thing in depth but have skimmed it and it's very interesting.