MARKETING JOURNO

What Black Panther teaches about ‘Grassroots Marketing on Social Media’

Dhileepan
Black Panther Portrait
Image Source: Marvel Studios

Recently, I happened to read the article, ‘Grassroots Marketing in the Age of Social Media’. I could relate many aspects in it with Marvel Studios’ marketing efforts for ‘Black Panther’. So, I have come up with this article by jotting down my observations. Now, let us take a look at the efforts and the corresponding takeaways:

1. Understand your audience:

In Grassroots Marketing, it is of primary importance to understand your audience.

On the day of Black Panther‘s release, ‘Captain Marvel‘ star Brie Larson tweeted as below

This tweet based on the theme, ‘Pay it forward‘ did sound striking. Thereby, it generated a considerable number of comments, retweets and likes.

To come up with a campaign and result as mentioned above, you have to understand your audience.

Takeaways:

To understand your audience,

i) Know whether your audiences are available in social media

ii) In case, if they are, know which platforms (g.: Facebook, Twitter etc.,) they are using and are active on

iii) Know the person who can spur a grassroots marketing campaign for your product or service

(Here, the person could be a celebrity or an influencer)

iv) Engage your audience, using the person, in a way that relates to your product or service

2. Mobilize your audience:

When you have a considerable audience, you need to engage them via various activities. In other words, you need to mobilize your audience. Marvel Studios knows this.

Before the release of ‘Black Panther’, Twitter and Marvel hosted a live-stream Q&A with the cast and crew of the movie. To make fans join the conversation, Twitter provided the hashtag, ‘#BlackPantherLive’.

And, Tumblr conducted its first-ever video ‘AnswerTime’ with the cast of ‘Black Panther’.

Besides, Marvel is encouraging fans to submit their Black Panther arts to it in social media. It is offering them the hashtag, ‘#BlackPantherFanArt’ to share their artworks. This campaign of Marvel has been receiving a lot of submissions. The arts are being shared in the official social media pages of ‘Black Panther’ by crediting the fans.

Also, Marvel is making fans to share the photos of them dressed up in Wakanda-esque costumes. For this campaign, it provides them the hashtag, ‘#WakandaStyle’. Marvel posted few of such photos in the social media channels of ‘Black Panther’.

Takeaways:

To mobilize the considerable number of audience that you have,

i) Conduct light-hearted events related to your business in popular social networks (g. Facebook, Twitter)

ii) Encourage them to involve in the events by providing customized hashtags

iii) Leverage video features of popular social media to showcase events like Q&A sessions… sessions about your product or service

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3. Encourage your audience to speak out about your product or service:

Another important Grassroots Marketing approach is to encourage your audience to speak out… speak out about your product or service.

Marvel created customized Twitter Emojis for certain ‘Black Panther‘ characters… for characters like ‘Black Panther‘, ‘Nakia‘, ‘Kill Monger‘, ‘Shuri‘, and ‘Okoye‘. And, it encouraged the fans of ‘Black Panther’ to tweet the name of their favorite character from the movie… name preceded by a hashtag.

Also, the fans were asked to share their favourite track on Black Panther album.

And, Marvel prompted the fans to take part in a sweepstakes contest. It encouraged them to share their favourite Black Panther memory or their personal photo using the hashtag, ‘#Marvel10YearSweepstakes’. Here, Marvel advertised that the fans might get a chance to win a trip to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ premiere.

Takeaways:

To encourage your audience to speak out about your product or service,

i) Conduct contests with announcements about a chance to win prizes

ii) Make them speak out about product or service as part of the contests

iii) Start simple conversations as Marvel did of fans’ favorite character and track

With these grassroots efforts on social media, Marvel has generated a buzz for its movie. In turn, this has helped in upping the Black Panther‘s prospects at box-office in a notable manner.

So, tailor the campaigns of Marvel for ‘Black Panther‘ to suit your product or service needs. And, enhance your business prospects.

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