The big Super Bowl story has now been replayed over and over and over again. No, I'm not talking about the amazing helmet catch, the thunderous Tom Brady sack, the rise of the second Manning brother, not even the 18-1 Patriots record. I'm talking about the other big story, the story of a girl who found her way.
Kina Grannis, a 22-year-old singer and songwriter, found her claim to fame as she appeared in a 60-second commercial on Super Bowl Sunday. She won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Challenge, which promised Super Bowl commercial time as well as a record deal with Interscope Records.
Now, what's so amazing about this? She did more than write a song that won a contest. Grannis found a way to get more votes online - she found a way to succeed using the Internet.
The singer used some pretty smooth marketing skills to get this win. She captured the hearts and votes of the online community www.digg.com. With the use of some viral marketing and a really catchy song, she persuaded this massive community to devote its loyalty to her.
Digg.com is a community-based news article popularity Web site. Digg users post news stories and these articles get promoted to the headline page through a user-based ranking system. Users "digg" up articles they like.
The Web 2.0 phenomena suggests that users have more control over the Internet than ever before. It's a consumer-based platform. Consumers are able to sell to other consumers (eBay) and define their own worlds (Wikipedia). Viewers can post and pick their own amusement (YouTube), and readers can post and pick their own news (Digg). It's also a community consisting of people sharing the same interests with no barriers of distance or censorship, and this is where there is opportunity.
Kina Grannis made herself a business woman. She's an entrepreneur, whether she knows it or not. She pulled off a Trump-like business tactic and closed the deal. Grannis wrote a song about Digg that was discovered by its enormous community of subscribers. They liked it and they voted for her. Not to mention this video was also found on YouTube and MySpace, which added to her popularity.
Grannis did not merely settle for "hoping that people like her song." Instead, she used her resources and the power of the Web.
So what can we learn from the girl with the beautiful voice? Well, we definitely need to take advantage of our resources. The trick to building an online empire and profiting from it is to create a community of loyal followers, which is easier than ever before because of the Web.
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief for Wired magazine, suggests the possibility and opportunity on the Web with his Long Tail theory, which states that "culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail."
This means that the small niche markets are now gold mines. For example, if I were to set up a local specialized quilting store in El Paso, Texas, I would probably have a market of fewer than 50 people. But if I set up the same store online, I can reach a niche market of people around the globe, which then brings my market to millions of people.
Furthermore, the paths to reach our goals may not always be blatantly laid out in front of us, but they are there. We just need to make sure to keep our eyes open.
Kina Grannis, a 22-year-old singer and songwriter, found her claim to fame as she appeared in a 60-second commercial on Super Bowl Sunday. She won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Challenge, which promised Super Bowl commercial time as well as a record deal with Interscope Records.
Now, what's so amazing about this? She did more than write a song that won a contest. Grannis found a way to get more votes online - she found a way to succeed using the Internet.
The singer used some pretty smooth marketing skills to get this win. She captured the hearts and votes of the online community www.digg.com. With the use of some viral marketing and a really catchy song, she persuaded this massive community to devote its loyalty to her.
Digg.com is a community-based news article popularity Web site. Digg users post news stories and these articles get promoted to the headline page through a user-based ranking system. Users "digg" up articles they like.
The Web 2.0 phenomena suggests that users have more control over the Internet than ever before. It's a consumer-based platform. Consumers are able to sell to other consumers (eBay) and define their own worlds (Wikipedia). Viewers can post and pick their own amusement (YouTube), and readers can post and pick their own news (Digg). It's also a community consisting of people sharing the same interests with no barriers of distance or censorship, and this is where there is opportunity.
Kina Grannis made herself a business woman. She's an entrepreneur, whether she knows it or not. She pulled off a Trump-like business tactic and closed the deal. Grannis wrote a song about Digg that was discovered by its enormous community of subscribers. They liked it and they voted for her. Not to mention this video was also found on YouTube and MySpace, which added to her popularity.
Grannis did not merely settle for "hoping that people like her song." Instead, she used her resources and the power of the Web.
So what can we learn from the girl with the beautiful voice? Well, we definitely need to take advantage of our resources. The trick to building an online empire and profiting from it is to create a community of loyal followers, which is easier than ever before because of the Web.
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief for Wired magazine, suggests the possibility and opportunity on the Web with his Long Tail theory, which states that "culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail."
This means that the small niche markets are now gold mines. For example, if I were to set up a local specialized quilting store in El Paso, Texas, I would probably have a market of fewer than 50 people. But if I set up the same store online, I can reach a niche market of people around the globe, which then brings my market to millions of people.
Furthermore, the paths to reach our goals may not always be blatantly laid out in front of us, but they are there. We just need to make sure to keep our eyes open.
[Via - TheDailyAztec]
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