What Game of Thrones Can Teach Us about Social Media

Last Sunday was a great night, one that fans worldwide have been anticipating for months. This past Sunday was the long awaited premier of season 6 of Game of Thrones, the multi-emmy award winning series on HBO. Now I admit, I love the show Game of Thrones, but was only able to finish watching the last two episodes of season 5 just recently. I have yet to see the first episode of Season 6. However, after watching the the last two episodes of Season 5, I could not help but draw some analogies between my observations and social media. Spoiler alert! If you have not yet seen Season 5 of Game of Thrones and intend to, then save this article for later. However, if you are just eager to see these analogies between social media and GoT, then read on!

Know Your Community

Stannis Baratheon is the leader you love to hate or hate to love. As far as passion goes, Stannis’ belief that the iron throne belongs to him is of epic proportions. However, despite being the leader of his Army, Stannis did not understand the sentiment of his Army. This misunderstanding of his Army, or community for the sake of this argument, is what ultimately led to his defeat.

One of the most powerful advocates that a brand can have is their community. Your community grows from a common bond that you share. This bond may come from a common affinity towards a product or service, a vision, values, a thirst for knowledge or more. When one of these is compromised, it can cause your community to question your brand’s motives, direction or even the values of your company. This is what happened to Stannis Baratheon. Because of the great loss of provisions to his Army due to a raid by a rival, Stannis was faced with a difficult decision, starve or trust the advice of his “mystical advisor”, Melisandre. His advisor, who worships the Lord of Light, advised him that he could find favor with the gods if he sacrificed his daughter. His loving daughter was willing to do anything for her beloved father as she so proudly proclaimed. However, sacrificing her life was not what she was counting on. Nonetheless, the act was carried out via fire and witnessed by Stannis’ wife (who tried to stop it) and all of Stannis’ men, who obviously abhorred the act of their king. By the next morning, half of Stannis’ men had deserted him along with the remaining horses and his wife had committed suicide. With barely an army left and no horses, Stannis marched on into battle only to be horribly defeated and ultimately killed. Had Stannis known his “community” or even consulted with them, perhaps the life of his daughter would have been spared, his wife still alive and his army full and ready for battle.

Many times as brands (and I have witnessed this firsthand with Fortune 100 companies) and social media managers, we give our community what we THINK they want or need, without ever asking them. I will say this loud and clear and perhaps to the chagrin of marketers and the praise of sales people. Too many times we marketers and social media managers never consult the sales people, who are on the front lines, pounding the pavement and interacting with our customers firsthand. We tell the sales people what we think they need, which in turn is telling the end user what we think they need, and then we wonder why people are leaving our camp in droves. There needs to be a two way conversation for our marketing to be effective. Ask your community (advocates, prospects, clients) what it is that they need or want. Their answers just may help you win the battle.

Know Your Strengths and Don’t Waiver from Them

I absolutely love the wit of Tyrion Lannister played by Peter Dinklage. This is one man who has managed to writhe himself out of many certain death situations. Every time Tyrion is around, someone always asks, “does he always talk this much?” It is true. Tyrion Lannister can talk himself out of any situation. He is good at it and makes no excuses for it. When asked whether he can fight, he always assures the person that his value goes way beyond the sword. He does not attempt to be a knight in shining armor, nor does he want to be.

When I first started V2M2, we were a company that did it all. I actually thought that we did it all quite well. However, what we really enjoyed doing was social media and connecting people or businesses. Whenever someone spoke about V2M2, or Viral Visual Marketing as it was known by previously, they would always refer to our social media skills and the fact that we were well connected. So that is what we decided to do. We market ourselves as a social media and influencer marketing agency. Since we started directing our messaging towards those competencies, our business has grown. People want a specialist, not a generalist.

I bring this up with business owners all of the time. Many are trying to be a jack of all trades instead of focusing on their core strengths. In social media, the content that you share should speak to your core strengths or to the interests of your target market. I have a friend that runs a personal assistant company. Her social media postings were great. She had photos of her staff dressed to the hilt out on the town visiting clients giving people a peak into their world as personal assistants. However, one day, photos of great-looking twenty-something guys started popping up on her Instagram feed. I thought that she was getting into men’s fashion. So I contacted her only to find out that the postings came from her new social media manager who thought that this would be a good direction for them to pursue. Needless to say, things are now back to normal after a few failed attempts at corrective procedures. Know what you are good at and stick to it. This solidifies your messaging and accurately conveys your company’s culture. This focus, much like Tyrion Lannister, can help you avoid many certain “business-death” situations.

Influence is Powerful

(image from craveonline.com)

A recent study conducted by Tomoson, influencer marketing is producing big returns for businesses. The average return for every dollar spent on influencer marketing is $6.50, with some companies claiming returns on investment as high as $70 per dollar spent. Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on individuals or types of individuals to increase brand exposure through the advocacy of these influencers. It is the fastest growing segment of digital marketing today, and we are quite good at it (shameless plug).

So what is influence? The definition that I found online is as follows:

“the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself, or a person or thing with the capacity or power to have an effect on someone or something.” (Google search on the definition of influence. I could not find the proper reference. Sorry).

I tried really hard to think of somone in the last two episodes of Game of Thrones that exhibited a great deal of influence. It was a difficult decision. I thought of Tyrion Lannister, who undoubtedly has a lot of influence. But I had mentioned him in the last section. Then there was Melisandre, whose influence was so powerful that it caused a father to sacrifice his only daughter. But I had already mentioned her as well. Then it came to me. This relatively new character had so much influence that he was able to get the “mother of all evil” Cersei Lannister to atone for her sins. No one in the entire 5 seasons of Game of Thrones had been able to break Cersei except for the HIgh Sparrow. The High Sparrow was also able to have such influence over his own flock that no one feared the wrath of Cersei when her sentence was carried out.

In influencer marketing, you seek the collective voice of those influencers who are champions for your cause, or in this case, your brand. Even when you use a solo influencer to gain brand visibility, it is important to ascertain whether they are the right advocate for your brand. Think of it in this way. The High Sparrow is your influencer and his belief in atonement for your sins is your brand. He spreads the word and one by one, people become believers in his vision, which in this case is, your brand. This is why influencer marketing is so powerful. You only need one strong voice to impact the many. Or the many can become the unified voice for your brand. Now think of the converse of this argument. You are a brand without a champion or advocate or unified voice. One by one you try to build your community and eventually your community is large enough to make an impact. I say, why build something that is already mostly built? Why spend the time to build or increase your share of voice when there may already be a High Sparrow in your court?

Franklin Rivera is the CEO of The V2M2 Group, a social media and influencer marketing company. His company has used their own influence and the influence of their social media connections to help grow the visibility of brands of all sizes. Visit their website at http://www.v2m2.net to see how they can help you grow your brand. Or you may subscribe to our newsletter for the latest on social media and influencer marketing.

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