Justin Bieber: Has the World Talking Without Even Trying
Justin Bieber is undoubtedly one of the biggest pop stars of our generation. Rising to fame at the age of 15, his career and celebrity lifestyle was created using social media. The platforms at time were still in their early stages of development, allowing his career to grow at a very similar rapid rate that social media proliferated to. His youtube account, Kidrauhl, was created simply to share videos of himself singing with family members in different cities around the world. At this very basis, the popstar was using social media for its original purpose, an effortless form of communication, but as he gained success in his musical career, the use of his social media accounts had to be analyzed carefully in order to remain successful. Over the past years Justin Bieber has had many strange and successful encounters with social media, from posting a naked photo to sharing an intimate snapshot of himself with ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez after they had confirmed rumours of a break up. Despite major criticism, Justin Bieber has remained both extremely wealthy and a prominent celebrity in pop culture and the use of social media has allowed him to so, making him and his team successful social media users.
One of his first successful endeavours with social media, apart from his overnight Youtube success, is when he tricked all his beliebers into believing that someone had stolen some of his electronic devices with personal information and content at one of his concerts. He went on Twitter to express his anger to his many fans, causing a stir amongst all social media platforms. Bieber and his fans outrage had many media outlets covering the story and was featured on many social media pages. Furthermore, a new Twitter user was created under the handle @gexwy who claimed to be the thief and was tweeting at Justin Bieber threatening to release the footage, even releasing short clips proving it was ‘real’. When the Twitter user finally released the full leaked footage they were threatening Bieber with, it of course was revealed to be a promotional stunt for his music video Beauty and the Beat which began with a notice at the beginning which stated: “In October of 2012 three hours of footage was stolen from musician Justin Bieber. The following footage was uploaded by an anonymous blogger”. The extremely well thought out stunt was not doable without the use of social media. Justin Bieber and his representatives were able to take full advantage of his Twitter page and knew how his following and fanbase would react to the situation. The social media aspect of the stunt is a clear sign of planned content, with posts that were definitely designed to be authentic and intentional. The stunt had his fans and more individuals such as news articles, talk shows and many other platforms not only discussing the occurrence but expressing emotional and sympathetic thoughts demonstrating Bieber’s successful use of social media.
The promotional stunt was released at a peaking point in Bieber’s career. The years that followed the release of his album Believe were filled with rebellious acts that got the singer both in trouble with the law and bad publicity. Despite these rough patches in the singer’s late teen years and the split with his girlfriend Selena Gomez, Bieber remained prominent on social media, staying true to his fans, constantly posting planned content captions, thanking fans and sharing aspects of his life that he knew they cared about such as photos of his new tattoos, throwbacks, fan art and snapshots of personal moments of himself playing with his younger step-siblings. At this time, he also took advantage of his large number of followers and his high status in pop culture by constantly dropping photo’s that he knew would both give him media attention and have his fans talking. For one, he posted old photo’s of himself and Selena Gomez long after their breakup causing a stir in both the media and amongst his fans, having people questioning if they were still together or not. Throughout the following year or so, Bieber then began sharing photo’s of potential fling’s that were spoken about in the media such as Kendall Jenner, Hailey Baldwin, Kourtney Kardashian and more. It is important to recognize that throughout all this media stories and racy posts Bieber never confirmed or denied any rumours sprung by his social media actions. He simply let the posts speak for themselves and spark whatever controversy it began. This form of social media management is unique to the industry. Where most celebrities feel the need to carefully address stories of themselves in the public in order to keep their reputation safe, Justin Bieber couldn’t care less. He posted both content that pleased his fans and pleased the media by giving them stories to write about. It is clear that throughout this time in his life, Bieber was well aware of his actions on social media, using mostly Instagram to his full advantage in order to remain a prominent and successful celebrity in the public eye.
Fast forward to July 29, 2015 when Bieber uploads a photo to Instagram of a 30 day countdown to the release of his new single What do you Mean. The photo sparks the very beginning of his creative and ingenious promotional journey to the release of his new album Purpose. The 30 day countdown to the release of his first single, What do you Mean, is filled with a collection of photo’s and videos of celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, Ariana Grande, Big Sean, Ed Sheeran and more all promoting the release of the single. Furthermore, the singer also posted fan art and more personal content of his younger step-brother telling fans to watch out for the release of the single. The continuation of his Purpose campaign is maintained with his announcement of the album name and release date with a collection of unique and odd memes as well as the countdown to his second single release that kept people talking about his album. The second single, Sorry, was also promoted through the use of bizarre memes. Justin Bieber then announced each track name using fan graffiti art for further promotion. The album was finally released along with the announcement of the Purpose World Tour which proved to be extremely successful, having many referring to the success as a “comeback” for the biebs. The promotional journey once again demonstrates Bieber’s social media talents. He formatted his posts in order to cater to the needs and wants of his fans and incorporated unique and different aspects such as fan art, help from his celebrity friends and a collection of strange memes that encouraged the media to speak about the album as well.
The final key point in demonstrating Justin Bieber’s successful use of social media is back in August of 2016 when the star deactivated his Instagram account. After lashing out at fans and getting into a public argument with ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez, Bieber completely removed himself from the platform, causing a stir amongst all media outlets and his fans. By the very action of deactivating his account, Bieber was well aware that when the time would come to reactivate his account, all eyes would turn back onto the singer. Although his reasoning for leaving the platform may have been immature and foolish, the very fact that he did so gave him the opportunity to create even more controversy with his return to Instagram. Bieber took back to Instagram with his T-mobile superbowl ad. Not only did he cause a controversy when he left Instagram, he took advantage of the situation, took part in a deal where he most likely profited from greatly and took back to Instagram resulting in the media putting focus on the singer and pleasing his fans by returning to the outlet. It is evident that Bieber definitely knows what provokes his fans and the media and takes full advantage of those aspects by causing controversy through his actions.
Having grown up with social media has surely made Justin Bieber a social media expert. Although it may seem like Bieber doesn’t put much effort into his posts, sharing silly and sometimes bizarre photo’s and captions, it’s clear that Bieber meticulously plays out his social media actions. The singer was heavily involved with social media platforms throughout the core years of his life, sharing his personal moments with the world. As a result, he’s learned how to keep his fans happy and have the world continuously talking about him. All the while, the star also constantly changed his look by dying his hair, doing extreme haircuts, getting multiple tattoos and documenting all of it through his social media accounts. He gave the people exactly what they wanted but in the most unique way possible. Bieber offered clues and hints about aspects of his personal life and his career. He never offered simple, straight forward post that gave his audience the answer they needed. Instead he approached the multiple situations he’s been faced with by posting slight photo’s that kept his fans and the media on the edge of their seats, wanting and needing more. People constantly wondered who’s he dating? what’s the next song release? what’s he working on? This pattern of minimal informative posts in regards to the many aspects of Bieber’s life is the very basis of his business model and success. Bieber knows exactly how to entice his audience members by taking a unique approach to social media which demonstrated to be extremely successful.
