Who the F*** Is Justin Bieber?

The other day, I was flipping through the channels just trying to numb my brain in between things and not think of anything in particular. It is one of my favorite procrastination techniques and an absolute time waster. As I was doing so, I happened to pass cross a music channel, I’m inclined to say MTV out of habit but since they dropped music from their programming it must have been something else, and this video just grabbed my attention for some odd reason:

The first thing that popped in my head was like “Wow, now we have lesbian pop stars! How far things have progressed“. And so, I was curious and I actually finishd the video! Being as out of tune with pop music as I am, I have never heard this song again, but since Ludacris is featured it must be some really hot thing. At the end of the video I was in shock! It was a boy called “Justin Beiber”. For some odd reason, that sounded very familiar! And then I remembered… that’s a name that I always see trending on Twitter.

So I got curious to learn more about him and wanted to dig-in some more, and boy was I taken back by him. He is like the first bonafied Youtube to mainstream crossover success. So, if you still don’t know who Justin Bieber is, you better start taking notes. It’s not like I give a damn about his music but his close to more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter will definitely raise a few eyebrows.

His Start

Justin Bieber is a 16-year old, yes I swear he’s not 13, Canadian kid who likes to sing. Not so different from the other million people who upload videos on Youtube, Justin just seems to have had more luck than many. A video of him in a competition covering a Ne-Yo’s song went viral and a music manager at Island Def Jam records stumbled upon it and decided to sign him up. Basically, saving him the agony of years of thankless gigs at nameless clubs that are usually required to jump start a music career.

It is also worth noting that just a week ago, Justin had already been able to release two albums within the span of the past 2 months, his second “My World 2.0″ just hit stores on the 23rd of March.

The numbers

This kid is fierce, anyone holding an event for him, offline and especially online, is learning to over estimate the number of attendees and the preparations required for the event. His fans, Beibermaniacs, adore him so much that they managed to break viewer records for shows he attended, crash online chat servers, and even cause riots at malls because of him. I kid you not! Last November when a scheduled event in a mall in Long Island was canceled over security concerns chaos broke out, and 3,000 of his fans went ballistic and rioted across the mall only to be stopped by his tweets.

Twitter(@justinbieber): 1,626,000+ Followers

MySpace: 616,000+ friends

Youtube: ~150,000,000 Video views (not a typo!)

Facebook: 2,299,000+

This kid is the king of social media, and the reason, according to Gawker, is basically that every 11 year old girl and their mother are following him and spreading the word. Even Conan O’Brian declared him as his nemesis celebrating overtaking him only to realize that this made him even more popular.

So what’s His Secret?

• He is authentic: Most of his online interactions are carried over by him. The only other person that has access to his Twitter account is Bieber’s Manager Scott “Scooter” Braun. Moreover, even though he has “a lot” of Twitter followers, he still strives to answer them all.
• He knows how to create buzz around his videos and events: His PR team is great and they know their audience, they allow him to showcase himself amongst other superstars such as Usher and Ludacris and appear as their equal (dare I say, superior) giving him credibility.
• Bieber’s fans are the focus of the Beiber brand: They are the people that carry the Bieber torch. The fans feel that way because it was because of them that he got viral in the first place and he knows that he owes it to them. So Beiber showcases his fans, retweets them, replies to them and allow them to spread Biebermania to their friends and encourages them to.

a Bieber Retweet

So do you now know who Bieber is? How can companies and entrepreneurs’ learn from people like Bieber who establish their brands through social media? Let us hear your thoughts.