19/10/2016 Tech Time – MUSICAL.LY
#WednesdayWisdom is a new series from Way To Blue where each week we profile a specific platform to help you understand what it is, why you should care, and how you could use it in your own strategy.
Musical.ly is one of the hottest social media platforms that you’ve never heard of. At its core Musical.ly is a utility app that capitalizes on the desire to be a creator. Musical.ly allows its users to create 15-second videos lip-syncing to popular music and audio bits. Consider it to be across between Dubsmash, Snapchat, & Vine.
Why should I care?
Since Musical.ly launched in 2014, it has had 90+ million registered users and has a daily active user base of 10 million (Instagram has 500 million users, 300 million active users). These figures may not sound astonishing at a first glance, but what if I told you that over 60% of Musical.ly’s user base is under the age of 20? No other social network has been as successful at capturing the attention of generation Z (only 23% of Snapchat’s user base is under 18), a generation that isn’t joining Facebook until their early adult years.
What else should I know?
You’ve probably never heard of Musical.ly’s top influencers either. Baby Ariel, a 15-year old from south Florida and the network’s top influencer, has 13 million fans (President Barack Obama only has 8.7 million followers on Instagram)! As an emerging social network, brands and corporations are still learning how to best use the platform. Coca Cola, MTV, and a number of top musical artists like Alicia Keys, Jason Derulo, and Ariana Grande are a few who have already established a presence on the app.
How are brands engaging on the app?
Musical.ly works when you ask people to participate. Coca Cola did this with #ShareaCoke. To launch the campaign they partnered with Baby Ariel who asked her followers to join in and share their own video using one of three songs. In return Coca Cola only asked Musers (Musical.ly users) to participate by using the hashtag #ShareaCoke (141K total mentions) and one lucky winner could be choosen to FaceTime with Jason Derulo.