Drake knows how to hack the internet! Correction; Drake is a MASTER at hacking the internet!
Over the last decade, Drake has become one of the biggest names in hip-hop and arguably the most prominent name in music right now! This can’t be accidental, so we dug a little deeper to analyse two techniques which stand out!
1. Meme Culture
There is not a more impactful presence in culture than memes! They travel through the internet faster than the speed of light; from feed to feed and landing in your DM’s!
At the centre of them all is, Drake. An accident? Not at all!
He understands the power of memes and embraces it entirely, where he stated himself in an interview in 2016 about being the most memed person on the internet! Around the time of a song or album release you’ll notice the internet hit new levels of Drake saturation on every platform with social users quickly becoming Drake’s marketing team without even realizing it.
A stroke of genius may be an understatement!
So, how does he do it? Drake provides the world with templates for memes, where unlike many album covers, Drake’s are simple and easily replicable for memes knowingly that the internet will have a field day, ready to share their funny twist, whilst promoting Drake at the same time!
Same goes for selected song and some of his music clips; a classic example was ‘Hotline Bling’ with its’ simple dance moves, awkwardly acceptable by the cringiest of dads!
2. Viral Dance Challenges
We talked about Drakes’s dances being simple and how it can be the absolute perfect recipe for a success challenge. When dances are simple enough that everyone can participate, a lot of people do!
Previously Drake had two massive hits with challenges for “Nonstop” and “Hotline Bling”, bringing in millions of participants, and billions of views to boot! Replicating this model saw him and his team create a planned challenge where three days before Drake released “Tootsie Slide” a viral dance challenge had already surfaced.
Knowing previous songs went viral, he hired dancers with massive social media followings to create moves for his upcoming song.
The result saw absolute virality on every platform!
It first hit ridiculous numbers on Tik-Tok, made its way to Instagram, and even found its way onto Twitter with the song quickly claiming the #1 spot on the billboard charts, with billions of views in record-breaking time!
One of the best parts about it was that he created this challenge on purpose, in the middle of a pandemic when people were stuck at home and Tik-Tok’s growth was through the roof.
Artists usually don’t get enough credit for how well they market themselves, and their music!
Drake is absolutely World Class!
When dissecting the strategy to formulize for the one who appreciate old school imagery;
He knows it works so well, that he even tried planning virality – and guess what? it worked, again and again!
Take a bow Drake, take a bow!
Citations: Alex Garcia
Wow!- Mmm
- Hmm
- Meh
- Pff
