11 Nov 7 Social Marketing Lessons from Fight Club
Everyone has seen Fight Club, right? It’s an amazing movie in almost every sense of the word. It’s clever, it’s funny and it’s thought provoking. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it on Netflix and then come right back (we’ll wait).
Surprisingly, there is a lot you can learn about marketing from a movie about an underground fighting club. We’re going to run through some of the biggest takeaways from this movie. So, settle in because we are Jack’s social marketing genius.
1. Develop Advocates
“Fight Club was the beginning. Now it’s moved out of the basement. It’s called Project Mayhem.”
Fans will wait in line for hours just to say they were the first to see a movie. Fans will quote the lines daily for the next two months. Advocates will still be talking about the movie almost 13 years later. Advocates will still be quoting the lines over a decade later. It starts with fans, but you need to turn them into advocates.
2. Act Fast, Fail Faster
“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
Life is short, so it’s alright to be in a bit of a hurry. Test your theories to find out what works and what doesn’t. Iterate to make your strategies better. Change the order of the words to make the messaging perfect. Act and fail quickly if you want to truly succeed.
3. Try Again
“Only after disaster can we be resurrected.”
Your marketing efforts aren’t always going to work out. The first time, you might even fail miserably. Your strategy might be way off. Trust that you will get better and try again. Keep trying until you find the right formula because it’s almost never in the first place you look.
4. Take Risks
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
Playing it safe when it comes to marketing is almost never a good idea. You want to stand out from the competition, but how can you do that with a conservative campaign? Go big and spark conversation. Take a risk and shake things up instead of sticking with the tried and true every single time.
5. Community Counts
“Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. […] The people I meet on each flight? They’re single-serving friends.”
Building a strong community for your brand is priceless. Did you know that Fight Club is on Facebook? The movie was made 5 years before the website was even launched. As of this moment, the last Fight Club post received 26,000 ‘Likes’ and 3,500 comments. That kind of dedication (almost 13 years later) is the result of a strong community, not single-serving friends.
6. Customers Over Cash
“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.”
Before you go ahead with your next big ideation meeting, make sure you have the right mindset. The key to driving sales is caring about the customer. You aren’t your possessions or bank balance – you’re your customers. Don’t think about what ideas will make you the most cash, think about what ideas will resonate with your customers (and the cash will follow).
7. Really Listen
“When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you instead of just –“ “– Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?”
A major problem for brands, especially when it comes to social marketing, is that they want to talk and talk and talk. The key to marketing success is spending most of your time really, really listening. You need to listen to what customers want, what they like, what they don’t like. Talk to your community instead of talking at your community.
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