Note: This is not my photo!

First, let’s take a moment for Taylor Swift as she became a billionaire last week. Yes, billionaire with a B.

Next, let’s look at a few stats from her Eras tour (that is now still going on since she released new dates!):

• On average, each show brought in around $93 million.
• So far, the tour has stimulated the economy by around $5.7 billion.
• As Time magazine puts it…if Taylor were an economy, she would be bigger than 50 countries.

Let that sink in. Bigger than 50 countries.

So what makes Taylor Alison Swift larger than life? Her brand.

Before I jump into what makes her brand so enchanting (see what I did there?), please let me preface this by saying her music makes all this possible. She has an impressive musical catalog, but because my expertise lies in the business arena, I am going to stay focused there.

Fan-Focused Connection

First, I want to touch on Taylor’s use of community and connection.

She does this in multiple ways:

1. “Taylor Swift Updates” are where she updates her fans and followers with updates about her life and upcoming releases. This creates a community feel and sometimes even has a bit of exclusivity to it. She is known for leveraging social media by dropping clues to indicate what is coming next for her musical career, which creates a buzz and anticipation for her die-hard fans.
2. She posts relatable IG content where she is the “girl next door” that everyone can see themselves in, despite the fact that she is certainly not the girl next door.
3. Her fans are easily able to identify themselves. They’re “Swifties.” They follow her every move. They look for clues in each and every one of their social media posts. There is an element of community and belonging when two Swifties meet, without her even there. There are even outward signals that represent that you’re a Swiftie, like a friendship bracelet, which she brought back like a 90s trend.

Pivoting the Brand

Next, let’s talk about Taylor’s “eras.” This could not be more relatable: flash back to my “red hair era”

This is important when it comes to branding because it allows for growth within a brand. Fans now expect her to evolve as her life does. She is not tied to being the “Speak Now” era version of Taylor for her entire career. In fact, she has us all waiting for her wife era album now that she’s wearing KC red every weekend.

This “era” saying has been embraced throughout all of pop culture. You can’t get on IG and mindlessly scroll without seeing someone proclaim what “era” of their life they’re in.

Repurposing Queen

Finally, I have to touch on the freaking genius re-release of previous albums. Of course this came from a deep place of hurt and betrayal, but holy moly, if she’s not the queen of taking a terrible situation and spinning it to make some money, I don’t know who is.

Everyone reading this probably already knows why she re-released her albums, but a quick explanation behind the (Taylor’s Version) of the albums: Her previous label was purchased by a new owner and with that purchase, the master rights to her music were also re-sold. Taylor was not able to purchase those master rights, but did not want to lose her musical legacy [insert a lot more drama, but that’s the condensed version], so instead of fighting it, she re-recorded her first six albums, plus added tracks from “The Vault,” which are tracks that were written at the time of the original record release.

If this isn’t the most genius way of “re-purposing content” I have ever seen!!! She literally did the same work over again and gave it NEW LIFE by adding “(Taylor’s Version)” to the end of it.

Not only did she add this onto the album names, but she also added it to every single one of her track titles. So if you ever Google “Taylor’s Version” you are met with the tracks she makes money off of.

Genius, pure genius.

So now how can we apply Taylor’s big brand strategies to your small business? I thought you’d never ask!

1. Build relationships with your customers/clients. Of course, Taylor is not going to be meeting each of her 275 million Instagram followers individually, but she has still facilitated this feeling of belonging. A couple ways you can do this on a small business scale: send a thank you card to anyone who purchases (this doesn’t have to be handwritten to be special); create a Facebook group for your clients/customers; coin a saying to use as a hashtag on social media so when new customers encounter it, they can see previous posts from others as social proof (helloooooo, UGC). 
2. It is okay for your brand to evolve. Embrace the era you’re in. But know that there is room to pivot, grow, and change. There is room to pivot. There is room to pivot. Sorry, I am mostly repeating that to myself because I need to hear it.
3. Repurpose your top-performing content. Take a moment to look back and see what your audience responded to the most and write a blog post about it. Break it into multiple pieces of Instagram content. Take what worked and dive deeper. Release something from your “vault.”

Now I’m not sure what you’re waiting on, but you should get there and grow!