If anyone had asked me just a couple months ago what I thought about DJ Khaled I most likely would have responded, “who? That annoying dude that screams his own name and ‘WE THA BEST’ over every annoying club anthem ever and does nothing else? He’s a joke.” Today, my answer to that question is very very different. Today, if you asked me what I think about DJ Khaled I’ll say, “he’s smart. He’s loyal. He’s the best. He’s arguably the most supportive person in my life. He’s a social media sensation, a marketer, and dare I say it, a revolutionary.” So what happened to sway my opinion you ask? Pure and simple, I followed him on Snapchat.
At some point in the last few months DJ Khaled took to snapchat, thought it a great idea to make his username publicly available, and starting broadcasting his lifestyle to millions of would be fans like myself, making it the fulcrum of his resounding social success the way that Instagram has been for Kim Kardashian. His infectious Khaledisms such as “Major ? alert,” “Cloth talk,” and “They don’t want you to win” have steadily worked their way across other social media platforms and even snuck into daily conversation amongst millennials. Whether people are saying these things ironically or jokingly is irrelevant. The point is that they have caught on and generated an insane demand for more everything from DJ Khaled (ANOTHA ONE!), that most other public figures and major companies would salivate over. So are there lessons to be learned from DJ Khaled that you can follow? You bet your ass there are.
Major ? #1
Capturing emotion and creating personal moments is what marketing is all about. Is your company taking customers behind the scenes? Are you taking them through your routine, sharing breakfast, or living it up at a nightclub? DJ Khaled makes it a point to share the intimate moments of his life whether it be hanging out with Diddy and Rick Ross or checking to see what Chef Dee made for breakfast. He makes you feel like you’re a part of his day and then he proves that you are in a major way: Fan Luv. Beyond letting viewers see his life, he invites them into it, often posting the address of where he’s going to be and inviting any of his fans to come see him, creating minutes long stories of his own and allowing said fans to record their own 10 second max snap of the fleeting time they got to be a part of the DJ Khaled microcosm. He’s establishing a genuine emotional connection and relating to his fans and not just boasting about how many he has. And lastly, he doesn’t just go home and call it a day when it’s all said and done. He reminds us all to be grateful and count our blessings, something that all companies know, but very few express.
Major ? #2
You should care about your brand than anybody else and you should let everyone know it. There is no doubt in my mind hat DJ Khaled would bet it all on his brand being “THE BEST.” His brand, from the music he produces to the clothing he sells, is the accumulation of his life’s work and the grind he’s had to put in over the last two decades to get to where he is now. Khaled knows this and takes it upon himself to impenitently tell the rest of us over snapchat, often wearing clothes and flip flops from his We The Best line or listening to his own music during his “elliptical talk” work outs. Repetition of these not-so-outlandish statements is vital to his success. He knows in his heart that he’s the best and he won’t let the rest of us forget it. It’s as if he took a page out of the public speaking book. Tell them what you’re going to show them, show them, then tell them what you showed them. DJ Khaled is the master of this kind of repetition, and it works. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be wearing a pair of his flip flops right now. For those who have the gall to call him out or disagree, DJ Khaled would like you to not “play yourself”, “bow down”, and “just know,” because.
Major ? #3
This key follows directly from the previous one. Marketing means nothing without a decent product. While the quality of his clothing line cannot be derived from simply watching DJ Khaled’s snapchat (which is why I bought a pair of his sandals. They’re super comfortable.), what cannot be argued is the vitality and success of his music. You can’t say you’re the best at something without having the proof to back it up and Khaled can do that. Over the last decade DJ Khaled has had anthem after anthem go platinum. These were all before he was on snapchat too. He is the living embodiment of what it means to have a top quality product before you can even start thinking of pitching it to the masses.