Lady Gaga has proven herself to be an excellent engagement planner. To promote her upcoming album, ARTPOP, the pop-icon turned to her most abundant resource: her fans.
Carefully cultivated over years, Lady Gaga's relationship with her fans is notorious. She affectionately calls them Little Monsters and often personally responds to their notes. This summer, the fans took the promotional matters into their own hands.
This meant everything from crafting album flyers to a YouTube show called Radio ARTPOP, which revolved around discussing the upcoming album.
And that where her majesty herself comes in. Tapping into 1% of her audience (which measures 40 million Twitter fans and 60 million Facebook fans), Lady Gaga employed the "Accidental Influentials" approach based on "influencing easily influenced individuals who influence other easily influenced people."
Namely, she did what a smart engagement planner would recommend. She invited moderators of her Gaga Daily website "into the brand," i.e. to hang out with her closest entourage; she used UGC platform to spread the word, by leaking parts of her album on Radio ARTPOP and promoting the channel on Twitter; and she promised the first sneak-peek to a selected few of her final selection of songs to be included in the ARTPOP album.
All of this comes from the first truth of engagement planning: know thy audience. She nailed it.