You’ve probably read that Lady Gaga became the first living person to go past 10 million fans on Facebook, dethroning Barrack Obama and the ever colourful Britney Spears as the most fanned person on the network. So what is the key to such success for Lady Gaga?

First off, if you look at the Facebook page on it’s own, the first thing that strikes you is how developed the page is. It offers fans a complete experience that goes beyond that of a standard website to do what only social networks can do – engage.  There’s a complete tour listing, track listing and even an e-commerce section. In addition, this is layered with regular engagement by Lady Gaga. For example, when she reached the 10 million mark on Facebook, she posted “Thank u so much little monsters for following me on Facebook! 10 million friends of mine who are now connected to each other.” In addition, there are a number of videos aimed directly at her fans in the social space.

But it’s not just Facebook that makes her such a force in the social world, it’s the fact that she cleverly weaves together the different platforms available to her to tell her story.  On Twitter she has over 4,790,900 follows, on YouTube she has 313823 subscribers and around 126,922,521 video views. Underpinning all of this is the fact that she’s probably one of the hardest working celebrities from a global perspective, she’s not just US-centric, she has a far wider appeal.

She has cleverly used social media to tell her “brand” story as she wants it told, while underpinning this with countless PR and promotional efforts in individual markets. What this means is that while she might not physically be in your country, she’s never far away. While she might not be looking back at you from the cover of a magazine, she’s at the top of your Facebook news feed. What she’s developed is a continuous brand story that she (and not the mainstream media) owns in order to constantly stay relevant to her fans and always be top of mind. If I may say so, genius…..