Ishq Mera Dard Mera

Story & Learning of the online rage - Rohan Rathore (Emptiness fame)

What are the ingredients to publicize a song of an unknown artist in a highly cluttered media-space which has little recognition for new talent? Either you got to be in one of the Reality TV Shows which exhibits more of masala/drama than reality or rather you gotta have a renowned industry godfather. 

The marketeers of the above embedded song had a different plan - to exploit the power of Social Media and add an enigmatic story behind it. The story along with the song was publicized at Youtube and Facebook. It was as follows - 

This song will be great song in ahead days...... 

Rohan Rathore was an IIT Guwahati student, who was suffering from Cancer. He was in love with a girl named Supriya more than anything in his life. But, Supriya refused him only because he was suffering from Cancer. Then, Rohan sung this song for his love, Supriya. But, the bad part is that, after 15 days of recording this awesome song, he died.

"May Rohan's soul Rest In Peace!"  

The promoters made sure to include the hoopla of IIT Guwahati, a tragic Love Story and Cancer to acquire sufficient attention. The song garnered over a million views within the first month of its upload on Youtube and has more than a Lakh 'likes' on Facebook till date. The song immediately became a Viral and was one of the highest shared/liked video of 2010! Although theories have proved the story to be a fake, we'll have to admit that the song reached the MASSES and was instantly liked by it. It aroused and shared the feeling of the protagonist amongst its listeners. 

What clicked in the publicity??? It was the "CONNECT" it generated among the listeners and also the "SYMPATHY" factor hyped it to its current fame. Although I do not promote the means through which the song was publicized, I feel there is a lot to learn from the way it was marketed through Social Media. 

Harnessing Social Media can be only possible if you can ENGAGE the participants with your CONTENT!

for more research on the story you can refer: http://www.avin.iblogger.org/2011/02/the-true-story-of-rohan-rathore/