If we did the social media for…Christian Grey

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laura.muldoon
The Drum recently published this article by We Are Social’s Senior Writer, Laura Muldoon, providing a few social media tips for the mysterious Christian Grey. They’ve been kind enough to let us reproduce it below.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a velvet-walled sex dungeon for the last five years you’ll have heard of E L James’ sexy ‘50 Shades’ series featuring the dishy kinkster, Christian Grey. The first film of the trilogy, 50 Shades of Grey, was released in 2015 to much criticism from feminists, sadists and quite a few other -ists and now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’re about to go 50 Shades Darker. In case you have been hiding in that sex dungeon, you filthy minx, I’ll give you a quick run down to get you up to speed.



E L James (now listed in Time Magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in The World”) originally started the series as Twilight fan fiction. Housewives everywhere went mad for the stories based around the relationship between Ana Steele – milky, innocent, annoying and Christian Grey – wealthy, moody, master of BDSM, wait WHAT? Yup, you read correctly, Christian is into some serious filth, but there’s more than one tail to this cat…

On the surface, he’s a hard-working, self-made billionaire and the CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings. But he also has a hidden side. A side that longs for a good bit of spanking and sadism (he has to do this stuff to channel his anger positively, apparently). So how can Christian hold on to his holdings while also having kinky fun with his assets on social? Grab your masking tape and a length of strong rope, you’re about to find out.

1) Keep your friends close and your colleagues…not so close.
Don’t you just hate it when you muddle your social networks and end up posting your gimp masks to grandma and your focaccias on Fetlife? Yeh me too! The key is – to keep them separate. What’s so great about social is that whatever you’re into – there’s a platform for that. Take ravelry for instance, a social network for knitting addicts or DRIVETRIBE, set up by Jeremy Clarkson and pals for Top Gear fans and petrol heads. For Christian’s BDSM side; he obviously doesn’t want Auntie Grey choking on her Coco Pops when she sees his sausage in her Facebook newsfeed, so maybe he should stick to the best anonymous social networks for that stuff, Whisper and Yik Yak would be a good place to start.

Professionally speaking, Forbes listed Christian as a top-earning fictional character: he’s worth about $2.2 billion thanks to his work in manufacturing and investments. In the second book of the series, it’s revealed that, that’s right, Christian earns a whipping, sorry whopping, $100,000 per hour. He would easily be accepted into the LinkedIn fictional Influencer programme along with the likes of Arianna Huffington and Richard Branson. The LinkedIn Influencer programme is invite only, adding an exclusivity element, which will no doubt have Christian’s roving curiosity piqued. The influential members of this club are also helped by LinkedIn to grow their followers by publishing thought leadership pieces on topics of their choices.

2) 50 Tones of Voice
After doing a whole section on how all the content on different platforms should be different and kept separate, I’m going to now say that there is sometimes room for crossover, if you’re clever about it. Tone of voice should be adapted by Christian for different platform presences in order that he can express himself, but in an appropriate way. With slight ‘tweaks’ he can keep his racy personality and not commit any social media shockers. For instance, he could bring his penchant for control and dominance into his business advice and perhaps publish some LinkedIn blog posts around how he uses these character traits in the world of business. You just never know when these transferable skills can come in handy…



Plus, it has been proven that one in five of the top business people in the world are psychopaths, so there could be some shared learnings to be had here.

3) Network, network, network (secretly)
Before meeting Ana, Christian has 15 similar ‘relationships’ and he’s bound to want more, but how to extend the network without everyone finding out you like your ladies like you like your shoes – tied up? A great way to gain momentum with your group sex fetish groups is to use DARK social (any medium which involves communicating online which can’t be captured in traditional ways, by likes, shares, comments etc. or seen by the public). 50 shades darker social means taking it out of the prying eyes of Sue, that woman your mum knew at college and who you’re now somehow friends with on Facebook, and taking it underground. Identify the key movers and shakers in your sex scene, I like to call them SINfluencers, and activate them via Facebook Messenger. You can mass broadcast out to groups anonymously and get each of your SINfluencers recruiting new whipping lads all over the globe!

4) Make content that stays in your mind for months but on your phone for moments
When you’re into naughties it’s always best to do what the politicians do. Commit NOTHING to paper (or e-paper – I think it’s commonly referred to as email nowadays). The rising trend of ephemeral content is excellent news for Christian and Ana. Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook all offer an options to send content to others which will, as if by magic, disappear after a few glorious seconds. A perfect option for the thrillseeker who gets a buzz from living dangerously in the moment.

Christian, the internet is full of virtual torture chambers and digital board rooms and now you can be master of them all – you’re welcome.