It’s not every day you see big companies creating video shrines of their million-dollar failures–especially when the videos include falling rockets, bomb-sized explosions and shattering debris hurling to the ground. But for Elon Musk, CEO of space company SpaceX, this was just another day at the office.

The forward-thinking space company has successfully landed several of its rocket boosters, but these landings didn’t come without its share of cataclysmic mishaps. What is even more outrageous is the company’s willingness, or should I say strong desire, to share its costly explosion-sized mistakes with the rest of the world—while setting the stage with humorous music and clever sub-titles.

Here is the blooper video Elon Musk just published to make a mockery of his company’s costly blunders:

Effective Content Marketing Strategy?

Should you share your crushing business blunders with the rest of the world? Doing so would be similar to making a showcase of all of your worst blog posts and content pieces, throwing them onto a video screen and highlighting with bright yellow all of the crappy parts that you are embarrassed of. Then, share the video with your entire audience. Something seems off, no?

Elon Musk’s video, however, is currently sitting at just under 3.5 million views and has generated a lot of awareness. Now, before you go off sending videos to the world showing off your worst blunders, let’s talk about this.

Note that SpaceX didn’t release the video until after it successfully landed rockets. It’s easier to laugh at past mistakes and publish them once you learn from them and get things right. It worked for SpaceX because, well if Elon Musk is releasing something, you want to check it out. Also, technology is a different animal than blog posts and ebooks. Technology costs more money and it takes longer to create. It’s somewhat expected that there will be bugs to work out first.

How to Follow SpaceX’s Example

Should you create an error-filled, poke-fun-at-me video as part of your marketing strategy? Unless you are creating a comprehensive piece of software, launching a billion-dollar rocket into space or your brand leans more toward fun and out-of-the-box, it may not be a good idea.


via GIPHY

But what I can tell you is that a little transparency can be effective and make your brand more attractive to your audience. You don’t need to create a “blundertastic” video to be transparent, however. Exercising transparency can be as easy as sharing some brand stories throughout your content and messaging. This will help you connect to your audience on a more “human” level. This is vital because today’s consumers like to feel emotionally connected to the brands they purchase from.

Create your brand story on topics such as your humble beginnings, your wins and even some losses (not all of them in an outrageous video), what you learned and the ways you value your customers and want to solve their problems. Add your transparent stories and vibe into blog posts and emails, and be genuine in all of your communication. You are not marketing to credit cards; you are marketing to people. Be real; be human, and be approachable.

What are Your Content Marketing Strategies?

Transparency is just one way to amp up your content marketing and make it more effective so you can generate a substantial ROI. If you need assistance coming up with some awesome content marketing strategies custom-tailored to your business, here at MediaShower, this is what we do best. To try us out to see how we can help you, sign up for a free trial here. One thing: Though we don’t create explosive hurling-space-debris videos, I can assure you that our content is always “out of this world.” (Yes, I went there. You were expecting it, no?)