Beyoncé's Music Launching Through Social Media

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1 Why was this launch successful? What made it successful? Was it Beyoncé? Was it the novelty of the medium (social media)? Was it the buzz that came after the announcement? Something else? I.e., what were the key success drivers for this product launch?
The release of Beyoncé’s album Beyoncé, was successful because (a) the launch was unprecedented, (b) the surprise release created a huge buzz among fans and even non-fans, and (c) the announcement of the release was in the artist’s own official social media. Beyonce has been known to have a massive following, with millions of fans all over the world, across multiple generations who all enjoy her music. Further, the element of surprise caused skyrocketing sales on iTunes, which is due to the curiosity of the listeners as well as the initial hype generated by fans themselves, which spread like wildfire across the industry. Furthermore, the financial success of the product is also driven by the fact that the entire album had to be bought in contrast to some albums that allowed single-track purchase. During the first three hours, 80,000 copies had been sold, and within three days, more than 800 thousand copies were sold globally even without traditional marketing.
2 What are the risks of this approach to launching a product? Consider the risks involved in this approach—how can they be mitigated?
There are various risks to the approach taken by the team. First, they only initially released the album solely through iTunes, so there are some people (especially outside the US where other non-Apple brands are dominant) who were not able to download the album as soon as the surprise hit. Since the risk was mitigated by allowing the release in different outlets after a week, the launch still became a hit. This strategy built the suspense and the excitement for other fans and prospective buyers, which could have been the equivalent in the effect of doing traditional marketing. Another risk is the sale of the entire al...