Following from my post I made about the music industry beginning to use social media and a comment I made on Micropersuasion, I’ve been chatting to David Harper from the mobile community site, WINKsite.
He sent me a link over about a project that they’ve been involved in with Australian pop act, The Veronicas, in conjunction with their label, Warner. Already, The Veronicas have been using a host of social media tools to reach their audience: blogging, moblogging and video in what I like to call Entertainment Online Interaction (EIO). 
What I think has been a particularly good move is hosting the blog on Myspace and the moblog on TextAmerica. I mentioned last month about the phenomenal growth in Myspace – a massive 609% in one year with over 25 million members – a high majority of the members being in the target market. Check out how many friends they have – 55388 and how many plays of their song – over 600, 000! I don’t have a number off-hand for the stats for TextAmerica, but I know it’s high too.
What Warner asked Wireless Ink to do is “help glue together branded content, ringtone partners, and audience generated social media into a single portal and make it available to fans on their mobile phone.” Thus making the Veronicas’ social media content available from any phone browser as well as any Internet connection.
Now this is taking my original thought a step further. This is Entertainment Mobile Interaction (EMI). I’ve got to get a couple of patents out or something!
Piaras Kelly has already made a post last month on targeting the youth of today. He asks the question, “Why is it that we are still targeting the youth of today through traditional media?” And follows up with, “The place you’ll most likely find a teenager is on a mobile phone, playing a PSP or watching his video iPod. There is an abundance of mobile devices these days.”
He refers to a link I made last month from Brian Fling who posted 10 reasons to publish your content to mobile. What struck me then and still does now is Brian’s opening comments:
“There are 1.5 billion mobile devices in the world today, more than three times the number of PCs. As the devices increase capabilities and networks get faster, consumers are using mobile devices more and more for common computing and information gathering tasks.
“With the mobile product lifecycle is moving twice as fast as computers at their peak ten years ago, mobile publishing will soon be a requirement of doing business.”Â
Now, going back to The Veronicas’ mobile site, if you point your phone browser here – winksite.com/veronicas and look at the content available you’ll be surprised – you’ve got contests, tour dates, lyrics, places to go, downloads, photoblog, the secret life diary, news feeds, chat rooms, message board, leave a message among other ways of interaction.
This type of communication, as far as I know is a first, but it’s a good example of how a brand, be it a pop act, a fizzy drinks’ label or the latest super-duper Nike Air trainer can use EMI to hit their target market.
Another significant point to note is the whole process of building the mobile site took 15 minutes. With this type of speed, could it have some use in something like a crisis management situation?
Update: Have a listen to The Veronicas’ tunes. They’re good!
Technorati tags:
The+Veronicas, WINKsite, stephen+davies, piaras+kelly, entertainment+online+interaction, entertainment+mobile+interaction,
Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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Serge Cornelus
A bit too much teeny-bopping yeah yeah pop rock stuff for my taste. But then again: I am probably becoming a boring old f@rt. They do LOOK good, however. And that’s a good enough reason to remember them as far as I am concerned. Yep, I know: a DIRTY old man too…
Intrigued by your EMI theory, btw. Proves you’re ahead of your time. Way ahead of me, anyway. But then again: that is not thàt difficult. Keep up the good work!
Stephen
Yeah a little teeny bop never did anyone any harm Serge. Thanks for the kind compliments!
Katie Lips
The key has to be in using all these social media tools credibly. The Veronicas is a truly interesting and successful campaign. I think the extent to which it appears to be genuine through it’s ‘grass roots feel’ is key to its success.
Possibly this it isn’t just about being mobile, or being on the ‘newest/hottest’ platform, but it is about this micros-persuasion concept you mention. For me, that means that as a fan, the Veronica’s need to be where I am online / on my mobile/ on my iPod, and not expect me to find them.
I hope that effect is not ruined by a plethora of ‘me toos’ making this approach meaningless. (As in employing an Agency to write your Corporate blog). It needs to be genuine.
In terms of being everywhere where the fans are, a campaign needs to find, and to use smaller projects/platforms/services. A key example, (and what prompted me to post this comment):
We made a pet project a few months ago called iPod Scrubs; a simple idea about sequential images and animation. We called for user generated ’scrubs’ or animations for the site’s visitors to download to their iPods. Guess what, we got a submission from veronicasfans.com The Veronicas’ ‘Scrub’ was amongst the highest downloaded animation. http://www.ipodscrubs.com/gallery-06.html
Stephen
Hi Katie,
Thanks for your comments! I agree, it isn’t just about being mobile but I think it’s definitely a great tool to use.
I’ve just checked out your iPod scrubs site – it’s great. So am I right in thinking it wasn’t the management that sent in the scrub, it was actually the fans of the girls?
I’ve found the Veronicas’ fans website. They have their own Myspace very similar in design to the official. They also have a style blog, where they profile the clothes the girls where and let you know where you can buy them from.
If this has all been generated by the fans then this is a perfect example of what yourself and I have been talking about.
Thanks again,
Stephen
Katie Lips
Hi Stephen,
well, yes it seems the Veronica’s iPod scrubs animation was submitted by a fan, or possibly the people who run the fan site (one and the same I presume)?
So is the holy grail to get fans to do your online PR (as opposed to pure word of mouth) for you? I’m sure it is, and from a technology point of view it’s getting easier and easier (across web and mobile).
It may be that this needs to be sparked by some clever marketing i.e. using all these tools to appear to be grass roots / “fan generated advertising”. But whether it needs to sparked from above or not, it seems the fans are willing ‘co-promoters’.
A fan can easily set up a site using blogging software for free that can imitate the ‘official site’ or at least a fan site can now be a professional looking production. So blogs, moblogs, photosharing, social bookmarking, podcasts, event listings etc… are all now free to use locations for creating a hype. What’s more, these spaces allow the fan some fame too, encouraging yet more copromotion.
So the central presence of a great blog / mobile site (I am also a fan of Winksite), quickly develops into a recruitment campaign for multiple promoters all attracting thousands of visitors to their great fan sites (based on free blog software).
Also, by giving the fans something for nothing through podcasts and vodcasts, the fans will quickly learn how to make their own podcasts / vodcasts promoting your band.
Maintaining buzz can be as simple as recruiting photographer fans to maintain your flickr tag, and event promoter fans to add your events to Upcoming / Meetup / Meetin. (Although, possibly this is an older crowd?)
Social software platforms (web and mobile) seem to be compelling for fans. They are enabling fans as co-promoters to create and maintain buzz through ‘micro persuasion’ everywhere, in their own spontaneous way.
David Harper
…nicely said Katie and Stephen.
Stephen
Thanks for your comment Katie and your kind words David. This is really interesting! I know The Veronicas’ single is due out in February so I’ll be keeping an eye out.
I had a quick search on Google Blog Search and there’s a lot of possitive comments.
Certainly one to keep an out for!
Adam
I think it is really cute that you are talking about me.
I had multiple reasons for making the fansite and all the other little things I did (ipodscrub, thefanlistings.org fanlisting, myspace group, livejournal group, last.fm group, shameless promotion on a large number of message boards, and so much whoring in my own blog that I’m betting people jumped ship just so I’d shut up).
The Veronicas themselves are incredibly nice girls who honestly deserve what they are getting.
I am actually known as a “street team whore” by many people, and have a history of helping promote Warner acts online. (Why Warner? Because they “fucking rock” and most other labels are shit.)
I know the girl who runs the Veronicas’ street team from another street team that I joined too-late-to-enjoy-the-”good old days”-of. I was anxious to be on board from day 1.
I am an attentionwhore as well. I love to build sites and didn’t want any competition on a fansite. I had just bought webhosting, and decided against a Regina Spektor (another Warner act!) site, as she had one already.
I am super dedicated because I am also hoping to work for Warner at some point, and I sort of think they’ll notice if I help the Veronicas blow up.
So yeah, some of this is weird. It’s not usual to have such an online presence that early in your career as an artist. VeronicasFans.com actually beat the official site by over two months, and even was providing an unofficial remix of the first single before the promotional remix singles were sent off to DJs.
The Veronicas album comes out next month, on Valentine’s day. And VeronicasFans.com has been online for half a year as of 8 days ago.
P.S. Yes, I realise I just ended up bragging and proving you all right.
P.P.S. I have seen a number of articles about this WINKsite think. Personally? I think it is completely ridiculous. It does not make me like the band anymore, and I was actually upset that they were wasting advertising budget money on shit like that.
I don’t have any numbers, but I NEVER have heard a fan talk about that thing, certainly not after the first week it was announced. It was definitley a waste, I think. Unless it’s secretly been huge and the hardcore fans just don’t realise.
P.P.P.S. Someone at the label told me about the ipodscrubs site, and suggested I do one.
Adam
*jumped ship = jumped on the bandwagon. Oops.
Stephen
Thanks for your comment Adam. I’m sure every record label is hoping for at least one fan like yourself. It’s great to see all the online sites you’ve used to ‘get the word out’.
Good luck with the job at Warner!
Rax
ShoZu and Warner Brothers Music announced on Tuesday the first ever video blog launch of a music album with coverage from the release of The Veronicas debut album, ‘The Secret Life Of The Veronicas.’ The 21-year old identical twins, signed to the Warner Brothers label, posted live video coverage of the events surrounding their launch directly onto the TextAmerica website from their mobile phones, using the free-to-download ShoZu application.
This was a landmark day for mobile video blogging in general. The fact that big name acts such as The Veronicas are using ShoZu to capture these amazing events is testament to how important mobile blogging is becoming to youth culture.
TreeFrog
Terrific Blog you have. Peace Out.
TreeFrog
JiggyWittit
Kewl blog you got goin on up here.
Peace, JiggyWittit