Born In '88

A great artist doesn’t have fans, but brand evangelists. In “Direct Message From @JayElectronica: A Fan Engagement Case Study,” I explored digital brand engagement from the perspective of the fans. The above figure is a social media value chain model as executed by the artist. [Hi-Res]

Research in the economic impact of social media and direct-to-fan marketing is limited but artists like Lupe Fiasco, Nicki Minaj and Jay Electronica prove that strategic implementation of this marketing innovation will yield results. At a time where the record industry is in a severe decline, new and effective strategy is crucial to its turnaround.

Lupe Fiasco used his legion of fans, better known as “Lasers,” to petition Atlantic Records to green light his album. Similarly, Nicki Minaj’s “Barbies” fervently promote all of her projects. On Oct. 16, Nicki Minaj urged her followers to pre-order her album, Pink Friday, on Amazon. The status was retweeted 332 times and according to Topsy, there are 5,074 tweets mentioning the same Pink Friday pre-order link.

Minaj said in a MTV doc, ”My Time Now,” that immediately after tweeting, her album went from being No. 504 to No. 4 on Amazon’s best sellers list.

Plugged-in fans may not get paid for their services but they do see a return—recognition. For Lupe Fiasco, it’s starting a book club for his fans via Ustream and sparking debates on Twitter; Minaj actively retweets fans and responds to comments on Facebook; and Jay gives fans an all-access pass by instant messaging, Blackberry messaging, and Twitter following fans.

Web 2.0 even suggests that social media might help mitigate the damage done during a recession. Tight-knit communities can better weather an economic storm and social media facilitates this connectivity. In these cases a poor economy can motivate people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do for free—Think: open source software releases and live blogging—and for music, fan-sites and digital street teams.

By using social media—twitter, facebook and blogs— and other forms of direct-to-fan marketing, artists accomplish deep brand engagement and are more successful at expanding their reach and developing stronger fan bases that purchase faster and more often. But artists can’t do it alone, they need a team.

An artist manager is nice, but so is a digital marketing specialist. While a manger is out booking shows and studio time an artist needs someone building and maintaining their digital army. Many artists manage their own social media profiles but they will soon realize if they haven’t already that as their career blossoms, the time available for social media monitoring wanes. We’ve seen what the power of social media can do for an artist’s career but that kind of impact doesn’t happen on it’s own or overnight.

It’s 2011—build a team, build a brand and do it now.