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.

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Jay Electronica’s fan engagement tactics are very unorthodox and completely worth it.

My first direct message was from Jay Electronica in 2008, days after Christmas. I had just joined twitter and made the premature decision to follow every rapper on the network and Jay followed me back. Soon after, he sent a direct message—no words, just this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGPhpvqtOc&feature=related

It was a YouTube link to a music video of “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins—I’ll leave delving into the implications of this message for my readers.

Later that year, I was unfollowed. But I wasn’t alone.  It was “The Great Unfollowing of 2009.” Jay Electronica unfollowed nearly all of his fans, truncating his follower list to less than 200.  A year later, high off the heels of announcing his signing to Roc Nation, he followed everyone back—sort of.

In the small hours of Nov. 15, Jay Electronica announced he would follow back anyone who hit him up. And they did. Jay Elect was the proud recipient of over 1500 mentions just an hour after the announcement. He has since followed about 1600 fans, a Dave Chappelle impersonator, Joe Budden, and me.

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On Jan. 11, Facebook crashed, or at least according to Kanye West. Around midnight, West tweeted a screen shot of an error page suggesting the famed social network had exceeded it’s bandwidth following the release of “H.A.M.”

Rap veterans Kanye West and Jay-Z had released the first track off of their forthcoming album, Watch the Throne, on Facebook but to lukewarm reviews and even more lackluster buzz.

Kanye West x Jay-Z - HAM by uristocrat

Days before the release, West and Jay-Z announced on their Facebook fan pages that “H.A.M.” would be a midnight release via a page dedicated to their joint album.

And soon after, the blogosphere was pregnant with anticipation of the duet single from the rap titans.

Facebook users rushed the Root Music powered “BandPage” for the first taste of Watch the Throne and in the hours following the release, the album page had garnered over 32k fans and hundreds of comments. “H.A.M.” was all the digital hip-hop community could talk about in the small hours of Jan. 11 but the question still remains:

Why Facebook?

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Jay-Z’s new website. Shiny? Yes. Social media masterpiece? Not quite.

To commemorate the release of Jay-Z’s The Hits Collection, volume one of the greatest hits collection drops Nov 22., the Island Def Jam camp has released a shiny new website. It’s sleek, clean, and flashy—literally, it requires Adobe Flash 10. Sorry mobile users, this site is not for you.

The site opens with a black and white photo montage of New York City scenes to, you guessed it, “Empire State of Mind,” as the content rich site loads. Content is organized into four epochs of Jay-Z’s career—”The Beginning” (1989-1998), “Marcy to Madison Square” (1999-2003), “Corporate Takeover” (2004-2007), and “I Run the Map” (2008-present). 

Each era includes videos, photos, a discography, and milestones. Expect some spectacular video transitions as you navigate through the Hov timeline.

And what about social media you say? The developers recognized that every rap fan with a twitter account has hashtagged a favorite lyric so twitter integration was inevitable. Users can browse Jay-Z related tweets in the twitter equalizer that lines the bottom of the page and contribute their own posts. Tweets (pop-up blocker considering) are sent to a user’s timeline complete with a link to the website and #Jayzhits tag. Unfortunately, the tweets on the site do not link back to twitter so RT’ing, replying and connecting with fellow Jay fans is for the birds.

The website was developed by Agency Net and like the Roc brand, the site is clean, design wise there are no complaints. Functionality and social media wise there were however, a few bugs and missed opportunities:

A music related site isn’t complete without well, music.

The Jay-Z Hits Collection site plays 30 second snippets of songs like “Hard Knock Life” and “Run This Town” according to which era you are browsing which is awesome…if you’re only on the site for 30 seconds. The #NSFW snippets are unfortunately looped and the volume controls don’t allow for muting, just a low setting—Jay was never one to be silenced. And even as snippets go, you cannot navigate between the limited soundbite collection.

Browsing the extensive discography accents the mammoth musician that is Jay-Z. His catalog is large and diverse but don’t expect to relive each album while skimming the track lists. Only songs to be included in the Hits Collection’s can be played for 30 seconds at a time. To my chagrin, “Diamond Is Forever” didn’t make the cut.

The twitter integration was a nice touch, but what about the other networks?

Users can tweet via the “Tweets is Watching” button but most other popular networks are gone from the site. Individual photos and videos featured on the site cannot be shared. The “share” button in the lower left hand corner of the website re-directs to Facebook but there are no options for say the 1.5 mil registered Jay-Z listeners on music social network Last.fm or social bookmarking sites like Digg. JayZHitsCollection.com is a content rich, flash music website, the geeks and journos will talk. Make it easier for them to fawn over.

What if I wanna buy one of Hov’s hit albums?

Please don’t bow in my presence how am I a legend? / I just got 10 number one albums, maybe now 11. / That is no reason to treat me like I’m somehow out of heaven

Jay’s discography is serious. So what is a casual listener to do when they discover his pre-mainstream crossover projects? The “buy now” button under each album links to Island Def Jam’s e-commerce page (sorry Apple, no Ping or iTunes integration here) dedicated to the forthcoming Hits LP but none of Jay-Z’s previous 11 hit albums are available for purchase.

This website isn’t about Jay-Z, it’s about the album.

Would a stream of Jay-Z’s twitter feed been a nice touch? Yes. A calendar of Jay-Z’s upcoming appearances and tour dates? Sure. YouTube connectivity in an attempt to bring Jay-Z’s videos back into the top 10 of the most played videos chart? Maybe. But the website wasn’t built for that. After five minutes on the website this much is clear, JayZHitsCollection.com is just that, a website promoting the LP to come and nothing further.

All in all, this website was a great example of how artists can connect their brand with listeners and strengthen the relationship. The sleu of “great job” tweets reviewing the site doesn’t do the project justice.

Do you people browse websites or do you just skim right through it?

—@KD