A Wider Net

Imogen Heap is both an outstanding musician and an avid user of social media.  She is a video blogger, has used the photo sharing website Flickr to solicit user-submitted imagery for her album art, and she has actively posted content to her Twitter account throughout the recording of her latest album.

In order to promote the release of her new album, “Ellipse,” Imogen has applied her social media acumen by tapping into her considerable Twitter following (over seven-hundred-thousand followers to date, including yours truly) to create a measurable and viral word-of-mouth campaign.

“In exchange for just one tweet,” Twitter users are given access to a video download of a song from Heap’s forthcoming album.  The campaign gives fans something they value (the video) in exchange for promoting Heap, and her album to their Twitter network.  Both “Ellipse” and “Imogen” are currently trending topics on Twitter Search.  Within the past month, rival website builders Squarespace and Moonfruit also found luck (and a lot of publicity) via the Tweet for a Treat method.  Although effective, some critics have derided this technique as Twitter hashtag spam.

In addition to the apparent success of the campaigns, this type of Tweet for a Treat word-of-mouth technique is also appealing due to the marketer’s ability to effectively capture leads and measure effectiveness.  Each tweet & re-tweet and every associated download are easily tracked; each user who participates is a lead who can be followed via Twitter and communicated with for future promotions.

This tactic also gets digital marketing blogger & journalist types (like me) spreading the word about Imogen and her new album.  Well played!

Tags: marketing, measurement, roi, social, twitter, Viral Marketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Digital Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.