As Ray Charles once crooned: “Twitter, Twitter, I’ve got Twitter on my mind.”
Well, technically it was Georgia that the creator of modern soul couldn’t banish from his thoughts but what’s a little artistic licence between friends?
Anyway, following on from last week’s Twitter twaddle, I’ve embarked on more social media musings.
Too often the phrase ‘social media campaign’ conjures thoughts of huge viral campaigns, elaborate Facebook games and expensive apps but what about the little people?
One of the more impressive social media campaigns in recent weeks probably slipped so far under the radar it might as well have been belly to the floor wearing an invisibility cloak. Then again, grime artist JME isn’t exactly a name that resonates in the marketing world.
But regardless of his profile, the young music entrepreneur from Tottenham, North London pushed his recent single (the name of which is probably a little too blue for this blog) to number 41 in the UK music charts without a record label, without a street team, without a significant spend on promotion and without significant radio play.
Unlike Justin Bieber or Rihanna, JME doesn’t have the force of an unstoppable marketing machine behind him but what he does have is a business brain and a Twitter following.
The beauty of social media is its accessibility – its free, easy to use and provides users with worldwide reach – so JME has been able to harness his underground star power to build a loyal following, who in-turn have become online advocates.
The artist’s 170,000 followers were encouraged to buy the digital version of his single, take a picture of the download and tweet it to him. In return, JME ran a series of competitions for his followers, giving away caps and clothing items from his own range.
Similar campaigns were run on YouTube and UStream but, more than anything, he simply engaged with his customers.
Understanding the needs and desires of his fans, JME interacted with them on a daily basis, never letting a tweet go ignored. If a fan tweeted they had bought his single, he thanked them for it, if they tweeted a picture, he retweeted it on his own feed and if they asked a question, he responded.
As a result, a song with no chorus that features a swearword in its title made it to the brink of the UK Top 40, so big up the little man.
