social marketing Archives - TheWayoftheWeb

Following on from the time-limited free download of the last Nine Inch Nails album, frontman Trent Reznor has made the latest 9-track record, Slip, completely available under a Creative Commons licence.

Aside from the announcement getting Dugg over 8000 times at the time of writing, the download allows better than CD quality, with a PDF of the artwork, and the following message:

“the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

It’s the perfect use of loyal fans. NIN aren’t the kind of band who would generally get billboards and mainstream radio attention – but these way loyal fans will seek out the most relevant people to distribute the music and message to, with the added benefit that any remix will increase the chances of a NIN, or NIN-derived track becoming a hit – and meanwhile vinyl and CD junkies get a physical release in July, and NIN get more money from live performances and merchandise.

Just like in business, where small companies are able to get social media, and implement it far more easily across the board than Global Megacorp Inc, individual bands are way, way ahead of the music industry. As are intiatives like Slicethepie.com.

It’s a great time to be interested in measuring the output of social media marketing (buzz marketing, community marketing, WOM – call it what you will!).

Because so much of it is so new and evolving, and because it’s as much about quality as quantity, essentially it’s like trying to measure magic or trying to turn common metals into gold.

And being part of evolving social alchemy is pretty exciting. Most online measures of success are still evolving – but the basics are well established. Unique Users, Hits, Page Impressions etc are universal enough that everyone understands them. And terms like Bounce Rates are following close behind.

But measuring the value of a company CEO spending time chatting on Twitter, and what benefits that gives the company?

You could measure followers.

You could measure referral clicks to the company website.

You could even measure @replies as a metric for engagement.

And it’s the fact no-one has worked out the right answer (or combination of answers), that makes it so exciting. For the first time since choosing my A-levels, I’m actually using and enjoying maths to uncover the solutions – and working out how to best serve communities that seem determined to surprise and confuse me on a daily basis.

Just wish I’d done a maths/statistics A-level rather than Biology now!

social marketing

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