The Grammys Go Social
If you were watching the Grammys last night, you may have noticed a pretty heavy integration with digital media, including some of your favorite social networking sites. The “The Grammys” iPhone app gave users the chance to guess this year’s Grammy Award recipients and access trivia, fun facts, and photos from previous Grammy Awards shows while offering direct links to purchase the artists’ albums on iTunes. Meanwhile, celebrities present at the show like @kelly_clarkson kept busy tweeting from the event while The Recording Academy offered their own live updates throughout the show via both their Facebook fan page and Twitter feeds. For most of the evening, the Grammys consumed Twitter’s trending topics, with the worldwide TT being entirely Grammy-related by the end of the show.
The Recoding Academy’s work to generate non-stop buzz for this year’s awards show really impressed me. Here are my top 3 favorite steps they took to really involve the fans:
1. We’re All Fans (dot com) – The motto this year’s Grammy Awards was “We’re All Fans”, and the associated website demonstrates that by celebrating those actively professing their love for their favorite musicians and artists on social media sites. The “We’re All Fans” website pulls YouTube videos and tweets referencing one of 16 featured artists from fans all over the world to paint a mosaic of the particular celebrity in question. You additionally have the option to create your own portrait showing your “musical DNA” by uploading a picture of yourself for the mosaic and selecting your favorite artists.
2. The Bon Jovi vote – While the majority fans watching at home will never participate in the Recording Academy’s panel to determine actual Grammy award winners, this year’s Grammy Awards did give fans a chance to contribute to the show. Up to just minutes before the performance, fans were able to cast their vote for one of three Bon Jovi hit songs on CBS.com to determine which one they would play at their first ever Grammy performance. The fans of course selected the ultimate Bon Jovi classic, Livin’ On A Prayer.
3. Grammy Live! – Perhaps the coolest thing the Recording Academy provided this year was its 72-hour live broadcast featuring videos, photos, news reports, artist interviews, and updates from a few select Grammy vloggers. Grammy Live allowed fans a new insider’s look at Grammy events and backstage footage not typically shown on the television broadcast, bringing the fans even closer to the show.
But that’s not all! I also have to give celebrity props to Imogen Heap for #Twitdress. Though not provided by CBS or the Recording Academy, Imogen Heap deserves an extra special shoutout for her own efforts to bring the fans to the red carpet with her custom engineered “#twitdress”. The dress included a small screen which displayed pictures uploaded by fans while she accepted her own Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical before the televised broadcast.
And finally, the biggest social media-related disappointment: despite the massive amount of iTunes and Target promotion over the course of the show, neither iTunes nor Target made any significant effort to take advantage of the real-time buzz online. @TaRgeT only tweeted a single reminder to followers to pick up their free 3-D glasses for the Michael Jackson tribute the night before, and @iTunesMusic similarly posted just one reference to the show the night before asking for fans’ predictions. Why wasn’t @iTunesMusic reminding followers about their special Grammy album during the show, or providing links to music downloads for each of the winners? Why wasn’t Target offering any specials on music CDs? It seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity to me. So congratulations to the Recording Academy! Here’s hoping future awards shows (Oscars anyone?) learn from the unique experience you’ve provided.
