We’re All Fans – The Grammys Go Social

Sunday, CBS broadcast the 52nd annual Grammy Awards. This year, Recording Academy, responsible for the organisation of the grand event, embraced social media in their efforts to promote the Grammys. In order to do so, they launched the campaign “We’re all fans” to engage and involve fans.

Last week, previous to the event, Mashable’s Christina Warren posted an interview with Even Greene, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy about social media and the Academy wanted to get involved in social media, if done correctly. Now, two days after the event, the web is buzzing with articles on the Grammys going social. And did they succeed?

One of the central parts of the campaign was the platform We Are All Fans, which was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day. The website consisted entirely of content taken directly from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr on one of the 16 artists involved in the campaign. All element contributed to a mosaic of the artists. Fans were given the opportunity to become part of the campaign by uploading a picture to become part of the mosaic.

But the organisation did more to involve the fans. Everyone watching the event from home was given the power to influence the course of the show. Up until the Bon Jovi performance, people could vote at CBS.com for which song the band should play, just minutes later.

During the show, the Recording Academy provided the fans with live updates throughout the show via both their Facebook fan page and Twitter feeds, keeping everyone constantly up to date:

But that’s not all. Let’s not forget to mention the iPhone app, were you could guess the year’s Grammy winners, get funny facts and photos from previous Grammy Awards. And there was the 72-hour live broadcast featuring videos, photos, news reports, and artist interviews, giving fans a real behind the scenes look on this year’s Grammys.

But what did it do for the actual event? The ratings went up 35% compared to last year, to an average of 25,8 million viewers. This made it the best-watched Grammy event since 2004. And like I said, since Sunday the web is buzzing with articles on the social media efforts of the Recording Academy. In my opinion, the Grammys have used the power of social media in their advance and showed how a creative idea, the right execution and mechanisms can help you involve and engage your fans even more. Well done!

Source: Mashable, Dutch Cowboys, The K Buzz