Back in July I wrote about Manchester Orchestra putting up their Simple Math song for free as part of the release of their excellent album of the same name. Now they are back with a new way to connect with their fans – by doing a remix version of the song Virgin incorporating sing-alongs from fans!
Here are some details from their site:
Help Us Sing “Virgin”
As the year is coming to an end we wanted to take a minute to thank you ALL. Simple Math is truly an album for the fans and we wanted to give something back for all the support over this past year. Because you are part of the official list, we’re giving you first access to be part of an exciting project so you can help us sing “Virgin”!
“Virgin” is a song to the fans and now we want to give ya’ll a chance to be a part of it. Help us capture YOUR voices singing along to the chorus of “Virgin”. Once the project has ended, we’ll remix the song to feature all of YOUR submitted vocals singing the chorus collectively with us. Then we’ll be giving the new fan version of the song back to you all as a FREE download!You helped us build this, now help us sing.
Visit www.WeBuiltThisHouse.com to get started. Share with hashtag #WeBuiltthisHouse on Twitter to invite your friends to sing along.
This effort was recently featured on HypeBot, and here is a snippet of the coverage on how they knew this would be such a hit with fans:
When Do You Decide to Include the Fans?
While these and other interactive fan-experience campaigns are certainly unique and engaging, how can a marketer ensure that they will be effective?
“Getting ready for this project, we came to a lot of conclusions that made me confident that this would go over really well with their fans,” said Brian Schopfel of Eyes & Ears Entertainment. “They (the band) are always authentic through and through – everything that is fan facing gets run by the band, and they are very involved.”
Schopfel continued: “They had already done an interactive campaign for the ‘Simple Math’ album release that involved fan participation, and they did a LiveStream to premiere the track ‘Virgin’ which had consistently over 1,000 people tuning at all times.”
The band’s fan base was clearly already accustomed to an interactive engagement approach, making them more receptive to further engagements. Even the fans that may not have actively participated in the past were at least aware of these past interactive campaigns.
“We always sent out reliable, well-written newsletters with strong calls-to-action,” Schopfel said. “The band has a big, loyal social media following with a high percentage of activity.”
An emphasis on lyrical engagement has seemed to do wonders for the band’s live experience, as well: “When seeing the band twice during this release cycle, fans would be singing back to Andy at all times, occasionally louder than Andy himself,” Schopfel said.
So head to their official site and join in the fun and sing along!
And for fun, here is the music video for Simple Math along with the picture Judie took of Andy Hull saying “Goodnight, Austin!” after Manchester Orchestra’s concert at Stubbs this October – enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/22379296