If Twitter is good for one thing, it is for promoting whatever it is you have to sell. Some of the best self-promoters out there are rappers, and they’ve taken to Twitter just like every other type of celebrity. Just as Twitter can drive traffic to Websites, it can also drive music sales on iTunes.
On a panel at the 140 Characters Conference yesterday, Xavier Jernigan (@xjernigan, the director of digital marketing at Universal Motown Republic, described how Twitter help put one of his new artists, Asher Roth (@asherroth), on the map. Roth released his first album, Asleep In the Bread Aisle, on iTunes on April 20, a Monday. The night before he Tweeted out to his followers (he currently has 69,566) that the album would be on iTunes. And then he Tweeted out a short link which opened up to the album page in iTunes. With no other marketing, the album rose to become the No. 1 digital album for the week. Since then, it has sold about 100,000 copies. Update: As people point out in comments, Roth’s own team did a lot of groundwork before the album hit. Nevertheless, Twitter did play an important role in turning that early interest into iTunes sales.
The key to engaging fans, as is well known by now, is for the celebrities themselves to really send out Tweets and show fans a more personal side. Then when they Tweet that a new album is out, it doesn’t seem like marketing. It seems like inside information. One rapper on the panel was Jim Jones (@jimjones), who has more than 500,000 followers. He’s also seen iTunes sales spikes after Tweeting out to his followers. In between releases, he entertains them with dirty knock-knock jokes and observations on “What’s Ghetto?” For instance, “drinking out of mayonnaise jars” or getting the last bits of ketchup out of the bottle by putting water in it and shaking it, that’s ghetto. So is using Twitter to move albums on Twitter.
I caught up with Jernigan and Jones in the hallway after their panel and got them on video:
Twitter is sure great for sales and traffic (and that’s about it), just happy others think there are more useful reasons out there, without them there would be no sales or traffic.
Just like Steve Rifkind and these major label clowns to take credit for shit they didnt do. Asher is dope as fuck and Scooter Braun put all the marketing together on this project, which was a complex and brilliant campaign that anybody who watched this go down would know. The label didnt do shit. Biz3 did their press and they are the shit on the indie tip. Anyone from who knows anything about asher knows he only talks about his team and not the label. Bottom line is ASHER IS DOPE and his Album is a classic. Twitter and blogs cant change that
I shouldn’t have said there was no other marketing. My mistake. But Twitter was an important part of it.
We didn’t notice any major change for Asher on our twitter music chart.. http://twitpic.com/7olkt
But we have noticed events being reflected on twitter all the time.. http://wearehun...d.com/research/
stephen @ wearehunted
http://wearehun...ed.com/twitter/
“Roth released his first album, Asleep In the Bread Aisle, on iTunes on April 20, a Monday. The night before he Tweeted out to his followers (he currently has 69,566) that the album would be on iTunes. And then he Tweeted out a short link which opened up to the album page in iTunes. With no other marketing, the album rose to become the No. 1 digital album for the week. Since then, it has sold about 100,000 copies.”
That cannot be true as I saw online google ads for the album linking to iTunes as well as Roth had exclusive album release online with MySpace and special marketing promotions with MTV leading up to his release. I’m all for Twitter and think it is good way to promote yourself but I find it really hard to believe that Twitter was the only reason his album did well or the only marketing support Universal put behind the album.
Agreed.
Do you guys even vet these sources?
This Xavier dude is flat out liar. Asher has never mentioned his name when asked about his team in multiple interviews. But he mentions alot of other people. I fuckin hate major label bitches who steal credit. Asher was everywhere. Twitter only played a small part. Asher came from the BLOGSS
Yep and let’s not forget all the radio play the album’s lead single “I Love College” got for MONTHS before the album even came out.
Then there were viral parodies like Davidson’s “I Love Commons” on YouTube that made a mini splash too for creating awareness of Asher Roth.
http://www.yout...h?v=TGQID66agH4
I’m sure Twitter helped, but it definitely was not the driving force behind his sales. People still listen to the radio, where “I Love College” played forever, and they still watch TV, where Asher Roth played after every original MTV primetime show for a week or so. Maybe that doesn’t count as marketing…
To Erick’s credit, he didn’t say that it was “just Twitter,” he just said it helped. I’m sure it helped, just not as much as it comes across in the post.
I have to agree unless there were absolutely no other forms of marketing involved. Or if they were able to prove via conversion tracking that of the 100,000 albums sold, the referral link came from Twitter.
This is a joke. Im a blogger in the DMV and anyone who was watching Asher for months before the album dropped knows what went down. To their credit it was grassroots but it was all a marketing plan by Asher’s manager Scooter Braun. He reached out to all the bloggers months before the album dropped and made Asher one of the biggest names on the Internet with his mixtape and freestyles as well as clever viral video campaigns. I have interviewd both Asher and Scooter and this fool from the label is full of shit. He probably doesnt even know Asher let alone has anything to do with his Twitter considering Asher told me they operate seperate from the label because of the labels lack of belief in the project. So funny how these label dudes always jump on board after the fact. I run a major blog and never heard from this clown once about Asher but all the bloggers know Scooter and the campaign he and Asher did. This is wack.
Not to mention his mixtape “The Greenhouse Effect” (www.thedailykush.com) released in July 2008, and IIRC in a partnership with 10xDeep – a major streetwear / hip hop clothing brand
…which got pushed around all the sneaker/streetwear/hip-hop blogs like crazy.
This kid has been professionally marketed from day one.
Point taken. I’ve updated the post. Obviously, there was a lot of prep work by Roth’s own team.
Jernigan was really speaking about the label’s own promotion efforts around the digital album, and he represented to me that Twitter was the only form of promotion the day before the album came out on iTunes.
agreed ..!
Interesting point about it not seeming like a marketing push when the messages come from the real person. Curious to see how celebrities will take advantage of this going forward – will things continue to get more and more personal in the interest of sales?
Yea I agree that Twitter may have helped but he is well know in the Mixtape world and he did have hella ads on MTV, radio, etc.
For music, Twitter’s an awesome idea! With bands I obsess over I always want to know when they release ANYTHING related to their music.. t-shirts or anything at all like that
Super slick move on musicians’ (or their marketers’) parts, I say
HEY GUYS TWIIIIIIIITERRRRRR!
Jim Gaffigan has been doing this with the sale of his King Baby DVD (which happens to be very funny). In fact, he tweets it about once or twice a week. The trick is, he’s been tweeting when someone sends him a good deal. For instance, it was $6.99 on Best Buy (maybe it still is) with no shipping charge. Compare that to retail @14.99 or Amazon @9.99 and that’s a great deal.
There was definitely a lot of marketing for this album. He was all over MTV.
Erik,
I think, and from working on the inside of the music business for a few years, there was more than just Twitter to thank for the album jumping to #1.
I’m not saying it didn’t play a role, and perhaps an important part, but a record label like Universal or the others ones for that matter, would not leave their artist’s success open to chance, or social networks.
I’m sorry, what exactly is “ghetto” about telling the people who have elected to receive your updates that your new album is out? Isn’t this a case study for the “right” way to promote in a social setting?
Methinks Techcrunch has realized that negative article titles sell better than positive ones.
Not to mention the fact that “ghetto” and “Asher Roth” don’t belong in the same sentence.
What’s ghetto? Not researching your sources before posting a story.
for someone to say that twitter alone is the main reason asher roth was #1 on itunes is absolutely ridiculous. he had a HUGE radio hit single “i love college” that had a great overall mktg campaign around it, targeted to college kids, white college kids at that, whom if they BUY music at all, they’re going to buy it on itunes. That is the reason why asher had the #1 digital album, and not the #1 physical album. twitter may have helped get the word out about the release, but it didnt make kids asher roth fans. also, i seriously doubt that every one of his 69k followers bought his album, just doesnt work that way.
Please, if Asher Roth is considered hiphop now then hiphop is dead in America.
How is “using Twitter to move albums on Twitter” ghetto?
It is making do with limited resources (140 characters).
I think the essence of “ghetto” goes beyond simply making do with limited resources. I mean, that could just be “resourceful”. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.
so 100,000 albums sold is the new platnium eh? thats what a $1million gross.-recording cost,-promotion cost,-managemant fees,-label fees,-taxes. thats $250,000 net. not bad. and how much did twitter get? zero
I’m willing to bet Asher Roth’s ringtone and digital singles outsold his record sales by quite a margin.
Just to elaborate on my point, the album “Mail on Sunday” by Flo Rida sold 390,000 copies as of May 2009.
His lead single on the album, “Low”, has been certified 5x platinum in the US. I don’t even want to know how many $3-4 ringtones they sold of that song.
released album on itunes and twitted a link to it…… right, what a bunch of bullshit
This is an example of a writer clearly not understanding the industry he is reporting on. At radio alone, Asher Roth had an audience of at least 20 million a week during the setup of his album. To even insinuate that one tweet to less than 100k people was a major part of the album’s first week sales is as far from the truth as you can get. Take it from a 12 year digital music veteran. I’m done reading TechCrunch, you guys have to be kidding me with writing like this.
Twitter is more direct to traffic on Website, which has detail of one’s information like musician, or designer.
Twitter has gigantic future!
I would connect with everyone who like rock or punks.
Most people on Twitter on fairly tech savvy (this is changing). I would think there to be a very high correlation of people that follow an artist on Twitter and purchase an artists iTunes track. So I think the track availability being included in a twitter update would add little incremental value to overall sales. IOW Hardcore tech savvy fans that follow an artist on Twitter will most likely buy their digital track on iTunes no matter what. I think for most artists Twitter should be used to push premium products that hardcore fans would be most interested in purchasing.
blogdeep and ddotomen are right! Asher Roth rose to popularity from the blogs. I was one of the bloggers who supported Asher Roth from the beginning. To say that nothing was done outside of Twitter is the dumbest thing for the label rep to say.
The marketing guy who used to send me and all the other blogs Asher Roth’s music & videos was working independently and with zero support from the record label (that’s what he told me anyways).
He has a blog and even wrote about it. I’ll find the post and paste it soon.
Found it.
If you want the real story on Asher Roth’s marketing, read this – http://makingth...-credit-is-due/
This was a quote taken from a conference all about twitter. Not about all the different aspects that go into the marketing of a major label artist. So of course they will talk about how Twitter helped as opposed to radio, mixtapes, blog presence, etc.
Take it in context and stop making dumb posts. No one the any label is ever going to eblieve that one single thing is the reason for album sales. Geesh
And did anyone even take the time to watch the video? no where does he say it was the sole reason. He’s asked if it helped jumpstart album sales and he agrees.
This article overesteemates the role of twitter.
But anyway each artist, each band MUST HAVE twitter and use it efficiently.
I’m also great fan of twitter