Social Media Lessons from Powderfinger’s Recent Concerts

As someone who primarily focuses on social media in the B2B world, it’s always good to be able to look into different markets and industries to find examples of how companies are using social media in ways that provide examples of how to do things properly and professionally.

Earlier this month, Australian band Powderfinger did just that. As I watched the events surrounding their 3 concerts in 3 cities in one day extravaganza unfold I couldn’t help but admire a number of aspects of what they did.

Here’s what I liked.

1. They built momentum in a sustained, practical, grass roots way.
2. They were coordinated across a number of tools
3. They engaged with their community in ways that were meaningful, engaging, and personal.

I was fortunate in that I was able to watch the momentum and enthusiasm escalate because prior to the concerts, I was able to set up Scout Labs to track the band and key aspects of what they were trying to do (i.e. promote their forthcoming new album).

Lesson #1 – Sustained Momentum

Powderfinger primed their Twitter network by teasing them with details – but they did this in an intelligent way

Powderfinger priming their Twitter network prior to the concerts

What we see here is the band giving their followers a polite reminder of the pending announcement of the first venue.

As the events started to unfold the band kept up the Tweets but importantly, they also kept up the engagement.

Powderfinger engaging with the community on Twitter

Priming everyone for the first event, and following through with the teasers – getting Sydney ready. By now, mainstream press has caught on and is scrambling to position their sites as being ‘in touch’. In reality though Powderfinger has control of the story and is at this point – off on a journey with their fans and their community.

Powderfinger and the concerts now have their own life

Again using Scout Labs, what I’m seeing is that the band has created an event that now has its own life – I’m seeing the sentiment and excitement grow as tweets, blog posts, pictures, and even movies start to flood into the social sphere.
As an aside, if you get a chance, have a look at this Twitpic – http://twitpic.com/jvube – how close and personal is this performance?

I can continue to show you the Tweet stream across the day, but I think you get the point. If in doubt, go and have a look at Powderfinger’s twitter thread – @powderfinger_au

Lesson #2 – Coordination

I swear I beat this drum every day. Start with a strategy and then create an integrated, coordinated platform.
I see this with Powderfinger. From Twitter, Twitpics, YouTube and finally to their website – Powderfinger engage their community. They actively encourage their followers to share content via their site – and when I check in Scout Labs to see what photos and videos have been loaded into the social sphere – I see lots of content.

What do we learn from this?

1. Powderfinger clearly understand where they are likely to connect to their community and have placed themselves within these neighbourhoods
2. They’re not afraid to leverage others content. In fact they actively encourage it. Why suppress innovation?

Lesson #3 – Engagement

Go to Twitter and have a look at the threads. The band answering Tweets from their followers, encouraging feedback and multimedia from the day.

Post event Powderfinger continues to engage

Their website – it’s about engagement. So whilst Powderfinger are out in the social sphere creating awareness and building their profile, the core goal is to get them back to their core website.

This is not hard. Powderfinger has focused on engagement and this is a key point for companies working in the B2B world.

How did the community react?

This is why I work with Scout Labs. Scout Labs captures comments and sentiment. Here’s a comment from their service

I think these spontaneous acts are a great way to give back and show that “fame” has not got the best of them

You can’t buy this type of feedback – but without Scout Labs how do you know about this?

And when I look at the photos and the comments on the photo’s I have a clear understanding of how well Powderfinger connected and what they’ve achieved.

Summary

As I said at the start, Powderfinger did a few things really well:

• Note the subtle request for their network to spread the news? Nothing overt, just a simple request. This is trust – I don’t need to shout at you
• Did you note the followers count – the band clearly aren’t out to build a gazillion followers. I like this – respect the network and let the network do its job… Rather than what we see too often on Twitter – abusing the API to add tens of thousands of meaningless followers.
• Classic groundswell actions
  • ‘Send us links to where you’ve posted’ – we want to share this with you.
  • ‘We’ll have some photos and videos for you in the coming days’ – we’ve got fresh content to come back or use our tools to have us deliver it to you (i.e. RSS).
  • Seamless transition from the ‘event’ to promotion of the new single off the new album.
• Powderfinger know where their community is and are there ready to engage. For those of us in the B2B world, this is a critical point.

In a B2B context this is very important. They encouraged sharing rather than trying to control the message or the content.

These are good lessons for all of us – job well done Powderfinger