BRIT Awards eyes social media primacy for 2013 ceremony
The BRIT Awards will put social media at the core of its digital activity ahead of its ceremony next month including the use of a live Twitter Events page to maximise audience participation ahead of and during the proceedings.
It will be the first time the brand has used Twitter’s events pages to offer a more “integrated” experience to users of the social network during the ceremony.
Twitter Events pages, which launched in June last year in the US, effectively act as a hashtag landing page where audiences on the social network discover the best Tweets, photos and perspectives from live and televised events.
The social media push signals a refocussing of its strategy in digital as in pervious years the core of its online marketing efforts had been geared towards generating traffic to its homepage.
Parent group the BPI, believes it can achieve maximum online engagement with fans via its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels instead.
Giuseppe de Cristofano, digital & technology manager at the BRIT Awards, says: “We’ve had a presence on YouTube for over three years but what we’re moving away from is focusing our strategy around the [home] site.
“Over the past 12-18 months we’ve refocused it on to our YouTube channel because that’s where a lot of fans are at [and consuming content]… people want to see performers doing controversial things and that’s where they can see it.”
“We know that 90 per cent of the conversation [around the ceremony itself] is on Twitter… a live events page is more flexible than a normal Twitter feed.”
For example, the planned Twitter Events page for the awards ceremony could integrate the feeds of celebrities that have just been awarded a gong, helping to make fans part of the backstage experience, according to de Cristofano.
The feed could also contain performances from the event. “To have all of this in one place is really powerful,” says de Cristofano.
The Twitter page, plus the BRIT Awards’ other social channels, can also be used to drive downloads of tracks that have been nominated for awards, plus the official winners’ album, from its official iTunes page both pre- and post the ceremony, adds de Cristofano.
Twitter debuted its events pages with Nascar in the US where it said its updated “algorithms and curation will surface the most interesting Tweets to bring fans closer to the action.”
The BRIT Awards, which is sponsored by MasterCard, takes place in February and the BPI is also eager to use social media to promote the its charitable efforts. This strategy also involves appointing digital content agency LoveLive to provide fresh content for its social media channels, in particular its YouTube page, as well as a redesign of the BRITS’ homepage.
LoveLive will generate content such as backstage footage from its nominations ceremony, which took place in January, artist interviews and content from representatives of charitable organisations, such as War Child and the BRIT school, that receive donations from the BRIT Awards.
The BRIT Awards’ renewed digital strategy for 2013 has also seen the formation of a Digital Action Committee consisting of record labels like Universal Music, EMI and Beggars Group, to help them contribute content from their artists to be uploaded to the relevant social media pages.