Operation Hurricane: Crossing The Lines
I feel like we’re not doing enough to help Alexz. One of the strange things that happens in a fan community is that often news gets stuck IN the fan community. People using search engines to find this site, for example, already know who Alexz is. So, while there is a lot of buzz within the fan community, getting it out other areas and people can be a difficult step to effectively and correctly do.
Some of this is going to be a bit of a review from other weeks of Operation: Hurricane and some of this I believe is new. I’ll hit the review stuff first and try to get you guys to see it from a different angle so it’ll be easier to get it to other people, whether they be fans of different music or artists or may have something loosely usable to get them into Alexz’s music.
Request her at radio stations. Do a couple off the list 🙂 I’ve seen the stats, I know how much you guys click 😉 The purpose now is to build anticipation, get the stations aware of her, let them know there is a DEMAND to hear her music on their broadcasts. That we WANT them to play her music. They have to know there is demand for her. Again, I know she has fans all over the world because I get hits from all over the world to this site. If they don’t think there is a demand to hear her music they probably will not play her. You have to get them to understand we’re out there and we can’t get enough of her music.
Promote her like So Weird Boy‘s Street Campaign. Make posters, flyers, play her music in places you may normally not do it. We’re talking real grassroots level here. When it works, it’s effective, and the people you get to become fans through this way will usually stick around. You either want to get them interested enough to find out more about her or a place where they can hear her music, like a party. It shouldn’t be hard to think of places to do this 🙂
Use video websites like YouTube and Metacafe to get new fans. Since we have to cross the lines of the fan community to other people you need to think a little outside the box. If you make a fan video for Twilight, for example, use one of Alexz’s songs in the background. In the description TELL them who is doing the song and where they can learn more about her. YouTube’s search engine looks at the Tags you use when you make your video, so make sure those cover all aspects of your video. So if you have a Twilight video and you label it “Twilight Alexz Johnson” it will be found by both Twilight fans and Alexz fans. Correct tagging is absolutely crucial to this working out in her favor.
I also have a note about Last.fm. Last.fm gets huge amounts of traffic and it’s exactly in the area of interest we want. This is for the Related Music Artists part of the website. Those more familiar with the website will be better at making this happen than I am. Alexz’s page has artists that are “like” her. We’re not interested in that, people there already know who she is. What we want is for OTHER artists to have Alexz on their pages for being similar. I know this is all about proper tagging and labeling of the pages to make Alexz show up to some extent. The more pages we can get Alexz on in a “Similar Artist” fashion the more spillover traffic her page will get. As long as their Alexz Related links on their page are accurate and useful she’ll also get interested people to good websites to learn more about her and, obviously, hear more of her music. Last.fm is just the main site I’m aware of, if there are any other big music sites like it, make sure those can help Alexz in this same way.
There’s LOTS of music dedicated blogs online. This is simply too big for one person to do on their own so I’m going to need a lot of help from you guys 🙂 The general idea is to email them and ask if they’ll do an article about her. In the email is where you’ll get your chance to gush about Alexz. Build her up without hyping her and send them to her music that fits what you’re saying. A Biography page will probably also be necessary since she just does SO much 🙂 Be polite. Ask. 🙂 They also need a reason to write the article in the first place since it may just be random for them to do an artist profile out of the blue. I think the best thing you can tell them is about her single and album coming out. We have general ideas on the single and that may be enough, but there’s enough places to point them it should write some of their article for them. Don’t assume they’ll do their due diligence with research. If you’re curious about any information you’re giving them, link them to it to be sure.
My next note is pretty much the same thing, but is for online MAGAZINES. We’re very lucky to have Portrait Magazine doing an interview AND a cover for her. Other magazines will need emails similar to the one above. If you think the magazine would be appropriate to have an article about our girl send them an email. This is another vast territory too big for one person to do. Obviously, different people sending the same magazine emails about her can’t hurt 🙂
A pretty effective way of promotion of late has been Twitter. I’m sure it’s had some sort of affect on Alexz’s followers. Promote her there. People often send them to videos of her performances and her official site. The cross promotion here is using Trending Topics to make the posts seen by more people. Retweeted posts across different accounts that have Alexz information can also be really effective since no two people have the exact same followers.
That’s all I’ve got for now 🙂 I think if THIS stuff can be done we’ll be helping out Alexz a lot more than we currently are. At the same time, we can use these ideas to get the word out about her new single to many very different places as well.
