Metric – Not So Unplugged

I went my all time favorite band-Metric’s concert about a week ago. I got there early enough to be right in front of the stage. Needless to say, they blew my freaking mind.

So close I can taste ya

Musicians, not unlike politicians these days, can’t turn their backs on social media if they want to survive. Rather than begrudgingly buy into the latest “gimmick” that is the social media, Metric is one of the musicians that embraces social media as a tool to better communicate to their fans in order to close the gap. They provide genuine value for their fans to subscribe to them and visit their website, through exclusive track release, early ticket sales, and merchandise.

For their most recent tour, Synthetica, they have been utilizing social media even more to increase engagement. Many artists simply post the link to their ticket vendors continuously hoping to encourage sales from their fans. Metric, on the other hand, has been placing their concert tickets at hidden locations of the city they are touring, and they post them on social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, few of their fans can have a chance to come watch them for free. These few tickets may cost them couple hundred dollars (maybe none if the concert is not sold out), but the emotional engagement and the buzz the campaign is generating probably far outweigh the cost.

Lucky bastards!

Nice to see my favorite band excel in a craft that I care about!

Hopscotch Listens

Last Saturday, I went to Hopscotch, the largest premium Scotch, Whisky, and Beer festival. The tickets sold out weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to get an invite from a friend who had a spare ticket. I had no idea how popular this event is until I got to PNE Forum where it was taking place-line around the block. After you give them a $45 ticket at the door, you are handed a Hopscotch shot glass and five tokens upon entering.

Basically, you’re on the floor packed full of alcohol “enthusiasts” and vendors from around the world, and you walk up to stations you’d like and give them however much token they ask for a tasting portion of what they are serving. The token price can range from 1~3 tokens, and they are more than happy to explain the history, company, and even the unique manufacturing process of the booze you’re gulping down.

My five tokens were gone after 10 minutes, so I just went ahead and exchanged more tokens in bulk to carry around with me all night. I felt like I was a kid again, in a very adult arcade. As I was thinking this, I made a tweet saying, “Is this paradise?” with a picture attached. Few minutes later, I got an alert saying Hopscotch replied to my tweet, and it was up on the giant screen at the venue as well.
Reply from Hopscotch

Being a dork that I am, I thought of Social Media Monitoring & Engagement we learned in class. Not only they monitored Twitter for their specialized hashtags for the event, they took what is purely a digital interaction and put it up on a physical screen for everyone to see, encouraging the rest of the consumers to follow suit. Of course this is common practice, but it was still nice to get an unexpected response from an event, and I must say, I did feel an immediate attachment to the company.
The giant screen where the Twitter feed was broadcasted
Sir. Movember?