Hosting the recent Teen Choice Awards, Katy Perry is becoming the latest online music promotion success. Many of us know Katy Perry from her controversial hit single “Kissed a Girl”. It was the first single from her album "One of the Boys". "Kissed a Girl spent seven weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 during the summer of 2008 and has sold 3.1 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Her first internet single was “Ur So Gay”, also causing a controversial buzz in the media. It’s hard to believe all this comes from a girl steeped in Gospel. That’s right! Formerly Katy Hudson was raised by Christian Pastors and released a self titled Gospel album in 2001.
Katy Perry has taken what online fans would typically do and used it in her online music promotion. She’s stolen these ideas and turned them into a very successful promotion blitz. Have you ever seen a friend countdown on Facebook to something they were excited about? Katy Perry's FB countdown was to the revealing of the cover art for her upcoming album, Teenage Dream, to be released on August 24th. This gets fans excited and curious about whats to come.
Most artists hate it when their creative works get leaked on the internet. Katy Perry leaked preview pics online before the release of her “Teenage Dream” video. Proving she’s super social, she recently answered questions in the YouTube community. Over 20,000 questions were submitted from fans. That’s one way of controlling the dialogue.
All the best and most popular artists get parodied. Well Katy Perry released her own parody of her already fantastically fun and color video “California Gurls”. The parody now has over 7 million views, the original has over 34 million views on YouTube. To top it off, fans from all over are doing their own viral parodies. There’s California Boys, of course. California Gays is on its way to two million views, and California dorks has 400,000.
Katy Perry also tweets regularly to make sure she stays connected to her fanbase.
Being controversial sometimes helps your popularity in the music business. Being social always helps. Think about what your fan base does regularly, even if it’s something you don’t like. Then figure out a way to do it first, using it to your advantage in promoting your music.
Wishing you Success.
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