I have recently re-discovered my love for metrics. I love organized numbers and facts indicating where, in comparison to others around, we find ourselves, and using this information to better position our products and artists. Learning, testing, comparing, improving. We need metrics to do so. Last night was a big testing experiment for Family Records‘s very own Wakey!Wakey! project. Michael appeared on the CW’s One Tree Hill and performed “Brooklyn”. I sat at home in front of the TV and my laptop to track all that was happening. The same day we released a two song single, “Brooklyn/Manhattan”, which includes an acoustic version of “Brooklyn”, to compliment the full band version we released recently on “The War Sweater EP”. A few interesting notes:
People Love iTunes.
- The grand majority of purchases last night went to iTunes, and the song charted in two different genres. We intentionally released an acoustic version the day of the tv appearance, to compliment the full band version we released earlier, give us additional charting possibilities, showcase the different sides of the band, and provide more opportunities to support the band for the fans.
- Brooklyn # 18 on Alternative Singles
Brooklyn/Manhattan #4 on Alternative Albums
Brooklyn (Full Band Version) # 48 on Pop Singles
The War Sweater EP #12 on Pop Albums - Overall Album Charts: Brooklyn/Manhattan #61, The War Sweater EP #64
People Love Lyrics
- Wakey!Wakey! and different lyric fragments took up #5, 8, and 13th spot of most popular searches on Google the night of the episode.
- Lyric fragments were also scattered all over Twitter, even during the episode.
- As a reaction we posted them on Wakey!Wakey!’s tumblr blog right away and they were retweeted a ton.
- Sidenote: months after “War Sweater” aired on OTH, people are still tweeting lyric fragments that touch them personally, which is a really amazing feeling for team Wakey!
Twitter Is An Amazing Feedback Tool
- I was able to track people’s conversations during and after the episode aired by using the search functionality and using keywords like “wakey!wakey!” “I have made mistakes today”, etc. Some folks were wondering who the artist was, some which the song played was, so where to buy the music. I was able to engage a lot of these folks and drive them to the right places.
- We didn’t make it to the top list of trending topics, which was interesting in light of the google surging and my assumption that most young people watching OTH would be into twitter. We did gain about 300 followers.
People Love Video
- We were fortunate enough to have a beautiful performance of the single “Brooklyn” captured by the good folks over at Athens Soundies. It shot up from 611 views, to nearly 25K and counting. See below.
Miscellaneous
- Our plays across different platforms, like MySpace, went up by 498.3%
- Our fans/follower/friend counts across different platforms went up 759.2%
- Our page views across different sites went up by 2922.5%