The Material Girl (does she still go by that name?) graced the threads of Twitter Monday night to answer questions for 90-minutes. Billed as a “one night only” event, Madonna live chatted with fans at @MadonnaMDNAday who were encouraged to use the hashtag #askmadonna to help build interest in her latest studio release MDNA, her first album since 2008.
Meanwhile over at the design inspiration/lifestyle site fab.com Madonna is offering Web audiences a deluxe “web only” $7.99 version of her latest CD at almost 50% off the regular store price.
There’s also a giveaway with the digital music service Spotify for two listeners who play MDNA at least three times during the next two weeks who could then win tickets to one of her upcoming shows.
On Saturday (prior to the Twitter event) Madonna was on a Facebook livestream with late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon responding to fan submitted questions, again just for one night.
Hmm…smells like there’s a digital strategy at work here. All this activity indicates that Madonna is proactively taking steps to strengthen her social media following rather than rely on the traditional talkshow routes and news outlets to create buzz for her new album.
Consider Spotify’s recent integration with Facebook and the new Timeline feature which, among other things, allows people to view a small thumbnail of recently listened to albums and tracks. Madonna’s marketing people are clearly targeting the Facebook platform and things like the new listen with friends feature.
But the above mentioned events (the Twitter chat in particular) seem carefully choreographed—dare I say contrived, perhaps by one of Madonna’s PR marketing aides. After all, the 53-year old Madonna (is she a grandmother yet?) may have just a passing interest in connecting with fans on social networks. Why else would she engage with fans on Twitter for just one night? I suppose daily chats are out of the question, so how about once a week?
Check out the spike in the chart over at social media monitor Radian6 which reveals an interesting blip in Madonna’s recent Twitter feed exchange with fans.
The obvious comparison comes next: Lady Gaga, who arguably sets the bar for social media engagement with fans. No one does it better. With well over 21-million followers they don’t call her the queen of Twitter for nothing. Gaga is also fast approaching 50-million fans on Facebook and is in approximately 1.1-million circles on Google+.
The Material Girl on the other hand couldn’t possibly buy that kind of digital clout. Now could she?
The distinction one could draw between Gaga and Madonna is not simply the disparity between the number of Likes, Followers, and Circles (incidentally Gaga has 5-times as many Facebook fans over Madonna), but the consistency of engagement.
In Gaga’s case the fan engagement seems more authentic because it occurs on a daily basis and doesn’t start and stop abruptly to coincide with album releases as in Madonna’s case.
The Material Girl could learn something from mother mons†er —don’t you think?