These are exciting days for iCrossing’s relationship with Music Mogul Jermaine Dupri and his social media community Global 14. Since we announced our relationship in February, Dupri and iCrossing have pursued a strategy of building a connected brand for Global 14 through a combination of earned media, social media, content marketing, and search, resulting in a measurable increase in Global 14 followers and visibility for Dupri and iCrossing. Now we’re turning our sites to supporting Dupri’s vision for “personalized monetization,” for Global 14, which Dupri introduced recently at the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit and will discuss July 11 at the Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley event in San Francisco. Here’s more detail:
“Personalized Monetization”
Through a keynote appearance at the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit in Miami Beach, Dupri introduced Global 14 to Latin America. He also unveiled his approach for monetizing Global 14: personalized monetization, which consists of a brand sponsoring the specialized content that Global 14 members share with each other throughout the hundreds of communities that thrive inside Global 14.
Here’s how personalized monetization works: let’s say you’re a sports brand interested in raising your profile among affluent young men and women. On Global 14, you could sponsor the Global 14 Sports page, which is a recently launched 24/7 source of sports news and scores as well as a discussion community about sports. By sponsoring Global 14 Sports content, an advertiser can focus exclusively on the eyeballs inside that room. Moreover, a fashion brand might want to advertise alongside the posts appearing in the Global 14 Fashion category, or a music brand could sponsor the popular Pump It!! Or Dump It!! group, where Global 14 community members rate music submitted by aspiring artists.
On Global 14, you can sponsor updates from popular members as well (for instance, Dupri’s own posts).
This reaction from Portada says it all: “Jermaine Dupri steals the show!”
On July 11, Dupri will discuss personalized monetization with Shira Lazar and Hermione Wayat Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley, an exclusive, invitation-only event in San Francisco focusing on the convergence of entertainment, celebrities, and technology.
Gaining Momentum with Earned Media
The Portada event appearance is but one example of how we’ve been collaborating on earned media to build brand awareness for Global 14. For instance, in May Dupri introduced Global 14 to European marketers at the Forrester Interactive Marketing Forum. In September, Dupri and I will continue building the Global 14 and iCrossing brands in Latin America when we share the stage to discuss Global 14 at the DigitalAge 2.0 event in Sao Paulo.
Earned media efforts have also resulted in profiles among several publications such as Advertising Age, Forrester, The Huffington Post, The Independent, Mashable, Portada
Co-created Content Marketing
On June 6, Dupri and I published a point of view about the secrets of creating engagement on your own social community. We observed that increasingly, marketers are taking a close look at forming their own communities, especially at a time when Facebook has become a sprawling, impersonal place for a brand to live. We shared five lessons marketers can learn from Dupri in order to operate a community. Our point of view, shared with C-level executives, is the latest in a series of thought leadership papers and videos we’ve created on topics ranging from creativity to building a relationship with your audience.
Search/Social Media
In addition to helping Dupri optimize Global 14 for search, iCrossing has helped make Global 14 and Dupri’s own brand more visible via social media. We’ve set up and help manage presences for Dupri and Global 14 on sites such as Google Plus and Pinterest, which is helping him become build Global 14 followers.
We’ve also relied on iCrossing’s own blogger network. For instance, in June, Dupri collaborated with iCrossing Social Media Strategist Gabriela Guzman on a Content Lab post about how Dupri relies on his instinct for style to create engaging content.
As Dupri said in a Portada interview recently, “I believe that iCrossing and I are creating a model for co-branding because of our focus on creating content together, like our video series on creativity and social media.” Global 14 membership has risen from 30,000 to nearly 37,000 since we formed our relationship in February. Dupri’s Twitter following has risen from 381,000 to more than 500,000, and iCrossing has seen a strong boost in our visibility across social and earned media.
Stay tuned. We’re just getting warmed up.
David Deal is iCrossing’s vice president of marketingTu
Ray
DOPE!