Music. Marketing. Social Media.

I’ve been a fan of Alicia Keys since “Songs in A Minor” was released in 2001, and have continued to follow her career as my life, and the world, has evolved.

9 years later a hit new song with Jay-Z playing on radio stations and iPod’s everywhere, I’m now even more in love with her music.

Personal tastes aside, I have a lot of respect for the marketing going on around Alicia Key’s new album – “The Element of Freedom”.

She first debuted the album on Facebook, that’s right – Facebook.  To my knowledge – she’s the first major artist to do so (smart move!).

To do so, her marketing team got a company called Involver on board, which I admit is new to me (hey Involver, if you’re listening I’d love to pick your brain for a future post!).

You can check out her fan page here.

In addition to the Facebook album debut, Alicia and her team have also put together a “I think it’s going to be slightly insane in a great way” event happening tonight at the legendary Apollo Theatre. Actually, it’s happening now, and I’m there, and you can watch here. Full review coming tomorrow, of course!

Back on track…

That’s right – the entire concert is being livestreamed (thanks Billboard!), and straight from their article on the event, here are some juicy details:

The chart-topping singer/songwriter’s new album, “The Element of Freedom,” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in December, but Keys has enjoyed a pair of long-running No. 1′s on the singles charts. Her New York centric duet with Jay-Z, “Empire State of Mind,” — which the duo performed to much acclaim at Yankee Stadium during the World Series in October — rode the top of the Hot 100 for five weeks in November and December. Meanwhile over on the Latin Pop Songs chart, Alejandro Sanz’s track featuring Keys, “Looking For Paradise,” has been No. 1 for the last nine consecutive weeks.

Click to watch the concert here.

If you’re more of the “I like to watch the interviews” type, I included Billboard’s interview below. It’s a good watch!

I’m looking forward to seeing more major labels jump on the “let’s innovate!” train.  If you’ve seen any examples then by all means, please share them in the comments!

Tags: alicia keys, Billboard, Facebook, involver, social media, the apollo, Twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 9:00 pm and is filed under event, news, social media, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.