Case Studies
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold has long been one of the most important - if not the most important - name in modern club culture. People who don't know that much about DJ culture or the music itself are familiar with Oakenfold's name and what he represents. With more than 135,000 friends on MySpace, Paul is always looking for ways to keep his fan base active and engaged.
"I spend a lot of time on the road, DJ'ing in clubs all around the world," says Oakenfold. "Ensuring that my fans know where I'm going to be is extremely important. When I saw Gydget for the first time, I knew it would provide a great solution for keeping my fans up to date."
A gydget is a fan-based widget that is built to be shared among fans on social networking sites. An artist can create a gydget in minutes on gydget.com with no coding or design expertise. A gydget can contain video, news and events, and can be customized to represent the look of the band.
Within days of posting his gydget and alerting his fans through his MySpace blog, Paul Oakenfold's fanbase responded. "I was amazed when I looked at my tracking numbers and saw my fans responding. My gydget was on hundreds of fan pages across MySpace, Facebook, and other sites." Paul said.
Paul Oakenfold Gydget by the numbers:
Number of days live: 14
Number of gydget views: 70,600
Number of locations on the web where the gydget can be found: 551
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Natural Resources Defense Council
NRDC is the nation's most effective environmental action organization. With the backing of 1.2 million members, the NRDC protects human health and the environment by taking on corporate polluters, helping companies and institutions see the 'green' light and making smart sustainable policies the law of the land.
When the NRDC wanted to increase awareness among America's youth, it turned to Gydget to help get the word out. "We saw the success that Gydget was having with bands and we thought it could work for us as well," said Kelly Cox, Integrated Marketing Specialist at the NRDC. "We are fortunate to have some great bands support our organization and thought this would be a great product that they could promote to their fanbases."
The NRDC gydget acts as a communications vehicle for the NRDC to reach supporters and friends of supporters who might not visit the NRDC Web site every day. It provides an area where the NRDC can alert its constituents about a new cause, a tip for green living, or a way to get involved. It also contains areas to promote video, news and events. "Being able to place our videos into the widget is a great way for us to spread our story," Kelly notes. "We spend a lot of time creating video content and having our fans spread the gydget across social networking sites is an efficient way to get the content widely viewed."
NRDC gydget by the numbers
Number of days live: 30
Number of gydget views: 127,023
Number of locations on the web: 444
Aurelia Entertainment
Based in New York City, Aurelia Entertainment Inc. is the world's leading marketing and promotions firm catering to the Electronic and Dance Music community. Some of Aurelia's high profile clients include Paul van Dyk, DJ RAP, Robbie Rivera, Global Underground Records and many others.
"In addition to PR and branding, Aurelia is tasked with managing the Web properties of all of our clients," said Lainie Copicotto, CEO of Aurelia Entertainment Inc. "Anything that makes it easier to standardize content is a godsend. When I first saw gydget I knew it was going to make my life easier since I could enter in events once and use the gydget across all social networking sites instead of re-entering dates over and over."
Lainie was so impressed with gydget that she decided to create them for her entire roster of clients. "We knew it was going to save us time, but we didn't anticipate the fan reaction or adoption. Paul van Dyk's widget was only up for a few days when I went into the tracking tool to see how many people had grabbed it. 350 fans had grabbed it and added it to their own pages. For us, this is the greatest reward.
Paul van Dyk gydget by the numbers
Number of days live: 4
Number of gydget views: 81,542
Number of locations on the web: 388
To get more info on Aurelia Entertainment go to:
http://www.aureliaentertainment.com
Justpassingthru
Justpassingthru is an alternative rock band out of New Jersey. For several years they have performed concerts, youth events, rallies and fundraisers, evolving from a local garage band into a mature, modern rock group. When they launched their second independent album in 2007, Call Me Red, the band began looking for new ways to promote their events and increase their fan base.
"We knew we needed to improve our presence on social networking sites since that's where so many people go to find out about new music," said Mike Bossard, lead singer. "We saw a lot of gydgets on MySpace pages and loved the features. Gydget provides a great platform for keeping fans up to date."
Bossard especially liked the fact that fans could set mobile reminders about events and email events to friends. "A friend of a fan is our next likely fan so any way to get fans involved with spreading our events to their friends is great," says Bossard.
Creating a gydget is free for bands and involves no programming or design expertise. In just a few minutes a band can 'pimp' its MySpace page or band website with the latest 2.0 technology. "We created our gydget in just a few minutes. The MySpace import feature even allowed us to import events we already entered into MySpace into the gydget – a huge time saver. I guess many great ideas come from a small thing that annoys/inconveniences people. Manually entering show dates on every site our band is on is painful. Gydget is a great solution," Bossard adds.
Justpassingthru is looking forward to using the gydget in their marketing plans. They are already starting to heavily promote it through their blog, MySpace bulletins and email blasts. "In addition to being talented, Indie bands have to be scrappy to be successful. We have the 'will' and it's great tools like Gydget that help give us the 'way,'" Mike says.
