Culture Jam: Tweeting for a song

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Edith Piaf, whose last name means ‘sparrow’ in French, used to sing for her meals.

Culture Jam, a Santa Monica startup, wants to do the same. Working with bands and record companies, Culture Jam builds viral marketing campaigns on Twitter. One campaign they developed for the band 30 Seconds to Mars yielded more than 25,000 tweets within a couple of days.

Here’s how it works. A band wants to get the word out about its new album. Culture Jam first seeds Twitter with a ‘free-song’ promotion. Users who re-tweet the message to their followers would be given an iTunes code to claim their free song download. Imagine tossing out a few bread crumbs and watching as flocks of birds descend in a feeding frenzy. You get the picture.

But this is the Internet age, and building custom campaigns are so Web 1.0. That’s why Culture Jam on Tuesday released Promo Jam, a software engine that lets bands, record labels and just about any other company launch its own Twitter promotions.

Instead of handcrafting marketing messages, Culture Jam would earn its meals by keeping track of the data generated from the campaigns (who tweeted, where they reside etc.) and serving up the statistics to its customers.

The startup was founded in July 2008 by a brother-and-sister duo, Matt and Amanda MacNaughton. Their company tweets for more than 35 companies, including Sony Music, EMI, RCA, Def Jam Records, Universal Music Group and Live Nation.

Matt, who worked as digital product manager for the Interscope record label, says the service ‘turns your fans into your marketers.’

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.