Teaser video, VR, crowdfunding, fan engagement - Megadeth are exemplary

social media can be enigmatic...

IN THIS POST:  a quick look at some examples of how Megadeth, a band whose debut album was in 1985, use multiple platforms to engage with existing fans and seek new ones, generating media coverage along the way. Any music video producer can learn from their strategic approach. As I can't access FB + other sites while writing this, I've used limited examples, but you can always look further yourselves.

If you're producing a music video you really should seek to engage with an audience long before you've got to the final cut stage.

Blogging does that to some extent, but being active on social media (Instagram, Twitter, FB...), posting snippets and updates of what you've been doing, should be part of that mix, generating content for a website in turn.

Just as film has the trailer, so many artists are now creating their own (often put out on record company YouTube channels) trailers (see Slayer example on this blog) and even teasers, as with this example from Megadeth (featured in a popular e-zine; marketing involves a mix of social media and publications/channels - such content will typically generate lots of articles in magazines, e-zines, radio...):

Bing (yuck) results galore, showing the success of the strategy to generate attention

Megadeth are an act skilled in keeping a buzz going, over 30 years since their debut album - they're engaging with VR (and note the serializing of the feature too, drip-feeding segments):

Official Megadeth YT channel.

Megadeth are astute users of media platforms, and generate a lot of media attention and viral shares through their content across multiple platforms; here's a further example:

A metal YT channel report the story.

And another - singer Mustaine's tweets about visiting a hospitalized fan became a major news story for many outlets, such as Blabbermouth:

Indeed, as the likes of Gillmor and Gauntlett have theorized, the audience/producer divide has been radically reduced by digitization, and Megadeth formally involve their fans as financiers from the start of an album production - this (now closed) PledgeMusic (think Kickstarter, crowdfunding) campaign offered various packages, and now you can see a VR edition of the album being marketed:

See PledgeMusic page.