Yes, I do want to know if there is unrest in the Brangelina household.  Of course I’m watching as Jessica Simpson’s jeans go from low rise to high rise and back again. Absolutely I’m concerned (ok – excited) that Leo and Bar are on a break. But for some reason, following celebrities’ blogs and Twitter profiles doesn’t do much for me.

I find if you follow a few celebrities on Twitter you can see them chatting among themselves. But they really don’t engage with fans and social media tools simply give them a new method of promotion. I get disenchanted pretty quickly and revert back to Perez Hilton and People magazine for the critical “breaking news.”

This weekend I was having lunch with the PR manager of the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego (who happens to be my sister).  She knows I’ve always loved Collective Soul and still listen to it now and again. She mentioned they were on Twitter and that they were following their fans back, so I decided to check in and see how that was working.

I’ve started following them and yes, they tweet frequently. They are touring with Gavin Degraw this summer and have clearly employed social media to help promote it.

Do I think singer Ed Roland is manning the Tweet stream? No, in fact I can’t tell who is behind there.  It would be great if the band members would chime in. But they are sharing cool pictures and engaging fans with trivia contests that bring fans closer to the experience of the music.

In addition, their social media strategy clearly leverages their fan base to virally promote themselves, which I think is quite savvy.

One tactic they use is to select their top 20 fans.  They do this by encouraging fans to promote their Twitter stream to their friends.  Before I even realized they were doing this I tweeted:

“Band @collective_soul is doing the anti-celeb Twitter strategy & following fans back-wonder how they handle tons of DMs? Interesting.”

Within three hours and after some research for this post, they tweeted this:

“Congrats to our new Top 20 @QueenSapphyre @Lynnster23 @DelBarrio @edwardmarcel @babyjsmom @paulikeloa @taylor_blue@rachelakay.”

Well thank you!

Clearly they are monitoring their “brand” and responding aggressively. They are also soliciting blog posts from friends, like this one, this one and many more. The band in turn thanks the fan by Tweeting the blog post to its community, which at present time is almost 20,000 followers strong.

From a PR perspective, one goal in using social media is to get your consumers to do the talking for you – marketers know there is nothing more authentic than the power of peer-to-peer endorsement.  To me, this is a very interesting way of encouraging fan involvement in the promotional process.

Yes, it may be cheating just a bit – rewarding blog posts by promising recognition, but I still give credit for involving fans to promote virality.  Compared to Tweeters like Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Beastie Boys and Duran Duran who don’t seem to engage with fans, it’s a step forward.

The band’s strategy is simply to engage with fans, recognize their loyalty and admiration, and encourage them to promote the band – which is not unlike the social media strategies of consumer brands on the social Web.

What do you think about Collective Soul’s tactics?  Where are they doing social media right and where are some areas of opportunity?

Rachel Kay

Update – Within an hour of posting this, I received a very nice, personalized direct message through Twitter from someone representing Collective Soul.  Again, someone is clearly monitoring the conversation and reacting.

I wasn’t sure who sent the message though, because they didn’t include a name. Shortly after, a person close to the band, Susan Cooper (@BuzzEdition), informed me that the person who sent me the DM was none other than guitarist Dean Roland.

Wow! Incredibly cool! I rest my case. You can also find out more about the band’s blog contest here.