1. NINE INCH NAILS Fandom and audience engagement

2. WHO ARE THEY?Nine Inch Nails is an industrial rock band founded in the United States in 1988. They officially have only one member, Trent Reznor with a myriad of musicians hired to accompany him during live shows and tours. Since 1989 they have released 9 major studio albums and have been nominated for 12 Grammy AwardsClick here to listen (Just Like You Imagined The Fragile) 3. DISCOGRAPHYPretty Hate Machine (1989)With Teeth (2005)Broken (1992)Year Zero (2007)The Downward Sprial (1994)Ghosts I-IV (2008)The Slip (2008)The Fragile (1999)Hesitation Marks (2013) 4. WHERE CAN YOU FIND THEM ONLINE?Website www.nin.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/nineinchnails Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ninofficial Tumblr - http://nineinchnails.tumblr.com Instagram - http://instagram.com/nineinchnails 5. ONLINE COMMUNITES?There are a number of both fan moderated and official communities surrounding the band, some examples are: www.remix.nin.com - where users can create and upload their own remixes of Nine Inch Nails songs forum.nin.com online forums where fans can discuss a multitude of topics surrounding the band www.facebook.com/NINarmy, www.facebook.com/ninefanpage - fan based facebook communites These are only a few examples of the many websites and communities out there! 6. FIND YOUR AUDIENCEIn the beginning they caught the attention of the underground industrial scene, and have maintained a solid audience base since. Trent Reznor has done a great job of keeping his older audience engaged while following shifts in music and society and continuously growing the fan base. ''The most confounding aspect of being older and having a career that has lasted a long time is trying to imagine how other people see you, especially younger people,'' Reznor says. ''I see myself trying to figure out to push boundaries and expand my sound, and stumble into new places and figure out how to write better songs. But the moment that what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails is just so people can go, 'I loved those guys back in high school', I don't want to do it. My enemy in this is nostalgia. (Reznor in an interview for the Sydney Morning Herald, 2013) 7. POST MEANINGFUL, SHAREABLE CONTENTMost of what the band post is not all that meaningful or thoughtful, it is mainly posts about upcoming events and releases. They do post a lot of free content, like DVD worthy concert performances or new tracks. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LBC3NXnN8 y4 An 80 minute video from their Tension 2013 tour in Los Angeles 8. ENGAGE YOUR CURRENT FANSTrent Reznor does a good job of keeping his fans engaged. A good example is in 2013 Reznor called a terminally ill fan during a live show in Las Vegas, which you can watch here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nURHgx48AzQ#t=56 9. This is a great example of how the artist stays engaged with fans. Here a viral campaign was started surrounding the release of the new album Year Zero in 2007.Nine Inch Nails Year Zero Viral Campaign on Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/5484260 10. In 2007, prior to the release of the album, fans first discovered that one of Nine Inch Nails concert t-shirts contained the phrase I am trying to believe which lead to a few websites all describing the world in year zero and were part of a huge alternate reality game. Look it up if youve never heard of it, its pretty neat! 11. The band also deliberately leaked USB drives at some of their concerts, one in Portugal and one in Spain. These drives contained high quality versions of two new tracks, My Violent Heart and Me, Im notClick the logo to listen to Me, Im notClick the logo to listen to My Violent Heart 12. The Year Zero game consisted of an expansive series of websites, phone numbers, e-mails, videos, MP3s, murals, and other media that expanded upon the fictional storyline of the album. Each new piece of media contained various hints and clues to discover the next, relying on fan participation to discover each new facet of the expanding game. Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream. Reznor, however, argued that "marketing" was an inaccurate description of the game, and that it was "not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record it IS the art form. (Year Zero (album) - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)) 13. Whether the Year Zero alternate reality game was a marketing gimmick or a form of art is irrelevant. IT WORKED! Fans were more engaged at that point than almost any other point during Nine Inch Nails career, and it kept people paying attention. 14. It also bridged the gap between online and social networking campaigns, and real world marketing with t-shirts and USB drives with ambiguous songs or other artwork. Some of the websites included in the alternate reality game: http://iamtryingtobelieve.com http://www.anotherversionofthetruth.com http://bethehammer.net http://www.consolidatedmailsystems.com/citizen_unknown/ There are MANY MANY more 15. Thank you for watching, I hope you found this as interesting as I did. I know I have been following the band for many years, and will continue to do so as a result of their interesting online presence.Let me know what you think? Gimmick or Genius?