I like the way U2 are talking directly to their fans via Facebook. All users that have listed the band as favourites on their Facebook profile got a video message from Bono yesterday. Bono wants to get feedback from fans on a sneak preview from the upcoming re-release of The Joshua Tree album. Bono sings and explains Wave of Sorrow, a previously unreleased song.
By the looks of the clip, even the rest of the band haven’t heard the current version of the song. The interview has a very spontaneous and genuine feel and it is a good example of how to build a hype around the release of an album with a minimal budget.
The video was posted late last night and has already attracted more than 2,000 comments on Facebook.
http://s.ilike.com/swfs/rssPlayer.swf
Update: TechCrunch has more details. “1.2 million fans have signed up specifically to get new U2 news and were notified as soon as the video went up two days ago. So far, over 2,000 fan messages have been left on the video.
This was an experiment, says a representative of the company. No press was notified when the video went live – they wanted to see how fast it spread virally and without any promotion.”