Perspective
How the Recording Academy helped connect fans to the GRAMMYs this Awards Season
They may not have been in attendance, but with Twitter fans got the best seat in the house.
For music fans everywhere, the GRAMMY Awards are a can’t-miss opportunity to watch music artists strut the red carpet, perform hit songs, and (hopefully) accept the coveted gilded gramophone.
This year, however, with ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, the GRAMMYs took on a different format, giving the Recording Academy the opportunity to engage with fans on a different level, especially on Twitter. It all kicked off with a livestream of GRAMMY Nominations and continued with programming like #GRAMMYsAsk Q&As, a Voice Tweets #WomenInTheMix event, and a musical act lineup reveal (including an exclusive announcement that Silk Sonic would be performing). The event wrapped up with a virtual afterparty on Twitter’s newest features, Spaces.
The Recording Academy (@RecordingAcad), along with @CBS, pulled out all the stops to make sure both fans and artists would be treated to an unforgettable night. For an insider’s look at how they did it, we sat down with Mazen Alawar, Managing Director of Marketing at the Recording Academy, and got him talking about this year’s awards season strategy.
Twitter: In an Awards Season like no other, how did you begin to approach planning this year’s GRAMMYs?
The pandemic gave us a unique opportunity to meet our audience in a way we had never done before on a digital platform. Twitter is this worldwide watering hole where everybody comes to quench their thirst on news or entertainment or conversation within the public sphere, so it was the perfect place to be.
Despite the changes that came with this year’s Awards Season, we never strayed away from our main objective: celebrating the life's work of these artists. Some artists wait their whole lives for this acknowledgement. So for us at the Recording Academy, we are caretakers of that experience.
Twitter: That experience included a lot of only-on-Twitter programming before the big night.
One advantage we have on Twitter is that the platform can handle a high volume of conversation, and it never feels overwhelming. If anything, it delivers what is most relevant.
In November 2020, knowing that a live nominations announcement in a studio wasn’t a possibility, we asked ourselves, "What is the best way to reach everybody this year? Where are conversations going to happen?" Streaming the nominations on Twitter helped us connect with the entire world of music, and it gave us the chance to announce all 83 nominations so that each category could get its due. I don't think it's any coincidence that this gave us the most digital activity by a stretch that we've seen during any nomination season.
Twitter also gives us the room to have meaningful conversations that demonstrate the breadth of the music world through the voices of the artists themselves. So after the nominations were announced, we partnered with Twitter to help artists tell their stories via the #GRAMMYsAsk Q&A series. They got to speak directly to fans and share insights about the creative process and what it takes to make it in this industry.
Then, of course, there was the highly anticipated setlist. In a normal year, we would reveal the artists who were performing as we secured new acts. But this year, we released all the names at once, and the response was incredible. When you put together a group as diverse as Brittany Howard, Maren Morris, Jhay Cortez, Bad Bunny, and Burna Boy, you see that fans’ excitement and interest isn’t limited to one genre or category.
Twitter: We loved to see it! We also loved how you highlighted diverse groups within the music industry through #WomenInTheMix and the Black Music Collective. How did that come about?
Under our new Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, Valeisha Butterfield Jones, we launched events like #WomenInTheMix to highlight the women “behind the boards” in music, meaning the less-visible roles of the music-creation process. Usually people only think about the artist and not the people who help that artist share their voice.
We also had the first inaugural event for the Black Music Collective, who are a collective of Black creatives in place to foster and promote the inclusion of Black musicians and elevate their contributions to music culture as a whole.
We realized that if we were going to have conversations about advancement and change in the industry, we needed to have it in a place like Twitter where it could meaningfully reach a willing audience. Because of the digital nature of this year, we were able to use Twitter products to promote all of these activities. For #WomenInTheMix, we used Voice Tweets to highlight some of the best sound bites from the women we interviewed. It felt more personal to hear their voices, which warranted a positive response from fans.
Twitter: With all this pre-GRAMMYs content, how did you keep the momentum going on the big night?
On the day of the GRAMMYs, the social media team is plugged in live and reacting to what is happening as it’s happening. We don’t know who’s going to win each award, so we have to prepare and be ready for every possibility while reacting in real time to what happens on that stage. That’s the fun part, because Twitter gives us the ability to see what fans and audiences are saying while these big cultural moments are playing out.
That’s why Twitter Spaces was such an awesome tool for us before and after the show. At the Recording Academy, we think of ourselves as the stage for the artist or as a place to amplify their voice. And since Twitter’s where artists have control of their voice and their conversations, we were excited to have them take part in the first-ever official Award Show Spaces.
The afterparty on Twitter was also a lot of fun. DJ D-Nice hosted the event on Twitter Spaces and we had a ton of people in attendance: music talent GRAMMY Nominated artists D Smoke & Madeon, two time GRAMMY winner Fantastic Negrito, Harvey Mason jr., Chair & President/CEO of the Recording Academy, celebrities, content creators, industry professionals, and of course, audience members. The spotlight was on nominees and artists to talk about what it was like to have their work recognized, and by the end of the night, it culminated in this awesome gathering and conversation around common interests.
Twitter: Now that this year’s GRAMMYs are over, what do you see as Twitter’s role for the Recording Academy from now until next year’s ceremony?
I think Twitter cuts through and reaches audiences in the same way that music does. It's got no real barriers and it's based on you and what you want to be a part of. Twitter gives us an opportunity to expand the public’s view of music, and to remind people that it’s about all of the music makers—not just the ones that are most popular.
Erica Cullum (@Erica_Cullum) is a member of Twitter’s Global Content Partnerships team, focusing on strategic entertainment partnerships with television networks, music academies, and digital media partners to bring the most premium entertainment content to the platform and drive sales revenue.