All righty. I’ll admit that this may be too early in the history and growth of this site, but this whole thing is growing kind of quickly and there’s a guaranteed huge traffic opportunity unfolding right now,* so it makes sense to take a 30-day flyer and then assess.
I apologize for a little bit of confusion on the timing; Poro2Baro is launching on March 3, which is still right in the middle of March 2 for most of us; by “launching” now, we’re prepared for when things actually start to happen.
Basically, Homicidols.com exists to be a bridge between the hard side of idol and people outside of Japan who like the hard side of music; what’s happening right now is that a group of people who like hard idols in the first place are forming up sort of the first level of what will hopefully grow into an active community, the core by which more and more people connect to the music that we love.
So to test out a few things, see how far our reach goes, see if we can form an acknowledged relationship with idol management, see which methods work best, etc. and on, we’re going to start out with a brand new idol unit, PoroPoro Baroque. This is their music:
A bunch of stuff is laid out here, but here’s roughly how it’ll work:
- If you’re on Twitter, follow them. @poro2baro
- You don’t have to retweet everything that they send out, but keep an eye out. Switch on notifications for them if it helps.
- Definitely retweet if they share tracks or performance details.
- Tweet at them. Send encouragement. If they release a full-on song or gasp video, tell them how great it is. (It’s probably that instrumental that they have out, which is great.)
- Do the same with any members who are announced with Twitter accounts.
- If they set up other social networks, and you’re on them, follow them there; same basic guidelines apply.
- Follow @homicidols if you don’t already. I’ll be putting out something or another about Poro2Baro as often as makes sense; retweet it.
- If you aren’t already on Soundcloud, join (it takes like a minute); like that song and follow them; add them to any playlists that you have.
- This is where it gets interesting. When there’s something good, or if/when I add a weekly post about the project, share it on your personal networks, especially Twitter and Facebook.
- If your friends/contacts ask, go ahead and tell them about this project. Share the link to this page with them and encourage them to join in.
- In all cases, use the language of your choice as long as it isn’t Japanese; this is important, as it’ll differentiate between local and international fans, and can separate international fans who are and aren’t participating in this pilot.
- In all cases, use the #AdoptAnIdol hashtag. This is actually important, as I’ll be using it to measure what all’s happening.
What next?
We’ll see! I’m going to be keeping count of non-Japanese interactions with the group and uses of the hashtag, plus activity around posts added to this site and, hopefully, any interactions that we get back from Poro2Baro. I already have some benchmarks set:
- Twitter followers: 466
- Soundcloud listens: 546
- Soundcloud followers: 12
- Soundcloud likes: 10
- Soundcloud reposts: 1
Remember: The whole point of this is in the pudding for Poro2Baro, not for this site or our personal social accounts or anything. We want to be making a popularity impact for a group. I have no idea what success looks like; maybe we can talk about it in the comments on each post as they come along. But if we are able to make an impact, imagine what we might be able to do with a more established group with more music and more resources. That’d be cool beans.
I’ll do an initial results count on Friday, March 11. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the #AdoptAnIdol hashtag.
