One of the first calls the label made after Cardi B released her latest single, “Hot Sh-t,” which features Kanye West and Lil Dark, this summer was to an increasingly in-demand digital marketing agency. It was Get Engaged Media. Within his first two weeks of release, the Atlanta-based company’s social media campaign for the rapper’s song generated over 100 million impressions.

College friends Cameron “Cam” Fordham and Ben Hiott started a side business in 2016 as a way to curate and monetize content for celebrity Facebook pages. Alex Dermer, who managed Waka Flocka Flame, joined six months after him, and with the three of them he co-founded Get Engaged Media. Six years later, the company has led social media campaigns for artists ranging from He’s DJ Khaled, Wiz Khalifa, and Imagine Dragons to He’s Walker Hayes, Ozzy Osborne. This year alone, it’s leading the social media drive to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts with Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” Glass Animals’ “Heat Wave,” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time.”

Dahmer said the pandemic has benefited the company, boosting hiring and resulting in a more than 300% increase in sales volume over the past two years. Dahmer describes the company’s mission as “fueling the fire to generate conversation and drive content.”

“There has been a significant redistribution of spending focus across all industries” during the COVID-19 shutdown, says Dermer. “With music, we have had to get rid of aspects like touring and billboards and be more aggressive with digital. So we’ve seen a massive shift into the digital space.”

That change was demonstrated in his work on Get Engaged and The Weeknd. After several hours The album’s single, “Blinding Lights,” became the longest-running hit in Billboard’s Hot 100 history at 90 weeks.

“That album came out at a time when everyone was in lockdown, in the middle of a pandemic, when a lot of people were suffering and scared,” says Hiott. “We were able to create a viral moment, especially with the ‘Blinding Lights’ dance, which brought happiness and joy to so many people.”

Get Engaged Media has worked with over 1,000 musicians. Celebrities and 10,000 influencers have participated in more than 7,500 campaigns, generating more than 30 billion views across social media platforms, Dermer said.

In addition to working with artists from all three major record labels, his client list includes brands such as T-Mobile, Crocs, The Honest Company, Vita Coco, Major League Soccer, NBC Universal, NASCAR and Snapchat. I’m here.

Earlier this year, Get Engaged Media expanded to Nashville, working with country artists like Carrie Underwood, Parker McCallum and Kane Brown.

“We needed a great team to help us bounce creative ideas and capture important content. [Kane] I’m on my iPhone all day,” said Martha Earls, Brown’s manager. billboard.[Get Engaged is] Each artist’s approach is unique. They’ve crossed generations to understand who people are talking to and who their fan base is, and to have that kind of insight is an incredible strength. ”

This year, Get Engaged principals launched a record label called Series A Entertainment, in addition to opening a Nashville branch. The label signed rapper his The Letter M as part of his joint venture with 300 Entertainment. They are also branching out into artist management representing rapper SYMBA.

We are also looking to expand further geographically, potentially opening offices in Miami and London. “Right now he has a big Web 3.0 presence in Miami, so maybe one day we’ll have something like a satellite office,” he says.

Get Engaged Media has thus far operated without the help of venture capitalists or other outside funding, but that hasn’t stopped potential suitors from moving forward.

A few months ago, Jason Zerden, then Vice President of Business Development at Create Music Group, reached out to the Get Engaged founders about acquiring the company. They weren’t for sale, but Zerden was impressed with how Get Engaged competed on an equal footing with much larger companies. “It came from CAA, Stem and Create Music Group, all very flashy companies,” he says. “These guys run his 90-person business in this space in Georgia.”

Four months later, Get Engaged asked Zerden to join them as Chief Strategy Officer. Impressed by their crap, he started this month.

Here, Zerden explains why Get Engaged has become the go-to partner for more and more artists and brands, and how he sees social media campaigns and music evolving.

What drew you to work with Get Engaged Media?

I was impressed with the depth of their direct relationship. [companies like] TGI Fridays, Raising Cane’s, Honest Company. …they are talking to his C-level executive, the CMO. They weren’t just talking to marketing vps. Without a traditional Hollywood background, these figures have been able to penetrate Hollywood, media and brands in impressive ways.

How would you describe your role in the company?

I look at business holistically. They say he’s 90, 60 in Atlanta, 15 in Nashville, and a few scattered in LA, Boston, New York, and more. We have many retainer customers. Our business is split between Social Content, Web, Music and Ventures and we spend most of our time on Music, Web and Content. But at the end of the day, it’s social media management and project management.

Too many artists have been told to continue churning out TikTok videos and other content in addition to the touring and recording responsibilities they already have. How is Get Engaged positioned to ease that burden?

Some artists don’t want to do TikTok, so I’m talking to the label’s head of digital. Traditionally, there have been his two verticals, music marketing like TikTok Seeds and Instagram Seeds. The Instagram seed is to let the culture page speak for you. [Instagram pages] Music of our generation, DJ Akademiks, or RapTV and we have huge business. But there’s also this massive Snapchat network that includes about 80 shows owned and operated by Get Engaged Media.Go to a label and say, ‘Let’s think more creatively here. [follows] artist from [album] It was the beginning of an album release,” after which all ad inventory related to that Snapchat show could be purchased.

How are you developing this Snapchat strategy?

We are currently in negotiations with all majors. [label] to really understand it. The immediate effort we have started is buying ad inventory. So if Universal comes along and wants to buy all the ad inventory on shows with titles adjacent to that artist, it can. This allows us to differentiate our core products. Not many people have been playing with Snapchat in terms of land acquisition, and it currently owns the most land in the space.

What metrics do you use to determine if your campaign is successful?

Goals vary from campaign to campaign. Every label is like, ‘Hey, I want this to go viral. I need this amount of likes and comments. A brand like Raising Cane’s is a very important KPI. [key performance indicators]is very metric-driven, so impressions are large.

have purchasing power. On Thursday night she gets a call at 12:01 from an artist saying, “I want to join these pages in 5 minutes.” I hear from the label that we are the only partner that can accomplish something like that. There’s nothing special about what we do, but what’s unique is the time and speed with which we can make things live, and it’s a competitive advantage.

What is the typical price of a campaign?

There is no set price, but most campaigns range from $20,000 to $50,000. Sometimes we do smaller campaigns, but that depends on the project, the artist, the requirements, and whether or not you can get involved from the start and really tell a story.

If there’s a song or dance that could fit on TikTok, what’s the process?

We have over 5,000 creators in our network, so you can send your songs to them. If you’re talking about TikTok, you can say, “Dance here, general creative here.” We welcome your opinion. And it’s always repetitive. We put dance out into the world, and when one of the dances goes viral, that’s how the campaign changes. Based on UGC [user-generated content]this is a viral clip to run.

Who are the top creators you are currently working with?

DRUSKI, Lele Pons, The D’Amelio Family, Noah Beck, Just Maiko, Michael Le.

How do you decide when to start working with new creators?

New and exciting creators are coming online and you can see them in action. That’s the advantage of social media. Last week’s favorites are different from next week’s favorites. It just stays in the pulse and is ingrained in the culture. Having a very diverse company helps with that too. We get to look over the strategy and see a cool new creator in her one subculture of the world. There are so many pockets of subcultures that have just taken off and you can’t plan for it.

What subcultures are growing today?

It’s just stepping into territory where you feel an affinity for certain types of music, like what’s happening at New York Drill Music and Ice Spice. Pop Smoke got it, then went to Ice Spice, and she’s got the torch now. One thing I’ve seen in the country that is different from most other markets is the live productions.People are more interested in live shows than other genres. And country artists are usually very brand-safe, so you can get brand pieces.

What is the biggest misconception you see in the field of digital marketing?

Some people think you just join playlists like [Spotify’s] New Music Friday, we’re all set. DSP plays 60,000 songs a day. There are so many playlists out there that it’s a holistic campaign.