The Keys to using Twitter on tour

How can you make a personal connection with your fans when you’re singing to tens of thousands at the Staples Center or Madison Square Garden?

Alicia Keys (@aliciakeys) managed to do it with a special shoutout to an audience member during each show. But there’s more to it than that. Keys didn’t just take her band on tour, she took a detailed social media strategy too. This is where #AliciaDedicates comes in.

Fans at her U.S. “Set the World on Fire” concerts could tweet to the singer-songwriter asking her to dedicate one song to them – all they had to do was tweet their section, row, and seat number. The video above, produced by Jumbotron, was sent to fans attending the show, and Keys tweeted to encourage them to take part.

When it came time to perform “Not Even a King,” she called out a fan and their section, row, and seat number to dedicate the song to them.

Result: #AliciaDedicates dominated the conversation around @aliciakeys Twitter account during her concert dates. This chart illustrates what happened during the U.S. concerts in March and April.

From this, Keys’ number of followers grew 14.4 percent from March to the end of April.

And the fans? One captured the moment beautifully.