Making a Whole Lot of Noise: Snoop Dogg and Snoop Lion on WordPress.com
From singer-songwriters to pop-punk bands, we’ve got a huge music community on WordPress.com. Did you know that Snoop Dogg — a.k.a. Snoop Lion — is part of it? We’re proud to say that his websites, SnoopDogg.com and SnoopLion.com, are both on WordPress.com.
“I love hearing from my fans — I can’t hear from them if they don’t know what I’ve got going on, so I want them to stay connected to me through my site,” says Snoop.
Let’s take a tour of Snoop’s websites:
Snoop Dogg
The website of Snoop Dogg is an audiovisual feast for fans — the feature-packed premium audio theme, Soundcheck, has been customized to bring you news, music, videos, tour dates, and more. The site takes advantage of Soundcheck’s versatile design: multiple column areas and sidebars, a featured slider, and custom menus to navigate to various categories as well as Snoopermarket (Snoop’s Market Page of goodies on Facebook).
No matter what page you’re on, you can access his social media profiles and multimedia content — including photos, videos, and links to iTunes (including the new album, Reincarnated).
So go ahead and explore — head to the sidebar and listen to a track on the SoundCloud player, click on the “Snoop on iTunes” Image Widget to sample his top albums, songs and music videos on iTunes, or check out his latest updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more.
You’ll also see a clickable image that takes you to the Snoop Lion website.
Snoop Lion
SnoopLion.com is dark and sleek, with vibrant accents of color. The site showcases Reincarnated, Snoop’s reggae and dancehall-influenced album and film, and mixes your favorite WordPress.com widgets and features with cool customizations to the San Kloud theme.
On the home page, you’ll find news, videos and music, and the option to sign up for notifications of Reincarnated screenings near you. Down the left sidebar, you’ll see popular WordPress.com features: embedded YouTube and SoundCloud players (using shortcodes in Text Widgets), Facebook Like Box and Twitter Widgets, and even a Follow Blog Widget (under “Mailing List”).
We chatted with Snoop’s social media team about SnoopDogg.com and SnoopLion.com, and why they chose to make WordPress.com Snoop’s online home.
“Using WordPress.com as our platform for these sites was a clear decision because it offers simple HTML coding and user-friendly widgets that allow us to accomplish our creative goals,” says Ryan Ford, the Vice President at Cashmere Agency. “We’ve been able to reach out to over 130,000 unique monthly visitors on the site, and we hope to see continuous growth as we develop and add more content to the sites.”
What are the main differences between the two websites? Is there a distinct vision behind each?
“There’s definitely a vision behind each. SnoopDogg.com is the hub for all things Snoop. It’s a place where fans can access Snoop’s YouTube videos, social media, webisodes, contests, listen to hit records, and more.
SnoopLion.com is focused around his new reggae persona and all things related to his Reincarnated film and album release, and also happens to show the well-rounded family guy that Snoop is. We feature everything from Reincarnated to the various community initiatives that have stemmed from the Lion himself.
Snoop Dogg’s world is more light-hearted, irreverent, and fun. Because Snoop Lion’s music is about peace, love, and unity, and it’s a serious musical undertaking, we thought it best to delineate the two personas through two separate web hubs, while maintaining that there is still a natural intersection between them.”
What are the features you’re most excited about?
“There are too many to just pinpoint one, but the social media integration available on the sites is a great feature. They allow us to build our social media footprint while creating a market for Snoop fans to enjoy. Fans are able to follow Snoop on his various platforms and stay connected with everything he has going on.
It’s important for us, with Snoop and all of our clients, to have social media orchestration put into place, where each social media profile cross promotes another. We know that people’s online surfing habits don’t necessarily include specific artist URLs. With this in mind, it’s always been important for us to look at a main website as a hub for all the different activity going on with each social media platform.
WordPress.com allows us to be fluid in our strategies and utilize the strengths of each social platform supported by this collection.”
How do you hope to connect and interact with fans?
“These sites are the one-stop shop for Snoop’s videos, music, merchandise, and lifestyle. Fans are able to get all their info from a direct source, and there is nothing better than that.
Social media sites are great for giving people real-time updates and sharing specific pieces of content. They’re not so great at providing a comprehensive overview of everything that an artist has going on.
This is especially true for clients with initiatives as wide-ranging as Snoop. Since Snoop is an international icon, it’s necessary that we find creative methods to engage his widely diverse fan base through different platforms. We use WordPress.com as the one spot where Snoop’s audience can come to find out all current information on him.”
We love the Snoop Lion album! What else is going on in the world of Snoop, and what should fans expect to see on these sites?
“We’ll be releasing the Reincarnated Photobook this fall, which features photos from Snoop’s trip to Jamaica, highlighting some of his most memorable experiences there. Keep an eye out to catch Snoop overseas, and don’t miss upcoming drops, music videos, and singles from the Reincarnated album.
We’re also excited to launch the Overstock.com commercial featuring Snoop Lion and his family. There will also be an accompanying music video that you should look forward to!”
Share your own musical journey with your fans
Inspired by Snoop? Launch a website for your own music or band at WordPress.com/music and customize it with various features, including audio players, a gig calendar, music and video embeds, and more.
- September 10, 2013
- Community
the lion roareth
LikeLike
This makes it all clear to me now. I wrote a post a while ago about Snoop Lion’s latest film/documentary, and that one post alone has been getting a considerable number of views daily. Interesting. I just figured there were a lot of people that loved Snoop’s work and smoking on the site, but it makes sense now.
LikeLike
It’s always great seeing musicians highlight their work online! I didn’t realize it was that prevalent until reading this post!
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Cashmere Agency and commented:
We’re excited about this blog post, featuring the online strategy that we employ daily at Cashmere Agency.
LikeLike
WordPress popularity becomes evident when celebs like Snoop & also people like us who are not so famous use it & see the value in it….. WP is awesome !!
LikeLike
Okay, so I really didn’t and still don’t know how to feel about the Dogg becoming Lion. So many questions but since his site is on WordPress I’ll check it out and maybe, just maybe, you’ll see a post about it on my blog… 😉
Look out for it…
LikeLike
In the online world, you can make whatever noise you want on the web, and share the music to the masses in a fully responsible/ professional way!
In the real world (especially densely populated places), it is still better to practice/ listen to loud music (such as drum) before it is too late!
LikeLike
I was a huge snoop dogg fan back in the day, not feeling the snoop lion thing tho! Shame as his first album is one of my all time favourites and he has collaborated with the best in the music business.
LikeLike
nice ! 🙂
LikeLike