Rihanna’s UNLOCKED Facebook App Builds To New Release “Talk That Talk”

Rihanna's upcoming release of the album "Talk That Talk" is being supported by a Facebook app called "UNLOCKED". The app requires users to conduct "Missions" to unlock material related to the album that is then available more widely. For example, "The Navy" unlocked the 8th mission triggering the premier of a video that should be fairly controversial, "We Found Love".

Rihanna – We Found Love ft. Calvin Harris

The Rihanna: UNLOCKED Facebook app is designed to support the November 21st release of her latest album, "Talk That Talk" on Def Jam.

The app features a graphic of an "R" cut up into 13 Missions many of which focus on the single "We Found Love". For example, to unlock the lyrics for "We Found Love", the Mission required submission of fake lyrics. When they received enough, the lyrics sheet was then posted on Facebook.

The video for "We Found Love", shown above, was unlocked by The Navy which I assume is the Rihanna Navy, a small group of hardcore fans with a Twitter account. That bit is somewhat confusing and I don't know what they actually did but you get the basic idea.

There are five more Missions which are revealed individually so it's unclear what's ahead. But it strikes me as a fun way for fans to get involved with the process of releasing teasers and content and it's certainly gotten media response at each stage of the process.

Mashable writer Zachary Sniderman claims a significant increase in Rihanna's social media following due to the campaign. However, it's unclear where he got the figures. It's also unclear how much of that increase is actually due to UNLOCKED and how much due to fans getting excited about a new album release that inspires them to follow on Twitter and like on Facebook.

The video, "We Found Love", is pretty strong and will be controversial in a different way than "Man Down", though both seem to refer to Chris Brown. In "Man Down", Rihanna's character in the video takes violent revenge. In "We Found Love", Rihanna's character parties quite a bit with visible drug consumption. Looks like a winning campaign to me.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He maintains a business writing hub at Flux Research and also blogs at This Business of Blogging. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.