Matt And Kim Play Secret Santa For Fans plus Ideas For Making The Most Of The Holidays

Matt And Kim are responding to the Christmas season with a Secret Santa Contest for their fans. It's a bit of a variation and a reminder that you can take something that many have enjoyed or wish they'd gotten to enjoy and use it as seasonal marketing promotion. You can find other ways to celebrate or even stage your own anti-celebration if you wish. There are many possibilities so I'm including a selection of past Hypebot coverage with examples of making the most of a time that takes on different meanings for different musicians and their fans.

Matt And Kim Play Secret Santa

Matt And Kim are holding a Secret Santa Contest. It plays off the idea of Secret Santa where everyone in a particular group gets a name and secretly provides a gift for that present.

Matt And Kim are asking fans to "make a bad ass Xmas list" with stuff you really want, send it to them by email or snail mail ("your list could end up on our fridge!!") and they will pick three winners. Each winner will get an item from their list plus a "special holiday package that we have personally put together."

And, at the end of the announcement, they direct fans to their webstore where they'll be able to get various items that would make great gifts from the evergreen t-shirt to "new Hoodies with speakers in the hood" to autographed vinyl or CDs with a personalized touch including the name of the recipient.

Christmas Music and Events

Last month Bob Baker encouraged Hypebot readers to get ready for the 6 most profitable weeks of the year. Advanced planning is key for the kind of ideas Baker recommends such as recording and releasing a new holiday song or finding a local venue or retail store setting for a special event.

And if you've previously released Christmas music it's time to bring it back out. Or you can reissue it as one of those new-fangled apps like Skype's Facebook App that included music from Alice Cooper, Boys II Men and Scala.

Or consider an even newer-fangled option such as a Spotify playlist of your favorite Christmas tunes to share with your fans.

Music Merch Makes Great Gifts

Merch and deluxe editions can be Christmas-themed or not. In fact, unthemed merch tie in well since such gifts can then be worn or enjoyed year round. Matt and Kim adapted regular merch to the season by taking the time to add a personalized signature based on the buyer's request.

Go Against The Tide

You can push things to the limit while celebrating the more surreal possibilities for the season as did Flaming Lips with their Silver Trembling Fetus tree ornament.

Or you can take the Slayer approach and shake things up as they did with their Slayer Christmas Lights Lightorama 2009.

What About Gifts For Musicians?

Though slightly dated, Bruce Houghton's "7 Christmas Gifts For Every Musician On Your List" advocates some educational gifts for artists because if you:

Give a musician a fish; you have fed him for today.

Teach a musician to fish; and you've fed him for a lifetime.

On that note, I'm fishing for response and would love to hear your creative ideas for making the most of the season.

[Thumbnail image courtesy Hans Splinter.]

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.