Category Archives: Business

How MC Hammer is using social media to monetize his brand

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MC Hammer at the 140 characters conference in NY talks about behaviour, & ups the value of the likes of Twitter for staying in the feedback loop, and monetizing his brand by staying in control of access:

MC Hammer: The behaviours have shifted right now. 140 characters 24 months ago was very trivial some of the conversations..why would you tweet this, why would you tweet that, all those things; and then they started to grasp the understanding of the business implications and how we could effect our customer relations, how we could effect mobilizing an audience – so studying the behaviour..so that’s what excites me right now.

Q: How are you using social media?

MC Hammer: Very strategically. I’m using it to shape behaviour, to stay in the feedback loop, to have a firm understanding of the totality of me as both humanising my brand as a person and the extended relationship between me and my audience…transparency is the key going forward. You as the brand control that access rather than a third person who monetizes seeing you where you are, sending their photographers, taking it and saying wow you are on TMZ.

See the full 15 minute conversation.

PS: Hammer says MySpace is now ‘old school’. He goes on to mention the value of the ‘total stream’ of tweets which give a picture of the business and the personal over many months. And references a recent lunch meeting with a guy from Salesforce.com and musician Neil Young to how to maximise the use of Twitter for artists.

His tip for interacting with people with a negative mindset on Twitter? Use the ‘block’ function. (He gets a round of applause fromthe audience when he says if he wants negativitity for his barnd or business he needs only turn on his TV).

Conversely he highlights people ‘doing good & doing well’ as an under-served market.

Passion vs position

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From my own experience this comment on Peter Winick’s blog ‘Thought Leadership Leverage’ about the value of committed people (‘Do you have the right strategy and the right people?‘) – over suitably qualified but less committed professionals – makes good sense:

It’s interesting that you have identified the wrong people as those who are committed to the job at hand even over having the right skill-set and experience. This too has been what I have seen. People who are in positions that can make things happen and who pay lip-service to getting the job done don’t only hinder/stop implementation, they harm the organization by creating cynicism and making the next strategy that comes along even harder to implement.

Often organisations don’t even realise this is going on. All too often people are more adept at retaining their position, first and foremost, than delivering the goods. So if you find yourself out in the cold remember to stay positive – success is the best antidote.