MC Hammer: Rap artist turned social media ’super geek’
By Christina
Hernandez<http://www.smartplanet.com/search/?q=Christina+Hernandez>|
Mar 1, 2010 |
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Comment<http://www.smartplanet.com/people/blog/pure-genius/mc-hammer-rap-artist-turned-social-media-super-geek/2297/#comments>
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<http://i.bnet.com/blogs/mc-hammer-2.jpg>*MC Hammer*<http://mchammer.com/>,
known for his Grammy-winning music, has spent the past decade reinventing
himself as a *social media
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media>*mogul. Hammer is the
co-founder of the website
*DanceJam* <http://dancejam.com/> and has spoken about social media at
conferences including the *Intel Capital CEO
Summit<http://www.intel.com/capital/entrepreneur/ceosummit.htm>
.*
Last week, as the opening keynote speaker at the* Wharton Business
Technology Conference <http://2010.whartonbiztech.com/>* in Philadelphia,
Hammer advocated that businesses embrace social media — just as much as he
has. “I love technology,” he said. “I’m a proud geek. I wear the badge with
honor. I’m a super geek.”
An avid *Twitter <http://twitter.com/MCHammer>* user with more than 1.8
million followers, Hammer described microblogging as one of the most
important tools in social media — and a boon for businesses. “You have to
help [your companies] get past old habits,” he told an audience of
businesspeople and students. “Social [media] is just what it is. It’s simply
a means to engage… The behavior is as old as the cave man. You don’t have to
fear it.”
Hammer has tweeted about everything from his breakfast to his keynote
address. “My [Twitter] feed is an ongoing conversation,” he said. “I’m
creating and expanding and humanizing my brand.” When he wants to grow his
business, he’ll plant the seed on Twitter. When he’s looking for commentary
on an idea, it too is posted on his Twitter feed. “You can mobilize a
community,” Hammer said, ”and you get that feedback.”
What turned Hammer into such a social media evangelist? In the early 1990s,
he grew frustrated that just a couple of channels controlled his
music. ”Eight people can say the world can’t see my art,” he said. “I don’t
like monopolies to stop my art from being seen. That’s what started it for
me. It was pure business.”
Now, many other businesses have hopped on the social media bandwagon,
shortening the distance between their product’s creation and its
distribution.
*Pepsi<http://www.youtube.com/pepsi?utm_source=pepsi&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=panel&utm_campaign=refresh>
* and *Chase
Bank<http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving?v=app_162065369655>
*, Hammer said, are examples of big companies moving money out of
traditional media and into social media. “It’s the tip of the iceberg,” he
said. Companies that don’t think they have to adapt to the new social media
world, Hammer said, are “asleep at the wheel.”
Businesses shouldn’t be worried that a social media presence will harm their
company’s public perception, he added. “Your lack of transparency can only
hurt you in the long run,” he said. People will talk about your product “in
places where it never goes away,” Hammer said, so the best thing for a
business is to make itself part of the conversation.
As for the future of social media, Hammer named *Hulu <http://www.hulu.com/>
* and the *The* *Huffington Post* <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/> as
projects he admires. He added: ”I see the *iPad <http://www.apple.com/ipad/>
* as the fourth window. You’re walking around with a 9-inch television in
your hand.” And he thinks Twitter could have broader reaches for business,
making it a place where you don’t just read about an upcoming *Rolling
Stones <http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php> *concert, but where you can
also buy tickets. “This microblogging is serious business,” he said. “We’re
only scratching the surface.”
In an interview after his talk, Hammer also mentioned his interest in the
growing field of *citizen
journalism<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism>
*. He said: “There are literally hundreds of thousands of good stories not
being told on a daily basis. A lot of those stories are being told right
here online by the Twitterverse, by *Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/>*users, by different communities. The
opportunity to aggregate or create a
destination where stories get told and indexed locally is a great
opportunity.”
In all, Hammer said he’s a fan of all the available social media websites.
“You adapt them to your character, to your content, to your likes and
dislikes,” he said. ”The ones that you are less comfortable in, you can
still update through your other platforms.”
Hammer, who faced
*bankruptcy<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n23_v89/ai_18201286/?tag=rbxcra.2.a.11>
* in 1996, offered this piece of advice for anyone seeking to reinvent
themselves and their business: ”Study and research where they want to go, so
that they have all the information of the landscape. If they’re in one space
and they’re going to another space and they’re reinventing themselves, they
have to make sure they know what they want and all of the factors in the new
space, the new you, the new business.”
*Image: Brian Solis/Flickr <http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/>*
--
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