M. C. Hammer has rebuilt his personal empire through the utilization of social media,
especially Twitter, 20 years after he captivated the world with his memorable dance
moves and signature parachute pants. Hammer held a business audience spellbound
as he detailed how he got in front of the social media phenomenon now known as
Twitter and used it to ink major business deals. He is now one of the most
prolific Tweeters in the world with a staggering following of 1.5 million
people.
So proficient is Hammer at social media that he’s been
invited to speak at Harvard Business School and Stanford on more than one occasion and will
speak at Stanford twice more before the year is out. Hammer is one of the few who has
been able to graduate from entertainer to being regarded as a
serious businessman.
“There is a huge business out there and I’m in that
business. Right now, I pick and choose and I’m having a great time with it. I
follow 30,000 [people while] sitting on the beach in Hawaii with 20 or 30 of the finest
minds of Silicon Valley. We’re like young kids, we sit with our legs crossed in
the sand and we spend 30 minutes in this group — and this person is the founder
of Digg and this person is the founder of this social media company,” Hammer
says, explaining how he was able to discern and forecast the latest trends in
Internet technology. “I found that sitting in groups and exchanging information
and going from person to person — there are great nuggets of information out
there [for me] and my 31,000 people that I follow right now. In my house I have six
screens running all the time, grabbing all this information really works for
me.”
Hammer has been able to successfully sculpt and regenerate his image which had been pummeled after his embryonic music empire
collapsed after a few hit albums.
“I was able to deal
away with non-truths. So if you are to take away [with you] anything that I say today — perception has trumped reality. The value of perception is more than the value
of reality. It’s very important for you to understand that. I was able to make
sure that the perception of who I am was always monitored and I’m always in the
loop. And it didn’t take long for people to realize that I wasn’t just the guy
in … parachute pants who went side-to-side. That was a serious
hurdle and it took a few serious deals through social media
before they realized that.”
The man best known for his hits “U Can’t Touch This” and “Too
Legit to Quit” rapt and stunned audience when he declared that social media is causing, and will continue to cause profound
disruptions to the advertising, PR, marketing, media and Hollywood industries.
Social media enabled Hammer to ascend the financial mountain again after his
meteoric rise and spectacular fall
Hammer’s presentation exemplified the same business savvy that got him a lucrative music label contract back in 1989. “How do you monetize social
media. You’re going to see that done pretty quickly. It’s amazing — the fertile
ground happening around social media [and] the creation of very vibrant applications
“It’s very exciting. It’s almost like the gold-rush days,” he says. – terry
shropshire
