“U Can’t Touch” MC Hammer When it Comes to Social Media

“U Can’t Touch” MC Hammer When it Comes to Social Media

We are looking forward to attending the Gravity Summit today, where old-school rap artist MC Hammer is being awarded the Social Media Marketer of the Year Award presented by Jeremy Blacklow, managing editor of AccessHollywood.com. You might be wondering: how did the maven who brought us “U Can’t Touch This” and Hammer pants transform into a social media guru with more than two million followers on Twitter?

He claims that Silicon Valley technology has inspired him over the years to spread his messages globally and get an early jump on the Internet, social media platforms and techniques like using streaming video. So the question is for brands — are there any lessons to be learned from MC Hammer?

As Hammer pointed out at a recent presentation at Harvard, “Our DNA is made for us to communicate.” This can’t really be refuted: after all, aren’t we creatures who like to confide, discuss and converse on topics not only close to our heart but that pertain to the latest TV show, fashion trend or office gossip?

One unquestionable tactic we can all learn from MC Hammer is his perseverance. He has spent his time tweeting, creating YouTube videos, building his community and updating his blog in way that has not only kept him relevant but has also given him an ‘influencer’ status in the social media world and – more importantly – among his fan base. Hammer seized the opportunity to use social media to create deeper connections with fans and became a beacon for musicians looking to use social media to connect directly with their fan base. Furthermore, he’s used this opportunity to give back by co-founding a community around dance (DanceJam.com) which was invested in by local Bay Area tech influencer Michael Arrington.

In a recent interview in San Francisco, Hammer was quoted saying, “Anyone who’s not participating in social media, in the long run, is doing a disservice to their business.” We couldn’t agree with this more: social media is game-changing and provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand your brand from the perspective of the largest and most vocal focus group on Earth. It enables brands to stay relevant and fosters innovation by offering a more agile and immediate way to react to market opportunities and uncover market gaps.

I’m looking forward to attending the Gravity Summit and hearing what my favorite Hammer-pants wearing star has to say about becoming a social media hero. We will keep you posted on the day’s events live from the show on Twitter from @Visible_Tech, and if you have a question for our new-age social media hero just let us know! We’ll do our best to keep you updated – especially if we meet Hammer ourselves! Lastly, what do you think of @MCHammer receiving this award? Look forward to your thoughts.

Southwest Airlines Social Media Strategy

Southwest Airlines Social Media Strategy 

Southwest Airlines Communication Specialist Laurel Moffat spoke on the airline’s successful social media strategy at a January 25 Kansas City American Marketing Association lunch event. While the presentation was overly heavy on how many fans and followers Southwest Airlines has, underneath, there were many beneficial insights and lessons only a brand experienced in social media can provide. The great thing was Laurel’s social media lessons apply to smaller organizations as well:

Big or Small, “Listen and Personalize” Is Fundamental

Laurel’s recommendation was “listen first,” which is a fundamental lesson for any organization. Listening provides an understanding of content that’s meaningful and appropriate for your audiences. Once you get active, it’s important to personalize audience experiences. Some ways Southwest does this:

• Team members handling Facebook duties sign their names to their responses.
• Southwest tries to share “real” content on topics customers are thinking about relative to flying.
• It encourages localization, with 20 local station Facebook pages covering specific Southwest airport operations groups.

Social Media Takes People, but Not as Many as You Think

Southwest Airlines is HUGE online:

• 12 million monthly visits to its website
• 1 million Twitter followers
• 1.3 million Facebook likers
• 29,000 reviewers on its Travel Guide

So how many people does it take to handle that volume of activity?
Try 5.
Yup, 5 people are in the Southwest Airlines emerging media group. The Southwest Airlines presence is monitored 24/7, including hourly check-ins during normal sleeping hours, with 2 people typically trading off responsibilities on major outposts.
So yes, it takes people to keep a social media effort going. If 5 people can monitor and manage it for a multi-billion corporation though, your much smaller organization doesn’t need an army to accomplish its objectives.

There Are Huge Opportunities in a Collaborative Social Media Strategy

With all the content Southwest Airlines creates to keep its presence fresh, a collaborative approach is vital.  Some collaborative examples that serve as lessons for everyone else:

• There’s internal collaboration: marketing creates the feel for its social media channels, and the communications team (through its emerging media group) drives content. The legal and investor relations departments are also closely involved.
• All emerging media team employees complete customer service training to ensure they are well-prepared to address customer questions and issues directly and expeditiously.
• Southwest Airlines works with outside partners as well, including Kansas City-based VML and Buddy Media.
• Southwest reaches out specifically to influencers: travel bloggers, brand fanatics, avid travelers, and importantly, employees all contribute content.
• To increase broader employee involvement, Southwest organized an internal social media conference (BlogCon) in January 2011 to bring employee contributors into Dallas for overviews and training on social media and content creation (plus receiving Southwest Airlines-logoed Flip cameras). This is in addition to sponsoring a social media club within the company.

Oh, and About that Kevin Smith Deal

Without a doubt, the customer service and social media teams have to be linked. It can be very formal, but at a minimum, the communication channels and protocols need to be set. If nothing else, the Kevin Smith meltdown emphasized that important lesson. Laurel talked about the February 2010 situation in her presentation.
During Q&A, I asked about the degree of direct interaction between people monitoring social media channels and gate agents. In the Kevin Smith case, it seemed Smith was allowed to cool his heels for some time while tweeting with increasing fervor (and furor). Laurel said gate agents do get social media training and are taught that any customer incident can blow up dramatically through social media channels.

Even Veteran Players Don’t Know What Will Get Attention

Undisputed facts:

• Southwest Airlines has been in social media since 2006 when it launched its blog.
• It stepped up into Twitter and Facebook in 2007.
• Southwest Airlines has an award-winning, significant presence.

All true, but you want to know my favorite comment of the day from Laurel?
Southwest Airlines is surprised by what videos on its YouTube site get the most views. One example? Its engine cleaning video is right near the top. For anyone continually baffled by what social media content gets viewed and shared, it’s comforting to know even the big guys can be left guessing!

Social Media Doesn’t Fix Bad Brands, but It Sure Benefits Already Great Ones

More undisputed facts:

• Southwest Airlines is a strong brand.
• It got into social media before it had everything figured out (it didn’t have a formal policy until the past year).
• It’s had a few stumbles along the way, but it sees clear positives and high regard for its effort.

If not for Southwest being a strong brand already, getting into social media and having some stumbles could have been disastrous.
Lesson for everybody else: Fix your brand first, and then worry about fixing any inadequacies in your social media strategy.

Wrap-Up

If you were in Kansas City and didn’t make it out to this event, you should be kicking yourself. Thanks to Laurel and the Kansas City American Marketing Association for making this informative presentation happen!

SOCIAL MEDIA IS IMPORTANT

SOCIAL MEDIA IS IMPORTANT 

Political Campaigns & Fortune 500 Companies can no longer deny the
Power of Social Media.


We work with our clients to develop social media strategies relevant to their business.  We typically focus on strategies for building an audience relevant to the brand then develop strategies to guide the conversation of the audience to best benefit the brand.  There is no single solution across all brands.  A brand must consider who their audience is and what they are likely to respond to.  It is important that a brand not get so invested in a specific strategy but rather be prepared to change strategy based on the audience and consumer.


Social media platforms like Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, YouTube and even blogging are not a passing fad. They’re part of a sea change in the way businesses and people communicate.

Companies use social media to spread news, build brands, and keep clients and prospects informed about industry news, changes at the company, or other important updates. They not only get a company in front of prospects and clients. Social media builds brands.

Whilly Bermudez creates and leads powerful social media campaigns that will intelligently rocket your traffic, promote your brand and grow leads and sales with maximize ROI to give you a feeling of power and importance in the marketplace.

We offer account page creation as well as traffic campaigns that generate thousands of likes, fans, and followers. We can either manage your account or increase your fan base.

PAGE  CREATION

WE WILL CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT / PAGE IN ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM FOR $150 USD.

PAGE  MAINTENANCE

WE WILL MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT/S AND POST STATUS UPDATES AND TWEETS DAILY. WE WILL LAUNCH OUR CAMPAIGNS TO CONSTANLY INCREASE YOUR BASE OF FRIENDS, FANS, AND FOLLOWERS. THIS ALSO INCLUDES BASIC PROFILE MANAGEMENT.

OUR MAINTENANCE PACKAGES ARE A BASED ON A 90 DAY, 6 MONTH, and 12 MONTH AGREEMENT:

*90 DAY MAINTENANCE   $1,500 USD

*6 MONTHS OF MAINTENANCE    $2,490 USD

*12 MONTHS OF MAINTENANCE    $4,200 USD

BULK SERVICES

IF YOU JUST WANT TO TAKE YOUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY ADDING 10,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS OR PERHAPS YOU’RE READY FOR 100,000 NEW POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS TO GET AQUAINTED WITH YOUR BRAND THROUGH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM:

ADD 5,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS     Contact us for pricing

ADD 10,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS    Contact us for pricing

ADD 20,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS    Contact us for pricing

ADD 50,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS    Contact us for pricing

ADD 100,000 FANS / FOLLOWERS   Contact us for pricing

How do the 3 Florida Candidates for U.S. Senate measure up on their ‘Brand Visibility’?

Myself and my partners at howsociable.com decided to use sociability metrics to see where each of them stands. I believe that social media visibility is very important to the corporate world and Yes, politics too. We all know how social media played a huge role in the 2008 Presidential election.

I am fairly certain that Marco Rubio will be the next Senator out of Florida and it’s who I support, and here are the results.

Charlie Crist (I)              Score 378

Marco Rubio (R)             Score 320    

Kendrick Meek (D)         Score  222

*The governor’s score is slightly higher because being the leader of a large state produces a lot of press releases and news that will always end up on internet feeds. Yes, there is a small margin of error when a name can be mistakenly derived from another word. Example: ‘Creative Partners Group’ will attach to the word “creative” and cause greater results. It is safe to suggest that the more unique the name of the brand is, the more accurate the results.

What is a good score?  If you are a local brand operating a local business, maybe state wide – the score of 30 or higher is fairly good. Anything past 100 is really good and beyond that is excellent.

If you are a national or global brand you should have a score of 1,000 or higher. For example: ‘Walgreens’ has a current score of 1,064 while ‘Facebook’ has a score of 31,274.

Here are some others:

Race for Florida Governor

Rick Scott (R)    Score 160

Alex Sink (D)     Score 200

Need to improve your brands visibility? We can help.                               Contact us at www.WhillyBermudez.com

Effective Social Media Tools (Sites)

EFFECTIVE SOCIAL TOOLS 

There isn’t any low cost promotional technique today, except social media channels, to promote, market, and flourish business by attracting traffic and building awareness. Using all or most of these channels ensures readers and visitors.

Corporations, individuals, communities, and almost everyone exhibits and enhances their online presence through these tools.

1. Facebook – Of the 33 million users, almost 60% log on to the site daily and spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. Once an exclusive online portal for college kids, Facebook now signs up over 150,000 new subscribers per day, of which 41% are over 30 years old. www.Facebook.com  
2. Twitter- is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Currently there are 145 million users By March 2010, Twitter recorded over 70,000 registered applications, according to the company. In February 2010 Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day. In the first quarter of 2010, 4 billion tweets were posted.  www.Twitter.com
3. YouTube- is the world’s most popular video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. As of May 2010, 14 Billion videos have been viewed and 24 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the United States.  www.YouTube.com
4. Blogger- is Google’s free toll for creating blogs. Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number of unique visitors in 2007 www.Blogger.com
5. Digg - is a social news website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories. The website traffic ranked 113th by Alexa.com as of September 1, 2010.  www.Digg.com     
6. Flickr - is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. In September 2010, it reported that it was hosting more than 5 billion images.   www.Flickr.com
7. Wikipedia - is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 16 million articles (over 3.4 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. www.Wikipedia.com

Learn more at: www.WhillyBermudez.com