MC Hammer is the bees knees when it comes to social media. The 14th most influential Twitterer in the world, with over 1.5 million followers of his
@mchammer account, MC Hammer certainly wears the pants when it comes to tweeting.
Speaking to a packed Social Media Club lecture theatre at UTS in Sydney, MC Hammer was almost besieged by a sometimes unruly, and occasionally laugh out loud (you know who you are)
Twitterfall live stream.
Far
from your average social media lecture, the atmosphere increasingly hot
lecture theatre was electric with audience captivated by the great man.
Although for many, it was still an unhealthy obsession with his pants.
Although some were a little
too obsessed with the man, perhaps to the point of being distracted.
Transparency
commonly upheld as the currency of social media, and MC Hammer is no
exception. He was critical of organisations that do not want to be part
of social media because they are scared of it.
"If you are not connected, what are you hiding from as a brand." said Hammer "Transparency
is an asset, so don't run, engage", noting that if a company is too
scared to answer a question from it's customers, then consumers should
be asking what that company is trying to hide.
Engaging with
social media allows your business to go from a faceless company, to
being a company with people. Hammer gave said that bothDunkin Donuts and ComCast in the US were great examples of faceless companies softening their public image through a Twitter presence.
But transparency also requires authenticity, a point that the MC reiterated.
"Never let someone else tell your Story"
For
Hammer, Twitter holds the key to managing his personal and professional
brand, and at the heart of this is being authentic. He was critical of
people who use the medium simply to broadcast apre packaged message.
It's advice that Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull
recently heeded
after his appearance at the Media140 conference in Sydney last week
revealed his assistants were responsible for many of his tweets.
MC Hammer is a self confessed twitter addict, with screens and
smarphones set up around his home allowing him to be almost constantly
in touch with the stream. He even admitted to having a desktop in his
bathroom.
It
is through this constant connection that he can be "in the middle of
his information universe" and effectively manage his personal brand. With
the rise of "toxic agenda based news" Hammer noted that perception is
often more valuable than reality.
"(Twitter)
allows me to stay ahead of the story" said Hammer, telling the crowd
about a rumour that he had dropped his pants in Vegas. By responding
quickly to the rumour, via Twitter of course, he was able to kill the
story before it was even written.
Whilst it may be impossible to stop the negativity of the major news organisations, it can also come from the crowd at large. Miley
Cyrus quit Twitter because of it and Stephen Fry had a very public
showdown with negativity. However Hammer had some rather simple advice
to anyone bringing the negativity to your social media experience.
"Just block them, if they aren't adding anything to your experience and they are just being negative, just block them" he said.
