Last week MC Hammer made an appearance at Harvard for a Gravity Summit conference on social media marketing. That’s right, MC Hammer, performer of such hits as the grammatically incorrect “U Can’t Touch This,” the Addams Groove and “Pumps and a Bump” spoke at Harvard University about social media. MC Hammer has been one of social media’s most ardent celebrity spokesmen, having enthusiastically embraced it and utilizing it to his advantage. Ignite Social Media had their take on how MC Hammer went from caricature from human being using social media, but I thought I’d author up some lessons learned about social media via our parachute pants-adorning 90’s pop culture icon.

“Feel My Power!”

1. You’re never too old to dive into social media. I’ve heard a lot of older people gripe about how they don’t understand Facebook, Twitter, or [insert new popular social media site here], thus perpetuating the “lol old people don’t understand technology!” stereotype. MC Hammer is 47 years old and still manages to figure out this social media nonsense. You shouldn’t feel like you can’t grasp social media marketing just because your hair is too thin to pull off a respectable faux-hawk and you were alive during the Nixon administration — social media is beneficial for people of all ages, and as long as you study up and know what you’re doing, nobody will care that you eat dinner at 4 pm and fall asleep after Wheel of Fortune and a pre-bedtime Werther’s.

   

   They’re geriatrically delicious!

2. There’s an audience out there for you. MC Hammer has spent the last decade as a pop culture punchline, and yet he somehow managed to scrounge up nearly 1.5 million Twitter followers. He has a strong MySpace profile and is prolific on Facebook as well. For someone who faded from our memories in the late nineties until now, he’s got a pretty strong social media presence, which just goes to show you that there’s an audience out there for everyone. If you run a pen company and think you’re too boring to do social media marketing, think again; chances are there’s a way to reach your audience in a fun and innovative way, and there definitely are people out there who will find interest in what you do. Social media is just about finding them and starting up a discussion.
3. The greatest success comes from authenticity. I came across this blog post written by someone who ran into MC Hammer at a Twitter convention. She said Hammer “never uses a ghost for a personal brand.  His whole concept is to ‘remove the velvet rope.’ He doesn’t broadcast and he wants to engage the average person and get their feedback — about life in general, not just about specific projects.” The best social media accounts are the ones that are personable and feel authentic. Even a corporate account with a human voice and casual tone/writing style fares better than an account that’s completely restricted by legal parameters and a spokesperson with no personality.

   

   It’s in a fancy font, so you know it’s legit (hey heyyyy)
   

4. Social media is often about perception. Another gem from MC Hammer is that perception is oftentimes more important than reality. Francine from Stealthmode puts it best when she says, “Tweeting that you are getting drunk changes the perception of who you are [and could] take away the value of an endorsement.” Even though you want to seem authentic (see #3), you do have to be mindful of the persona you project. If your last four tweets are negative and you’ve posted a few negative notes and links on Facebook and MySpace, you might come across as a sourpuss. Likewise, if you’re a fairly straitlaced professional who posts multiple updates about staying out and getting sloshed, your followers (who could be business contacts and clients) may think you’re somewhat of a teetotaler. Even though they’re your accounts, you have to think about your messages and how they reflect back onto you. You may or may not care about how you project yourself, but either way it’s important to be mindful.
5. Social media gives you (some) control. From the Stealthmode post: “MC Hammer has watched himself in newspapers and magazines for twenty years. What he is finally able to do is define himself.  He says Twitter is exciting because it allows him to take back control of the perception of himself.” Maybe Hammer has been a punchline for the last 20 years, but now he can talk back and offer up quick messages and updates, and at the very least partially control what’s being said about him and how to handle mentions and news. Depending on the situation, you may want to sit silently, respond promptly, kill people with kindness or stand up for yourself, but in each scenario you’re at least empowered enough through social media to have that choice and exert some control over your brand and on how you can manage your reputation.

   

   Clearly a man who’s in control

6. It requires some dedication. Lots of people set up accounts and either put in a half-ass effort, have ghost users, or just spam the hell out of the site because they either don’t know how it works or because they’re self-absorbed dumb asses who try to make everything about themselves. On a casual level social media is fun, but if you want to use it for marketing purposes, it requires dedication, analysis and considerable effort. You have to know how each site works and how to get the most out of it and its users without seeming vapid or clueless. MC Hammer sees the marketing potential with social media and has embraced it wholeheartedly, saying ““Social media is all about visibility and awareness. It’s a great way to add value to my brand.’’
7. It’s permanent, bitches. Keeping with the “perception” theme (see #4) is a friendly reminder that your messaging is permanent. You could tweet something dumb and delete it, but it’s still been broadcast to your followers and can show up in searches. Your content can still appear in cached versions of the website, and people can take screenshots and remind you of your outbursts or momentary lapses of stupidity. I bet MC Hammer wishes he could take back the less storied parts of his career, but there’s not much he can do about the past — he’s gotta live with his poor money management decisions and his questionable fashion sense, and every so often his prior embarrassments likely come back to haunt him. Keep that in mind the next time you do something stupid online.

   

   Not the best look…

8. It’s 2 legit 2 quit (sorry, couldn’t help it). Much like MC Hammer, you shouldn’t dismiss social media as just a fad. In the past 20 years Hammer has been through a career high and platinum sales to bankruptcy, image and genre transformations, a TV movie, and a reality show. He’s stuck around for the better part of two decades and is still kickin’ it like it was 1990. Likewise, I don’t think of social media as a passing fad; it’s just a new style of communication and marketing. As Hammer puts it, “There was socializing before there was a platform. Social groups are just an extrapolation of life into the digital world.” Social media has always existed in some rudimentary form, and it will continue to exist and evolve. You might as well be a part of the conversation now and evolve as social media evolves; if you sit idly on the sidelines, you run the risk of getting left out of the discussion altogether.

What other lessons can you derive about social media by way of MC Hammer…or would you rather I follow up with a companion piece titled “7 Reasons Why Linkbait is Nice, Nice Baby and parallel it to Vanilla Ice’s career?

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