Build a Marketing Platform Like a Celebrity

Use social media to leverage your brand. Learn from the stars: MC Hammer, Kathy Ireland, Tim Ferriss, and Gary Vaynerchuk

By Dan Schawbel

Historically, marketing has been departmentalized in corporations and positioned as a college major. With the advent of social media and our current economic situation, marketing has become a topic that everyone should—and can—care about and have expertise in. Now anyone with an Internet connection and some ambition can develop their own marketing platform, which can be harnessed for both career and financial success.

The results of a recent study conducted on July 20 by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group showed that the most engaged brands on social media saw their revenue grow by 18%!

Your online "social graph," a term used by Facebook to describe your real-life relationships and how you're connected to everyone else, has become a channel by which business is conducted and jobs are distributed. It is an opportunity marketplace, where people come together and messages are streaming at the speed of light. Your mission, if you wish you accept it, is to build your network, so that it can support your business or personal objectives. In a world where everyone can build their own marketing platform, we are all free agents and our personal brands have become the only accepted currency.

How Celebrities Build Personal Brands To further examine the impact of social media on marketing, I had in-depth conversations with a few celebrities who have unearthed the potential of their own marketing platforms to achieve maximum success. Here's what I learned from them that can be helpful to you.

MC Hammer, a famed multiplatinum selling rapper, dancer, and entertainer turned preacher and now the co-founder of DanceJam.com and the executive producer and star of his own reality TV show, Hammertime, was an early adopter of social networks and is one of the more engaged participants, with more than 1.2 million followers. He believes that the appeal of social media is that it allows for immediate human interaction, feedback, and research.

"The distance and relationship between the creator of content and consumer has shortened," Hammer says. He makes the point that not everyone is cut out for the commitment of building a marketing platform of their own. Hammer has benefited from his personal commitment to using social media, such as his blog and Twitter feed, to connect with his fans. "My followers have a better understanding of my brand as a result of social media," Hammer explains. He instructs people that they need both quality and quantity in their social networks because it allows for more brand awareness, which ultimately increases the quality and quantity of your followers.

Kathy Ireland, whose name and appearance you might recall on the cover of the Sports Illustrated issues the 80s and 90s, now has her own enterpris, called Kathy Ireland Worldwide, and she recently published a book called Real Solutions for Busy Moms. This "model-turned-mogul," as Forbes calls her, has made her new home on Twitter. Kathy was reluctant to use Twitter at first, but with a push from her COO Stephen Roseberry, she started using the network to connect on a personal level, by answering health-related questions, giving inspirational advice, and talking openly about her family.

She quickly saw the impact her brand on Twitter had on her professional life. "Twitter has informed us of issues, unauthorized sales, media opportunities, and new exposure to people," explains Kathy. She has made the correlation between her activity on Twitter and sales and wholeheartedly believes that participation in social media cannot be avoided. "Even if you elect not to be involved in these media platforms, your absence is a statement and therefore a form of participation," she states. Kathy has profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, but spends most of her energy interacting on Twitter.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.