Last night, the world’s largest social media club (yes it is official) was held at one of Sydney’s leading universities, UTS. The special guest? One Mr @MCHammer. His presence in itself was pretty amazing, considering the fact that it appears his sole appearance was basically to evangelise Social Media to Australian business. To have Australians so excited and interested in social media is great for the industry and hopefully this exposure will give it the respect that it deserves. Many of my acquaintances that did not believe in social media before are now at least asking questions due to this event.

So what did he tell us to do?

Good question. In essence he didn’t really reveal anything ground breaking in terms of managing a social media account/campaign. He was preaching points and ideas that everyone in social media is/should already be doing:

• Staying ahead of the story with continual monitoring of conversations.
• He is a self tweeter – no assistance or AutoDMs.
• He adds value to his network and his community.
• He is completely transparent online.
• He believes and respects the power of social media and how it has evolved his brand.

So where was the benefit?

I firmly believe that the real benefit of SMCSYD last night was not listening to how MC Hammer uses Twitter in a university lecture hall. In effect he spent the night preaching to the converted, talking to social media experts about how to use social media. What he did have though were some interesting thoughts and insights about its future, which got some applause from the audience.

The benefit of last night came from the awareness Hammer brought to Australian business people about social media. Here is a man that was incredibly famous, incredibly popular and incredibly talented (the dance was genius – you can’t deny it), who then preceded to disappear and bankrupt himself a few years later. From that low point in his life he came back and re-built his brand from the ground up (who can say they were a minister -> rapper -> broke -> minister -> social media expert) and regain his respect and reputation.

He is the perfect case study for proving the value of social media and what it can do for both a person and a brand.

I am sure all the social media agencies around Sydney (whether big or small) in the next few months will notice that there will be an increase in both interest (and hopefully campaign budgets/sign offs) that will help make Australia the number one place for Social Media champions.

And that is probably the greatest benefit of all.