The BlogFather Trilogy - Skepta

In my last little clutterance I wrote about how companies could learn a thing or two about how to implement a social media campaign from the boys at Umbro.  This weeks pun footballing title was Household Footballers by the way – quality.  However, I won’t be assessing them again, we all know how highly they're rated.  This week I will start my blog trilogy.  The three piece article will shed light on how Twitter, and social media can help an individual, whether already a celebrity, or someone just trying to get their name out there. The first of the trilogy, which I have aptly called "The BlogFather Trilogy" is about UK Grime artist, Skepta.

I previously mentioned Skepta in: Women in Hip Hop and briefly brushed over how social media had helped him.  For this clutterance however, it's the perfect launchpad for displaying my argument. 

Skepta, is accredited as saying that he wants to make Grime 'mainstream' in the UK, Europe and the United States.  I could go on in great detail about his career and who he has teamed up with at Boy Better Know, but to find all that out just click here: Skepta Wiki!.  What I am interested in is how Twitter has helped him, massively.

If you have a product, then anyone with a sense of brand management, or an awareness of the best way to gain publicity is to be endorsed by a celebrity.  A brilliant example of this is Sharpies, the pen manufacturer who somehow managed to get endorsement from David Beckham - increasing their sales by approximately 210% in the first two years of advertising.  Social media, and once again particularly Twitter is giving opportunity to people to gain celebrity 'endorsement' without asking for it.  If a powerful tweeter, i.e someone with a huge following releases a 'liking' for something, literally millions of people are exposed to a peer recommendation of the highest order.  For instance, if your favourite writer is on Twitter and you read all their novels, or newspaper columns, or magazine articles - a man like Charlie Brooker for instance - says he finds something funny or a brilliant read, chances are most, if not all of his followers will read/watch or even buy said content.  I myself do just that.  In the case of Skepta, he found himself in the middle of a cyclone of recommendation and celebrity endorsement. 

The other points within this cyclone? Puff Daddy and over 550,000 Grime fans on Twitter.

Essentially what happened was that P. Diddy - the father of all puff - Tweeted that he liked and respected the UK grime sound.  Upon reading this, something like 10,000 people retweeted the update.  The next tweet proclaimed that he wanted to make a grime track and asked his UK followers for their suggestions.  With this, Puff Diddly was told by approximately 30,000 people that the man for the job would be Skepta.  From there, Diddykins sent a little 'hello, im Mr Puffy Diddles, we should hook up" tweet to Skepta, who responded with a huuuuge "YES" and within a month the Hello Good Morning Grime Remix was created.

Since then, nobody could argue that they haven't heard more and more of Skepta and boy better know on mainstream radio, and his name has certainly been much much more recognisable.  Through Twitter, and it's capacity to create recommendations, access to celebrities like never before, and a clear picture of what's hot and what's not, Skepta was thrown into new heights merely through a little 140 character update, and this boy better know that he  has a lot to thank his fans for.