3 Chart-Topping Lessons from “Weird Al”

It was great to see this morning that one of my personal heroes and role models, “Weird Al” Yankovic, officially has his first #1 album after 30 years in the music business.

“Mandatory Fun” is topping the Billboard Charts after Al’s #8songs8days campaign.

Of course I love “Word Crimes”

But my favorite is “Foil” because of the surprise mid-song twist:

The projections I had seen indicated that he would hit #1 if he sold 80,000 albums in the first week; he blew past that with 104,000.

What lessons can we take from this?

  1. There’s no substitute for great content. Al is a comedic genius, and he’s also very musically talented. If content isn’t worth sharing it won’t be shared.
  2. Giving away content is the key to economic success in today’s economy. The two videos embedded above have combined for 22 million views as of this writing. Some of them have had pre-roll ads (which is one way way of monetizing), but anyone could watch and listen for free. Four of the songs on “Mandatory Fun” aren’t offered as free videos, but eight are. Even though he gave away all this content, he sold more than $1 million worth of albums in the first week. Or, to put it more accurately, because he gave away all this content, he sold that much.
  3. Find like-minded collaborators and give them a stake in your success. As the New York Times reported, Al’s record label, RCA, didn’t provide any budget for creating his videos. So he struck up production partnerships with online sites. For “Foil” it was College Humor. Then he gave them the exclusive right to host his video on their YouTube channel. He got the production help and access to their existing audience. They got a lot of new traffic when Al’s video went viral, and when he was featured in traditional media outlets.

Those are three top lessons I see. What do you think?

What else can we learn from Weird Al?

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The Social Networking Imperative

At the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) meeting in Baltimore this morning I will be presenting on innovative uses of social media. The theme of the meeting is Embracing Change: Transforming OPOs for Future Success.

I hope I can help. Here are the slides from my presentation:

Weathering the Georgia Healthcare Landscape

The theme for this year’s Georgia Hospital Association is “Weathering the New Healthcare Landscape,” and I’m glad to be here in Greensboro at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation to talk about how the impact of social media in this new environment.

Just before my presentation, we’ll be hearing from Meg Fischer, who is the Director of Public Policy for GHA. The title of her talk is “The Affordable Care Act: The Seismic Shift in Healthcare and Its Aftershocks.” It will be interesting to hear her perspective, and I’ll be tweeting from the front lines.

Here are the slides from my presentation:

Here’s more information about the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media and Social Media Health Network.

I’m looking forward to a good discussion.

Celiac Chancellor

Last Saturday morning I had the pleasure of participating as a patient in the weekly Mayo Clinic Radio program. This edition was all about Celiac Disease, and the guest expert was Dr. Joseph Murray, a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist who also happens to be my doctor.

Listen to the archived segment here.

I come in at the 14:45 mark, but the whole thing is entertaining and informative.

Mayo Clinic is a leader in research and providing information to patients on Celiac Disease. One of our initiatives is the Celiac Disease Blog, which launched late last year.

Here is our Celiac Disease playlist from the Mayo Clinic YouTube channel:

What’s Next Big Thing in Health Care Social Media?

It’s an understandable question, and one I’m frequently asked. In fact, it came up again this morning in a phone conversation.

Those who ask it typically are looking for tips on the new, cool platform that everyone will be using next year, and that currently is relatively unknown or obscure to the broader population.

The answer that came to me is one that I think will become my new standard:

The next big thing in health care social media will be that social media in health care isn’t a big thing.

I’m not saying that social media won’t be important in health care: I think it will be just the opposite. Social media tools will be incorporated throughout health care, and will be vital elements in all of our communications.

But they won’t feel big because they’ll just be normal. They will have become accepted as a standard way of working. They’ll be as unremarkable as email is today.

That’s when social tools will have realized their enormous potential: when using them becomes standard operating procedure.

Interestingly, just a couple hours after the first conversation, I had a wide-ranging and stimulating discussion with a gentleman from Germany, Peter Carqueville.

Peter PhotoWe enjoyed our video discussion via Skype, and I reminisced about my college days in the early 1980s, when I had to wait in line on Sunday night for the one phone on our dorm floor, to make an expensive collect call. I talked about how amazing it is that today we can talk across seven time zones and an ocean, and that it’s free.

But Peter topped my story: while I looked back on what seemed to be scarcity of telecommunications access,  he had grown up behind the Iron Curtain in what was formerly East Germany, where most families didn’t even have phones.

The next big thing in health care social media will be when we come to take use of social tools for granted as we do unlimited cell phone minutes and text messaging — and free video calls via Skype and Goolge+ — today.