Figuring out starting up

To be more specific, this post will explore 4 things your social media voice can learn from good raps. That means raps that only talks about fame, money and specific female body parts will not be considered. Seeing that good raps usually are not mainstream music, I’ll load up this post with many Youtube clips on raps so you’ll understand what I’m blabbing about. Due to the length of my entire blabbing, I’m cutting this into two parts, with 2 learning points per post.

Come on and join me as I bring you through this musical journey! *tap dances around the room* lol

Authenticity

In this song, Yoon Mi Rae sings about the discrimination and insecurities she faced in her life prior to becoming a famous singer due of her father’s race (her mum’s Korean while her dad’s black). The song also brings out encouragements to listeners to ‘hold on and love yourself’. Btw, Mi Rae is one of the best in her field in Korean hip hop, highly respected by mainstream Korean music as well.

Similarly, ‘Believe’ by Epik High is a song that talks about the struggles Epik High faced with censorship and other hardships before they got recognised in a relatively conserved Korea when they debuted. This song, although in Korean and I’m unable to find subtitles for it, mainly has the gist of spreading the message, “if I can do it, so can you”.

Both songs talk about their journeys of entering the industry and add in some form of encouragements to their listeners, but they presented their songs with such authenticity that it feels weird for anyone else to sing their songs. I mean, I can pick any song off the pop songs chart and sing it like I wrote it, but the same cannot be done for these two songs.

Food for Thought
Can someone else use your social media voice as though as they owned it? If they can, you’re not bringing enough of yourself onto the table. Think Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Both of them are university drop-outs and started the company from home, but these two names invoke different imagery in your mind. I believe that everyone and every successful company is unique (if your company is not unique, you’ll probably be replaced pretty soon), so bring out your personality to your social media platforms!

Style of delivery
You have your unique story to tell, how should you tell it?

Both Kero One’s ‘Missing you’ and Eminem’s ‘You’re never over’ talk, or rather sing, about their loss of a loved one. But as you can hear, their delivery is complete opposite of each other. Eminem’s style is rougher, vulgar while Kero One’s style is more classy and mild. This doesn’t mean that one style can deliver better than the other or that one style is more supreme than the other. (Although if you were to count views, Eminem beats Kero One hands down, but hey, Kero One is not signed. )

Food for Thought
What is your brand personality? Corporate speak does not apply to all kinds of businesses, so figure out if you’re going to be a pirate, girl-next-door, nerd or that cool kid and talk like that personality of your choice. Make sure you appear at the correct social media platforms too. If you’re going with the cool kid personality, I don’t think you’ll fit in well with LinkedIn. You see, social media tools are like different social settings.

For example, LinkedIn is a professional site while Facebook is a casual informal site. So for each tool, a company needs to be able to present itself appropriately while maintaining consistency in its corporate image.

Part 2 will be up in a couple of days! Let me know what you think about this post in the comments below!