Influencers: Shane Carwin

MindoMondo’s series “Influencers” focuses on people across different industries and trades that have created and continually nurture a healthy fan following. From business leaders to entertainers, this series will seek to shed light on how these personalities connect with their audiences. Don’t miss our previous interview of the series with Ami James, of “Miami Ink” fame.

Unless you follow the sport of MMA, you probably haven’t heard much about Shane Carwin, a professional fighter who has had an accelerated career, landing in the UFC in 2008, and earlier this year attained the UFC Interim Heavyweight title.

If you do follow this sport, you know that he has never lost (as you can see in his fight record), that none of his fights have gone past the first round, and that this Saturday, June 3rd, Shane will compete for the UFC Undisputed Heavyweight Title against wrestling behemoth turned fighter and current Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lesnar. Below is the promo for this event.

Shane’s popularity and fan base has catapulted past that of hundreds of other Mixed Martial Artists in only two short years, not by doing anything crazy or controversial, but by increasing his accessibility to his fans through Social Media. As a matter of fact, this very interview was requested and granted through his official Twitter account, as well as his online fan community.

MindoMondo had a chance to ask him a few questions about being an influencer towards his growing fan base. Read below for Shane’s insights.

Mindomondo (MM): Hi Shane, thanks again for letting us hear more from you as an influencer in the MMA fan community. Most people know you from being a fighter in the UFC’s Heavyweight division, and that your popularity exploded right after defeating Gabriel Gonzaga by Knockout. More recently you crowned yourself as the UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion upon defeating Frank Mir. When and how did you notice that people started to take note of your presence, and listening to what you have to say?

Shane Carwin (SC): I think MMA fighters in general are used to being able to connect with fans, for me it was just a matter of finding ways to do that. Once I began connecting with fans they were responsive.

MM: We see that, but you’re clearly one of the very few personalities in your field that are taking advantage of direct communication with your fans through social media, which leads me to think you’re very comfortable having dialog through these means. Why do you think other fighters are hesitant to take on this mindset?

SC: Honestly I think they just do not know. I found a new management firm over a year ago and they were keen on “building marketing platforms” that give me the ability to interact. Before that I had a Myspace page that I rarely looked at and I owned a URL and that was it. Social Media is something that Jason Genet has been pushing since we engaged with him. He is actually coming here to Colorado to teach me more and we are launching a SMS based communication tool soon. They are the best firm out there for promoting brands and fighters.

MM: Are there any examples you can think of how you’ve benefitted from opening yourself up and sharing about your life with fans?

SC: I think my Malibu Boat deal began with me tweeting about what boats are out there and one thing lead to another and I was endorsed by Malibu Boats. I have meet a lot of great people fans, sponsors and even Brock’s fans.

MM: In this competitive world of media, some figures have thrown away authenticity in favor of faking it to make themselves more likable. What do you do to keep things as real as possible when you’re communicating with your fans?

SC: I try to add humor and let them into my life. I get into details on my website’s blog and often answer most messages sent, and do my best to be social with my fans. It is hard to fake your social involvement and fans can see through it if you are not into dealing with them.

It is likely worse to have a Social Media platform and not respond than to not have one at all. A lot of people get into Social Media because it is a buzz word and they feel they must do what everyone else is doing. They are missing the social aspect. That is what the net and Social Media are doing, they are bringing like-minded people together on platforms that make it easy to share your story.

MM: Absolutely. Yet one of the inherent perils of exposing yourself this way is being a magnet for negative comments. How do you handle this type of feedback? Do you side on ignoring it, or on responding openly as well?

SC: I usually respond to negative comments with some humor, and if it continues I will just block them or put them on ignore. I never fight with them, I expect to not be liked by all.

The hardest part of being public is that the haters never really understand boundaries. Insult me all you want, I laugh at most of the comments and use the best insults for my manager, but don’t go after my family. My wife had to delete her account on MySpace due to a lot of threats.

MM: That stinks!! Well, some in this field open up just to try to make a quick buck. They’ve often gotten behind brands or messages just for the money, even though they might not support them 100%. Where do you draw the line?

SC: I try to support things I believe in. After my Gonzaga fight I was offered a lucrative deal with a Nutraceutical but passed because I would not use the products. I try to support my sponsors and those that support me with whatever influence I have, these people allow me to be the athlete I am so I owe them my gratitude.

I have been called to promotional at times, especially around fight times but that is usually when new sponsors arrive. We definitely sell the fact that we have the ability to easily socially connect with fans but you wont see any tweets about Extenze coming from me anytime soon.

MM: All right Shane, enough from us. Thanks for the interview, and best of luck on your fight this Saturday!

SC: Thanks.

Popularity: 75%

Creating Against the Odds

This is a shout-out to my friend Richard Clabaugh and an affirmation to the rest of us who dare to create just for the sake of creation.   The occasion is a screening I attended Saturday night.  First though, let me provide a little back-story…

Richard Clabaugh (Rick to me) is a friend dating back to when I was just starting in the business.   To those observing from the outside, it would have appeared that Rick had already “made it” as an accomplished and respected TV-news photographer.   In reality, Rick was an aspiring filmmaker with goals far beyond the daily news grind.  So, it came as little surprise when, one day, he announced he was quitting his job and placing all bets on a move to L.A..    Fortunately, the gamble paid off.   A formula of talent and tenacity led to a career as Director of Photography on some major features (Phantoms with Peter O’Toole, The Prophecy with Christopher Walken).    In subsequent years, Rick’s Hollywood credentials had landed him a spot at North Carolina School of the Arts, teaching the next crop of aspiring filmmakers.

Happy-enough ending.  But this is a filmmaker’s story.  Which means there has to be an even happier sequel:  Rick Strikes Again!

About a year and a half ago, Rick and I reconnected during one of his visits back home.    After catching up, he disclosed he’d gone and done something very Rick-like.  Weary of simply sitting back and watching his students make films, he’d quit his safe, comfortable teaching job and, once again, placed all bets on something crazy and unknown: an independent feature.

Those of you who know anything about independent films know this is an endeavor that makes the Sisyphus uphill-boulder-push look like a beginner’s level outing on the Wii station.

Rick explained the new project. “Eyeborgs” was not going to be an art house indie, this was going to a near-future sci-fi action flick; a popcorn movie meant to be entertaining and, in the tradition of good science fiction, slightly allegorical and, maybe, just a little bit thought provoking.

I’ve got to admit, the early sequences he screened for me on his laptop were a little rough.   Yes, I could look beyond animatics and placeholders.  Still, knowing that Rick’s vision was completely reliant on CG characters (killer spy-camera robots) that were yet to be created, I worried for him. Along with the enthusiasm for the creative, you could also see the stress of the gamble.    I wished him only the best as we went our separate ways, fearing he was closer to the brink of potential ruin than full funding and distribution.

Which brings us back to Saturday night. Rick and his wife Fran (co-writer and editor on the film) had a finished film in hand, one that had already played to enthusiastic audiences at several festivals!  Now it was time for a hometown viewing at the Beach Theater (owned by, Mike France, another local-made-good with impressive IMDB credentials of his own).  Proceeds went to All Children’s Hospital.  Thrills went to us all as Rick and Fran’s vision came to life on the big screen.  What I saw looked far larger and more lavishly budgeted than any indie I could recall seeing.   I have no idea what it really cost, and I didn’t press Rick on the point.  What I do know is the end result delivered a full plate of suspense, tension and good old-fashioned action.   Character development?  This was a killer robot movie.  Please!   The film delivered in every way a movie in its genre should deliver (editing kudos to Fran Clabaugh)! As for the part about making you think… I’ll just say I have a new, heightened awareness of all the surveillance cameras recording our every public moment (benignly, I hope).

Earlier, I promised a happy ending and, here it is:  through sheer perseverance and vision, Rick’s team landed a recognized character actor (Danny Trejo, one of those “faces you’ve seen before” from Spy Kids and countless other films).

Actor Danny Trejo

Having “a name” helped secure additional funding and distribution.   Sure, it’s just to DVD (at least for now), but that’s enough to pay some bills, validate the gamble, and prove that, sometimes, it’s the craziest ideas that are the ones worth having and pursuing – taking the illogical to its logical and very rewarding end.

Popularity: 11%

Tumblr Trial

Gary wrote about forced adoption about a week ago. This post isn’t going to be about that, but it is about adoption. I just like referencing Gary because it’s fun.

My father is an early adopter. Like, he was the first one on the block to get a DVD player, the first one on the block to get a Blu-ray player, the only one on the block to get a Laserdisc player (the precursor to DVDs in case you didn’t know)…so, naturally, that pushed me in the opposite direction and I rebelled and became somewhat ~retro~. I didn’t buy a mobile phone for many years, I didn’t join facebook until the last minute and I avoided MySpace altogether, but lately as life takes me more onto the web, there are some cool social media platforms that catch my interest right away. One of those things was Twitter and the next is Tumblr.

My Tumblr account is only a few hours old, and I’m still futzing about with the format, layout and profile, but it really is quite magical. It’s blogging, simplified. As I wrote in my first post here, I like things that are pretty and brief, and I don’t know if it’s the nature of Tumblr itself or the tumble blogs that I follow, but that pretty much surmises the breadth of Tumblr: longer and more visually stunning than a tweet, shorter than a full-length article.

Oh, and the ease of it, Tumblr let’s you put a link into your toolbar so that whenever you’re searching the web and see something cool that you want to post, you just click on the link in your toolbar and BAM! up comes a window that takes you to the next couple of steps for re-blogging on your site without making you leave the page. And it’s just as easy to re-blog content that you find on someone else’s account (which it automatically credits) to your tumblelog, creating your own hodgepodge quilt of multi-media finds.

One of my favorite features (so far) is that, like Twitter, you can follow other people’s Tumblr accounts to see the latest links, audio and video, all in your dashboard. So when I log in for the day, I get a constant stream of all the awesome flotsam and jetsam floating around the Internet in one place, and from people whose taste matches my own.

There is still more exploring to be done (so far, I only recommend it for personal use), and… who knows? This may be like the great FAO Schwartz fiasco of the early 90’s, where I begged and finally procured an interactive drawing toy from the famed toy company, only to become bored with it in five minutes and never play with it again. Come to think of it, y’know…perhaps that’s what put me off early adoption in the first place…

Popularity: 13%

Power On!

It always amazes me.  There’s the world we all think we know, and then there’s the hidden layer, full of surprising revelations we’re simply not privy to in our daily myopia.   I’m thinking specifically of Vology.

What does Vology actually do?  Well, I had the pleasure of working with the Vology team a few weeks back, creating an inside peak at their facilities.   By clicking on this virtual tour, you’ll learn a lot about Vology in little time (plus, you’ll enjoy some pretty cool visuals thanks to the work of Mindclay photographer Horse Hardesty).

Short story:  Vology is home to one of the nation’s largest inventories of new and pre-owned networking and telecommunications equipment.

If this isn’t your world, then just think about what your IT department is up against when trying to transition to a new data system.  Network hardware costs can be a considerable chunk of change for any company.  However, because Vology not only sells new systems, but also reconditions and reconfigures existing equipment, suddenly, top-of-the-line systems become affordable and accessible to a broader range of businesses.   Brilliant!  I guess that explains the whole meteoric growth thing.  As they say in their logo tag line, Power On, indeed!

Mindclay photographer, Horse Hardesty, shooting in the Vology lab

The interesting thing is, I wouldn’t have known about Vology had they not given us an opportunity to tell part of their story via that virtual tour video.   (For that, I thank Jayne Hollerbaugh, Vology’s Director of Marketing, and, an awesome creative force in her own right)!

So, here’s the question: If I drive down Tampa Road in Oldsmar and remain oblivious to a thriving, fast-growing player such as Vology, then how many other cool things am I missing on a daily basis?    I think it’s a reminder to all of us that it’s not always about the hyped names in front of our faces. Often, it’s about those best-kept secrets that suddenly come out of nowhere and, before you know it, become new major influencers in the world we think we know.

Popularity: 14%