1. What do you do? What is your field?
I’m a p.r. / social media / marketing professional by day and a Latin funk bass player by night. I spend most of my work week in the high-end skin care industry, but do specialize in music and live entertainment.
2. Are you self employed? If not what company do you work for?
Yes and no. I work part-time for the Miami Lakes-based Vivant Skin Care and the rest of my time is spent doing work for local music acts and non-profit organizations. I own Mut Communications. I’m also the defacto publicist for Electric Piquete.
3. What do you feel is your biggest professional achievement?
Recently it’s having Electric Piquete named “Best Latin Band 2015” by the Miami New Times in their Best of Miami edition, making us two-time winners of said award, last in 2009. I’m also proud of being part of the team that helped Dolphin Mall take off post-9/11, creating a successful “Go Pink” breast cancer awareness campaign at a for-profit career college and winning several industry awards at Vivant, most recently a Dermascope Magazine “Aestheticians’ Choice Award.”
4. Who do you help with your products or services?
Naturally, a lot of my clients are and have been local musicians, which is a great fit as I’m able to see the client’s needs from two distinct perspectives – as artist and publicist. Still, I feel confident that I can help most any client because of my overall view of marketing / promotions, which is that although the commodities, events and organizations change, the preparation, approach and execution stay the same. It helps that I’ve had experience in a lot of different industries: B2B, retail, wholesale, music, education, healthcare, skincare, entertainment, etc.
5. Where do you see yourself next year?
Hopefully on the festival circuit with Electric Piquete and extremely busy with a full load of p.r. / social media clients.
6. What motivates you?
Equal parts providing for my eight-year-old son and over-delivering for my clients. I still geek out when I learn that one of my p.r. efforts results in a write-up, TV spot or some kind of online mention.
7. What is something you learned from being in your field that they didn’t tell you in school?
Don’t take things personally – you are not your work. Once I truly understood this, learning from my failures became a valuable asset. Although if you ask my friend and Electric Piquete guitarist Chris Correoso, I am still learning not to take things too personally.
8. Who do you look up to and why?
My father, because he had to leave his native Cuba by force and start over in the U.S. at the age of 17. He made a life for himself and his family in the States and worked for the Miami-Dade County public school system for nearly 40 years. He struggled so I did not have to.
9. What’s the most annoying thing you see on social media?
Being tagged in photos that I’m not in or in posts that are completely irrelevant. I get that they want me to see it, but it just annoys me that the photo or post shows up on my page. I try to keep my profiles as public and unrestricted as possible, but I’m starting to rethink that strategy. Good thing I don’t have a jealous significant other. Also, people not retweeting #FollowFriday mentions and not following those included in the tweet is pretty foul, too.
10. Have you ever given in to a social media fad? If so which one?
I personally and have my clients engage in the #ThrowbackThursday and #FollowFriday trends. Thursdays can offer a revealing look into the past and Fridays are great for networking and building a following organically; I wish more people took the latter more seriously.
11. What projects are you currently working on?
Quite a few, actually. I’m the publicist for an extremely talented singer/songwriter and playwright Jim Camacho. I manage his media relations and social media pages, and am currently helping him promote the release of his next adult alternative single “Please Come Home,” as well as promote his next live performance at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center on July 11. (Learn more and get tickets here.)
Jose Elias, guitarist in the Spam Allstars and the Nag Champayons runs an amazing non-profit organization called Community Arts and Culture. They are hosting the 17th annual Afro Roots World Music Festival August 6-8 in multiple locations – it’s going to be their best one yet.
I’m also talking to the brilliant Houston Cypress about helping his organization Love the Everglades plan and promote an event in August.
Lastly, I have the honor of working with the amazing Zack Bush in planning, executing and MC’ing the Ball & Chain Music Festival coming Sept. 4-6, marking the venue’s first anniversary. I’m always blogging / posting for and promoting Electric Piquete.
12. How did you get where you are today?
I started out wanting to be the Miami Heat beat writer for the Miami Herald, but that job was taken at the time I finished F.I.U. (Ha!). Actually, because I didn’t intern anywhere I had a hard time landing a job in print journalism, which was my specialty. I had to settle for a really bad editorial assistant position at a place I won’t name. I didn’t last very long there and wound up working at a music distributor, where they needed help in the marketing department. The rest is history being written. It also helps that I was exposed to computers in school at a very early age and that I was a beta tester for Friendster (pre-MySpace for those following at home).
13. Tell me something about you that people don’t usually know?
I’m a huge fan of Duran Duran and John Taylor, the bass player (of course).
14. Who do you consider social media famous?
Why you, Karla – of course! Also, my buddy Sebastian Rusk has really made a name for himself with his wizardly knowledge of social media – plus his fantastic book “Social Media Sucks!” has really made some noise in the biz. I suppose anyone with the surname Kardashian is not only reality TV famous, but social media famous.
15. How can we find you online?
Check out www.MutComm.com and www.ElectricPiquete.com, friend me on Facebook, like the /MutComm and /ElectricPiquete pages there, follow @Michael_Mut, @MutComm and @ElectricPiquete on Twitter and Instagram. Oh, and hit me up on LinkedIn.
Electric Piquete – photo by Diego Donis
Social Media Fame the book is out July 10th, Get Fame! #SocialMediaFame
