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Local musician Dane Ferguson, a prolific singer/songwriter, posted a video of his rendition of American Idol contestant General Larry Platt's song "Pants on the Ground," and it was immediately a hit on YouTube; Dane posted the video on January 13 and as of this morning, in less than 4 days, it had almost 42,000 views with a 5-star rating and 242 comments.

Dane's experience should serve as a lesson for anyone looking to market themselves using social networking; for a long time I've been trying to get clients to understand that the secret to explosive social network marketing is to post something that has a good chance of going viral, and that's exactly what he did.  While he's a serious musician, he knew that no matter how great his original music is, in order to get a lot of people to find it quickly he needed a hook that our pop culture would latch onto and make it go viral - and when he saw  Platt's "Pants on the Ground" he knew he had it.  His one-minute video has resulted in tons of emails from new fans of his serious music. Take a look:

With the help of Ms. D. Productions, fans of Hugh Vaughan got to send out Black Friday listening to great music - much more fun than shopping!

Hugh, a native of South Boston, has been making music with bands and as a single act for years, from Watertown, NY to Key West, FL and from Savannah, GA to Breckenridge, CO. He's been on stage with BB King, Bonnie Raitt, members of the Allman Brothers Band, Johnny Winter, Bonnie Bramlett, Billy Ray Hatley, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and many others that he can't even remember.