PR for Start-ups!

Time for Change... Taking a Page from Entrepreneurs

Today marked one of the most important days in our history with the inguration of our 44th president, Barack Obama Regardless of your political interests, our country is in dire need of change and some fresh ideas. Looking at the current administration, I can't help but compare our president to a modern day entrepreneur and it is only fair given  a post several months ago about Obama and his start-up-like campaign.

In the past 10 years or so, I have had the incredible opportunity to work with a number of entrepreneurs and start-up companies. What is fascinating is the amount of work that actually gets done in the smaller companies and the joy that comes with a highly productive "burn the midnight oil" kind of culture. We celebrate, work hard, take risks and keep an optimistic spirit in everything we do.

Doing more with less is somewhat of a mantra for the state of business today. The same is true with the state of our nation. It is time for new and fresh ideas from those who come with a new perspective. And if the administration has any question on how to execute with limited resources, I am sure that the large number of entrepreneurs would welcome your call (I, for one, am ready for my duty).

As we heard several times this evening, it is now up to all of us to drive the change that we so desire.
And with that, a few of us have started a database of ideas to share with the new administration. Join us and add your ideas to the  Businesses for Change database.


 



 

ROI of Social Media... the conversation continues

A common question that I hear from clients is how do you measure your social media efforts. As part of this ongoing quest to understand the ways in which we can capture these efforts, I came across a great video from a recent event hosted by HubSpot for the 10th Boston Social Media Breakfast. About 100 people showed up to for a lively discussion. Check it out here.

Online Community and Social Media Events

John Cass has begun a great list of online community and social media conferences. Be sure to send him your event suggestions!

List of Online Community & Social Media related conferences for 2009.

1. Jan Social Media Conference, January 22 - 23, 2009, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami, FL
2. Health 3.0: The Next Online Generation, January 26 - 28, 2009, Las Vegas, NV.
3. Feb 2009 Customer Reference Forum: 2009 Customer Reference Forum, February 17-19, Berkeley, CA.
4. FOWA Future of Web Apps, Miami, FL, 22-24 Feb 2009, Miami.
5. March O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2009, March 9-12, 2009, San Jose, CA
6. SXSW Interactive: March 13-17, 2009, Austin Texas
7. 2009 Media Summit, Date: March 18-19, 2009, McGraw-Hill Building, 49th St. & 6th Ave., New York City
8. Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco, Co-presented by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb, March 31-April 3, 2009, San Francisco, CA
9. April 6th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, ITNG 2009, April 27-29, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
10. May 3rd Int'l AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, May 17 - 20, 2009, San Jose, California
11. Where 2.0 Conference 2009, May 19-21, 2009, San Jose, CA
12. June TTIX Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange, TTIX 2009 will be held June 3-5 2009 on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

Social media cliff notes

There have been a great number of compiled lists of tools that communicators can use to get the word out, better connect with journalists and just plain understand what is available in the world of social media. Without a lot of chit-chat, I have listed a few of those that I found quite useful.

• 10 of the Best Social Media Tools - Sarah Evans

• Use the New Google Web Search RSS Feeds - ReadWriteWeb

• Companies using social media - Peter Kim

• Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals - Brian Solis

Thanks to everyone who has compiled and shared these helpful tools. In the spirit of community, let the sharing continue!

Saying I Do...Social Programs Met with Fear of Commitment

Companies of all sizes are quick to talk about the need to implement social media strategies/tactics but when faced with the question of Who? How? and When? the fear of commitment washes over. Regardless of the industry, I often find that decision makers struggle with the commitment it takes to really get involved in the communities they wish to influence.  Whether it is confusion around measurement and effectiveness or deciding who will take on the responsibility, doing a little homework beforehand could save your company from the embarrassment of a bad start. Mitch Ratcliffe of ZDNet wrote an article that lays out levels of commitment that companies should keep in mind when considering a corporate blogging effort.

For startups, consider putting community manager on the list of necessary recruits. Often times, resource-limited companies and entrepreneurs are the first to make the plunge without considering the level of commitment it will take to serve as an evangelist and help build the community. It is possible to hire a part-time person to fill the role of the community manager. To get an idea of how this could work, I suggest you read “Do Startup Companies Need Community Managers” by Marshall Kirkpatric.

To understand the essential skills of a community manager, Chris Brogan, social media strategist has put together this thoughtful post.

The moral to this post, don’t jump. Wait until you have a plan in place, someone to make sure you are doing what you said you would do and a strategy that aligns with business goals but that also ensures involvement in the communities that you want to reach.

If your company has hired a community manager, I would love to hear about it.

Marketing Your Business on Facebook

Looking for a way to test the waters with a corporate identity on Facebook? As MarketingSherpa mentioned a month ago, there is a way to create an identity and many businesses may not even be aware of it. If you click on the advertising button at the bottom of the Facebook home page, you will find advertising options but also a way to create a corporate identify.

Some of the possibilities:

• Create social ads that attach to other's news feeds and friend activity.
• Use the Facebook Beacon to allow customers to share  actions they take on your website with their friends.
• Create social applications using Facebook Platform that lets users interact with their friends and your business. Platform applications are effective ways to leverage the social graph.
• Use Facebook Insights to understand who is engaging with your page and clicking through social ads.
• Facebook polls allow companies to run a survey that is targeted to the demographic that you define and the best part, you can have results in 30 minutes. You can actually watch results as they come in.

This is easy for any company to do, especially those of you who are bootstrapping! If you have tried one of these options for your viral campaigns, let me know how it went.

Start with a crowd…..

Key topics of discussion these days... collaboration, 2.0, web communities and sharing are all concepts widely discussed and considered as part of today's marketing mix. But limiting these practices to marketing is a disservice considering the possibilities that web communities and mass collaboration can bring to your business. Activities such as strategic planning, product development, branding and marketing can all be influenced by outside resources and often in a positive and cost-effective way. One term that can be used to describe this act is crowdsourcing.

Many authors and businesses have leveraged the power of mass collaboration using Web 2.0 technologies for feedback, editing support, general business ideas or product feature sets.

What better way to deliver products/services then to involve your targeted demographic or “crowd” into the planning stages.

The person who actually created the “crowdsourcing” term, Jeff Howe, is preparing to release a book on the subject. In following his own advice, he collaborated and opened up the chapters during the process of writing through his blog. Guy Kawasaki has also done this using Twitter among other things to get people involved in the creation of his latest book.

Go Ahead, Tighten the Bootstraps and Get Creative

So why wouldn’t bootstrapping companies consider this method? Most of the companies that I have met with recently are being cautious with their money and sometimes at the expense of great ideas. But rather than shelling out a bunch of dough for one level of results, why not put out a challenge to a community and see what response you get? This could be done through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook just to name a few. Any company could apply these tactics and create a community of zealots who are eager to see the final result whether it is a book, product or even a service.

Even if you aren’t bootstrapping, consider leaving your four walls and opening up your collaboration environment to a crowd to generate better ideas or at minimum, ideas you may not have thought of. Goldcorp and Colgate hold successes with going transparent and allowing others to get involved with ideation so why can’t you? Another consideration is to tap Universities for fresh ideas and perspectives.

Some sites to consider if you want to tap specialists...

• InnoCentive - connects companies, academic institutions, public sector and non-profit organizations with a global network of more than 145,000 brilliant minds
• YourEncore - network of retired and veteran scientists and engineers

Open Call for Logo

In the spirit of the “open call,” I would like to put out a request for the Activevoice blog logo. Interested parties should contact me at Melissa_hourigan@yahoo.com and we can discuss a trade or compensation agreement.

Books to Consider

• Mavericks at Work – William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre
• Here Comes Everybody – Clay Shirky
• Coming soon…. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business – Jeff Howe
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations - James Surowiecki

 

 

The Value of Conversations

Could you imagine if your friends measured your conversations? Hopefully my friends don't.  But for companies looking to uncover the value of their social media efforts, effective measurement is one thing that still remains in question.

One barrier for many marketers who are considering social media is the fact that it is hard to measure conversations and truly understand the effectiveness of a campaign. Maybe this will change with Federated Media’s announcement of the Conversational Measurement Toolbox.

The group that claims to connect voices and great marketers states that this toolbox will collect, aggregate and report data from internal reporting, third-party tracking providers and social media application developers.

The toolbox consists of a suite of campaign measurement, planning and reporting tools.

Will be interesting to see how conversations drive marketing campaigns in the future…

 

Rockin' With Social Network Widgets

What would our social networks be without glitter text, slideshows and personal countdown meters? Apparently these social network widgets are worth a little something given news that RockYou secured $35 million today. RockYou is a provider of widgets and applications for the web such as photo slideshows, glitter text, customized Facebook applications and voicemail accessories that are simple to use and enable people to frequently refresh their online style. 

Outside of the popularity of SuperWall and the vampire and zombie applications, today’s news proves that there is a business for widget makers and a great opportunity for companies to understand the ways in which consumers are using social networking tools. Companies such as Paramount, New Line Cinema, Sony, Microsoft, and CBS are already benefiting from millions of unique site visitors by sponsoring social network widgets or tools.

Some interesting facts for consideration:

•  RockYou has over 35 million users, serving over 180 million widget views per day in more than 200 countries.
• RockYou applications are customized for easy integration across all social networks including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Tagged and hi5.
• RockYou’s cost-effective, results-focused advertising platform is the largest Ad Network on Facebook today.
• New applications can reach over 100k users in 24 hours, spanning a suite of applications across multiple publishing partners.

A common question that seems to pop up each day on LinkedIn is how do you monetize or benefit from social tools? Who is using them and how? Various opinions and open-ended comments are out there and everyone is trying to understand how to increase eyeballs or quite frankly, increase sales of products and services by leveraging social media tools.  comScore is trying to do just that with its Widget media Metrix.

According to Forrester research, U.S.marketers spent $600 million advertising on social media, a sliver of the $18 billion spent on interactive advertising that year and that number is expected to surge to $6.9 billion by 2012.

Companies who are consumer-focused should consider widgets and other social tools as the marketing and advertising paradigms continue to evolve away from traditional media.

More on this subject… Please share your comments or experiences with widget marketing - especially successes.

Rock on,

Melissa Hourigan

 

 

Meetups... Collaboration Gets Real

Just returned from the Boulder/Denver New Technology Meetup held on the CU campus. The traffic was a nightmare from Denver so I arrived a few minutes late to a standing room only crowd. Great energy, interesting and sometimes bizarre presentations (blog about watching grass grow and paint dry and a 3D social world that I still don't understand). Anyway, two companies really stood out from the pack with interesting ideas. A brief snapshot on each below:

which launched a public beta yesterday is a networking and referral exchange site. Unlike Linkedin, users can earn credits for referrals, use credits to obtain referrals, or cash out credits for money. According to the presenter, this site will help professionals with the ebb and flow of the business cycle. Definitely one to watch!



claims to be the world’s leading social network for book lovers. Founded by three former RealNetworks veterans, this site allows users to build virtual bookshelves and socially interact around the books they care about. The widget can be added to Facebook and Myspace profiles in addition to individual blogs. I added the app to this blog, check it out.

Great event.... stay tuned for more...