PR for Start-ups!

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Boulder... The 2nd cybercity!

Rocky Mountain News reported that Boulder holds the #2 cybercity spot following San Jose/Silicon Valley. This according to a recently released study by the American Electronics Association.

While some of the data is a tad dated, you can imagine this number has grown thanks to all the great stuff happening in the start-up community.

So a toast to Boulder, may you hold on to your mortgages before they equal those in the Valley.

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

 

 

Taking a Page From a True Political Start-up

Former Facebook exec has helped Obama raise over $100 million through social networks. I for one have been impressed although a little overwhelmed by the number of posts.

Daughter over my shoulder, "Mom, Obama must love you, he sends you so many messages on Twitter." :)

Hello...hello...hello?

If you built a social network and nobody came, would you still have a community?

 Mashable posted an interesting story about Verizon’s attempt to create its own community; unfortunately they didn’t get the community they were hoping for.

It is quite interesting that companies would actually take the time and resources to create something new when the networks already exist. Rather companies should consider hiring a social network manager and put efforts into pre-established networks both mainstream and niche. Think of the marketing opportunities, the chance to actually test ideas and concepts with a pre-established virtual focus group.

Additionally, if there isn’t chatter on Twitter or Facebook about a company is it interesting? At minimum companies should consider doing a Tweetscan or Summize search. Are you being talked about? 

What do you think? I want your comments.

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...

Colorado Gets Social…

Colorado is quickly becoming the destination for innovative companies in the 2.0 world with technologies that have all your favorite bloggers Twittering into the wee hours of the night.

A snapshot of some of the companies with residence in the Rocky Mountain State:

BrightKite – location based social networking - if you haven't tried it, I have a few beta invites left

HiveLive – social software for the enterprise - integrates social networks with information networks for business-focused communities

 

Iggli -the social music network – extend the music experience to your friends with up to the minute info on music happening in your zip code via mobile or Web

Intense Debate - improving blog comments – connecting conversations

Me.dium - enables social browsing to reveal online movements of your friends

Trackvia - watch out Microsoft, databases are heading towards the clouds

These entrepreneurial companies are creating quite the buzz and are at various stages of development. Overall this is great for Colorado. The best part, no need to buy a ticket to San Francisco to be in the thick of it.. Just walk down the streets of Boulder and you are sure to run into someone executing a great idea.  Many are offering private betas of their products so get out there and get your hands on these cool tools. Thanks to these companies and groups like TechStars, we may actually move away from the perception that all we do in Colorado is ride horses and ski.

More on this topic following a meetup tonight in Boulder.

Melissa

Join me in discussion on Twitter, melissahourigan