Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Buzz is No Buzzword

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Helping people start and expand businesses puts us in a prime spot for seeing the trends that take a powerful hold in the market. Sometimes a trend is just a buzzword: we hear it a few times and it quickly passes (when was the last time someone asked you how you define your co-opetition?). But sometimes we notice a trend that has gone truly viral and becomes a new norm in how people do business.

These days one of the strongest trends is towards the utilization of social media and new marketing tactics that help businesses engage directly with their customer base. This is a powerful concept at its core—the mission of every business is to win over a limited marketplace full of customers, and speaking directly to them offers great potential.

We haven’t just seen more app developers contacting us looking for a plan that will help them find angel investors while they start the next Facebook or Groupon, we’ve also seen a wide variety of traditional businesses adopt marketing strategies that use social media to create buzz about their business, and a lot more instances of an “app development” line in the start-up expenses table. Studies over the last few years have shown small and large businesses alike at different stages of development quickly adopting social media plans.

We’ve become more active social media followers, too, blogging, tweeting, sharing and promoting our clients and partners. We’ve also become experts in helping businesses of all industries to get across how they’re going to leverage their social brand image to speak to their audience. It’s a great strength that investors realize sets even the restaurateur or wholesaler apart, showing dedication to the business and familiarity with the cutting edge.

Tags: buzz, social media, start-up
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Social Media 101.

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Social media is one of those buzz expressions that it seems like most entrepreneurs like to throw in their business plan these days. The trouble is that while social media may seem cool because it’s cutting-edge and tends to be cheap, many entrepreneurs don’t have a firm grasp of what it means. Still, that doesn’t mean social media’s only for hip young start-ups. Here’s evidence: the Mayo Clinic’s into social media. If it surprises you that century-old medical institution is into Web 2.0, you might want to read on. VC-entrepreneur-member of the weberatti Guy Kawasaki recently spoke with the Clinic’s syndication and social media manager in an interview that’s posted over at American Express’ Open Forum blog. While there’s a lot of rambling, there are also some useful nuggets for those of you small business owners who may be trying to craft your start-up’s social media strategy. We’ve mined the good stuff, and created a simple list with tips we gleaned from the interview:

1) Don’t just jump into social media without planning first. Not only that, look at your existing resources and figure out how they can fit into a social media context. Says Lee Aase, the manager for syndication and social media at the Mayo Clinic: “We didn’t just immediately jump into blogging, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. It was a natural, gradual progression that incorporated what I like to call, ‘The MacGyver Mindset,’ creating new solutions out of resources we already had on hand. Mayo Clinic created its ‘Medical Edge’ syndicated weekly TV news resource in 2000 and offered local stations trustworthy health and medical news content. In 2004, we established a similar daily program for radio stations. Our first ‘new media’ foray involved creating an RSS feed for the radio segments to publish a podcast and because of its early entry into the iTunes podcast directory and the Mayo Clinic brand, it was featured on the front page. This led to a significant increase in downloads, which provided impetus for further new media exploration.”

2) Make sure you have a real passion for social media before you get involved. That’s because while social media, YouTube, Facebook, etc, may be free, they still cost you in man hours maintaining profiles and uploading new blog posts and videos. If you’re in the enviable position of the Mayo Clinic—”We had a passion for the projects, so no one was getting any extra pay, and we didn’t add staff”—that’s one thing. But if you’re wasting hours that could be better spent elsewhere, that’s another.

3) If you’re not a big organization like Mayo, expect that you might not get as much bang for your buck. A lot of entrepreneurs seem to be under the impression that by simply throwing a blog up on the Internet, traffic will increase and that will result in an immediate increase in conversions or leads. The same goes for the concept of “viral” videos, blogs, and content. One of the most common things you may read in a business plan’s marketing strategy section these days is that the business will “go viral.” The trouble is that it’s not as simple as just posting a video or blog: “You can’t and shouldn’t start a blog or a YouTube channel with the expectation that you’ll have a viral video. Viral isn’t a strategy,” says Aase.

4) Don’t expect immediate results. Says Aase of the advice he’d offer small business owners and other interested in social media: “It’s not an overnight process, so start by listening and taking advantage of the free or low-cost tools. By keeping your costs low, you will be able to create the breathing room you need to have time to achieve results…if you use the social tools with your existing staff as a way to accomplish your current work more effectively, you will get some wins that will enable you to expand your scope. I would also stress that a video with 3.7 million views is a nice bonus, but it’s not the goal. The real power is being able to create niche videos that may reach only a few thousand views, but they’re seen by the people who are most interested.”

Tags: business plan, social media, social networking, web 2.0
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If Reason Won’t Work, We’ll Scare You Into Using Twitter.

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Even if you’re not all hip to the new media like Twitter and Facebook, and even if your small business doesn’t have an official presence, here’s a pretty solid reason why you should get with it: consumers are probably talking about your business on social media. Yes, we already made this observation the other day (or actually, we stole it from someone else), but we think it’s worth mentioning again after stumbling upon a list of businesses that got burnt by social media over at Silicon Alley Insider. While not all of these fails could have necessarily been remedied by a business simply trawling Facebook—think Domino’s PR crisis last week—it’s clear that it behooves a business to know what’s up before a story hits the local news. Here are some of the most egregious biz screw-ups in recent social media history:

-Domino’s Pizza found itself in the midst of a PR nightmare last week after two employees filmed themselves, ahem, putting cheese up their noses and blowing mucus into sandwiches that were delivered to customers. Domino’s fired the employees, but not before a million people watched the YouTube video.

-Pain-reliever Motrin got killed this past year after “Twitter moms” went ballistic online over what they perceived was an offensive ad featuring a mom, a baby, a baby sling, and an aching back. While we still don’t get the brouhaha over the ad, Motrin certainly got the message: after hearing about the rabble being roused on Twitter, parent company Johnson & Johnson quickly pulled it.

-Exxon Mobil found out the hard way in 2008 that it’s better to get involved in social media before your imposters do. “Janet,” a woman claiming to be part of the oil company’s PR machine, posted a variety of “press releases,” “news,” and other information about the company on Twitter without Exxon even knowing it. More than 300 people signed up for regular updates from Janet, reported the Industry Standard, before anyone learned about the hoax. No wonder: most of her posts sounded like the sort of thing that might come from a company mouthpiece: “”I believe we are the first major energy company here (on Twitter). Exxon Mobile is trying to lead the way in corporate citizenship,” and “”Exxon Mobil reduced its Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 5 million metric tons from 2006 to 2007!” But then there was the other stuff: “”Although the Valdez spill was tragic, it was only 10 million gallons. Compare that to the 73 million in the Nowruz Oil Field in 1983.” Yeah.

We think you get the point. But if you’re still not convinced, check out the entire list of businesses that got punked by social media here. We expect that to scare you into submission. It did us!