Author Archive for Alexandra Reid

Managing client expectations throughout an outsourced social media marketing program

By Alexandra Reid

Client expectations Managing client expectations throughout an outsourced social media marketing programDemonstrating a marketing program’s success is key to maintaining a happy client. Do good work and prove how it contributed to the client’s goals – seems like a simple enough equation. But managing client expectations throughout a social media marketing program can be tricky. This is because these programs typically require a huge amount of small work spread out over a long period of time and over a large number of channels. It can be tough to maintain the faith at the outset of a program while communities are still being developed. Without a strategy and regular communication, it will be challenging to convince your client to see past the masses of tweets and status updates and understand that all of your wee daily efforts add up and support larger goals that will provide a return on investment.

As an outsourced community manager, it’s imperative that I maintain regular communication with my clients and demonstrate that I am using their dollars wisely. While my clients can see all my activity online, it’s my responsibility to articulate how each of these activities are contributing to their goals and show that the program is on track for success. I really have two management responsibilities – managing my client’s online presence as well as their expectations.

Here are some tips that I employ to maintain good client relations throughout a social media marketing program:

Make sure the strategy is sound and detailed at the outset

As mentioned, you can’t prove return on investment if you don’t have a clear understanding of what it is your client is investing in. Social media provides lots of opportunities for businesses, including the ability to increase influence, provide customer service, foster customer loyalty, boost awareness about a product or service, bridge relationships with industry influencers and form partnerships, garner media attention and attract leads. What does your client want to do, how much are they willing to invest in pursuing these initiatives, what exactly will you do to carry out their requirements, and what can they expect as a result of their investment? The more precisely you can identify your activities and establish a time frame with specific objectives, the better you will be able to manage your client’s expectations.

Your client has every right to know exactly where their dollars are being spent every step of the way; to maintain good faith you need to articulate how those dollars are being invested. Your strategy should therefore mark clear checkpoints that indicate where the program should be at established time periods to assure them that your strategy is on course.

You can make predictions by examining your client’s online marketplace. How successful are their competitors? How engaged is the community that is interested in their space? What are analysts saying about their industry? Is the media particularly interested in that space right now? Does your client have a powerful story that will attract interest? Social media should be regarded as an element of a full marketing program. Whether the marketing team is in house or outsourced, you should be able to collaborate with those people to determine realistic social media marketing targets.

Track your progress and communicate that progress regularly

Carrying out a successful social media marketing program requires frequent communication. In my opinion, social media managers should be regarded as communications liaisons, connecting company representatives with their interest groups online. Communication runs between the account owners and their managers and between managers and their communities. It doesn’t matter whether social media marketing activities are carried out in house or if they are outsourced, communication is imperative to success.

For social media managers, the success that comes from maintaining good communications in both directions is twofold.  First, when communications is smooth between account owners and managers, social media communities thrive because they have the benefit of receiving the most current information and having direct access to company representatives.  Second, the social media success you see as a result of proper management will put you in higher standing with those people who pay for your work.

Have a conversation with your client about how often they want to be updated on your activities and successes. I provide my clients with metrics every week or every month depending on how closely they want to monitor my progress (see social media measurement for more details on what I include in my reports).

When you send them your report, be sure to explain what has been accomplished. Was there a surge in followers and likes as a result of a particular initiative? Did your client receive a record number of mentions? What drove that level of engagement? If something didn’t work, tell your client about that too, but be sure to communicate what you learned as a result. They will be far more understanding if you maintain open and honest communications throughout the extent of the program. Bad things happen and sometimes these things are out of your control. Being able to identify what went wrong gives confidence to your client that you are effectively steering the program’s course.

Encourage the client’s participation

I’ve found that allowing clients to participate in social media activities gives them a better understanding of what’s required to build and maintain social media communities as well as the results that can come from certain activities. Familiarizing your clients with the social media space helps them to understand your job and all that is required to grow a presence online. Understanding the full scope of work as well as the individual activities that go into running a successful social media program helps to ground their expectations and instill a greater appreciation for the work you do.

For example, because LinkedIn only allows individuals, but not companies, to participate in Groups and Answers, I encourage my clients to participate through their personal accounts on behalf of their companies. I’m here to write and edit their responses as necessary and can even post their responses if they provide me with their login credentials, but I try to convince them that they will be better able to establish a thought leadership position by showcasing their own knowledge.

In one case, a client saw more than 100 responses to his Group discussion. He was “chuffed” to see such a positive reaction to his work and the experience helped him understand the benefits of the platform. I also encourage clients to participate in social media by posting Facebook status updates and tweets when they are feeling particularly inspired. Again, I’m here to review, edit, add comments and post if necessary.

How are you managing your client’s expectations for your social media program?

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 15, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — Leave a comment

Great articles roundup: call to action mistakes, defining tech companies, sustaining startup media coverage, and the VC model

By Alexandra Reid

link1 300x240 Great articles roundup: call to action mistakes, defining tech companies, sustaining startup media coverage, and the VC modelAs a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Copyblogger, GigaOm, The Flack and GeekWire.

20 mistakes that will undermine your call to action and cost you sales

As content marketers, we spend a lot of time obsessing over increasing traffic. It’s the sexy thing to do. However, the number of leads fails to match our expectations because we don’t spend enough time creating a killer call to action. There are dozens of call-to-action mistakes that can doom your efforts to convert traffic into leads or sales. Copyblogger shares 20 of the most common.

What exactly is a tech company?

Author says ‘tech company’ and ‘tech startup’ are over-applied labels that have outlived their usefulness. Calling practically all growing contemporary businesses ‘technology companies’ is about as useful as calling the enterprises of the industrial era ‘factory companies;’ it accurately describes one aspect of what they are (or were), but it doesn’t really capture the totality of their operation. This post is a great discussion piece. What exactly is a tech company, in your opinion?

Startup sustainability

Anyone with a stake in a technology (or any other) startup will certainly appreciate the challenge entailed in prolonging editorial interest in their fledgling investment. Once the initial flurry of hyper-activity in the news and social spheres evaporates, however, how can a founder (and his PR consiglieres) build “legs” to ensure long-term success? Author Peter Himler offers great tactics for startups to sustain media coverage.

The venture capital model is broken, and this damning report explains why

Industry watchers have been talking for a long while now about how the venture capital industry is broken, highlighted by poor returns that in many cases don’t even exceed those of the major stock indices. Thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation — which has invested in nearly 100 venture capital firms across the country over the past 20 years — we’re getting an inside look into the problems rattling the industry. In a blistering 51-page report, the foundation details its own experiences, writing that limited partners such as the foundation routinely “invest too much capital in underperforming venture capital funds on frequently mis-aligned terms.”

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 10, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Startups, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

Anything they can do you can do better: Competing in social media

By Alexandra Reid

Business race3 Anything they can do you can do better: Competing in social mediaI shamelessly adapted the title of this post based on the original Fast Company article, Anything they can do you can do better, which explained that when it comes to designing new products, companies must aim to build them better than their competitors.

On the surface, this advice seems obvious. But it becomes more complex when you consider how fine the line really is that separates a pioneer and a “me too,” and what it takes to differentiate and improve your product enough for people to take notice.

Marketing plays a key role in identifying and promoting a product’s key differentiators. Marketers don’t simply explain the product and what it does and cross their fingers that people will somehow decide that they need it. They identify a market need and strategically situate that product within the market, explaining how it improves on, or sets it apart from, what’s already available. They tell stories about why people need it now and contextualize those stories according to the experiences of their target market.

Social media is becoming one of the most important channels for telling these kinds of stories. We’ve called the practice content marketing and, interestingly enough, earning an influential status on social media comes from publishing content that sets you apart from the masses — or, in other words, identifying and promoting your key differentiators. Once you have built an influential online presence, your content carries more weight and you have a better ability to promote your company and its products. And so, through proper content marketing, a win-win scenario is born — online influence rises with the public’s perception of your company and its products.

Fundamentally, we are all doing the same things on social media. We are all playing on the same platforms according to the same rules. We are posting status updates, publishing blog posts, listening, engaging, and being authentic, sharing photos, videos, webinars, Slideshare presentations, running campaigns and all the rest.

So, for argument’s sake, when I say “pioneer” in this post, I am referring to those individuals who improve and take a new direction on already established social media activities.

The only things we have control over in social media that give us the potential to differentiate ourselves are content and (generally) how we deliver it. What sets pioneers apart from the parrots is their approach to content and their ability to situate that content within wider social media discussions. Contextualizing content delineates its relevance according to the larger story of what’s going on in your marketplace. This increases the possibilities for discussion and allows people to connect with the content on various levels. It deepens the conversation and broadens its reach. Content shared through social media becomes pioneering when it influences the broader stories that define your market, when it builds such momentum and clout that it breaks down all the walls and spreads virally into the mediasphere at large.

Producing great content for social media isn’t easy. Neither is the process of developing a winning marketing strategy for a company.

Here are some steps I hope you find helpful as you develop content for the social web.

Look at what your competitors are doing

Fascinatingly, unique social media marketing content cannot be created in a vacuum. To differentiate your social media content, you must look at what your competitors are already doing. Identify what your competitors are doing well in social media and what areas of your marketplace they are not addressing. Also, look at who is following them and what content resonates with their communities. This will help you narrow down your key content differentiators.

Develop a content strategy

Lay down your editorial calendar for at least three months to ensure you have a plan for what you are going to post, how often, and where you will post. Also, identify who will be responsible for creating content. It’s a good idea to give this responsibility to a handful of people within your organization who are experts in key subject areas to showcase your company’s thought leaders. You can also recruit outside help in the form of guest bloggers and paid contributors. I’ve written on what to include in a social media content strategy before.

Ensure content is timely, concise, unique, sharable and transformable

Social media is a fast-paced environment where content has a short shelf life. Therefore, when producing your content, hold fast to the motto “be bold, be brief, be gone” to ensure your content is timely and pungent so that it lingers online as long as possible. Give it a longer shelf life by making it sharable and transformable. Serve up easy-to-digest sound bites that articulate your business case and that people can simply copy, paste and share. And allow people to consume these sharable morsels in various arrangements. For example, one blog post can become a photo, tweet, Facebook status update, LinkedIn discussion and all the rest. I’ve written about how to create transformable content before.

What are you doing to compete in social media?

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 8, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — 1 Comment

Great articles roundup: B2B marketing messages, inventor mistakes, dirty secrets, social media, incubators, accelerators, and value propositions

By Alexandra Reid

link 300x240 Great articles roundup: B2B marketing messages, inventor mistakes, dirty secrets, social media, incubators, accelerators, and value propositionsAs a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Business2Community, Financial Post, VentureBeat, eMarketer, and TechVibes.

‘Looking big’ is not an effective B2B marketing message

It’s not rare to see B2B companies sucked into the distorted reality that they must market themselves as larger companies to woo their prospect bases. The traditional logic is that if you are selling to larger companies, you should act larger in an effort to appeal to them. Author Brian Jameson explains that B2B marketing is not a boxing match where fighters fall into weight classes.

Two common mistakes inventors make

Inventors make a number of common mistakes when trying to turn an innovative idea into reality, but most of them fall under two categories: presenting an idea to investors too soon and lacking a clear marketing strategy for the product.

The dirty secret behind the incubator boom

By its very nature, entrepreneurship involves a certain amount of throwing spaghetti against a wall. This “spaghetti” is called a minimal viable product, and it is launched because nobody really knows what’s going to stick. Eventually, with a little luck and learning, entrepreneurs become better chefs, and their spaghetti will stay up more often than not. But while watching a recent demo day for one of the countless incubators that have sprung up in the last 18 months, author Francisco Dao was struck by a horrifying revelation. There are now so many people out there trying to build the next app or website that it has become a better bet to throw minimal viable entrepreneurs against the wall than it is to teach them how to throw their own spaghetti.

For brands, social media shows returns but measurement hurdles remain

C-suite executives are increasingly convinced of the benefits of engaging with their customers on social media platforms. A February 2012 survey of 329 senior executives in North America found that the vast majority of companies who had invested in social media saw a positive shift in their bottom line as a result. Despite positive results, almost half of executives said that the major impediment to social media campaigns was the lack of a standardized metric that can measure a return on investment.

Okay, so what’s the difference between an incubator and an accelerator?

Somehow, the words “incubator” and “accelerator” have become interchangeable. They’re not. They’re two different things. Business incubators have been around for decades—they’re the original. Accelerators, the new kids on the block, started popping around the turn of the millennium. Author Knowlton Thomas expertly examines their similarities and differences.

Must-read for founders: A VC explains how to build a key value proposition

On the surface, value propositions seem straightforward. In reality, getting a value proposition right requires some focused thinking and structured analysis. In this post, author Michael Skok examines the DNA of a value proposition by stripping it down to its foundational elements and reassembling it around a variety of new business ideas.

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 4, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Product marketing, Social media, Startups, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

April roundup: What does it take to bring technology to market?

April Calendar 2012 low res1 300x191 April roundup: What does it take to bring technology to market? We covered lots of new and interesting subjects on our blog last month. Contributor Caroline Kealey discussed the importance of measurement for communications people. Terry Lavineway shared important information on business incentives in the federal budget. David French further explored the world of patents and explained how get value for your money. Our Francis Moran covered recent developments in Waterloo and shared counsel on the importance of having a good startup team, while Alexandra Reid examined the importance of social media images and interviewed startup champion Victoria Lennox on Startup Canada’s cross country tour and launch, happening this week in Ottawa. Plus, we had our regular monthly check-ins with startups Genevolve, Screenreach and NanoScale.

These topics merely scratch the surface of our coverage last month. If you missed any of our posts, here is a handy roundup.

April 3: Getting ready for the big show by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette

April 12: Learning how to deal with the unexpected by Francis Moran and Alexandra Reid

April 25: Do you know how to dance with angels? by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette

And on a related note…

In addition to our series, our associates and guest bloggers were also busy writing on a great range of topics. Here are our other posts from April, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:

April 19: What’s going on in Waterloo? by Francis Moran

April 24: There is no magic recipe for a successful company, only good cooks by Francis Moran

April 16: Innovation and the budget by Denzil Doyle

April 23: Tales from the trenches: New associate joins our team by Jeff Campbell

April 17: Social media strategy: Why meeting in the ‘real world’ matters by Alexandra Reid

April 2: Making measurement work for communications professionals by Caroline Kealey

April 5: How to municipimp your municipality by Alexandra Reid

April 18: What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference by Leo Valiquette

April 30: From whiteboard to customers: a perspective from the startup world by Jesse Rodgers

April 9: Are we getting value for all the money we’re spending on patents? by David French

April 4: There were other business-related incentive tidbits in the federal budget by Terry Lavineway

April 26: Victoria Lennox: Startup champion by Alexandra Reid

April 13: The importance of developing a social media image strategy by Alexandra Reid

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 4, 2012

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Posted in: Commercialization ecosystem, Financing and fundraising, Marketing strategy, Product marketing, Social media, Startups, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Startup Canada launch

By Alexandra Reid

Startup Canada Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Startup Canada launch“A million people walk into a bar in Silicon Valley. Nobody buys anything. The bar is declared a huge success.”

Harley Finkelstein, CPO of Shopify, shared that illuminating joke during the panel discussion at Startup Canada. It seemed to resonate with the audience because, aside from it being funny, it identified a serious problem in the way many entrepreneurs run their new companies.

The lesson is that startups will fail if they can’t see past the hype and generate sales consistently. Yet there is a common perception that if a new company garners attention, whether that is through media, word-of-mouth, or otherwise, it will automatically be successful.

While attention and success can support one another, this isn’t a business model on which startups should bet their livelihoods. The focus of attention must always be the needs of the customer.

“Need is the mother of all invention,” declared serial entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews during his speech. It is identifying need and positioning a product to solve it that enables startups to go to market quickly, beat out any competition and ultimately be successful.

And what a need there was to launch Startup Canada. As a startup itself, it’s nice to see the organization drinking its own medicine. Startup Canada’s success can be accredited to the fact that it is solving a serious need not just in Canada, but in the global economy as a whole. There is a need at home and abroad to support entrepreneurship as a way of creating jobs, improving quality of life and ultimately helping our national and global economies come out of the slump and prosper. And the movement isn’t just about the hype. The leaders behind Startup Canada want to see a return on investment for their efforts not only in the growth of new companies, but in the generation and accumulation of information that can be used to further the entrepreneurship agenda in Canada.

“Entrepreneurs can be the solution to the problems entrepreneurs face,” said Victoria Lennox, co-founder of Startup Canada.

“Nothing like it has ever before existed in the country — a grassroots national movement to celebrate and promote entrepreneurship in Canada,” MC Andrea Mandel-Campbell said to the Startup Canada launch crowd. “If we want our economy to grow and prosper it is going to be through supporting entrepreneurs like each and every one of you here.”

The reception hall was packed tight with entrepreneurs and Startup Canada supporters. As Mandel-Campbell pointed out during her speech, everyone in the room could be classified as an entrepreneur because they took a chance and came to an event to support an organization that has no track record and was created out of the minds of a few ambitious and determined individuals. Fueling that entrepreneurial passion is a goal of Startup Canada, and the palpable enthusiasm in the room was a clear indicator of its immediate success.

Entrepreneurship is a viable career choice

A goal of Startup Canada is to give confidence to young people that they can choose entrepreneurship as a career path. Lennox explained during the panel discussion that Canada’s education system must be set up to inform young people about entrepreneurship. Other panelists explained that starting up a company while you are young and in school can be a good idea. Furthermore, supporting young talent in Canada is vital to retaining it.

Brad LeBlanc, founder and CEO of Momentum Group, said that simply telling young people that they can start their own business is transformational. Passion should be fostered through validation, he said. Simply acknowledging a young entrepreneur in a school newspaper can provide enough encouragement for that young person to push forward with his or her idea. Giving them accessibility to programs that are there to support young entrepreneurs is also crucial.

Sarah Prevette, founder and CEO of Sprouter, suggested that university and college alumni can be the perfect mentors for young entrepreneurial students.

Finkelstein agreed and furthered Prevette’s point. “Starting a business as a student is a great thing to do,” he said. “You have classmates to test your idea, professors who act as your informal board of directors, and you can get recognized in the school paper. And if it doesn’t work, you can just go back to class!”

“The great thing about being young is that you have enthusiasm, great ideas and the ability to think big,” said Garry Zeigler, founder and CEO of eThor.

And, thanks to organizations like Startup Canada, we are starting to move past the idea that entrepreneurship is something you do if you can’t find a job.

“In this country, it’s becoming more celebrated and recognized as a real growth engine behind jobs,” said Bruce Lazenby, president and CEO of Invest Ottawa. “Talent is going to be key and talent is mobile. It is incumbent for us in Canada and Ottawa to express that we are an attractive place to stay.”

Focus on championing entrepreneurs, not the institutions

The entrepreneurs on the panel agreed that one of Startup Canada’s efforts must be to shift the focus from the organizations supporting entrepreneurs to the entrepreneurs themselves. By giving attention to the individual and personal efforts of entrepreneurs, we will impassion them and give them the courage to think big, take risks, feel proud of their work and then give back to the startup ecosystem which they helped to build.

“Startup Canada has a very simple purpose and that is to celebrate entrepreneurship and to make entrepreneurship a much bigger piece of our economy going into the future. We need all of your help to spread that word, to spread the message,” said Dr Adam Chowaniec, chairman of Startup Canada, during his speech. “We need a little bit of your time to connect with the people around you, to connect with the vision and to help us deliver a unified message across the country in terms of what entrepreneurialism is, what it means to succeed and how we can do it better.”

“Ottawa relies on institutions to help us do entrepreneurial things, but institutions get in the way,” said Scott Annan, founder and CEO of Startup Plays. “Doing a startup is like riding a bike. You don’t go to bike school to study. You just get on it.”

Failing is okay

Our Francis Moran will be the first to tell you that it’s a (too prevalent) ludicrous notion that Canadians don’t know how to take risks. But taking risks is never comfortable, unless perhaps you are Evel Knievel. We must teach young entrepreneurs that taking risks is okay, and have the support mechanisms in place to catch them when they fall.

“Canadians are starting to realize that failing gracefully and failing fast should be regarded as a badge of honour,” said Finkelstein.

“We are cushy and comfy in Canada and we don’t want to lose that. To step outside of those bounds is risky,” said Tara Hunt, founder and CEO of Buyosphere. “But perhaps there is some sort of attitude we can instill in the Canadian population that it’s okay to step outside of that comfort zone and take risk.”

Give ownership to your team

We’ve written about the importance of giving your team ownership before, and so it was nice to see that idea given credence by Sir Matthews last night.

“Give the team ownership. Don’t deal with employees, deal with owners,” he said. “New grads have no baggage. They have razor-sharp focus. They work seven days a week when they are given ownership.”

Focus on your brand

Bringing technology to market requires marketing — there is no simpler way of putting it.

“The image is incredibly important,” said Sir Matthews. ”It’s the image, the marketing and the brand. This is something that universities across the country forget. If you don’t have sales you will die. It’s about the brand. It’s about the image.”

Have fun

After starting up nearly 100 companies, Sir Matthews accredited his perseverance to simply “having fun.”

“It’s fun to have a team, it’s fun to go out and grow the business, watch the sales grow, talk to the team members every quarter about what’s going on, and have them participate,” he said.

On that note, why don’t you have some fun, venture out into your community and see what’s happening locally to support entrepreneurship? Better yet, see how you can get involved. Who knows — the people you meet and the information you learn might just spark your passion for entrepreneurship and empower you to startup your own company.

Attendees, what did you take away from the Startup Canada launch?

And for extra brownie points, here’s Sir Terry Matthews’s stellar Startup Canada speech:

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 3, 2012

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Posted in: Commercialization ecosystem, Marketing strategy, Social media, Technology marketing — 1 Comment

Why startups should build social media communities before they launch

By Alexandra Reid

Social media community Why startups should build social media communities before they launchSocial media has become an integral part of the marketing mix for new companies. Startups are employing these valuable channels to promote themselves, receive market feedback, interact with key industry players, and offer relatively inexpensive customer support to beta testers and other early adopters of their technologies.

Yet despite these benefits, many startups aren’t allocating the resources necessary to support social media initiatives until after the product is released, their first customers are established, and they begin seeing revenue. As with all marketing activities, social media should be regarded as an investment that will generate profit. And just like launching a new product, social media requires a runway to set up the strategy and channels and develop the audience and content to succeed.

We’ve written about the importance of getting marketing involved early the in development stage of a new product. In a previous post, product management specialist and associate Peter Hanscke wrote, “There is always a great deal of interaction between engineering and product management, but, sadly, marketing is left out.” It is only when all the critical bugs are fixed and the product is released that marketing gets the product information thrown over the wall with the unrealistic expectation that it will create an immediate revenue miracle. And then everyone wonders why the news release, the collateral, the web site, and so forth are so late in coming.

The same is true for social media activities. It takes time to develop content and build an audience. Like launching a new product, this time frame varies depending on the receptiveness of the market and the complexity of the task. When social media activities are aligned with the development of a product, a wealth of activities can be carried out that support the goals of both teams and thus the business as a whole. The social media managers have time to build a community before the product is launched, sharpen the story so that it resonates with the target audience, and promote the product as it is developed to a relevant audience, while the development team receives valuable feedback from the community that can help them identify the pain points of their target market and hone the features of their minimum viable product.

On launch day, having an established community anticipating your news can be invaluable for promotion, garnering media attention and gauging the responsiveness of your target audience for your new product.

Feedback

According to a Mashable survey, 85 percent of marketers think customer insight is the best potential advantage of using social media, but only six percent of businesses use social media to receive feedback on a consistent basis. Twitter is especially valuable, with 32 percent of channel conversations falling under the category of customer feedback. The same article said that more than a third of messages posted on social networks provide businesses with information about how customers perceive them. The article’s author, Joshua March, advises businesses to ask their customers and prospects what they think about a new product, what features they want and what could be improved. As mentioned, this feedback can be used to provide the best minimum viable product when these activities are carried out via social media before you launch.

Media

From a media-attention standpoint, more than 50 percent of people turn to social media to receive breaking news, and the 24-hour news cycle is forcing journalists to turn to social media to uncover new stories and sources. Investing time beforehand to reach out to relevant journalists and influential industry players before your launch will increase the chances of them picking up and sharing the story on launch day.

Customers

From a lead-generation standpoint, social media maintains a top slot as one of the least expensive lead-generation channels and, as of 2011, 62 percent of businesses say social media has become the most important channel for lead generation. Reaching out to prospective customers and using engaging stories shared via social media to lead them through the development of your product as it happens will attract and grow fans and whet their appetites for the finished product once it is launched.

What do you think? What other benefits can startups receive from building social media communities before they launch?

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 1, 2012

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Posted in: Social media, Startups, Technology marketing — 1 Comment

Great articles roundup: Blog trees, IT, marketing budgets, B2B social media marketing, mirror neurons

By Alexandra Reid

link1 300x240 Great articles roundup: Blog trees, IT, marketing budgets, B2B social media marketing, mirror neuronsAs a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are the Guardian, Information Age, MarketingSherpa, Social Media Examiner and Fast Company.

UK’s technology, design and startup blogs ranked by influence

Eloqua has published its latest U.K. edition of Blog Tree, designed by the specialists at JESS3, where blogs covering topics including technology, design and startups are ranked according to their influence.

When IT meets marketing

If IT wants a say in how the marketing department’s growing technology budget is spent, it must take the time to understand its needs. Gartner predicts that by 2014, up to one quarter of all technology spending will be controlled by the marketing department. This articles explains how CIOs should react.

Key attributes organizations seek in marketers

Every marketer must “bring something to the table.” Each marketing position requires certain competencies that do not always show up on a résumé. Most often, these mental capacities can be key determinants for success. MarkingSherpa’s research analyzes the importance that 1,600 survey respondents placed on the aptitudes necessary for personal and professional success.

How B2B marketers use social media: New research

In Social Media Examiner’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Mike Stelzner asked more than 1,900 B2B marketers how they’re using social media, and to share insight on what’s working with social media marketing and where they would like to improve. This articles focuses on those areas where B2B marketers have significantly different experiences than their consumer-focused counterparts.

Mirror neurons and their role in marketing

Researchers are exploring how physical experiences play a role in the future of marketing and communications. They have discovered that a person’s experiences act as a kind of source code for the brain. In the same way that computer code dictates what you see on a web page, different physical experiences write different ideas in your unconscious. This article explains the magical power of “simulation,” and its enormous potential for people in the business of communication and marketing.

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on April 27, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media, Startups, Technology marketing — 2 Comments

Victoria Lennox: Startup champion

By Alexandra Reid

Victoria lennox 300x206 Victoria Lennox: Startup championAs co-founder of Startup Canada, the country’s first-ever entrepreneur-led national movement celebrating Canadian entrepreneurship, Victoria Lennox is a bona fide startup champion.

At her core, Victoria is a social entrepreneur, and you could say her relationship with the startup ecosystem approaches the romantic. She is excited about the opportunities that come from starting new businesses, not only from an economic standpoint, but for their potential to empower individuals with the motivation to think bigger, rediscover their dreams and be creative.

“Entrepreneurship is a mindset, a lifestyle, a way of thinking. That’s why I’m part of this movement in Canada,” said Victoria. “It isn’t just about creating entrepreneurs, but inspiring Canadians to think in entrepreneurial ways. I’ve seen entrepreneurship transform people. It’s about a personal experience, and if that leads to healthier communities, that’s a great byproduct.”

The conviction that entrepreneurship should be nationally celebrated for these reasons is central to the Startup Canada movement. Over the coming months, Startup Canada will harness the collective energies of Canadian entrepreneurs and enterprise support communities from coast to coast with the goals of providing the entrepreneurship community with a strong voice, promoting a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and creating a unified brand that Canadians can rally around.

In just one short month since its tour began, the Startup Canada movement has engaged 25,000 Canadians and 250 partner organizations across the country. The tour, which runs from March to September, offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to participate in more than 30 Town Halls and 100 Fringe Events and connect through a social media groundswell campaign. The movement will not only identify key challenges facing Canadian entrepreneurs, it will bring them together in a way that they never have been before.

Victoria said Startup Canada couldn’t have come at a better time. With a struggling economy, fragmented support system and a relative lack of national culture, vision and strategy to support entrepreneurship, starting a business in Canada can be a lonely and daunting experience.

“I think that especially with the recent global downturn of the economy and rise of global superpowers that are different than those that came before, there is an impetus on countries to reprioritize what is important. Developed and developing countries are placing a bigger emphasis on entrepreneurs for creating social capital and building strong businesses. For Canada to be competitive in this technology-driven, interconnected world, we need to look at our entrepreneurs and invest in them and create a strategy to move this forward.

“Canada is a great place to start a new company. We simply can’t afford to be complacent. We need to be fueled by the global competition. We need to move our mindset away from being acquired and exiting to building big, opportunistic companies at home.”

But encouraging entrepreneurs to start and build companies at home requires united support locally, provincially and nationally.

“To keep entrepreneurs here, we need to support them, celebrate them and help them grow bigger. What we lack is cohesion, a unified vision that brings all of our fragmented initiatives together.

“Entrepreneurs focus on one thing – their business. They operate in silos. But entrepreneurship is a social activity. We need our key players – business incubators, university research parks, angels, VCs – to grow bigger teeth and work together.”

But unification and growing support is a complex process, explains Victoria.

“To unify Canadians to celebrate entrepreneurship, we need to identify a common denominator, and that is to generate a culture of entrepreneurship in Canada. As celebrating entrepreneurship is something we can all agree upon, it forms the foundation upon which the Startup Canada movement can grow.

“Startup Canada is a methodology, an exercise in community building. It’s about having deep conversations across the country, asking people what the challenges of entrepreneurship are and how they would solve them. The stress is on the solution. It’s also about impassioning communities, championing new ideas and generating awareness that entrepreneurship is a viable career choice. As we move across the country, we hope entrepreneurs will be proud to celebrate themselves and their successes.

“Out of all the conversations will flow a community-backed action plan, which will set the agenda for Startup Canada over the coming years. We will use that information to advise governments, organizations and individuals on key steps they should take to support entrepreneurship in Canada.”

While the tour has already begun, the official launch of Startup Canada is scheduled to take place May 2, from 6-8pm at the University of Ottawa. You are invited to join Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, and serial entrepreneur, community leader and Startup Canada chairman Dr. Adam Chowaniec, along with event partners Invest Ottawa and the University of Ottawa, for an evening of celebration, inspiration and idea sharing. The event will also feature a special address from serial entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews and a young entrepreneurs panel chaired by Victoria herself.

Victoria Lennox is an entrepreneur, policy advisor and network builder. As the executive director of Startup Canada, a non-profit grassroots initiative with the goal to become the centerpiece of Canada’s entrepreneurship community, Victoria has stimulated public discourse and developed meaningful political and policy inroads to further Canada’s entrepreneurship agenda nationally and abroad.

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on April 26, 2012

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Posted in: Startups — Leave a comment

Great articles roundup: patenting, startup lessons, and finding the right B2B marketing mix and best marketing hires

By Alexandra Reid

link 300x240 Great articles roundup: patenting, startup lessons, and finding the right B2B marketing mix and best marketing hiresAs a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are TechCrunch, Fast Company, Forbes, ReadWriteWeb and MarketingProfs.

Why startups should pay attention to skyrocketing patent prices

As large companies increasingly look to protect their revenue streams through IP risk mitigation, startups with strong patent holdings will become increasingly valuable because they provide an opportunity to remove dual potential threats to the potential acquirer’s revenue stream — as a competitor and as a patent threat. Author Leonid Kravets explains that startups that are able to position themselves as part of an acquirer’s IP risk-mitigation strategy make themselves more attractive targets for acquisition.

Why every company should adopt Twitter’s Internet patent agreement

Twitter’s newly released Innovator’s Patent Agreement (IPA) appeals to a cause near and dear to many of today’s best developers. The defensive patent portfolio, that developers can be assured will be used only to defend against software patent assaults or with their permission, strikes the perfect balance for both parties. This article explores many reasons why this agreement, or something very similar, should become an industry standard.

Startup lessons from the ink-stained trenches

Startup founders and news reporters have more in common than being stereotypically broke. Author Shane Snow explains that where the skills of business and journalism overlap, entrepreneurship is often found. In this article, Snow suggests cues that every entrepreneur should take from journalists.

B2B marketers: Use big data, new tools to evaluate, execute, evolve

According to a new study, most B2B marketers do not feel their current online marketing mix is meeting sales demand, and that they’re under pressure to measure the impact of their programs. This article argues that if B2B marketers look at the disruption in their industry as an opportunity, they will find that they are, in fact, in a time of ”creative re-invention,” and that in the end, “marketing will emerge as a stronger more potent discipline.”

What companies want: The seven traits of an ideal marketer

What do you look for when you hire a marketer? As the title reveals, this post lists the seven most important traits that every marketer should embody.

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on April 20, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Product marketing, Startups, Technology marketing — 1 Comment