Social media

Dealing with children and sensitive information online

By Alexandra Reid

smb ottawa logo Dealing with children and sensitive information online Joi Podgorny, who presented at Social Media Breakfast Ottawa yesterday, is an expert in dealing with children and other sensitive information online. In fact, she has nearly 5 million kids to watch over as the director of community engagement for National Geographic’s online kids game Animal Jam. As a marketer, community manager and creator of branded entertainment for children, Podgorny is under enormous pressure to ensure her product is as entertaining as it is safe.

Imagine, just for a moment, babysitting 5 million children. It seems like an impossible feat. Now envision what it would be like if those 5 million kids were situated across the United States, Canada and the world, and your only means of watching over them is through their activity online. On top of it all, the legal regulators who oversee online child safety are watching your every move. This is what Podgorny deals with on a daily basis. She deeply cares about the wellbeing of these children. But at the same time, she must ensure they are having fun and interacting with the game regularly. On top of it all, she’s got to prove to the parents that their kids are safe and benefiting from the game. How does a women who openly admitted that she should tattoo on her arm “never trust a nine-year-old” achieve such tremendous success in such a competitive and highly regulated industry?

Success for Podgorny amounts to following the rules without fault, knowing her market intimately and having a sound strategy in place, the details of which she discussed during her Social Media Breakfast presentation and in our interview that followed. As a former mathematician, her social media strategy for the kids’ media properties she oversees is meticulous, granular and purpose-driven. She has a plan for dealing with both the parents and the children involved and manages her team with an eagle eye to ensure all activities are law-abiding according to the children’s online privacy and protection act. As can be suspected, she admitted that she never really stops working.

Listen to our conversation that follows and let us know your thoughts and concerns. I will loop Joi into the conversation to answer your questions. We hope that this will spark a meaningful discussion.

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 18, 2012

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Posted in: Social media — 3 Comments

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?

Image: Totally how to

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on May 15, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — 1 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?

Image: Trusted Advisor

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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

Five old school mistakes creeping into digital and social media planning

Editor’s note:

This is the inaugural post by Rob Woyzbun, whose work in marketing and broader business strategy I have admired for years. We get together periodically to share war stories, discuss strategy and generally commiserate on the sorry state of technology marketing. We always part with an expressed desire to find some way to work together and it is my hope that having persuaded Rob to become a regular contributor here is just the start of some stellar collaborations.

– Francis Moran

By Rob Woyzbun

Marketing mistakes 300x225 Five old school mistakes creeping into digital and social media planningThe near-ubiquitous availability and always-on nature of the internet has changed how consumers learn about, consider and make decisions regarding almost everything — purchases, politics and even the causes they support.  We live in a world where Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic claim that “the medium is the message” is true — in ways even he might not have considered (See: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; 1964).

Ironically, while the proliferation of paid, owned and shared media channels has created limitless opportunities for innovative thinking and tactics, marketers still drag old-school errors into this brave new world. In our media research and planning practice, we see companies continue to make the same avoidable, costly mistakes.

Here’s our top five list of old-school mistakes creeping into the digital and social media arena, and some ideas on how to avoid them:

No. 1:  Failing to fully understand the customer decision journey

Many marketers still use the traditional purchase “funnel” (a linear customer journey starting with consideration of numerous brands, narrowing down to a set of fewer options, and ending with a purchase).  While parts of this journey are still relevant — such as the idea of a consideration set — research strongly suggests that once an initial brand set is developed, consumers spend far more time in evaluating a smaller brand set, and do so in an iterative fashion (including much peer and digital reference), and continue to do so even after purchase. In some product categories, there is actually more discussion about brands after a purchase! If this shift is missed, a marketer might set unrealistic objectives or expectations for his communication strategy. For example, not allocating enough resources to help consumers “spread the word” versus simply evaluating a set of brands. More on this issue in mistake No. 2.

No. 2: Inappropriate media objectives and measurements

This mistake comes in two variants, and follows closely on the heels of No. 1. Mistake 2A is to equate business objectives with communication objectives, thereby setting inappropriate measurements. Unless your business is a pure online, direct response, long tail, niche play with unassailable patent locks and a killer value-prop, your media or advertising objectives should not be sales, profit or market share. Those are business or marketing objectives. There’s a BIG difference. There are too many mitigating variables (product, price, customer experience, etc.) that make it unreasonable to hold advertising or communication responsible for final sales numbers. Your advertising or communication objectives are about knowledge and behaviour: What you want your customers to know about your brand, how it fits into their consideration set, how they should feel about your brand, and finally, how you would like them to act. Mistake 2B flows from No.1: If your customer journey is not well understood, it is likely you will set inappropriate objectives, such as “building awareness” when in fact the objective should be to “draw visitors to x product review sites or to amazon.com,” or to join a community of advocates.

No. 3: The trap of patterned, conservative thinking

This trap gets in the way of profit and innovation. Patterned thinking allocates resources (i.e. budget, people, time) based on unnecessarily conservative decision-making and a reliance on misleading indicators such as prior industry patterns. For example: “In our business, social media never works,” or entrenched ideas like “At ACME Inc. we’ve always used sales flyers.” Patterned thinking is very costly. A recent study in The Journal of Advertising Research (June 2011) suggests that in a variety of industries, profitability could be increased an average of 14 percent through improved spending allocation, simply by avoiding decisions fueled by false pre-conditions such as habit, and fear of change or disruption to an existing marketing eco-system. Marketers in relatively new industries, who actively seek new insight, are less likely to be trapped by these harmful patterns.

No. 4: Failing to evaluate competitive proposals or multiple vendors

When viewed through the media planning and implementation lens, we see poor business practices translate to media mistakes. The most prevalent is the “all-in” strategy (working strictly with one vendor or publisher) at the cost of reduced audience reach and impact. While one can often save time and effort by dealing with one publisher or vendor, there’s a lot to be said for good old competition. Unless a media vehicle or channel has a 100 percent reach of your target audience, and touches them at the perfect point in their decision journey, with the right brand environment and with reasonable cost efficiency (see Mistake No. 5), alternatives should always be considered. We’ve seen advertisers fail to reach their target audience effectively because they’ve committed their resources to one vendor in a market served by many. We’re not advocating an adversarial relationship with the media, simply one based on comparative values and knowledge gained through due diligence.

No. 5: Selecting and buying media on price alone — or by “unit” price

It’s been our experience that negotiating media campaigns for the lowest CPM or cheapest rate compromises other critical elements of media planning, including creativity and innovation. Media vendors who give up reasonable profit margins in negotiation are not inclined to collaborate with a marketer seeking added value or media innovation. Rather than leading with a low-cost focus, share your campaign objectives and insights with the media, and encourage them to consider a range of criteria (that includes but is not limited to cost efficiency) in developing a media solution best suited to your needs and objectives. Invite your vendors to become partners in creating a media solution that levers the strengths of their properties, while recognizing the value of your message and audience. We believe that the true measure of a media strategy should be value, not cost. There is more to gain from a cohesive media buy that addresses specific communications objectives and is not driven by price alone.

Rob Woyzbun is the director of media research and strategy integration for Vector Media Canada, and also a partner and founder of the firm. In its 20th year of business, Vector Media provides paid, owned and earned media planning and consulting services for B2B and B2C clients. Rob is also a professor at the Queen’s School of Business in Kingston, Ontario. Rob’s mantra is to challenge patterned thinking for better marketing and communication results.

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Rob Woyzbun

Posted by: Rob Woyzbun on May 7, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — Leave a 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

Social media strategy: Why meeting in the ‘real world’ matters

By Alexandra Reid

in person meeting 270x300 Social media strategy: Why meeting in the real world matters I’m a huge advocate of social media and how it helps bridge new relationships and strengthen existing ones, but I think it’s bad practice to rely on it as a sole means of communicating with others.

I’m a community manager today, but my background is in journalism. One of the first lessons I learned from the veteran journalists who were my mentors was the importance of meeting my sources face-to-face. This is because the human face and body reveal huge amounts of information that can’t be received over the telephone or email (social media wasn’t such a hot topic back then). Some information could be subtle, such as false confidence, while other cues could be blatantly obvious, such as a facial tick, shifting eyes or a bouncing knee that could reveal discomfort or even dishonesty. Even the layout of an office, clothing, personal hygiene and other such visual signals could bring more valuable information to a story.

One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined through nonverbal cues. Another study (explained in the same article) said that the effectiveness of a performance was determined seven percent by words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by nonverbal communication. Nearly all of this information is lost in most social media communications.

Some social mediums such as video and podcasts are attempting to break down these communications walls. However, the vast majority of the conversations about those pieces of content are conducted through written comments. Furthermore, video and audio can be edited in ways that make a person look and sound more professional, human and otherwise engaging (or the opposite, if that’s the intention). Skype and other video conferencing tools are probably the closest we have to face-to-face communications today, but still the positioning of a webcam can exclude valuable information about an individual, not to mention that you can’t judge a handshake over a screen.

I’m not stating anything new here. It has been a long-standing best practice among networking business people to sit down for coffee with as many relevant people as possible each week and go to events and other meetups.

There have also been numerous studies on the value of face-to-face meetings for fostering strong business relationships. In-person events, for example, have proven to be helpful in capturing attention, inspiring positive emotions and building networks and relationships, as meeting face-to-face helps us remember each other and real-life events are usually longer social engagements than virtual ones.

As Mary Beth McEuen, VP-executive director of the Maritz Institute, a network of thought leaders and one of the authors of the study, explained on BtoB, “If you’re sitting in a virtual environment, you filter things out. It’s very common to multitask in a virtual conference. In that case you engage a different part of your brain, and information doesn’t make it into long-term memory.”

Harvard Business Review also did a study on the impact of in-person meetings. In a global survey of 2,211 Harvard Business Review subscribers, 95 percent of respondents viewed in-person meetings as a key to success in building long-term relationships. As reported by GigaOm, the survey revealed that face-to-face meetings were seen as most effective for:

  • Negotiating important contracts (82 percent).
  • Interviewing senior staff for key positions (81 percent).
  • Understanding and listening to important customers (69 percent).

So, what does all this have to do with developing a social media strategy for your business or client? My point is that, while a social media strategy should focus primarily on the online world, it should give some consideration to the potential opportunities that can come from marrying online and offline worlds.

For example, Facebook has told us that photos and videos are the most important types of content because they encourage the most engagement. Why not make it a part of your social media strategy to attend and host real-life events where you can meet important people and take advantage of all the benefits that come from face-to-face communications. At the same time, take photos of the people you meet and upload them to Twitter via your mobile device, using the appropriate handles to extend the conversation there. You could also upload them to Facebook and encourage those people to find you, connect with you and tag themselves. You could also take video, and upload that content to YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook, where people who attended can engage with you further.

Another idea is to create what we at Francis Moran and Associates like to call “web 2.0” business cards that list your social media profiles and pages. When you go to an event or meeting, hand out your social business card to people you have met in person to further develop those relationships online. I think you will find that those relationships will become stronger and more valuable than those you fostered solely online.

If you’re particularly technologically savvy, you might even consider trying one of the new mobile applications that allow people to exchange information between mobile devices. Bump, for example, is an application for iOS and Android that lets users exchange their details between devices by simply “bumping” them together. In an article covering five apps that could kill business cards, The Next Web explains, “beyond simple contact information, Bump allows users to share pictures and calendar events, and connect to other people’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts by tapping their devices together and selecting which information to transmit.”

What are you doing to marry online and offline social efforts? Share your ideas here.

Image: SalesCoachingHabits

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Alexandra Reid

Posted by: Alexandra Reid on April 17, 2012

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — 2 Comments