Social Marketing | Social Networking and New Markets

Start ups..why would we need start ups

April 5, 2010 Leave a comment

A note from ..well.. Friedman | nytimes.com

Tom Friedman quotes a real fun fact in his pad in the New York Times this weekend..

Here’s my fun fact for the day, provided courtesy of Robert Litan, who directs research at the Kauffman Foundation, which specializes in promoting innovation in America: “Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less,” said Litan. “That is about 40 million jobs. That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period.”

Message: If we want to bring down unemployment in a sustainable way, neither rescuing General Motors nor funding more road construction will do it. We need to create a big bushel of new companies — fast.

Of course, now I count as Old school sand this fact more or less ties in with the way an old favourite of ours would have lived it! Dick Feynman.. He is one mind who would have probably schemed to start a start up , weak decay and half derivatives aside ( for links to get the jab, catch Feynman on wiki, and as much everyweher else. Phew that’s one point driven home. I’m seriously out of work and it’s because I think Apple isn’t shipping that many iPads :lol

Also to note changes in marketing strategy at banks, they hardly did anything campaigns from 2009 highlighted in NY times including ads procliming AIG slogans with “AIU” written underneath, GMAC cpopy with “Ally” Bank written in Pink and the Personal finance pieces from Citi which now compete with mint.com on the blog at citi.com and also compete with solutions from Bank of America.com , doesn’t really look encouraging for any new start ups either..but then thtat analysis wil come 6 months later when despite higher PE disbursals in 2010, most would have gone to 5-10 year old ventures with a profit record and proportion of cash with Limited Partners would continue to show positive “Can’t Say” percentages..It’s a big muddle and even the muddle is a prety social one now, thanks to FB and Twitter. Also PE would fund really giant projects this time, belying the term “start ups” again and again. We need a new social variety of Micro Finance right now like Ycombinator..

Filed under Digital Media, Financial Services, Marketing Tagged with Marketing, Social Marketing, Strategic Marketing

TweetBeep – Reputation Management Twitters | Jesse

July 23, 2009 1 Comment

If your job has you tasked with monitoring your company’s online presence, you’re probably dealing with Twitter in some way. Running occasional manual searches for your company’s name is one way to go, but a better way would be to sign up with a service like TweetBeep.

TweetBeep is a free service that will email you as frequently as once per hour with any Twitter mentions of the search terms of your choice. The service is ad-supported, but if you find that you need it, TweetBeep also offers a premium option for $20US/month that allows you to receive updates as frequently as every 15 minutes, up to 200 different alert searches, and no advertising.

While TweetBeep allows you to set a number of criteria for your alerts, one of the most interesting is the ability to set an “Attitude” criteria. You can choose from three:

Positive attitude

Negative attitude

Asking a question

This appears to be a fantastic way to stay on top of how people are perceiving your company or brand, and gives you the ability to very quickly react to your customers or users. It can also be useful for heavy Twitter users to ensure they don’t miss any mentions. I should note that as of the time of this writing I had some difficulty with the email confirmation process – it took multiple requests and over an hour before my email confirmation arrived in my inbox.

[via Stay N' Alive]

Filed under Facebook, Online Maketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Blogging, Infomediaries, Networking, Online Marketing, Reputation Management, Social Marketing, Social Media, Trust Agents, Twitter, Twitter tools, Twitter Valuation

Facebook vs Twitter series 13/800: What about Digital Books? Can Kindle be about social collaboration?

July 18, 2009 1 Comment

I know what you all are thinking. Why suddenly a Kindle in Facebook vs Twitter wars? What about the Friendfeed and the dozen social networks to be branded me too! Where do they come in? Well, to me Kindle comes first because Amazon is a phenomenon on my personal list of Enterprise greats and the other start ups have still got something to prove in terms of viability. Not that the risk is any lesser for a Myspace or a Kindle but My space going down would be a turning point people would remember like AOL, eBay and the others who have had a not so easy time since they set up on the web and who have never graduated to the real Web 2.0 or near real time social collaboration. Amazon and Kindle however have that potential ( may be they will also drop out later like Starbucks) and they can handle innovation and complex consumer minds with a relative ease that would be critical.

Long back, during the days of Patricia Seybold’s customers.com and Guy Hagel’s ‘Net Worth’ we saw an expostulation of the success determining parameters of the new invisible continent by Kenichi Ohmae ( let’s face it, the guy was an other world icon but still made it as a strategist on the new web). What the Invisible Continent described in great detail was an Infomediary – An organization or ‘Trust agent’ that would broker all business transactions on the web because they would be entrusted with the Customers foibles and deep seated choices that would make the best buying decision and robust sales. Amazon and Kindle are the perfect intermediaries for such digital transactions like iPhone and iPod have been for music albeit non collaboratively till now.

I think the new web needs Kindle and amazon to ramp up the offering in tune with customers, learning the nuances along with the customer as they go along this adventure. For amazon to continue with its 50% market share of the World’s Book Sales has been relatively easy when compared with the others and a vital part of that has been the enriched customer experience which is really beautifully collaborative and store front’ish at the same time. It also highlights the other essential for social collaboration which Facebook and Twitter seem to make light of, ad that is the reading habit. For any transaction on the new web, one has to be a voracious reader to navigate the choices, discuss with friends, colleagues and competitors online and make instant decisions that are almost always right.

Kindle could easily include Video, Audio and twitter / friendfeed messaging on the device along with maps and the books to replace other devices you need to carry arund today for a complete mobile experience. I think that’s the way it’s going to go too.

Filed under Facebook, Online Maketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Amazon, Facebook valuation, FiLife, Kindle, Media, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Net, Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Valuation

Facebook vs Twitter series 12/800: Twitter is down from FB hunting?

July 18, 2009 1 Comment

Sitting inside a conference room at Twitter, BlackBerry in hand, Kevin Thau is all business.In his first interview since taking charge of the San Francisco technology companys mobile business development a month ago, Thau is confident that cellphones will play a crucial role in helping the messaging service make money.

The four-year-old company, which has raised more than $35 million from Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital and others, offers its service free of charge, and hasn’t yet figured out how to generate revenues.

Thau, 36, says thats about to change. He says the number of text messages passing through Twitters platform has grown 1,000% in the last year. Add to that the fact that users are texting more substantive observations and opinions in real time, and the company has a valuable information database it can sell to businesses.

Thau says Twitter is developing a range of analytics and metrics products and services built around the information contained in “tweets,” the e-mail and text messages that pass through its platform. “We can measure the tweets,” he says. “Were trying to figure out what are the appropriate metrics around engagement and how to convey those.”

Thau, however, didnt say when Twitter plans to sell these services or how much it will charge for them.

Its an interesting business model, but can Twitter survive selling analytics and other services? “When it comes to enterprises, absolutely,” says Jeremiah Owyang, a social computing analyst with Forrester Research ($FORR ) . “I just got off a call with a client thats asking about how to engage on Twitter. There’s definitely interest.”

via ‘Forbes’

Filed under Facebook, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Amazon, Facebook valuation, FiLife, Kindle, linkedin, Media, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Net, Social Networking, Startups, Twitter, Twitter tools, Twitter Valuation

Twitters Analytical Business Plan – Forbes.com

July 17, 2009 1 Comment

Thau, however, didnt say when Twitter plans to sell these services or how much it will charge for them.

via ‘Forbes’

Filed under Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Media, Online, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Net, Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter tools, Twitter Valuation

Something Burger sandwiches are..

June 27, 2009 1 Comment

The latest hot ads, will the banking moguls respond to this consumer strategy http://ow.ly/fYzE

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A BANKING CAMPAIGN FOR CREDIT APPLNS

In an effort to keep making horrible ads that have nothing to do with whatever Burger King’s brand identity is they’ve come out with this ..

Let’s not forget their past insulting work here, Mexican get sizzled, and here, Slap that booty.

Obviously the only branding strategy Burger King can come up with is to be controversial. Brilliant.

So I’m out of the Burger King loop. They obviously want people in the business to write negatively about them because what women is gonna run out and buy this sandwich now? And do men really think they’ll get a blow job? No, the only thing Burger King wants is press, so stop giving it to them, they don’t deserve it.

Ads are meant to do one thing…sell product, period.

via Branding Blog Branding Company Corporate Internet Brand Image Strategy.

Filed under Financial Services, IPOs, Marketing, Superbowl, Twitter Tagged with Blogging, comScore, Entertainment, Linked In, Media, MR, Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Marketing, Sports Marketing, Twitter