Kerisma

According to Jason Clark’s new iMediaConnection article Why Twitter Will Soon Become Obsolete, he brings up a good point that I’ve also noticed with the evolution of online products and technology use in the social media space. We’ve seen it time and time again with sites such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter first popular with younger generations, but once the majority of mass audiences start taking notice and new forms of advertising and sponsorships take flight, there is a shift in interest for further use over time. As marketers grasp these new technologies for the promotion of products, it can proliferate making a site saturated with similar messages, rather than using the communication tools to better understand the audience and provide further customer service and community support.

As Jason states in his article and I agree, “the online community is hyper-sensitive to marketing tactics, and as soon as a social media marketing tool becomes spammy, it immediately becomes irrelevant. Test different media, but let’s not get caught up in just one. Twitter is not the final answer to social media marketing. Staying aware, good writing, and good communication will always be more important. Think “writing” instead of “blogging” or “tweeting.” Remember, what works for one market on Twitter, or some other social media platform, can’t always be applied to every business. Closely monitoring, testing and evaluating the responses are key to success. Make sure before you start to market your business in these spaces, you have a strategy with the proper individuals in place to manage the process.

Don’t Put Too Many Eggs in the Twitter Basket
I’ve seen some intrinsic value in Twitter and many other social media platforms, but honestly, I can see where it could be another short-lived trend. Jason predicts, “Twitter will find its social media and marketing niche, but I cannot see it being nearly as important as some marketers are making it out to be. The retention rate of Twitter is said to be only around 30 percent, which means seven out of 10 people try it out once and don’t come back.”

Crazy world in cyberspace it has become. Are these new forms of communication only to later become trends that fade away? My advice is to not put all your eggs in one basket, but take a diversified integrated approach to marketing your business. People seek real connections, as well as loathe being blatantly marketed products online with little value. First it was email spam and people were flagging to block certain emails and notify their email service provider. Next it was too much tweeting typed on and on from someone in the course of two minutes forcing one to block their responses. What’s next?

A new study in MediaPost’s Engage Teens eNewsletter promoted by Bill Cater, partner of FuseMarketing, highlights eMarketer’s research on the teen demographic and use of social media tools and attitudes toward advertising and sponsorships. “According to eMarketer, advertising on social networks was $1.2 billion in 2008, rising to $1.3 billion in 2009. However, the study also found that only 30% of teens have “friended” a brand on a social networking site. Additionally, over 60% had an unfavorable to neutral opinion of brands advertising on social networks.” Bill Carter provides additional advice to those that wish to reach teens on social media sites for “brands to invest in relevant, paid content that provides some type of added value to teens and then further investment to maintain/update that presence. Social network marketing tactics are not free! Invest in your content, keep it fresh, and success will follow.“

Big Brother, Big Business, Don’t Be Fooled By the Face Either
Well are you familiar with those quizzes on Facebook? Someone behind-the -scenes is tracking your every response, your likes, dislikes, and it’s not just your friends, but rather businesses looking to make a buck off your behavior. Soon there will be a rise of more marketing messages coming your way of products sometimes without your knowledge. You may not have control of those messages being distributed to you either. It could happen tomorrow, if it isn’t already appearing before your eyes today. Are you okay with that? Remember as digital mediums grow, so do the audiences’ understanding and their use of it. People are becoming more savvy with behaviorial marketing tactics and some are not happy with this approach. A good marketer has to be careful with their strategy and provide useful information, provide a way to reach out to the community in an honest manner, rather than push products down people’s throats, or use deceptive tactics to get people to “buy-in” to a specific promotion, program, product or service. Otherwise, in the long -term your audience will retaliate and take a negative approach to your business. Yet, this social media world is new to many marketers all learning what works best and unfortunately through the process some brands may suffer. Good customer service, being upfront with your audience and trustworthiness are important values to uphold.

What’s the Next Wave for Social Media?
As Facebook has gone through a few facelifts to enhance its features, some have complained it’s harder to navigate the site. The audience has not been too receptive to some changes. This past week the new personal URL was introduced for one to add their own name to a URL specific to his/her profile. Yet, in traditional Facebook style there was little or no clear communication to understand the importance and relevancy to what the new URL means. I hypothesized it would help to identify better someone in the organic search of one’s profile to appear close to the top of the search engine results page. At the same time, Facebook warns the user you will only have ONE TIME to create a personal URL and the one you want could be taken. You will NOT be able to change it ever again. As a participant of the site with a profile, what does this actually mean to my further use in the future, or others that wish to review my information? That’s poor customer service if I ever heard. Let’s threaten them, get them to buy into the concept, and make it imperative for others to hurry up before time is running out! Hey, maybe Facebook is actually looking to monetize this new approach by creating a bidding war for acquisition of certain URL’s at a later date? At that point, it could be too late to find out the purpose of this new personalized URL.  Shortly thereafter, or in due time, the audience could decide to abandon the site altogether, because they weren’t pleased and move onto the next Google Wave, or plan to surf the web for something else.

Read my previous thoughts and how it relates to this issue on are we Creating a Bunch of Followers or New Leaders?

AlwaysOn Venture East

Despite the economy in a slump, there are a few new start-ups on the horizon seeking the proper seed capital to get their businesses off the ground, or take their company to the next level of success. It appears to be a tough road ahead, but along every path there are a few bumps to proceed to the next promising opportunity.  Last week AlwaysOn hosted the Venture East conference at the Mandarin Hotel Boston, providing an opportunity for venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs and new start-ups to showcase their products and services, as well as discuss their thoughts around business today during these unpredictable times.

A few local companies offered demonstrations of their products and/or services available today, or are just a step away from the store soon. Maybe you always wanted that surround-sound audio system in your living room, office, or bedroom, but didn’t want to bother building, breaking down walls and investing in all the parts to put it together? Emo Labs has the answer with its built-in speaker technology revolutionizing the way sound is brought to you. Hate the line and check-out counter at the supermarket? Why not consider ModivMedia’s point, click and scan your items, expediting the time it takes to do your shopping and check out. All it takes with their product is a quick minute or two to pay the bill at the register.

There was some discussion of the venture capitalists having to overhaul their internal infrastructure and be more cautious about the types of investments for the future. The old ways of doing business is not working in this economy. Some professionals are jumping ship from traditional firms to start funds of their own to take advantage of the up and coming industries. In the past, too much money was being thrown at IT and very few deals are coming together now.

Business Week reported in These Angels Go Where Others Fear to Tread ( June 1, 2009 issue), that more and more people are shying away from the venture capitalists to further conduct business and are seeking help from angel investors. Josh Kopelman, founder of First Round Capital reported, “…many old-line firms have gotten too big and unwieldy to build innovative companies the way they used to, and many angels, individuals who invest in start-ups, don’t have enough money to back most high-tech ideas . The article continues to discuss the importance “to take [venture capital]..back to its roots, when firms were smaller, more nimble and more likely to get start-ups off the ground.”

More links from Business Week about the attitude around the VC community

Is There An Angel in the Hub?

Angel Investors

As an entrepreneur, angels can be another route to get your business off the ground. Some New England leaders at different local organizations had spoken at the conference. These included Jean Hammond, of Boston’s Golden Seeds, Ham Lord of Launchpad Venture Group, and David Verrill of Hub Angels to name a few, who provided some advice to prepare promising entrepreneurs with the proper tips when approaching angels.

• Find someone you want to target that has experience in your business, or someone that can help to network you in.
• Make sure to have an interesting set of people that are working for your business that can bring diverse skills to the table.
• Be sure to have a great connection to customers and consider bringing a few to the meeting when pitching your product and/or service.
• Make sure to have a proof of concept, patents, etc, validate your target market needs/wants.
• Prove that you have thought through the parameters around the exit and make sure the right fund is a strategic fit.

New Investment Opportunities:
Boston VC’s Offer Hope on the Horizon

Managers of many of the local venture capitalist firms also spoke about the opportunities in Cleantech, discovering new tools and uses within digital media, eCommerce and mobile as a few contenders for consideration. David Beisel, VP at Venrock sees new hope in performance advertising where there is a shift in publishing to ad networks and/or real-time ad exchanges. Yet, in some instances, ad networks can hurt publishers as the business scales. Bob Davis, General Partner at Highland Capital Partners, said there is very little interest in media companies. So if you’re looking to attract any interest, you must be able to engage 100 million unique users each day and the audience must be measurable. Alan Spoon, Managing General Partner at Polaris Ventures spoke about how social media platforms may create awareness, but monetizing this is still a tough struggle. It’s key to focus on what platforms you are using, and what types of intellectual property has been created that can be of value to other companies who wish to acquire those aspects of the business.

Cleantech, Mobile, Digital Tools, eCommerce

Jeff Bussgang, General Partner of Flybridge Capital Partners commented on additional areas of growth which includes virtual goods, where people are willing to pay a premium for a service such as certain subscriptions or online games.

Marketing Matters

Kopelman also sees light at the end of the tunnel vested in interest to “building businesses on information freely on the web, or disrupting markets with cheaper web technology.” As technology has improved, the barriers to entry for many are few, thus positioning many entrepreneurs down an easier path of getting the business off the ground. However, some are finding it tough to gain customer acquisition and further online engagement with their brands that could be attractive to potential investors. In that case Kopelman states, “hire a marketing executive and launch a guerilla campaign.”

Too often, I’ve seen companies, especially new start-ups overly focused on the product and technology development neglecting one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. MARKETING. You can have the best product, but until one can easily identify “what can this product/service do for me?”, then you could have a problem. I’ve seen quite a few glitzy designed websites, all beautiful, but showcasing models, graphs, technical jargon, you name it – still no understanding of the target with the proper research to create a brand that could attract audiences. A skilled-marketer should be a part of the product development and go-to-market plans early on communicating with all parties. This prevents getting too far along the process by taking into consideration how to attract the audience, how to understand the audience, how to define the needs of the audience, and learn to market the business in the right fashion.

Tell me more about your business and be featured potentially in a future blog post. What challenges have you encountered?  What avenues have you considered for your marketing and sales strategy, or what would you like to learn in hopes to attract interest from potential investors? I welcome an opportunity to consult with you, or become a future member of your team in a marketing or business development role.

An article last year in eWeek,“Why Are There so Few Women Tech Entrepreneurs?” featured a report from Business Week showcasing the best young entrepreneurs in tech most likely to shape the world’s digital future. Of the 45 entrepreneurs, only three were women. It still rings true today, where I’ve noticed a gap with many online start-ups dominated by men with engineering backgrounds who continue to gain the attention and support by the media and venture firms. There are a select group of women professionals who have gone out on a limb and have been noted for their accomplishments in technology and digital developments. Well, maybe it’s a matter of time more women come together highlighting the accomplishments of other women.

Joan of Arc was a peasant girl, who despite her circumstances and an army of men, felt obligated to help lead the people of France to defeat the English. At a time of battle, she was capable of raising the spirits of the French troops securing control of Orleans.

Many times, women are the brainchild for new ideas and unfortunately still aren’t given the recognition or taken seriously for their work as some men. Center for Women’s Business Research (CWBR), reported that 10.1 million businesses are owned by women and this accounts for 40% of all privately held firms in the United States. These women run operations attribute to generating 1.1 trillion dollars in sales.

Is it really still a boys club and can’t the gals play with the venture capitalist crowd? I’ve thought it would be a great alternative to create a women owned VC firm that supports women driven businesses. Forbes magazine selected some of the top women with the Midas Touch to support the growth of new businesses after going out on their own to create their own firms. Many were tired of playing only with the boys club and decided it was best to be entrepreneurial as well. Myra Hart, a retired Harvard professor, conducted a report alongside Patricia Greene of Babson College, and other notable women researchers called The Diana Project. They reviewed many of the myths for women entrepreneurs seeking venture capital funding. In the report, “there was a noticeable trend where women received a disproportionately low amount of the venture capital available in the United States,” as reported in eWeek. During these tough economic times, it has created new challenges for both men and women entrepreneurs to seek the necessary funding for the growth of their business where new sources of financial support will be in need.

Why is it some men work together and become mentors for one another, while for the most part some women compete often against one another? Women need to bond together as much as men to move the army of talented individuals to the forefront of the battleground to win. I was considering today that there are few resources that promote the success stories, as well as hearing the challenges for women in the digital space. It would be great to share these experiences first-hand with others, or help connect people that want to make a contribution to new developments. It always interests me to create programs that can cultivate new talent to thrive, brings together people of different backgrounds and different areas of expertise to help new ideas, inspire entrepreneurship, or provide the proper tools to individuals about marketing, sales, and creating further awareness. I would like to join the ranks of women in leadership for making a remarkable and memorable change to empower people, while celebrating our similarities and embracing our differences.

I continue to work towards leading others, or learning from other leaders which include both men and women. It’s about time in 2009 that more organizations such as Girls in Tech have started to develop local chapters to support women of all ages seeking advancement and resources.

For some reason the competition between certain women in power remains strong and not supportive, while men look beyond that with their colleagues in the workforce. New programs for women is a positive thing, however, there is much needed focus at an earlier age for young girls and older women to change the old attitudes about competition and be in touch with collaboration and mentoring one another.

Are you a Joan of Arc in the Making? Or, do you know of one? Let me know!