I have been doing quite a lot of Marketing and PR work lately both for myself and other brands/startups I am involved with. The more time I spend doing it, the more I discover unusual but very cost effective ways people are starting to get the word out. Many startups that are being run by gen-y’s don’t have the financial muscle to compete with the bigger, established companies and as a result we are always looking for ways to reach out to thousands without breaking bank.

1.) Chatroulette: As strange as it sounds, people are actually starting to use chatroulette as a way of pitching their ideas. Personally, I don’t see how effective this can be considering most people don’t spend more than 3 seconds on air before hitting “Next” if they are not keen on talking to you. On my first visit to the popular website, I left and promised myself never to return…no thanks to the 4 male genitals I saw in the space of 20 seconds. However, it does look like chatroulette is much cleaner and friendly these days. Last week when I went back on, I actually got pitched by this one really hot blonde about a vacation planning website and I must say I did go on the site during the chat. I don’t know how many people “nexted” her or how many stayed on to listen to her pitch, but it does look like something 5 out of 10 will stay to listen on.

2.) CNN iReport: Again, this is something I haven’t tried. If you own a startup whose product/service is something that will excite people or something you reckon people might like hearing about, then creating an iReport page could be a good idea. By having a profile here, you have a chance to leverage a good percentage of the millions of daily visitors on the CNN website. I have actually noticed a lot of companies doing this and gaining traction without having to spend a dime.

4.) Facebook Fan Page: With the amazing growth of Facebook over the past year or two, it’s no longer surprising to see some pages rack up as many as one 1 million fans in only a few weeks. In the past, it’s the popular brands like Dell, Coca-cola who had pages with such massive following. Lately though, random funny pages are even starting to overtake such brands in terms of number of fans. Take this page for example, and this. I have heard of companies starting to work with some of the owners of pages with such large following in a bid to leverage those fans, some are even purchasing the fan pages outright.

In the next few days, I will post a couple more ways I have discovered, but in the mean time, if you have any other ideas or ways to market a startup in cost effective fashion, do share!

Ideas are the center of all the growth we have been able to achieve since making fire and the wheel all the way to iPhones and SUV’s. Someone had an idea to improve their lifestyle or the life of others and then put that idea into motion. More often than not we are seeing young entrepreneurs start to talk to each other, in classes, networking events, dorms and bars about ideas. What starts as chatter is starting to become reality with the way Gen-Y has taken an interest to entrepreneurship.

Our latest endeavor, the Rock Star Business Series, started as a conversation I had on the phone with Matt from Under30CEO. We were chatting about college students and how many of them are not as keen on the whole personal branding, social media thing that we are accustomed to with the outspoken group over at Brazen or 20 Something Bloggers. For how many people are using these new tools to find great opportunities, network and form business relationships, there are that many more that are job board hopping and hoping that something falls in their lap.

This conversation led to a business idea that was put together over 2 weeks. We plopped up a site, leveraged our networks and had sales coming in seconds after the sales page went live. Nice conversation, right?

The key here is that we spoke up. Many times people keep their ideas bottled in, thinking they are not good enough, or people won’t “get it.” They will.

They will because deep down we all want to be part of the conversation. We want to be in the loop and use our own connections or ideas to help out. This is evident in many businesses that are starting at colleges and universities across the world right now. Kids are using strength in numbers to kick start their business and most times do not look at it as a business, but as a project. Something fun to pass the time with friends and make some happy hour cash.

Gen-Y is an extremely collaborative group. We team up for sports, book reports, science fairs and our parents combined with genius marketing developed the “buddy system” for going to the mall or parks. Now that we are evolving and getting into situations where we can use our talents and ideas to make changes in business, we are looking to friends and other like minded Gen-Y’s to start companies with.

But, how do we get the conversation started?

The first step is to be proactive with your idea. You do not need all the answers as to how it will work to start talking about it. You only need a concept and an approach to bring it up. Getting the idea out in the open will allow others to give feedback, direction and to see if its realistic or not.

The way to take your idea to the next level is to know who you want to tell. If you are a marketing guy with a software idea, you need to start chatting with programmers, IT pros and others that can give you feedback and ideas. You can meet these people online, at networking events or in the classroom. When I needed a team of developers for an idea I had, I stalked the Computer Science building for a few hours with fliers and handed them out after every class. I organized a quick meetup at the sandwich shop on campus and got a few people to really weigh in on the idea. It was a great success and helped us solidify our startup concept.

Use online collaborative tools. For the new Rock Star course we have sent surveys to people we think are potential customers to get feedback and ask questions about the material. We have opened up the doors to previous customers and partners to test drive the platform and used things like Google Docs and forums to get people involved and testing out the concepts. There are tons of tools from communication platforms like Yammer to Basecamp to mind mapping software like MindMeister that can get others involved in the process without having to bend over backwards to give their input.

Once you have the conversation started, be sure to capitalize on the excitement and put your words into action. The best time to get active is when there is a spark about the project. Keep the good vibes and motivation going in order to blast off and start testing the idea, the product and the startup. In today’s economy, you can afford to get things to market quickly, test, test so more and then deal with the business end.

So, what’s your idea and how can we get you started? I’d love to help out in the comments.

This guest post was written by Greg Rollet, a Gen-Y Entrepreneur and Internet Marketer. His new course, the Rock Star Business Series, helps Gen-Y build their brand and their business with online tools and resources. You can also follow him on Twitter, @g_ro.

Photo by darek.zon

This brilliant post was written by Donna Fenn, I highly encourage you to pick up her book Upstarts!

Small business owners are typically an optimistic lot, even in the face of dismal economic conditions. But a recent American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor survey found that GenY entrepreneurs are more optimistic than most. “More than three-quarters (80%) of these entrepreneurs have a significantly more positive outlook on business prospects versus GenX and business owners overall (each 55%), and Baby Boomers (52%),” the survey noted. GenY business owners were most  likely to be hiring and making capital investments, and least likely to have cash flow issues and to be “stressed out” about the economy.

Those findings didn’t surprise me in the least. Last spring, as I was wrapping up my book, Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business (McGraw-Hill, 2009), I decided to do a short survey of the 150 young entrepreneurs I had interviewed. Among other things, I wanted to know how they were surviving the recession. Here’s what I found among the respondents: 20% said the recession had actually been good for their companies; 32% said they had felt very little impact; 44% said revenues would be lower in 2009 but that their companies were stable; and only 5% said they had taken a big hit and were barely hanging on.

When I followed up with some of them directly, it became clear that many entrepreneurs in this generation actually welcomed tough economic times. They said that the recession was teaching them the art of laser-like focus, and compelling them to make better decisions, to become more frugal, and to initiate systems and procedures that would help position them for economic recovery. Here are a few recession-trouncing strategies from Upstarts! that you can apply to your own company:

Pursue repeat business. It’s far less expensive to nail down repeat business from your existing customers than it is to land new ones. Now is the time to reap the benefits of those good customer relationships

that you’ve been cultivating over the past few months. At Undercurrent, a Manhattan-based digital marketing firm, co-founders Aaron Dignan and Josh Spear offer their young employees three levels of quarterly perks, depending on how many repeat business deals they manage to rustle up as a team. Three deals might earn everyone a Friday afternoon at the movies; six or nine deals could mean massages for all or a shopping spree at nearby Whole Foods. New rewards are offered every quarter to keep things interesting. The program keeps employees motivated and Undercurrent on the radar screens of important clients.

Focus on your core competency. Robert Weber’s company, W3i in Sartell, MN, markets third party computer applications and has been growing 53% a year. W3i continues to post significant gains this year because, Weber says, he had the foresight to eliminate divisions of the company that were hogging resources without generating significant revenue. He shut down a lead generation business and sold a mobile applications business “we never really figured out how to integrate into our main company.” With a single point of focus — “to be market leader in applications distribution” — Weber says the company is well positioned for growth this year.

Snap up top talent. Layoffs at big companies mean that there’s a surplus of great employees on the market now. Recently, Joel Holland, the CEO of Footage Firm, a Reston, VA company that sells stock video footage, put out the word that he wanted to hire a new head of web development and a top sales person. “I was shocked to get applications from executives who, in a better economic time, never would have taken my call, let alone responded to a job posting,” he says. “I hired a rock star web developer, and I’m in talks with a former hot shot at a major online media company to take the sales lead.” He’s also hired a part-time CFO, and picked up numerous talented freelancers — people

who would have been inaccessible in a better economy.

Respond rapidly to market shifts. The economy is almost certainly having a profound impact on you customers: they may have altered their purchasing habit, or found themselves with entirely different needs. It’s your job to respond to those shifts. Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams, co-founders of Manhattan-based In Good Company Workplaces (IGC), run a membership organization that provides women business owners with shared office space. Previously, their clients were mostly mature, established business owners. But Lancaster notes that the recession has created more “entrepreneurs of necessity” and she’s seeing more opportunity for IGC among startups. So the company, which also offers consulting and educational programs to its members, has “begun to offer more start up oriented programs and an accountability group for folks that were more used to working in a structured environment and need help adjusting to working on their own,” says Lancaster. She and Abrams are also partnering with professional organizations that have traditionally catered to corporate women, but are now filled with people who have lost jobs and are considering starting companies.

Look for hidden sources of revenue. Sometimes your best source of new revenue is right under your nose. That’s what Talia Mashiach, the CEO ofEved Services in Chicago, has discovered. Mashiach’s company partners with hotels to provide their corporate clients with access to all the outside independent vendors they need to organize an event (such as florists, videographers, entertainment, transportation, etc.). Her competitive edge is the proprietary technology she developed to manage those vendors efficiently. The system works so well that Mashiach is now marketing it to other companies. “They’ll use our technology platform and pay us a transaction fee,” she explains. Also included in the package is access to an award-winning corporate university that Mashiach created for her own staff called Eved University. It’s not the revenue model what she had in mind when she first developed the technology, but it’s one that she now expects will spur significant growth for her company.

Author Bio:

Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You CanProfit from Their Success and Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack, is a contributing writer at Inc. magazine. An expert on small business trends and entrepreneurship for more than 20 years, she is also a community leader on Work.com, a featured expert on SBTV.com, and a blogger on Inc.com. She lives in Pelham, NY, with her husband, Guian Heintzen, and is the proud mom of two GenYers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Start-Up Business Guy Stuck for November’s Rent! (thepoint.com)
• You Can Trounce the Recession (startupprofessionals.com)

I have read many posts and heard alot of casts where people talk about quitting their day jobs or dropping off school to build their start-ups, that’s cool and all but make sure you take a minute or several minutes to rethink that decision. With the present state of the economy, I can see why anyone would give up on searching for a job and focus fully on their start-up. We’ve all read those fairytale stories of how Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to found Facebook, how Tim Ferriss quit his corporate job to build a successful business etc… but we never read those stories about how Joe dropped out of college to build a start-up but ended up homeless and hungry. The world we live in glorifies those success stories but forget the failures, not realizing how important it could be in teaching young Entrepreneurs to make the right decision.

If you feel as a young Entrepreneur that you have enough money to last you through your entire start-up process, then by all means follow your heart. The thing people don’t realize is that the money is not the only element of gain about having a job while chasing a start-up dream. If you know that your current job consumes too much of your time and you need to have a less demanding schedule, here’s a thought: find a part time job, a consulting gig at a start-up and keep a cashflow rather than giving it up all together. I always encourage Entrepreneurs to try associating themselves with other start-ups. If you can get a job at a start-up, try your best to! It’s a learning process that will prove immensely valuable. If you can’t get a full-time job there, truth is that a lot of start-ups outsource some aspects of their jobs – cease this opportunity, be active on their blogs and community, study their moves and make sure you learn something. It will come in handy. Here are some reasons why having a job helps your pursuit of start-up success:

1.) It keeps the money coming in. There’s always money floating around silicon valley and Investors are always looking for promising Entrepreneurs to invest in, BUT they are now very very careful with how much they spend. It’s more difficult to get money from investors these days if you are a first time Entrepreneur and the state of the economy can be blamed for that. Most Entrepreneurs have now turned to bootstrapping as the way of funding their business. How can you afford to bootstrap if you don’t have cashflow? even if you have money saved up somewhere, do you know how long that will last before you need more?

2.) It offers the opportunity to gain some useful experience. If you have a job whether in a start-up or not, you are bound to learn a thing or two that would be useful later on in your career as an Entrepreneur. You might find yourself learning how to manage other people, how to make the right business decisions, marketing and so forth. The possibilities are many. Now imagine if you were working at a start-up, you will see first hand what it takes to build/run a start-up. You are bound to learn important lessons, lessons like how to pitch investors, how to find the right work force, effective marketing strategy, carrying out customer tests etc..

3.) Having a job means Networking Opportunities. A lot of people associate Networking with having time to travel from event to event. On the job networking might be over-looked but there are many stories of people building relationships with co-workers, bosses or even clients and have gone on to build successful businesses with the help of these people. I can’t count how many ex-google employees, ex-paypal employees that have gone on to build start-ups that are performing better than okay at the moment. These people took advatage of the people they met while working at their old jobs and the results are obvious. So if you are a recent grad, it helps to atleast try looking for a job, rather than just focus fully on starting up a business.

4.) Having a Job means something to fall back on. Whether you like to hear this or not, most start-ups fail within the first year. I know every Entrepreneur believe it can’t be them, we all expect to succeed! After all we are the optimists and those investors are pessimists. But what if you do fail? what then? Having a job means something you can fall back on in this tough recession period where it’s more difficult to find a new job than it is for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Unemployment Increases in September (hsh.com)
• Successful Marketing Requires Behavior Change (myventurepad.com)

These days it seems like startups are springing up everywhere every single day and it’s a bit tiresome really to take it all in. All of a sudden myriads of people want to start companies, they don’t care if they have what it takes or not, they just want to build something successful. Just like me, they are on Techcrunch everyday, they read all these success stories and feel a renewed confidence in their ability to build something better than Facebook. I am no pessimist, but I like being very pragmatic. The truth is that not all of us can do what Zuckerberg has done, but those people who actually have what it takes to cut it need to pay attention, learn from other start-up stories, ask questions and hopefully they will achieve what they have set out for.

One thing I like to do is study failed start-ups, infact I study them as much as I do successful startups. When I read about Mint.com, which is a fantastic company by the way, I also like to read about Thought Inc or playcafe for example. A friend of mine once asked why I was reading about a man investing all his life savings in an idea he has only to see it fail in only a few months. He reckoned that would be too painful for him to read and would put him off ever wanting to build a start-up. Not me. When I read about failed businesses, I actually study. I study how they started, how they sought funds, what equity did they give out? did they even get funded? all these questions and more are what I ask myself while doing this ‘postmortem’.

I am currently working on a startup as well, so you can understand why I would want to know what others have done wrong just so I won’t make those mistakes myself. While many mistakes to one startup might actually be a good move for another, it is up to you to sort through the list and decide which is which with respect to your own startup. Here are some things I have learned:

1.) Find a market for your product first. You would imagine that this is something everyone knows, but it will surprise you how many people fail to do a market survey before ordering the manufacture of 1 million pieces of their new product, or building a software that they like personally with the hope that others will like it. Many times this is born out of the thought that their ideas must be kept secret until the product is released. I disagree with this reasoning. It’s always a good idea to check if people will buy your product, find yourself a customer base, a group of people you can actually market to when it’s time to start selling. What if you invest all this money into the business and find out no one really finds it worthwhile? You’ld have wasted money and valuable time.

2.) If you don’t find the right people, chances are you’ll fail. Simple as that. It takes a skilled sailor to successfully navigate troubled waters and trust me, startups are ‘troubled waters’. I have worked in a few and currently am so I have seen the high tides and low tides. You need the right people on board should in case you encounter unexpected snags. Those times when an investor who promised to invest suddenly pulls out in the last minutes, when you get hacked in the least expected time or when you experience a DoS attack, will you have people to put it right?

3.) Having too much money or not having enough. I know these are two ends of the stick and so you might wonder why I have the two. Have you ever had something too sweet? or had it too bitter? both aren’t as good as having the right balance. When you don’t have enough money, it’s obvious to see how failure can spring up there isn’t it? you don’t have enough to pay your team members, no money to advertise or market your product, no money to keep the servers running etc… these are all obvious. How about having too much money. Ever heard of Monitor110? classic case of having too much money. They apparently raised about $20million in their 3 rounds of funding and still didn’t succeed. Just like me you are probably thinking what the heck? if I had all that money, there’s NO WAY I will fail or not succeed with my startup. The truth is that often times when these people have all this money, they forget the little things and instead start splurging on things that are not even necessary. They will probably go advertise on the biggest TV networks, wall street journal, websites with unrealistically large following and forget to come up with a little feedback page or an interaction outlet between them and their customers. I am not saying it’s a bad idea to advertise on Newsweek, if you have the money and your market happens to be readers, then by all means go ahead! Just don’t forget the little things that happen to be terribly important. Sometimes when you have access to so much money, you might even lose focus and forget the origin of the company, how and why you started it in the first place. Everyone’s idea changes and it becomes all about the money. If you have all that money, why not spend it on strengthening relationships with customers, starting contests and giving away free stuff to winners, why not spend on gift-cards for the most active customers you have etc… Advice: keep up the channel of communication with customers, get the money that you need and not much more. These will keep you grounded.

4.) Marketing is just as important as developing. Never neglect the marketing end of the process. Your development and marketing should go hand in hand. When you are bringing in the best coders around, also make sure to bring in kick ass marketers. If you need some leads, I will be glad to point you in the direction of a few people. Merely creating a Google Adwords campaign isn’t marketing, neither is creating a Twitter account to follow people and hope they follow you back. It’s a lot more comprehensive than that. The emergence of social media has made it alot easier to connect with your fans/customers as well as new ones, but advertising is still a major part of Marketing. PlayCafe failed in this department and despite all the money they had in their disposal, they never really got their Marketing right.

5.) Lack of Organization kills startups. Lack of organization kills anything, period! It’s important early on to get the right people doing the right things. Negotiate you equity vs. investment appropriately, have an actual CEO on board when the time comes (if you know you can’t handle it- and most entrepreneurs can’t if we are being real) and most importantly create a business plan and follow it. The business plan that you submit when you are looking for investment should be different from what you are using as a  guide for yourself. The former is more optimistic that it actually should be and the later must be more realistic.

The more you know about start-ups, the better equipped you will be as an entrepreneur. Take time out to study different startups, read their stories to understand what makes them solid, also pay attention to those that have failed or aren’t doing quite well. It will give you a better understanding and appreciation for what Entrepreneurship is really about. That’s the beauty of it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Your Startup Sucks (centernetworks.com)
• You: The long lost formula for start-up success. No, really (uk.techcrunch.com)

This is a post I have been working on for quite a few weeks now and only just concluded that it’s got enough information and ready to be shared. Each day I stumble on myriads of blog posts about how to succeed in business or how start-ups succeed, I rarely see people talking about failure in start-ups and how to avoid it. Failure is hard, it is exceeding difficult to bare. However, it is also a state we all find ourselves in at some stage in our lives. If you ever find yourself in this state, just make sure you learn from the experience and use it to better yourself.

“A failure is a man who has blundered but is not capable of cashing in on the experience” – Elbert Hubbard

A start-up is like any other endeavor in life, you either succeed or you fail. I have seen and read several stories recently about failed companies and all that has inspired me to put together the most popular reasons why startups fail.

When one builds a start-up, it is (usually) because the person has found a hole in the market. He has found that the market demands a certain product that is either not yet available or is available but in a way that doesn’t completely satisfy the people. I have found that most start-ups that failed to get off the ground did so for practicing the opposite of this. This culminates in my first point.

Supplying what wasn’t demanded.

I find that majority of start-ups that never failed to cut it ignored the number one principle for whatever reason. People only pay for what they want. Many entrepreneurs believe they can come in and “create a niche” out of nothing or spark demand by putting a product out there. There are certainly times when this will work but most times it doesn’t. You will end up investing money and time into creating this product that doesn’t appeal to people hence killing your business.

When Apple came up with iPods, it was because people needed a way of carrying music around easily. Music was already there, and people wanted a way to have their music with them when they are outdoors, indoors and on the move. The existing means were chunky and unattractive. See that was the demand and Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. was kind enough to order John Rubinstein to build us one.

Having a bad team at the helm.

I once heard at a start-up convention that it was a terrible idea for one person to start a company by himself. The speaker went on to say it was a huge red flag and can be interpreted as saying the founder couldn’t convince anyone to partner up with him maybe because the idea was garbage or the founder has a questionable personality. I agree to an extent that it is always good to have partners. That way there will be people you can share ideas with, brainstorm if you are not so sure about a next move, lift you up when the blues are catching up with you and so forth. But I don’t necessarily agree that it could mean failure for you. What I do think will bring failure is having the wrong people building and running the start-up. It could be one person or 10 people, but if they are not right for the task for whatever reason, you will run into problems.

Sacrificing Value for Profit.

The purpose of building a start-up is to make profit. People might beat around the bush and say oh, I wanted to create something people really needed and make life easier for us all, not so much for the money. I don’t like when people say that. Yes maybe you did want to make life easier for everyone but you decided to patent and market it because you wanted to make money off this “help” you are giving people.

Regardless of how much you itch for profit, make sure you don’t maximize it at the expense of the long term value. You want your customers to believe in you to give them the best value for their dollar. It’s not too farfetched that there are entrepreneurs who use cheaper raw material to build a product because it increases their profit but in so doing sacrificed the quality of the product and the trust of their customers. Eventually they will realize that someone out there makes the same product with better value for the same cost, and they will stop patronizing you. So, advice:  don’t jeopardize long term value for immediate profit. It will kill your start-up

Poor Funding.

This is a popular one. Many times I close my eyes and just imagine how many great ideas are still only ideas or prototypes because the founders cannot secure enough cash to make a full functioning product. There must be loads of them. It is important that Entrepreneurs do extensive research into the several methods of getting early investments before they start building. When you have limited budget, it could lead to a limited product. It could lead to the entrepreneur cutting back on a number of features or parts of the start-up that are critical to its survival. There are several ways to go about seeking funds for a start-up but keep in mind that it takes a great product, a great team and a great bit of luck to actually get the right amount of funding.

Unfavorable Location.

When Y combinator was built, they did so with the idea of putting founders in a place that will favor their growth and keep them away from distractions. When building a start-up it’s a good idea to be in a place where the market for your product is highest and where the industry has its best players in. Why do you think silicon valley is home to most web startups in America? It’s because the gurus are there, that’s where investors, experts who know the A-Z of the web startup industry move themselves to. They want to be around likeminded people who will keep inspiring them.

Bad Marketing.

If you build the world’s greatest product and no one knows about it, then you will fail. Marketing is absolutely critical to the success of a start-up and no wonder most start-ups spend a huge chuck of their funds on spreading the word. Someone once told me that “if you build a great product, people will come”. I completely disagree. They might come but like 10years later and you will probably have failed 9 years before that anyway. Key to a successful startup is the marketing plan. You must know which target market will purchase your product and come up with a brilliant way of getting the word across to them. If you don’t, chances are that ‘It’s a wrap’!

There are certainly several other reasons why start-ups fail, here are just the most popular ones I have noticed and wanted to share. If you do know any others, kindly share with the rest of us.

Just like it is quite hard for most members of Generation X to understand why many young adults these days would rather pay $100 for a ripped pair of jeans than $40 for one that has not been met by a blade, they find it hard to understand why they need to invest in Social Media for their companies and businesses. Most new companies/start-ups have already done their research and joined the bandwagon, take Zappos for example, and with how much buzz it has built from Social Media it remains hard to phantom why the  ‘not so new’ companies don’t get it.

A few days ago, I was reading a post by Monica O’Brien, who I have come to admire as a person and whose brilliantly written blogs I can’t stay away from. In that particular post, she explained the type of clients she won’t work with and those she loves to work with. The types that struck a chord with me are the inspiration for this post. Two things: 1.) Those that “measure experience in years” 2.) Those clients who don’t know what it is and despite explaining over and over several times what Social media is all about and what it can do for their company, they still don’t get it.

I have been working on Social Media for quite some time now to understand that it isn’t about how many years one has been doing it that sets one apart. I was reading an article on Mashable the other day and somehow I ended up in the ‘Jobs’ section which I have never even seen before. I checked it out and was quite surprised when I saw some positions where one of the requirements was “atleast 8 years in Social Media…” I sat and thought to myself what exactly this meant. Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social network sites and even they haven’t been around for 8 years, so what do they mean by 8 years of experience in social media? Besides I would think that one will measure experience in this case based on how often one has used it over the time it has been in existence. If I were to hire a Social Media strategist today, I would rather have someone who has used social media for actual networking and used it everyday or there about to connect with friends basically before delving into the professional market than hire someone who knew nothing about it a few years ago and has only used Social Media professionally. I just think the former will have a better grasp of the underlying concept of Social Media. If anyone understands the principle behind measuring one’s social media ability in years, please enlighten me.

The other thing that caught my attention is how people fail to understand what Social Media can do for you. My most recent client asked me “Tolu, I know everybody is jumping on the Twitter wagon, but how will this Twitter bring me more customers?” In truth, he has never used Twitter before and claims to only read about it and see on CNN how people love and use it so much. It took me two hours to get him on board and one of the things I made sure to drive home to him is that Twitter alone is not equal to Social Media presence. In those two hours I tried to explain the following values:

1.) Branding: The best way to set yourself aside in any tough industry is to build a strong brand. Branding helps you build a place in the hearts of your fans and confirms your credibility as a company. The easiest and most affordable way of doing this with the aid of social media. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It’s important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It’s a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without.

2.) Customer Interaction: Social Media has carved a niche for itself as the most effective means of Customer Relationship Management. It has provided a dynamic way of keeping in touch with your customers amongst many other things. Besides the obvious point of increasing sales, Social Media like Twitter, Facebook, youtube e.t.c. provide a means for companies to ‘problem-solve’ for their clients, get useful feedback and ultimately get personal with customers.

3.) Helps one learn about the Market: Most companies are always looking for information they can leverage to improve their reach in the Market and what better way to do this than getting on social media networks and listening to what people are saying. With social media, you can also learn about your competition giving you a way of getting one over them.

4.) Find potential Customers: Building a strong presence on social networks can take your sales leads and potential customer numbers to new heights. If for example you manage to get the buzz around twitter about your company, there is no saying how many people will visit your website. Now it’s not everyday a company gets on as a trending topic on Twitter but imagine how your life will change if that happened to your company.

5.) Find the best Candidates to join your team: Social Media is now the new name in the recruiting game! With social networks like Twitter and Facebook, you can find the best talent around anywhere, simple as that.

6.) Your Reach knows no bounds. With social media being such a big hit all around the world, there’s potential for your brand and name to go global. You can establish yourself in other countries and not limit yourself to your country of residence.

Who wouldn’t want any or all of these positives?

So now your business is up and running on the internet, you have gone live, there are no bugs and you are ready for the money to start rolling in so you can pay off those loans, investments and so forth. You are now faced with selling yourself so that people know about your services. I have been asked this question a lot and so I decided to cover it on here. I had given a speech at a small gathering of hopeful entrepreneurs about 2 months ago and atleast 6 people came up to me at different times after the events and asked the same question. “I have developed and designed my website, everything is in place and ready to go, I just have one little problem…how do I get people to know about it?”

First of all I must clarify something before I proceed. For new entrepreneurs, this is very important so listen up, getting people to know about your business is NOT a little problem. It infact is the most difficult and important part of your startup as far as I know. It is difficult in the sense that it requires hours upon hours of research and work to promote your services. It sometimes will require you spending money and it could get very frustrating when you see your efforts not being fruitful (this is typically the case at the beginning for most startups). It is also the most important part of your startup because you must carefully seek and find your customer base and these are the people you want to market to. Marketing to people who don’t care about or need what you are offering will just be a waste of time and effort. As a new entrepreneur you have tones of stuff you need to spend your time, money and effort on anyway, and wasting that on anything that will be futile and can shatter you.

From the experience I have gathered over the few years I have been involved in startups, I have seen a few strategies that have worked, some for me and others for friends/colleagues of mine…here we go.

Close your eyes, then read the name to yourself: Imagine you were a customer or just another web surfer and you came across the name of your company, can you tell the purpose of the company or not? This is an important aspect of starting a company. The first time I tried my hands on building a social network, I experienced the pain of not having a name that related to my business. I had come across cool sites like xoom, joost, twitter e.t.c. and thought those names were notoriously catchy so I indulged. I realized that I hadn’t got the money or track record like these startups to market my company and so all I could do was SEO and use other free marketing mechanisms. I learned that it is very helpful to have keywords you want to optimize for your website placed in the title and name because the search robots like this. Optimization was really slow for me because of this, coupled with my lack of experience with startups at the time. This doesn’t just apply to online businesses either. If I was walking down a road looking for a store I could buy some ‘sick’ sneakers and on my left I see a store called “besnizzled” and on my right I see “house of sneakers”, I will obviously go into the store on my right even though I have never heard of either store before. The fact that their product is in their business name catches my attention …regardless of if “besnizzled” had the best sneakers in the world. In a nut shell, it’s easier if your business name tells people what you do right off the bat.

Is your online presence strong enough?: You must put your business in a position where people feel comfortable patronizing or even window shop with you. The first thing is to make sure your website is not garbage. Your website doesn’t have to be the best designed or most expensive one in the industry but it has to be appealing, it has to be attractive enough to make people want to stay, tell others about it and come back themselves. Make your users able to subscribe to your emails and services, try giving gifts that will be attractive to your customers/fan base e.t.c.

It is also important that you build a community on the web. Exchange links and banners with more patronized websites in your niche. I know most times you will get turned down by a lot of these people but keep trying and ask a lot of sites. I remember I asked collegehumor when I started my college forum site and ofcourse they said no. So don’t take those things personally, just keep asking and you will find atleast one or two. They might not be terribly popular sites, but atleast they have a better google rank and position than you. The more you link, the more attractive your website is to search engine crawlers.

Spread the word: Perhaps the most powerful tool for marketing. I find that a lot of people neglect this tool, advancement in technology has made everyone want to type rather than speak. Most young entrepreneurs will rather spend money of google adwords, affiliate marketing and so forth than actually telling people about what they do in person. I am not saying adwords or affiliate marketing don’t work because they do and they do quite well actually. I am just saying in my position when I started out I didn’t have the money for that so I don’t believe it is the only/best way to go about it. Go around, tell your friends and family about it, and let them tell their friends and so on.

Make flyers, business cards, banners and place them strategic locations where your customer base visit. I once went to a club and I swear I snuck behind the bar and placed a banner with my funny tee-shirt designs right next to the Budweiser banner. It was there all night! All I am saying is, you don’t have to get as crazy as I was but make yourself popular in places where your prospective customer base always patronize.

Be prominent on Social Media sites: If you have a twitter, facebook, stumbleupon, linkedIn, digg account, you are on your way. These are some of the most powerful marketing tools in their own right. Make a lot of friends on these sites, use the power of status of facebook, twit your website name to your followers, share your website and business with all your friends on stumbleupon/digg and have them share with their other friends. Trust me this works tremendously, if done right.

Here is what’s important though, I have learned that it is never helpful if all you do on these social media is submitting your own site. Feel free to always share them with your friends but when you start submitting your site all the time, you start depleting in value, people see you as a parasite, using them for your own benefit. Instead, submit other people’s site in your niche. If your business/site is about photography, submit and stumble or digg other webpages and businesses in this category. Subscribe to them, review them and usually they will return the favor. When they see that you reviewed and submitted their stuff, they are grateful and usually will show their gratitude by doing the same for you. Don’t get too desperate or in a rush to see traffic, it takes time and submitting yourself to achieve this never ever works!

Use Blogs and forums: You do not have to create your own blog or forums even though the former is usually advisable. However bookmark blogs and forums in your niche, visit them regularly and make reviews, comment and make friends there. In time they will get comfortable with you and patronize you. If you are leaving a comment on a forum, you can have your webpage as your signature…it will be seen by everyone anytime you leave a comment. This process is not an immediate source of customers, it takes time. But don’t give up…if you are so quick to give up, then you must re-evaluate whether you are really able to be an entrepreneur.

Track your traffic/customer source: Find out which marketing outlet is bringing you not the most but the ‘real’ customers. Customers that actually hang around and come back regularly. These are the ones you need to focus on anyways, not those who visit for 5secounds and disappear, or those who shoot your bounce rate to the moon. If you are an online business, utilize the google analytics package…it is amazingly useful. If you are an offline business, you can utilize a feedback form. Ask your customers how they like your services and somewhere before your “thank you for patronizing us”, sneak in the “how did you hear about us?” line. Always works.

]]> http://genystartup.com/uncategorized/marketing-your-new-startup/feed/ 1