Part Three: Stop worrying about your competition and finally focus on your product This article was originally publish on my blog. Learn how to build a thriving business. ///This is the final part of the three part series: “The 10 most important things I learned, while building my first startup”. In part one, we talked about a strong founding team, the impact of your early hires and how to these influence the culture of your company. Part two dealt with the question: what to do before to scale your startup./// The final part of this short introduction to startup life is dedicated to the most important tangentiale asset of your organisation: your product. Before we dive into that and discover a simple yet highly efficient way to actually know what your product should look like, I want to touch something every company is concerned about: competition. Don’t care too much about your competition When Homejoy closed down in mid 2015 we, admittedly, had a couple of stressful days. We literally just closed our A round days before. So understandably, our new VC wasn’t too happy about the overall market development and it took us a couple of calls to calm him down. After all, bad industry news is never good in the world of Venture Capitalists. We got a couple of interview requests from the Spanish press and spoke to some concerned customers, but overall we were less worried about this whole situation than you might think. Mostly for three reasons: 1) we knew we had a superior product, 2) we are operating in completely different markets and 3) we frankly don’t give too much about our competitors in general. Just closed a round of 1.5M€This turned out to be somewhat of a repetitive thing. Our surroundings seemed way more interested in what our competitors where doing than we were. So why didn’t we care? Well, first of all: we were way too busy with our day-to-day operations to really be on top of what might or might not happen around us. Sure, we read Techcrunch and other blogs but we didn’t spend hours trying to get the newest info before anyone else did. The real reason however is: it does not help you in any way. Think about it for a minute. What does it matter what your competitor is doing? How does it help you and your business to know how high their CAC is? The simple answer is: it doesn’t. Even if you are able to get access to this information, which you are probably not, it doesn’t make your business work better. So better focus all your energy and resources towards building an amazing brand and product yourself. Even though we started a year after Homejoy, we never tried to copy their approach for growth or customer acquisition. We knew, we didn’t have the $40M firepower to burn as much cash as they were and frankly, we also didn’t want to. See, selling cleanings that are worth $85 for $19 doesn’t really make much sense. In the previous article I explained how we actually got rid of customers that didn’t contribute to our target unit economics. So, this approach never really appealed to us. Some reasons for Homejoy’s failureActually, the first time we really did look deeper into one of our competitors was when we acquired the Spanish division of Helpling, a Rocket Internet, company. We analysed their numbers and to our surprise, we found that even though they spend more than double the money, they served the same amount of customers. From a LTV point of view — we even had the better customers (as we got rid of uneconomical customers). More funding does not mean more customers — and for sure not more success. Actually, I found more often than not, the opposite is true. If you don’t have the financial resources to run un-scalable and un-trackable marketing campaigns, you think twice about where to get the most bang for your bug. The more money you have — the more pressured you are to spend it. And there are just so and so many meaningful ways for a startup to acquire high-value customers. So rather than looking what our competitors were doing and trying to run the same spray-and-pray campaigns we optimised our own channels to the fullest. Your Product is Everything You Have The second reason we weren’t really too concerned about this news, was because we knew the flaws of the Homejoy product. It turned out, as so often with well-funded companies, they were pressured to obtain a certain user growth. What that means is: high user growth (hypergrowth), month over month under any circumstances. That is a strategy that is fine if that growth is organic. If it is not, there are ways to achieve it by stimulating your potential customer base. And this works. For a short period of time. If organic growth doesn’t catch up with the artificial one you end up in a vicious circle. Because every month you have to throw more money at acquiring more artificial customer than you already did last month. And to make things worse, most of those guys will churn. Because you only got them in the first place through incentives, like discount vouchers. The only way to get out of this circle, is the make people really love your product. Therefore, you have to allocate a significant amount of your resources and time to actually improve your product. The best way to do this, is to ask your active user base. Ask what they like about your product, what they dislike about it and which features they would like see. By feeding their input back to your engineering team, you make sure to actually build what people want. Thus, retaining your current customer base and also attracting new customers organically. Let me rephrase this one more time: if you are busy opening new markets or testing new marketing channels every week you can’t really focus on getting the product right. But, if you do want to attract the right kind of customers and show sustainable user growth you do have to realise that your product is really everything you have. If you fail to create this “WOW” effect and make your customer base love your product, you, as a company, will fail. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but in the long run you will run out of growth hacks that stimulated your growth in the first place. In fact, your goal should be to make your product so good, that your users go to a bar and tell their friends about it and make them buy it. If your customers act as ambassadors of your brand you know that you are onto something. The good news is: it doesn’t have to be perfect from day one. In fact, it most certainly will not. And that is ok. The key is to build a minimal viable product that from day one amazes a small group of people. This gives you traction and time to expand and make your user experience better — day by day. Don’t try to build a product you created on the scrap book. What people want is often so far away from what you think they want. Build a small MVP, get it into the hand of real people as soon as possible and expand it with the most requested features first. As always: data is your friend. Evaluate what your users want to have in a data-driven way and let the rule of big numbers decide what you build and when you build it. As the product guy, I know how hard it can be to say goodbye to your own ideas. But really, when it comes to building great products there is no space for solo trips. Swallow your pride and do the right thing. Remember: it is much easier to make a small group of people love what you do, than sell a product that is not convincing to a larger crowd. Building a company is a constant rollercoaster ride Founding a company is not a sprint. It is a marathon — followed by an ironman. For the sake of staying physically and mentally healthy this is the single most important learning. And if nothing else, this should be your take away from this article. You can’t try to wing a startup. At least not if you are in it for good. You have to eat well, sleep well, exercise, meet your friends, and get out of the office every now and then and be part of social life. Especially when things are not going as you wish, it is very tempting to stay even longer and work harder. While this shows your commitment, it harms you, your company and everyone who is involved in it. Found this some time ago. Quite accurateIf stuck with a problem I used to pull an all-nighter up until I found a fix. I forgot to eat (at best some fast food), drunk way too much coffee and neglected my girlfriend even more. At a certain point during the night I realised I wouldn’t be able to fix the issue and went to bed, just to find that I couldn’t fall asleep as my thoughts where still centred around my work. I slept bad, woke up in a bad mood and didn’t resolve a single thing. Today, when I am stuck at a problem, I leave the office and go to the gym. Or I cook a meal or talk about something completely different over a nice Rioja with my friends. It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is: I actively try to avoid thinking about the problem for some time. I train my brain to enjoy the time out. And I really mean train. It still is very hard for me to disconnect, as I always treat it as a kind of failure. So nowadays, I make sure my brain doesn’t end in this dull overdrive mode where it is proven to be extremely inefficient. I like my brain to be efficient and my body in a good shape. I force myself to a certain work-life balance (still far away from what other people associate with that term). And what I realised was: whenever I did that the most amazing thing happened. The next morning, even before I had my first coffee, I already had at least four new approaches in my head on how to tackle the problem. And more often than not, one of them worked. Just accept it: everything will look broken at any given time. You will run around taking out fires half of the time. And if you feel bad about it, don’t. Because that is what you are doing. You are building something out of nothing. And you knew it wouldn’t be easy. But really think about it for a minute. You are literally building something out of thin air. You are creating things, people didn’t even consider being possible. Of course things will look broken. That is in the nature of building a company. The fascinating part is not having something working from day number one, but creating something great out of chaos just by your own work and persistence, despite the backfalls and all the people telling you it won’t work. And that, my friend, is the true definition of building a startup. 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My old boss Jon Zakin used to say "You can't save your way to greatness." Too many executives try to save their way to greatness. They pinch pennies instead of inspiring their teammates to do great things. Most employers kill their own chances at greatness by locking their employees down with stupid rules, then poking and prodding them and whipping them to greater levels of production instead of setting them free to use their brains and hearts. We waste money supervising people like children out of our own fear that someone might have an independent thought that could upset the status quo. Business leaders are blind to the waves of fear and trust swelling and crashing around them, but those waves are everything. Your team members' excitement and commitment to their own paths and one another is the only fuel that can power your organization. Why would you squander that precious fuel by grading, stacking and ranking your employees, one against the other? We trample on creativity and innovation in our organizations instead of celebrating those things. When two genius co-workers cook up a genius idea, we say "You don't have approval to work on that!" Fear gets in our way. We lead brilliant knowledge workers the way we managed mill and factory workers a hundred and fifty years ago. That's bad business, and bad leadership. The urge to evaluate, measure and compare people or things must be coded into our DNA because once they get the chance, business leaders can't pass up an opportunity to measure somebody's output down to the smallest grain of rice.  We forget that there is a sweet spot where the things we measure and the "ahas!" that emerge from our measurements improve our decision-making ability enough that the measuring process pays its own way in the valuable currency of our time and attention. Past that point of equilibrium, we are measuring simply in order to say we did. We measure our employees' every activity primarily in order to tell them "Here's how you did on your measurements" rather than because our measurements have any significance to our businesses whatsoever. Measurement is a control mechanism. We don't see how our addiction to yardstick hurts us and our customers. We measure far too many human processes that don't lend themselves to tick marks and numerals. We miss the forest for the trees. Any HR system or practice that ranks or stacks your employees against one another is a pox and a disservice to your customers and shareholders, not to mention the employees themselves. Teamwork is everything, and your employees won't form a team as long as you're evaluating them relative to one another. People are not stackable, gradable units, like pieces of lumber. They are unique and multi-faceted. Joyce is better than John, who slightly outranked Javier this year is a nonsensical statement, but we make statements like that in corporations and institutions every day. We love to compare people and tell them when they're Good, Fair, Excellent or Needs Improvement, although these are pointless and arbitrary designations. It's time we stopped measuring, counting, sorting and comparing people and set them free to work their magic. Do you trust yourself enough to trust your employees that far? If so, you can capture their brilliance and creativity to great effect for yourself, your colleagues and your customers. If your fear won't let you lead your teammates but instead compels you to hinder, hamper, restrict and shackle them, then you won't achieve anything great. You'll get grudging compliance from your team members right up to the minute they find a better job and leave you. Which way do you want to go? Which style of management would your customers want you to employ?  Our company is called Human Workplace. Our mission is to reinvent work for people. In the video below Liz Ryan is talking about the free Career Change Mastermind presentation coming up on June 15th. Click here to register for the free mastermind presentation "Change Careers at Any Age" with Liz Ryan!      

This interview appeared first on Global Invest Her, Huffington Post and is part of a series about Trailblazing Women Entrepreneurs, Investors and Leaders from around the world. You have to See what you can Be! Leslie Jump, Founder & CEO Startup Angels“Earlier in my career, my biggest challenge was understanding that all forms of success are not identical and I didn’t need to look or behave like successful men. I could be my own person.” Leslie Jump has over twenty-five years experience building, advising and investing in new companies, products and brands, in the US and across the globe. She is the Founder and CEO of Startup Angels, a platform to inspire and enable new angel investors around the world. Prior to that, she was a Partner in Sawari Ventures, LLC, a Cairo-based early stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs across the Middle East/North Africa. She continues as an advisor to Flat6Labs, Sawari Ventures’ dedicated startup accelerator for seed stage investments. Leslie also serves on the Board of UP Global, a network of entrepreneurs and startup community leaders, and Ubongo, a social enterprise that creates interactive edutainment for children in Africa. She is an alumna of St. Johns College (Annapolis, MD/Santa Fe, NM), and serves on its Board of Visitors and Governors. Learn more about Startup Angels here Visit her website https://startupangels.comand follow her on Twitter @StartupAngelsCo and [email protected]/* */‪ Who is your role model as an entrepreneur? Two people stand out: Austin Ligon and Marc Nager. Austin is most famous for being the Founding CEO of CarMax, a Fortune 500 company he spun out of Circuit City. Today, CarMax is a $9 billion company, that’s very tech-driven despite not being a technology company. What I admire about Austin is that he is someone who has been able to create enormous commercial success while at the same time inculcating a culture that sees people as human beings. I also admire Marc Nager, the Founding CEO of UP Global (formerly Startup Weekend, now owned by Techstars), the nonprofit that supports startups and their communities. I served on their Board. One of the most exciting things about the organization is that a couple of guys in an apartment started it about 8 years ago and now there are over 300,000 people in 110 countries who have participated in a Startup Weekend, with over 7,000 volunteers leading it. They created a movement helping people understand that anything is possible no matter where you are. While attending their events I’ve met some of the top volunteers who gathered from around the globe — everywhere from Damascus to Dublin to Detroit. What is your greatest achievement to date? I was fortunate to be part of the leadership team when the commercial Internet was launched. It was 1994 and within 10 weeks we were shipping software (the equivalent of Microsoft Outlook). We launched the first e-commerce site and helped ignite the spark of more broad based interest in the Internet, raising collective consciousness to where it is today. We did the first OEM deal for the Netscape browser (with Marc Andreessen) and helped put them on the map. That’s one thing I’m very proud of. Another thing I’m proud of is being part of a group accelerating technology entrepreneurship and startup investing in the Middle East. When I began working actively on this in 2007, there were only 5 VC funds with $120M under management in the region (excluding Israel). We launched our firm, Sawari Ventures, in 2011, as well as Flat6Labs an accelerator which now has 6 locations, just as the Arab Spring started. Now there are 50 funds with $1B funds in the region. This entrepreneurial ecosystem is part of the fight against extremism and terrorism and it’s very exciting to be a part of that. What has been your biggest challenge as a woman entrepreneur? Earlier in my career, my biggest challenge was understanding that all forms of success are not identical and I didn’t need to look or behave like successful men. When I was in my 20’s I worked for an incredible woman who would come to work looking like someone from the cast of Dynasty. This was the age of the power suits and she always looked amazing. She taught me it was ok to be a full-on woman and be successful in this very male-dominated industry. Now as an entrepreneur again, in my early 50’s, my greatest challenge is getting out of my own way. You know too much and have seen so many things. My co-founder graduated from college in 2010 and everyone who works for me is under 30. Working with people from different generations helps me a lot to not get caught up in my own analysis. What in your opinion is the key to your company’s success? I’m a ‘people collector’. I love understanding people and putting them in context. Before I met my husband, who was a Senior US Diplomat in the Middle East, I knew nothing about that part of the world, so I decided to learn as much as possible about it. I was nurtured to learn this way at home, but I also went to St John’s College where the entire curriculum is prescribed (obligatory) and every subject is taught through the Socratic method. The combination of being naturally curious, enjoying engaging with people, and feeling like there is no subject matter I can’t take on if I want to are all traits that have led to a lot of success. If you could do one thing differently, what would it be? Recognizing when I’ve had enough. There is a line between tolerance and insanity. We’ve all been in places in our career where you work like crazy — to a point of going overboard — and think you are being ambitious. There were definitely moments in my career where I have been guilty of that and it’s resulted in less-than-ideal decisions at times. Now I try to hit the reset button on myself, take vacations, workout regularly and do things I need to do for myself, husband and my family. It’s important to recognize your own limits. What would you say to others to encourage them to become entrepreneurs? Encourage and celebrate your natural curiosity. A lot of people have great ideas or think about things and think ‘that can’t work’ or ‘I live in a society where that’s not acceptable’. What defines a successful entrepreneur versus other people in the world is that they are unwilling to let any of those things stand in their way. I think that the two countries in the world who are off the charts for entrepreneurship are the United States and Israel. What both countries have in common is that they are filled with immigrants. It’s linked to risk tolerance — being willing to throw away everything that is familiar. How would you describe your leadership style? I’ve been told that I am like the toughest university professor you will ever have, which is probably true! I’m pretty demanding and ambitious for my team and myself. One of the things that blows people over when they first start working with me is my own personal output. That can be a flaw and you have to be really careful about that. Another strength is that I’m very empathetic. I’m in the trenches with them. Empathy helps me to look holistically at an individual and understand how to best work with and support them. What advice would you give to your younger self? Don’t take it all so seriously! For most of us, what we do every day isn’t a matter of life and death. I remember having an early conversation with the UP Global guys. They were worked up about something and I said, “Time out. Were shots fired? No, was tear gas fired? No. Did somebody die? No. It’s been a good day! Don’t worry about it so much”. What would you like to achieve in the next 5 years? I would like to lead a group of people interested in transforming the way early-stage investment happens across the globe. I am convinced that the system for early-stage investing in technology is fundamentally flawed. If you look at it as an asset class, it doesn’t work and it drives all kinds of negative behaviors. Unfortunately, those behaviors get the majority of airplay and some angel investors feel they need to imitate that. But the reality is that venture capital only goes to 1% of companies, and it only works 1% of the time. The bottom line is there are a huge number of entrepreneurs around the world — 95 new companies being formed every minute. But the number of investors and the amount of capital is highly consolidated in a few places. If you look at venture capital, almost half of the world’s venture capital is in Silicon Valley. This flaw in the system in the way it works. People need to understand that there are smart people, capital and innovators in every city. If you get them to throw off the constructs that exist in the newspapers and tech journals, and think about what you need to do to grow a company, they’ll create new models and ways of doing it that are relevant in their local markets. 3 key words to describe yourself? Smart High energy Empathetic — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - Read more interviews with Women Entrepreneurs, Investors and Leaders Paulina Sygulska, Co-founder of Grant Tree Nisa Amoils, Angel Investor & Member of New York Angels Jenny Tooth OBE, CEO of UK Business Angels Association Tiffany Pham, Founder & CEO of Mogul Kelly Hoey, LP at Laconia Capital Group & Angel Investor Jalak Jobanputra, Founder/Managing Partner Future Perfect Ventures About the Author: Anne Ravanona, Founder & CEO of Global Invest Her, the global community that helps early-stage women entrepreneurs learn about funding and become investor-ready. Woman’s advocate, TEDx speaker & Huffington Post contributor with her Trailblazing Women series showcasing women role models. Watch Anne Ravanona’s TEDx talk on Investing in Women Entrepreneurs. Follow Anne Ravanona on Twitter: www.twitter.com/anneravanona Learn more about Global Invest Her www.globalinvesther.com @GlobalInvestHer

Who would you rather be stuck in an elevator with? Peter Thiel, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist and entrepreneur who was revealed to have funded Hulk Hogan’s (real name Terry Bollea) legal team in the wrestler’s case against Gawker Media - all in order to fulfill an alleged personal vendetta against the media company? Or, Gawker Media, a media company that produces mostly tabloid journalism at best, who have been ordered by a Florida court to pay Bollea $115 million in punitive damages for releasing a private tape of Hogan that the wrestler claimed was “invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Personally, I would not want to share any enclosed space with both entities present, seeing as there is a bitter feud currently being played out between the two in the news. Yet, we are all paying attention due to the ramifications this case could have on the “freedom of the press.” Journalists from all corners of the media industry have decried and criticized Peter Thiel in the role he has played for funding Hogan’s legal team. These writers state that the “billionaire class” could litigate their way to shutting down media outlets that they are not in favor of, or also having unduly influence over what material they publish. At the same time, we should also be concerned about what the press reports news on and whether that news is truly within the sphere of public interest. Although journalists across the news industry are raising valid concerns about the dangerous influence the wealthy can have on media outlets, I fear more of a press that abuses its trust with the public as in the case of Gawker Media. There are two major facets to this case that must be discussed separately: one, the verdict rendered in favor of Hulk Hogan by a jury of his (and our) peers; and two, the fact that Peter Thiel has funded Hogan’s legal team to the tune of $10 million. The issue with the debate around Thiel’s actions is that the actual verdict rendered in this case is completely separate from the fact that he funded the plaintiff’s legal fees. If we fail to make this distinction now, it becomes impossible to correctly weigh and judge Gawker Media’s and Thiel’s motives in the proper light. On the jury verdict in Hogan’s favor: I am in full support of the jury coming to the decision in ordering Gawker Media to pay punitive damages to Hogan for their role in display his private encounter with a friend. If this verdict were to have gone the other way, it would set a precedent that the media has the right to display our private moments with others because it is in the public interest for us to see these intimate moments. It is not in my best interest or yours to see intimate moments between two individuals, especially if they did not consent to having that content shown to other uninvolved parties. In this case, the content shown by Gawker Media did not serve the purpose of bettering the public’s knowledge – revealing that tape only served to humiliate a former WWE wrestler. On Peter Thiel’s funding of Hulk Hogan’s legal team: This point invites more relevant questions: Should the funders (in this case, Thiel) be forced to disclose their involvement in a lawsuit? According to the Wall Street Journal, no. “Funders are typically under no legal obligation to disclose their involvement in a lawsuit, just as plaintiffs and defendants for the most part aren’t required to detail how they are paying for a case.” - Wall Street Journal And herein lies the journalist’s worries: if they are to run a negative story about say a prominent Silicon Valley executive, will they now have to think twice before publishing that story in print and online due to the outcome and details of the Hulk Hogan case? Consider this: if Hulk Hogan did not have the money provided by Thiel to retain his legal team, then he would not have been able to win in court against a well-heeled Gawker Media. If anything, there is a cost to pursuing justice (one could argue justice in the court system is nothing more the best lawyer your money can buy). Should we fault Hulk Hogan for receiving outside financial support from Thiel in order to pursue justice?  I believe these are valid questions to ask and have debate around – but my problem in this specific case is that Gawker Media is not, and should not be, the martyr in which these questions are decided. Gawker Media, may I remind you, was found by a jury of its peers to be found in violation of Hulk Hogan’s privacy, thus the subsequent damages need to be paid. Gawker’s tabloid journalism went too far in this case, and even the founder of Gawker Media, Nick Denton, has admitted that his company has crossed the line multiple times in the past.  “Among the million posts published by Gawker and other properties since the company was founded, there have undoubtedly been occasions we overstepped the line.” - Nick Denton One of those times could also be when they "outed" Thiel himself. Any potential moral or ethical conclusion reached from considering thes questions are weakened due to the transgressions committed by Gawker Media. I would rather save this debate for another media company that is reporting on issues that are fundamental to the public interest, instead of generating "news" designed to target and humiliate an individual. With that being said, let me rephrase the question that I posed at the beginning of this piece: Who should we fear more? Media companies who could potentially violate our privacy as individuals by posting intimate moments with our loved ones and friends for all to ‘gawk’ at? Or billionaires who have the financial means to litigate news outlets into oblivion? In a general situation, we should be equally afraid and distrustful of both. But in this specific case, we should be more fearful of Gawker Media and the dangers of tabloid journalism, and be thankful for that St. Petersburg jury which sided with Hogan. The jury in this case helped set a precedent that media companies should be deterred from violating our privacy with reckless abandon. #StudentVoices #EdInsights

We’re All Either Creators, Creatives or Elon Musk SpaceX Headquarters building in Hawthorne, CaliforniaI’m having breakfast next door to a huge rocket factory of a building with a massive dimensional logo displayed across the front. It says SpaceX. This is the headquarters of the future of space exploration founded by Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla. The immense intersection surrounding this building is a hotbed of traffic, trains and pedestrians. The excitement of history being made here is palpable. But this extraordinary venture makes me reflect on how unusual and exceptional it is for an engineer — a creator like Elon Musk — to be a creative as well. Why? Elon Musk standing next to the Falcon 9 Rocket.Two Visionary Brains: The Creator and the CreativeHistory shows us that success at the scale of Elon Musk’s enterprise usually requires the sharing of two visionary brains — the engineer who creates, and the creative who translates, communicates and mobilizes the creator’s vision. But SpaceX is captivating the world’s attention with just one man’s — brilliant — brain at the helm. Let’s look at why it is so uncommon for one man to be a Creative Creator. The Creator: Something from NothingA creator makes things up. By creator, I mean those who create something from nothing. They are designers, artists, writers, professors, chefs, entertainers, directors, illustrators and engineers of products, goods or services of any kind. Creators are skilled at crafting great value. Aircraft and spacecraft, automobiles, architecture, programs, electronics, food, apparel, entertainment — they create magic with their inventions that make life better. They are a highly talented group of professionals with a language of their own. But this language that took years of immersion and commitment to master can insulate them from connecting with other disciplines. Consequently they can communicate their creations — but most often to like-minded creators. The Creative: Translating and CommunicatingA creative gets things done. This is an individual skilled at translating the creator’s product or service into the stories and imagery that help people understand its importance and adopt it into their lives. They are cross-discipline communicators and holistic thinkers that blend the creators intent with product knowledge, business nuts-and-bolts, sales positioning and effective storytelling. They collaboratively adjust the features of the product or service so that the offering matches market wishes and demands. They translate those features into benefits, and benefits into value. They help organizations grow and thrive by creating an atmosphere of collaboration and enthusiasm internally. Externally, they generate a “must-have-it-now” response from those for whom the products or services are intended — attracting new customers, partners and revenues. Creatives and Creators Share an Innovation BondThe relationship between creator and creative is like opposite poles of a battery combining to make electricity — the force of the two when connected is powerful and dynamic. Creator and creative are bonded by an ability to innovate and a desire to explore beyond what “is,” to what “can be.” This is the unifying bond that engenders trust and enables collaboration between them. There is a universal truth in creator/creative relationships — the greater the creator’s vision of the future, the greater the need for a strong-minded creative to embrace, translate and integrate it into the world for which it’s intended, to bring the vision to life. But then there’s Elon Musk. Steve Wozniak, creator (l) and Steve Jobs, creative (r), co-founders of AppleCreator and Creative: A Catalytic CombinationThe combination of skilled creator and visionary creative has yielded successes of historic proportion. In fact, here is a list of only seven creator/creative collaborations that have delivered incredible benefit to the world, collectively attaining a market value in the trillions of dollars. See if you can identify the creators from the creatives on this list. Steve Jobs had the passion and vision to package Steve Wozniak’s brilliance. In 40 years Apple attained a market value of $537 billion, and became the world’s most valuable company. Ray Kroc mobilized the McDonald Brother’s fast food machine starting from their small location in San Bernardino, California. In 70 years McDonald’s reached a market value of $104 billion. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold ice cream from a free recipe from the Government.After 22 years in business Ben and Jerry’s sold to Unilever for $326 million. Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps, got the spark of an idea from the Winklevoss twins. After 12 years in business Facebook is valued at nearly $350 billion. Howard Schultz bought Starbucks from its original founders and took it in new directions.In about 40 years he built Starbucks into an enterprise valued at more than $91 billion. Walt Disney had vision, but used the exceptional talent of Ub Iwerks to create success.Since its founding more than 90 years ago, The Walt Disney Company is valued at $160 billion. Phil Knight’s magic coupled with Bill Bowerman’s breakthrough knowledge created Nike.Since its founding in the early ’60’s, Nike has attained a market value of more than $110 billion. So sitting next to SpaceX —within walking distance of history being made — I’m transported to the pioneering days of California’s aerospace industry, where creators and creatives applied innovation to make space travel possible, and where Allan and Malcolm Loughead were leaders of a revolution. Allan (l) and Malcolm (r) Loughead, co-founders of Lockheed AircraftA Cautionary TaleBrothers Allan and Malcolm were two creators intent on doing what no one had ever attempted. And they succeeded. Their extraordinary accomplishments and their vision of what was possible changed the aviation industry forever. They were visionary creators who, working without creative counterparts, forged an all-too-familiar path from record-breaking success to total business failure. Here’s a summary of their experience that led to resurrection of their company, but at the hands of others… Success 1912: The Loughead brothers founded The Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company in San Francisco 1916: They changed the name to the Loughead Aircraft Company,Relocated to Santa Barbara,Hired draftsman Jack Northrop 1918: They launched the Loughead F-1 The F-1 flew across the country faster than anyone had ever attempted Decline 1920: Malcolm left the business,Allan changed his last name to phonetic Lockheed,The company developed a revolutionary “monocoque” aircraft, the S1The high price of the S1 made the advanced aircraft non-competitive 1921: The company closed its doors Rebound 1926: Allan, Jack Northrop and Kenneth Jay secured funding to restart the business,They changed the company name to Lockheed 1926–1928: They built more than 80 Vega aircraft, a precursor of the modern air age The first Vega 1, NX913, Golden Eagle, nears completion at the Lockheed Aircraft Company, Burbank, California, 1927 1928: Relocated to Burbank, CaliforniaReported sales exceeding one million dollars Failure 1929: Majority shareholder sold 87% of Lockheed Aircraft to Detroit Aircraft Corporation,Allan Lockheed resigned 1930: The great depression ruined the aircraft market,Detroit Aircraft went bankrupt Resurrection 1932: Allan secured $50,000 to buy back the business, but felt it too little to offer the bankAn investor group purchased the company for $40,000Lockheed Aircraft relaunched without brothers Allan or Malcolm. Allan (3rd from the left) and Malcolm (7th from the left) LougheadWhat Went Wrong?Allan and Malcom were creators. Brilliant engineers. The innovations they brought to life were unparalleled. But neither of them were the creatives needed to translate their vision and communicate it to the world — and they had none on their team. When an economic downturn hit, buyers could neither afford their product’s price tag of ten times the competition, or justify the value of the products being offered. As creators, they were ill equipped to make necessary modifications to the product on their own, or communicate its value in a way that would empower the market. A Case of Mistaken IdentityThe trouble was a misalignment between what Alan and Malcom tried to do compared with what they actually did. They were an innovation company who built amazing aircraft. They tried to be a mass-producible aircraft company. But such a company would have had a strong creative on board to align product and pricing with market needs. By the time the creatives showed up, it was too late for Allan and Malcolm. Lockheed Chairman Cortland Gross (center) with Presidents Lyndon Johnson (l) and John F. Kennedy (r)Seeing Value and Communicating ItTwo other brothers, Robert and Cortland Gross, led an investor group of smart creatives that bought Lockheed Aircraft from the bank. They recognized the innovation value the Lockheed brothers had created. They succeeded by translating those innovations into new products the market needed and could afford. Knowing they could translate the Lockheed brother’s innovations into market value, the Gross brothers bought the company for $40,000. Today, eighty years later, the company has won more than a trillion dollars in government and commercial contracts. Lockheed President Robert Gross with test pilots Tony LeVier and “Fish” SalmonLeadershipOrganizations like Lockheed-Martin avoid the success-decline-failure loop by collaborating — creators and creatives working together — from the concept stage. This enables them to lead the market by developing unique products with undeniable demand and selling them at an affordable cost. Lockheed-Martin has been doing this since the Gross brothers bought the company, maintaining the innovation legacy of the Lockheed brothers themselves. Breaking the MoldElon Musk seems to be doing this as engineering visionary and creative in one — a Creative Creator. He is doing what few before him have done successfully, and appearances indicate he is doing it right. I’m thrilled about that. And I want a Tesla. I think Elon Musk is a genius. 12 years after founding his innovative automotive and space exploration companies, Elon Musk is succeeding and making the world excited about the future. But 12 years after their founding, so were Allan and Malcolm. Sitting in the SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Musk Elon watches his space capsule Dragon’s progress as it heads for splash down in the Pacific Ocean. ©CNNAn Inspiring ExceptionThe market is beginning to question the sustainability of some of his businesses with each downturn in their business cycles. Is Elon Musk, as many believe — and as I want to believe — the genius who broke the mold and proved there can be a single Creative Creator at the helm? Or is this the forbearing of the success-decline-failure loop of creators attempting to succeed on their own? Either way, Elon Musk is inspiring the world. Are You a Creator or a Creative?Unless you’re Elon Musk, you need to decide if you’re a creator or a creative. Are you a person who invents things or initiatives to get done by others, or are you one who fulfills the initiatives that are created by others? This distinction is critical to finding a successful collaborative counterpart that will generate the electricity and transform a creation into one that helps the world. Are You Ready to Collaborate?Creatives usually understand the need to connect with a creator. But if you’re a creator, you next need to determine if you’re one who recognizes the importance of collaborating with a creative counterpart, or if you are one who believes this isn’t necessary for you. If you’re not sure, here’s a good test… Do you believe the world will understand the value of your creation as clearly as you do, and race to your store or site or catalog or organization to buy it on its merits alone? It’s natural to believe this because you understand its value so well. But this is usually an illusion. The reason this is an illusion has to do with “job one.” Focusing on Job OneTo create success, the creator focuses their energy, passion and talent on creating an incredible product or service offering. And the creative dedicates themselves to connecting an incredible product or service — developed by the creator — with the world on an emotional level. Now imagine that rather than focusing, the creator also serves the creative role as a “job two,” which they don’t know as well as job one. So they’d be doing job one — designing greatness, while attempting job two — trying to attract audiences, plus a third job — which is learning how to do job two. This reduces the creator from a full-time “job one” commitment to three part-time roles, doing only one well. Deciding to SucceedWhen success is elusive to even the most dedicated full-time talent, the chances of doing three jobs and succeeding at scale with any one of them becomes small. Which is why what Elon Musk is doing is so incredible. Because unless you’re Elon himself, you’re either a creator or a creative. To succeed sustainably, you can’t be both. To avoid the success-decline-failure loop, creators and creatives need to follow a simple three-step process for success.1) decide which they are — creator or creative. After that, 2) make the commitment to team with an innovative counterpart. Then,3) search for and find their right-fit counterpart. Once you’ve finished these three steps, you’re ready to make success happen. All that’s needed now is the all important creation.

Facebook recently came under fire after its “trending news” team was accused of suppressing conservative news. One former journalist reported that Facebook refused to promote conservative content even if it was organically popular. Others say they were routinely told to put stories in the trending section that did not deserve it. "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz." As social media sites continue to replace traditional news outlets, their role in curating content can begin to shape our views. Facebook isn’t just a social media site anymore With more than one billion active users, Facebook has become the dominant hub not just for connecting with friends, but now increasingly where people learn about politics, entertainment, sports, and more. 40% of all news traffic now begins from Facebook and 63% of Facebook users get their news from the site. As people spend more time on social media, corporations like Facebook can play a large role in what type of news you’ll hear at all. Facebook already decides who gets into your bubble Facebook currently uses an algorithm that decides what items pop up on your newsfeed. That means that you don’t see all the posts from your friends. Instead, this algorithm looks at your past experience of who you engage with the most, and then only shows you that information. The Wall Street Journal created two feeds that shows what a conservative would see and what a democrat would see, highlighting how one issue can be seen completely differently, based on your preferences. These "filter bubbles" where we only see what we want to see can have a largely negative effect on our ability to understand different points of views. When we do not encounter ideas that are uncomfortable, we create an “us vs them” mentality. We group people into allies and enemies, and rarely engage with those we disagree with because we no longer have to. By simply editing out those who are not on our side, we begin to create a false world where we are surrounded by only people who confirm what we believe and we become more and more confident that we are right. Why would this be dangerous? The trouble with increasingly personalized worlds is that we can be led to make poor decisions with high stakes. Philip Tetlock argues that those who most believe that they are right, are usually wrong. In his study, he asked over 300 political experts to make predictions about the world. Over the next twenty years, these questions were tracked. Most of these experts- 96% of them had postgraduate training- thought they knew more than they knew, with their predictions “not much better than dart-throwing chimps.” A study by the CXO advisory group also covered more than 6,000 predictions by stock-market experts over several years, and it found an overall accuracy rate of 47.4%, less than if they had simply guessed. "One reason may be that smart people simply have more experience with feeling they are right, and therefore have greater confidence in their knowledge, whatever side of an issue they’re on. But being confident that you are right is not the same as being right " - Philip Tetlock All these smart people would have done better if they had said that they do not know for sure. But despite having incredible knowledge, experts begin to lose their edge when they refuse to believe that they may be wrong. This is especially dangerous when they begin to exercise positions of power. When we look back, we can see key events that were caused simply because people believed they were right and ignored those who were cautious about accepting ideas as fact: the Housing Market Crash, the Iraq War, the .com bust, and more. If people with years of experience can be wrong, this is even more true for everyday people. We must take care that our lives remain filled with those who challenge us- The world is not made to cater to us so if our Facebook feed does, we need to find those who can make us rethink our opinions. How can we do better? While you must correct the people who have incorrect facts, you must allow the people who have what you deem “incorrect opinions” to speak. They are the ones who push you to develop your argument more thoroughly. You should never be threatened by someone who disagrees with you. If your opinions is valid, the facts will back it up. If not, you know to improve it or change your mind. Friedrich Nietzsche denounced people who were sure of their opinions, saying “Convictions are greater enemies to truth than lies.” Socrates believed in open-mindedness, saying "The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing." More recently, a character in Captain America: Civil War said, "You're wrong and you think you're right - that makes you dangerous." People change their mind constantly, from things like politics and religion all the way down to personal preferences, which means that at some point, they were willing to look at a different opinion. When you listen to others, even people you cannot imagine agreeing with, you’ll find that people don’t try to be ignorant, dumb, or evil, despite what you may think. They just have different points of views than you. After all, nobody thinks that they’re wrong. With each person having their own unique perspective, it is their voice that allows you to understand a problem more thoroughly. You must protect everyone’s right to say their thoughts even when it goes against what you think.  It is not generous to do so, it is necessary — if we are to evolve as a society that constantly improves. Parting thoughts As I finish my second year at UC Berkeley, a hallmark of free speech, I can see just how important it is for me to continuously seek out those I disagree with. In the age of safe spaces, political correctness, and trigger warnings, I cannot choose to settle comfortably in what I feel or think. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg feels a responsibility towards allowing discourses shows his personal commitment to be challenged. After these accusations came up, Zuckerberg met with conservative leaders in an attempt to explain how the algorithms work and move forward to ensure that conservative voices are still being heard. He emphasized Facebook's commitment to remain an open platform to all. In fact, he reports that "Donald Trump has more likes on Facebook than any other presidential candidate, and Fox News drives more interactions on its page than any others new outlet.""Our community's success depends on everyone feeling comfortable sharing anything they want. It doesn't make sense for our mission or our business to suppress political content or prevent anyone from seeing what matters most to them" - Mark Zuckerberg It is important to remember that Facebook, as a private organization, has no obligation to show opinions it disagrees with or defend why it may choose not to. So if Mark Zuckerberg, who had all the power of Facebook, still chose to listen to those he disagrees with, then so can I.  -- Miki Ding is currently a sophomore at UC Berkeley and is a Millennial writing about her perspective on women, school, and politics. Co-founder of her own free first generation college mentorship and SAT bootcamp program, she is interested in how equal opportunity can be achieved in education and employment for those who are most vulnerable. Feel free to check out her Linkedin or email her at miki.ding1@berkeley.edu, if you enjoyed this piece or would like to talk more about it. #StudentVoices #EdInsights

Or how to reach an audience with content marketing. One of the best sessions at #BSW16 was about how to be relevant in content marketing in a world overflowing with content marketing. I tried to translate this to an actionable list for startups. Know your audience!Get to know your audience through user groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, your own social channels and conversations through your own website. Stop with creating personas that end up in a powerpoint presentation somewhere in a mailbox. Talk to your audience find out what makes them tick, what really drives them and what you offer them. The best customer to learn from is a leaving customer! Find you voice and stick to itWitty, funny, serious — it does not matter what your tone of voice is, as long as it is a fit for your company and reflects the personality of your company. Note: If your audience is techsavy be very careful with taking on a witty or humorous tone if you are not confident about it. Metrics and a culture of measurementIf you really looking to create effective content marketing you have to create a culture of measurement where content is monitored for lead generation. A meeting is held to talk on ctr rates on a call to action and so forth. Use Hubspot, Google Analytics, FB and maybe the adobe Marketing Suite (if you have a buck to spare) to track your actions. Don’t be creepyUsing data is a great way to discover more about what drives your audience. With FB Audience insights and Google insights you can get real deep. Don’t let this information be creepy with your audience. be honest about it. If you adress your customer ask yourself: Could I send this to my mother? (Works for a lot of things btw.) Repurpose ContentToo often content marketing is a one way street. Don’t review older content en find new relevance for it in a different context. Content can keep going instead of Ads that just use up budget! So Break up content, recycle or redesign for new and unexpected use. Get your ceo’s thought leader quotes from Twitter out there through a white paper for instance. CommunityBe a part of your community. Start by using your own product and win respect from other users. Gain insights on your audience and create ambassadors through honest interaction. Do not forget this is a job for all of your team since in most cases ‘productpeople’ are the essence of your brand! Where to get content when you’re bootstrapping?When bootstrapping your startup it might be difficult. Look for partners, customers or community members that want to contribute with content. Get an intern is of course a great option for lots of chores in a startup enviroment. Insidertip: writeracces.com. Some Predictions for the future: Adblockers Are all over the place. Display Ads will Die, eventually.. Start working on a better strategy! Influencers and online reviews through vlogging and blogging wil be out there on all fronts; mammiebloggers was just the beginning. More and more content will be peer to peer created B2C content marketing will keep growing. Suffisticated neuromarketing and better attribution will increase satisfaction and effectiveness. and of course Display Ads will die… Thanks to panel members and the host: Jennifer Burak — VP Marketing, Rapt Media Tara Calihman — Director of Content, VictorOps Todd Cameron — Head of Content and Strategy, TapInfluence Peter Genuardi — Founder & CEO, Strength in Members HOST: Chris Deardorff — CEO, Market Compass

(This post originally appeared on the Allay blog) A lot is being written about how to hire and onboard millennials — and keep them engaged in their jobs. But there’s a whole other labor force out there, and it’s on the rise: the over 45 crowd. It might even be you. These folks have spent years in the workforce and, like millennials, have gained a reputation. Theirs being that they’re not tech-savvy, are slow to learn the ropes of a fast-paced, modern workplace, and expensive to a company from a benefits perspective. Rather than pinning millennials and non-millennials against each other (as some might argue Dan Lyons does in his new book), let’s consider what character traits we should look for in employees, and how we can set them up for success, regardless of their demographics. Here are the most important factors to consider when hiring and onboarding a new employee: The tech factor Today, few companies function without services, apps, and tools that for some, are second nature. When you’re hiring a new employee, consider how familiar they are with the tools that you use, and how quickly they can get up to speed. Think about which tools are core to their job function, and which aren’t. Your product. Will they be responsible for educating customers about your product? Will they be using your product in their day-to-day role? Or, does their role not require them to be a product expert? Chat apps. Is Slack (or another chat app) core to your operations, or used by handful of people (the design team, for example). If it’s the former, make sure they’re familiar with either whatever app you use, or have used similar apps in the past. Industry-specific tech. Whether it’s Salesforce, Photoshop, or Freshbooks, make sure they’re an expert in whatever tools are core to their job. Ask a lot of questions to dig deep into their knowledge to weed out the resume stuffers and fluffers. Operating systems and hardware. Unless your employees are solely responsible for setting up their own machines and downloading appropriate system updates, don’t worry too much about finding someone with deep tech expertise. If, however, you run a Mac-only or Windows-only business, be sure to ask the candidate about how comfortable they are using one or the other. Onboarding your employees will be that much easier with Allay. Learn more How they interview you The sorts of questions a candidate asks during an interview should give you a good sense of the type of thinker they are. Are they already considering challenges and working backwards to figure out solutions? How have they learned from their past mistakes? Would they even own up to past mistakes? A great candidate walks into an interview armed with questions that make the the interviewer feel that he/she is already working with her. She wants to know how her role will make your job easier, and what will be expected of her one, three, and twelve months into her job. One major red flag? A candidate who declines the opportunity to ask questions during the interview. The importance of mentorship (hint: it goes both ways) Millennials and — let’s say — more ‘mature’ employees have a lot to learn from each other. Being open to mentorship is crucial to helping both sides learn and grow. Think through the ways that millennials can benefit from a someone who’s spent 10 years at the same job; and vice versa, consider what a millennial employee has to offer this same person: how to navigate certain social media channels, new trends, etc. According to HBR, reverse mentoring is increasingly making its way into companies and the arrangement gives both millennials and their older colleagues opportunities to acquire new skills. Millennials, who now outnumber baby boomers in the workforce, can offer older employers invaluable insights into new ways to connect with customers, for example, while simultaneously benefitting from their colleagues’ years of leadership experience. All employees, regardless of their age, value these opportunities to learn and expand their skill set so if your company offers a mentorship program, consider highlighting the ways that your (older) candidate can benefit from it, and also serve an important role in shaping your company culture and industry — if they’re open-minded and excited about the chance to both mentor and be mentored, you’re on the right track. Resourcefulness (hey, MacGyver) How an employee approaches the resources they have at hand, or lack thereof, is quite illuminating. Showing you that their work will help you succeed is a clear sign of a resourceful employee, but how else can you predict whether or not a candidate will offer a return on your investment? A few hints include: They’ve hustled in their career. Whether they once worked at a bar while taking night classes, or accepted a late-in-life internship, they’ve prioritized time to step outside their comfort zone. They’ve got their hands in a few pots. They’re plan B and plan C people who have proven time and time again that they can pivot quickly. They’ve failed. They’re the everyday version of Elizabeth Gilbert: they’ve pursued opportunities they’ve been passionate about and continued trucking along, despite occasional roadblocks and perhaps even incredible failures. Redefining ‘culture fit’ For years, young companies would hire employees based on the dreamy idea of whether or not they’d want to have a beer with the candidate. Not only did this approach breed gender bias and ageism, but it actually prevented employers from discovering and employing some really great people. Instead, focus on other characteristics in a candidate: trustworthiness, loyalty, communication skills, etc. Think about culture fit in the framework of what is and isn’t acceptable in your company culture. Work ethic: Is the candidate naturally curious? Does he want to continually learn?Humbleness and honesty: Do they show respect for others, regardless of seniority or job title?Communication skills: Are they able to communicate clearly, honestly, and respectfully?Responsibility: Will they take responsibility if something goes wrong at work?Flexibility: Are they willing to figure out and think through a problem before presenting a solution?Feedback and criticism: Are they able to give and receive feedback without taking it personally? Dogs, ping pong, and beer is not culture, but whether or not a person’s character aligns with your company’s mission and goals is. So go ahead, don’t be too alarmed by Dan Lyons’ experience at Hubspot; mature workers’ value to your company is underestimated and overshadowed by millennials. But evaluating candidates on the basis of age is the wrong way to go about hiring. Instead, strive to hire the best people for the job and diversify your workforce and you may just find that a multi-generational company can help you rise above the rest.

What is the first thing you do after an event is over? A. Take a sigh of relief and start planning your next event. B. Head back to your marketing team to work on other projects. C. Analyze event success and try to extend the lifecycle of your event. Most readers will select A or B, and that’s why most event organizers fail to achieve event success. Post event work is one of the biggest factors that contributes to the creation of a major event brand. Failing to build digital communities, repurpose content, or survey event attendees are some major mistakes that event organizers make each year. This article will provide you with a checklist of must-do post event activities to avoid this event planning mistake. But not only that, readers will get actionable tips for using proven tools to extend the lifecycle of an event. Let’s get started: Create A Year-Long Community The most effective events are the ones that are able to keep people together after the actual event has ended. Organizers today have many different tools at their disposal to empower virtual networking, or to coordinate smaller face-to-face events. LinkedIn Groups A standard among professionals, LinkedIn Groups provide event organizers with a good way to keep attendees of B2B events engaged. Setting up a Group is easy, more on doing that here, and keeping attendees engaged is helped with built-in tools like a summary function that shares recent Group activity with members via email. Facebook Groups While some professionals may spurn Facebook Groups because they seem “too personal” Facebook has strong privacy settings that can easily separate conversations that happen in the Group from personal activity on other parts of the platform. Facebook is unique in that nearly 100% of event attendees will already be using the platform in some way, meaning that it should be fairly easy to spark adoption. Above: The Eventovation Facebook Group private files. Unlike other platforms, Facebook Groups provides organizers with a lot of flexibility. For example, Facebook makes uploading content, and multimedia to a Group simple. This means that event organizers can upload exclusive content to a private Facebook Group that only approved members can see — it’s a great technique to encourage event attendees to get involved online. Custom Forums For planners with larger teams, bigger budgets, or a dedicated community manager, building a custom forum is a good idea to create a robust online networking community. Examples of events that are built around online forums include: Inbound.org, Product Hunt, GrowthHackers and Salesforce Success Community. Above: An example of Product Hunt’s rich online community. In most cases a developer will be needed to build a fully customized community, but there are products out there like Vanilla Forums that offer an out of the box online forum platform that can be customized to suit specific needs. Regular Video Hangouts Video hangouts are a great way for people in your community to further engage with your event brand. Consider creating regular video hangouts that feature past or upcoming event speakers, and industry influencers. Hangouts provide attendees with a great way to have specific industry questions answered, while also networking with one another. Some tool that can support video hangouts include Google Hangouts, Gotomeeting, and Zoom. To learn more about building strong online communities, download the free Social Media Bundle, an eBook on social media strategies for event planners. Click the button below to get a copy! Turn Sessions Into Video Content The annual TED Talks conference has famously turned packaging main-stage content into widely available video, the organizers of the conference have done it so well that it’s become a cultural phenomenon. Your speakers delivered great presentations and sessions. Why not make them available on your company website, or on YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites? Shorter, highly shareable recordings can be uploaded to social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram to raise awareness of what you’re doing, and to direct traffic to other properties. Increasingly, conferences and events are using services such as Livestream, Facebook Live Video, or Periscope (the mobile video streaming app purchased last year by Twitter) to share in the moment or after-the-fact video recording with larger virtual audiences. Some, Hack Summit, for example gather their community exclusively through video content. Gated Video Content One way event organizers can reach event attendees who are unable to attend, while increasing event revenue is to provide gated videos of all of the sessions from an event. These “virtual passes” provide attendees with the slides and accompanying videos from speaker presentations, and often cost considerably less than an actual ticket to a business event. Social Media Marketing World offers a virtual event pass for their events, thereby reaching a new audience while at the same time, increasing revenue. In most cases, a video production company will need to be used in order to create high-quality video content. Fortunately, the costs of video production can be deferred by charging for these virtual passes. Amember provides a robust solution to help organizers manage access to gated web content, and is the solution used by Social Media Marketing World to handle access to recorded sessions. Facebook Live A great way to generate pre-event buzz, increase event reach, or recap an event is by using Facebook’s latest tool, Live. It allows anyone with a Facebook Page or an Events Page to broadcast live video to followers or attendees. The industry consensus is that Facebook Live is going to become an increasingly significant social media asset for event organizers and marketers of all kinds. Best to become familiar with the tool now to stay up-to-date. Above: the White House broadcasts a meeting on the economy held by President Obama. Many social media experts have noticed that one sure way to increase reach of Facebook Pages is to post video content. Text and image based posts have less reach, and less engagement than video content on average — another reason why organizers should harness the power of Live. Snapchat Video Another new social media tool for event organizers and marketers to be aware of is Snapchat video. Originally, Snapchat was a social media network used to share disappearing images with friends. But since launching 2011, the platform has incorporated video into the platform. Today, Snapchat influencers like Chris Sacca, Gary Vaynerchuk and Arnold Schwarzenegger regularly post video stories on Snapchat for followers to watch. Video is also used to provide fans of media outlets like Condé Nast with behind the scenes content from glamours events hosted by the likes of Teen Vogue. Turn Presentations Into Post-Event Content The days following an event are the perfect time to populate blogs with added value content that answers attendees’ questions or further utilizes your speaker roster to contribute their thoughts. It’s also a great time to get attendees to contribute their impressions and images in guest posts to your blog or to other websites like Medium or LinkedIn Pulse. These posts can serve to delight those who were there and entice those who were not to put your event registration software to good use :). Share Information On An Event Blog Blogging is a fantastic way for event organizers to increase organic reach, while updating followers about what happened during an event. One great way to do this is to ask event speakers to respond to attendee’s questions via Q&A blog posts. This is a great resource for bringing those who were unable to attend to get up-to-speed, while also provide attendees who missed a specific session with valuable content. Alternatively, organizers can consider enlisting the help of live-event bloggers who attend different sessions and then turn each presentation into an in-depth post ready to be published to your blog. This is a great way to to really increase search engine reach for industry related keywords that future potential attendees might be investigating. Above: An example of how Bizzabo repurposed event content for a blog post. Lastly, organizers can enlist the help of event attendees to write content like “What I Learned By Attending” style posts, like this one the Bizzabo team wrote about Social Media Marketing World. Transform Slides Into Slideshares With Registration Calls To Action A great way to increase event reach, while driving event registrations for future events is to repurpose speaker’s presentations by turning slides into Slideshares. Many event speakers end up sharing their slides with Slideshare followers anyway, and their followers love seeing new content from industry influencers. Your event attendees will love it too, especially if slides from all of the presentations can be easily consumed in one place. Above: CMX Summit uploaded all speaker presentations to Slideshare for followers to view. To drive registrations, make use of Slideshare’s tool that allows users to create an in-presentation CTA (call to action) button that when clicked will bring people to your event website. More on Slideshare lead generation tools here. Syndicate Content On Third Party Websites It’s possible to create a thriving blog while also increasing reach by posting content on third party sites like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse. In fact, syndicating content is a simple way to gain new readers. Consider posting repurposed event content that first appeared on an event blog to other outlets after a week of being live on the blog. Posting in this way will encourage people to visit the blog first, while attracting new readers in the process. Hubspot, a software company, does this by sharing older content along with new curated articles on a Medium publication called ReadThink. This helps Hubspot to reach readers they might never have reached otherwise. LinkedIn Pulse also offers an easy to use blogging platform that is another good tool for those hoping to reach a wider audience online. Conduct A Post-Event Debrief Don’t be tempted to turn your back on a finished event before you’ve gleaned valuable information. Consider asking event attendees to take a net promoter score (NPS) survey to gauge the relative success of the event, and uncover ideas for improving the experience for future delegates. Now is also the time to evaluate systems such as event management software: how effectively did your software support organizational or registration activity? If you’re dissatisfied, now is also the time to consider a change. Issue an NPS Survey We’ve already written about the need for organizers to use NPS surveys, but to reiterate, doing so is a great way to measure attendee satisfaction in a reliable way. Above: An example of the NPS Survey sent to Eventovation attendees. During Bizzabo’s last Eventovation event, we issues an NPS Survey that helped us collect valuable feedback we’ll use to make our next event even better. Organizers should simply send these surveys to event attendees via email — attendees who score the event 9 or 10 out of 10 should be contacted to see if they would be willing to evangelize next year’s event. Interview Key Stakeholders In addition to sending an NPS survey to all event attendees, it’s a good idea to interview key event stakeholders to see if the event lived up to expectations. Doing so can also make stakeholders feel like they are valued and listened to, something that is important in and of itself. Typically, interviewing stakeholders by asking a series of standard open-ended questions is best. Rather than sending stakeholders an email or form to fill out, better to conduct the interview over the phone or in person. Evaluate Event Software In many cases, events are successful in spite of event software, rather than because of it. After an event is over is a great time to evaluate if the event planning platform being used is serving your event goals, or if it is simply more trouble than it’s worth. To find out how to evaluate event software, grab a free eBook on event tech by clicking the button below. Next Steps Post-event strategy is an incredibly important but often overlooked aspect of planning. Once attendees have left, organizers tend to move on to the next event, or go back to normal marketing operations (depending on the type of event planner in question). But post-event marketing is a great way to extend an event’s lifecycle, and to create excitement about next year’s event. Building online forums, harnessing the power of video, repurposing content for blog posts and slideshare, and surveying attendees are four things that organizers must start doing to achieve event success. Originally published at blog.bizzabo.com.

Johnson and Johnson’s opportunistic behavior has resulted in two huge recent court losses. What they knew and what they did with this knowledge is shocking. North Little Rock, AR, May 31, 2016 — Johnson & Johnson lost its first court battle over baby powder in 2013, when a jury found the multinational pharmaceutical company had negligently marketed talcum powder. Surprisingly, the jury did not award any compensatory or punitive damages to the plaintiff Deanne Berg, an ovarian cancer survivor. The jury reportedly doubted whether Berg’s diagnosis stemmed from perineal use of talcum powder, but they still believed Johnson & Johnson was negligent in not providing a warning label on its iconic product. (http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/does-johnson-johnsons-baby-powde...) So what changed between 2013 and 2016, when successive juries in St Louis hammered Johnson & Johnson to the tune of $127 million? Internal documents submitted at trial provided evidence not only that Johnson & Johnson knew about the reported risks of talc but also that it specifically marketed a carcinogenic hazard to minority communities. By 1992 there were indications that a day of reckoning was coming for the talc industry. A number of studies had identified a possible linkage between talc and ovarian cancer, including a government analysis by the National Toxicology Program. In an internal memo with the headline “Major Opportunities [and] Major Obstacles” the company acknowledged the health concerns and suggested supplementing their infant program with media programs tailored to adults. The memo recommended that Johnson & Johnson “investigate ethnic opportunities to grow the franchise.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baby-powder-cancer-lawsuits/img/b...) The memo did not begin a dramatic shift in focus for the pharmaceutical giant. Black and Hispanic women had long been the company’s target adult demographic — at the time the memo was drafted the percentage of black and Hispanic talc users was 52% and 37.6%, respectively — but it lended credence to the theory that Johnson & Johnson was aware of the risks of talc and knowingly transferred those risks upon an unsuspecting minority population. “Some people might say, ‘What’s wrong with companies recognizing women of color as important consumers?’” said Robin Coleman, an Afro-American Studies professor at the University of Michigan. “We do want that. But we do not want companies to market potentially carcinogenic products.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baby-powder-cancer-lawsuits/) For years women had been told by Johnson & Johnson that “a sprinkle a day keeps the odor away,” a popular Johnson & Johnson commercial jingle that resonated with women like Jacqueline Fox. Fox, who died of ovarian cancer in 2015, was not drawn to the marketing campaign by coincidence. In a 2011 Advertising and Society Review article entitled “An Odor of Racism: Vaginal Deodorants in African-American Beauty Culture and Advertising,” Michelle Ferranti found that African-American women are almost four times as likely as Caucasian women to use genital deodorants. She argues that for freed slaves who wanted to become full-fledged members of society, genital deodorant became a critical aspect of life. Generations later, Ferranti believes that manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson are still preying and profiting off of fears that minority women will not be accepted if they do not prioritize personal hygiene more than their white contemporaries. (http://muse.jhu.edu/article/407304) Over a decade after the memo suggested Johnson & Johnson investigate ethnic opportunities, the company was still trying to maximize its success among minorities. “African American consumers in particular will be a good target with more of an emotional feeling and talk about reunions among friends, etc., team up with Ebony Magazine,” suggested a Johnson & Johnson task force. The company thus plied its wares in locales typically associated with black culture, including churches, beauty salons, and barbershops. They also unsuccessfully recruited singers Patti LaBelle and Aretha Franklin to serve as celebrity endorsers. (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baby-powder-cancer-lawsuits/) Julie Hennessy, a marketing professor at Northwestern, acknowledges that all companies cater to their most frequent clients, but she also says that for Johnson & Johnson in 2016, “. . . that looks horrible. From the outside it looks like J&J is less concerned, not more concerned, about its most loyal users because of their ethnic origin.” Two juries in St Louis have already agreed with Hennessy’s assessment. Once the dust has cleared in litigation, Johnson & Johnson might well regret ever investigating “ethnic opportunities” to market a dangerous carcinogen. (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baby-powder-cancer-lawsuits/) If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer after using talc powder, such as Baby Powder or Shower to Shower, you may have a case. For a free evaluation, call and talk to a nurse/attorney now toll free at 1–888- THE LAWYER or email your questions to [email protected]/* */. Contact Information: Law Offices of Lisa Douglas Lisa Douglas 2300 Main North Little Rock, AR 72114 (501) 798–0004 or toll free at 1–888-THE LAWYER [email protected]/* */ http://www.lisagdouglas.com

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This article is the latest in the series of AdTech reviews. This time the spotlight was turned to Data Management Platforms (DMPs). Specifically, the subgroup of platforms that can verify the audiences that have been exposed to digital ad-campaigns. For example: this technology verifies if an audience is mostly male or female, young or old, interested in sports or travel, etc... Note that enterprise platforms that house 1st party data were not included in this test. This was because we weren't testing the quality of data from one specific client, instead we were testing the quality of commercially available online data. Just like in previous tests, this review needed to be fair and transparent in order to understand the results. The goal of this test was not to prove that one DMP was "better" than another. Instead, intention behind the test was to get an understanding of the overall industry by looking at the results from multiple DMPs simultaneously. This test used a single 300x250 creative from the "Kiss Goodbye to Multiple Sclerosis" awareness campaign. This campaign reached over 450,000 unique users, it was thousands of free dollars of media investment which was kindly donated by AppNexus and the ad-serving was given away by free by Sizmek. We are very grateful for their continued support and generosity. In total over 150 people clicked on the ads and went to the Multiple Sclerosis donation site. “Smart marketers and agencies need to ask tough questions of their tech partners, and AppNexus supports GroupM’s efforts to spotlight areas of ad tech that benefit from greater scrutiny.  We’re also very happy to support MS awareness along the way!” Dave Osborn, VP APAC for AppNexus. Seven different audience DMPs were approached with a request to donate a tracking pixel for this campaign. Five of the seven DMPs agree to the test and the only two technologies abstained. To ensure that the test was a fair as possible (a) the test was independently administered by the great team at Sizmek; (b) the programmatic buying was run by the experts at GroupM Connect; (c) the programmatic media was split evenly over five premium media partners (Yahoo, Fairfax, MCN, Mi9 and News Digital Media) and (d) the results were independently analysed by Dr Nico Neumann from the University South Australia. The results of the test were very interesting;  (Please forgive the quality of the image. It's a LinkedIn limitation) Image 1 - Overview of Key Audience Data Sets Image 2 - Overview of Demographic Audience Data Comparison The results of this test were fascinating. I've tried to break down the results into a number of key themes; Observation 1 - Get the Basics RightIt was shocking to see that some of these AdTech companies didn't have the basics. Counting (a) Impressions; (b) Unique Users and being able to display these results (c) in a daily breakdown and (d) in a self-service interface is an absolute must.In summary: How can one trust a technology to give accurate sophisticated results if it can't measure the basics? Would you trust your General Practitioner if he / she didn't know how to take your blood pressure? Observation 2 - Deterministic, not Probabilistic DataThe data-set that underpins vendor 1 and 4 are from a deterministic data-set. Deterministic data is whereby users login to an application and freely give private information about themselves. A good example of deterministic data is Facebook whereby users login and share your age and gender and there is a social system in place to ensure that that data is relatively accurate. Vendors 2, 3 and 5 had probabilistic data. Probabilistic data is whereby the data is "guesstimated" by looking at the browsing history of a user and guessing which category to which they belong.In summary: To follow on from the analogy above: this would be like your GP guessing your blood pressure by looking at what food you purchased and put in your fridge over the last 28 days. Statistically speaking it may be "interesting" but it's hardly accurate. Observation 3 - Data Quality Beats QuantityOne key data-set that is often used as a proxy for data quality is People 18-24. There was a 38 % discrepancy of this data-set across the group. One vendor said that the data had 7% of the people in this category and another said that there were 45% in this category. In summary: To follow on from the analogy above: this would be like visiting two different GPs and one saying that you had high blood pressure and the other saying that you had low blood pressure. How could you trust either?  In conclusion: One upcoming milestone for the media industry is to be able to migrate media dollars from TV to online digital advertising. This migration will require each of the TV stations to be able to measure the audiences that watch their TV shows. Think about a scenario whereby each TV station uses (a) different data-sets to verify their audiences (b) different methodologies for determining this data and (c) no transparency in how these data-sets are created. It's important that we (as an industry) hold the digital / programmatic data-sets to a higher degree of accountability and scrutiny. Next Steps >> Clear Data Origin - Ask your data provider if their data uses deterministic and / or probabilistic data. For example: Does the data come from people logging in and sharing their personal information or is this guessed by looking at their browsing history? Data Classification Methodology - Ask your data provider for them to share their rules of classification: For example: why do they put a user in Segment X (e.g. male) instead of Segment Y (e.g. female)? Data Validation Process - Ask your data provider to explain how they validate their data. For example: what principles are in place to test for accuracy of audiences? In Closing: Asking these three simple questions could have a dramatic effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of your online digital campaigns.

Snapchat is still so new and different. It is the only social media platform that doesn’t have a feed for its opening screen. Because of that (And many other reasons which I have talked about before), many brands are still trying to figure out how to use it for their brands. Why does Snapchat make sense for brands? And can brands monetize off this social platform? I’ve been observing how others have been using the platform, researching using multiple resources, and listened to Gary Vaynerchuk about his insights on the platform to learn for myself. But, more importantly, I wanted to learn it to share with you guys, so we can all be effective on this new social platform and stay ahead of the curve. Anyway, here’s why I think Snapchat makes sense for brands: it humanizes you and its growing fast. Remember people don’t buy from business; they buy from people. Snapchat makes you more real and authentic to your viewing audience. And if they like your content, they’ll more than likely stick around and spread the name of your brand to other people. Whether that be sharing your snapcode or spreading word of mouth, they are likely to ask, “Do you follow Jay on Snapchat?? You should! His snaps are awesome!” (Yes, I gave myself a plug.) Use Cases for Brands Contests New product sneak peaks Coupons Behind-the-scenes New team member introduction Targeted videos Contests I’ve seen Snapchat used to run contests on Instagram. I have seen GaryVee and Tai Lopez do this quite often. In the case of GaryVee, before, during, and after the release of his new book, #AskGaryVee, he often asked his audience on Snapchat to screenshot his snap and post on IG with the hashtag “#askgaryveebook,” and he’d pick a winner. Or he asked to go to his IG and tag 5 friends on one of his posts to enter the contest to win copies of his book. Tai Lopez has done this in the form of car giveaways. Still driving traffic to IG, he asked his Snapchat audience to comment under on one his posts and selects the best answers to his questions. These are just two use cases. New Product Sneak Peaks I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory… But for learning sake, I will shine some light on this one. A brand can use Snapchat for exclusive sneak peaks of upcoming products and services before you announce it on any other platform. Better yet, to incentivize your audience even more, a brand could give the product to a select few who send you a snap. Coupons A brand can drop a coupon code on Snapchat every now and then for some of products or services they provide! Once the snap expires (in 24 hours), you can expire the coupon. It gives to perfect incentive for your audience to jump on it before it does expire, or when the supply is gone. Behind-the-scenes I think this is huge! Showing your audience behind-the-scenes of your brand humanizes you and places faces behind the awesome products and services you provide for the marketplace! This type of content can consists of your team working on some accounts to show how its done, creating the product, etc. It obviously depends on your business and what you want to showcase to your audience. But I think this type of content is super powerful for a brand to utilize. New Team Member Introduction As your team grows, you can introduce your new team members on Snapchat to humanize your brand and place faces behind the business you run. You may even do Snapchat account swaps with your new team members to introduce themselves for the day! They can tell their story and explain what they do for the company and how they make your company awesome! And of course, what they do for your audience. Targeted Videos/Photos Through the platform’s chat feature, brands can send directed content to people in their audience. This is extremely powerful because it is one-on-one marketing, and it’s a great way to develop lasting relationships with your target market. It is nearly guaranteed that they will see it and interact, as long as you have great engagement with them through your content. Best Practices for Snapchat Create a Snapchat Account Promote Your Snapchat through other Social Platforms Reward Your New Snapchat Followers Distribute Meaningful Visual Content Leverage Their Attention through consistent engagement and content Follow my on Snapchat! jaybythebay94 Sources: www.mediakix.com, www.mashable.com, www.businessinsider.com, www.inc.com, www.forbes.com, www.garyvaynerchuk.com

Chris Myers Fintech is the new “it” sector. When my team and I started BodeTree back in 2010, fintech wasn’t the most popular sector for investors and technology pundits. However, everything has changed in the past few years. According to Citigroup, approximately $19 billion of incremental investment has flowed into the fintech sector over the last year, up from a mere $1.8 billion in 2011. The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin recently published an article about the state of fintech and its relationship with traditional banks. In the article, he argues that some of the more cutting-edge technologies in the market could fall short of their goal of disrupting banking due to acquisitions and partnerships with the very organizations they’re looking to change. I couldn’t agree more with Sorkin’s assessment. The opportunity in fintech is huge, but banks aren’t going anywhere. In fact, the most successful fintech companies will be the ones that learn how to work with banks, rather than try to supplant them. Fear is opening the door for innovators Fintech is hot at the moment in part because banks are scared. Overall public sentiment towards banks continues to be negative post-recession, with limited advancement in the past twenty years, leaving banks vulnerable to innovators. Citigroup, for example, reports that fintech may be on the cusp of an “Uber moment” that fundamentally changes the industry. This fear is a powerful motivator, and while fear of massive banking disruption may be slightly overblown, banks are wise to fear the effect of innovators nibbling away at specific elements of their business. The death of the banking sector has been greatly exaggerated The U.S. banking sector is so entrenched and protected that challenging it from the outside is an exercise in futility. It’s highly unlikely that a startup will come around and pose a real threat to the likes of Bank of America or Chase anytime soon. If you’re gambling on fintech, you’d be wise to remember that the bank is the house. You might have a few wins here or there, but in the end the house always comes out ahead. It all comes down to money — if a fintech player becomes too successful, a bank simply buys them out. That’s what happened to fintech darling Simple, which was acquired by BBVA for $117 million back in 2014. The winners will try to make banks better There is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to help change the way banks serve their customers. It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out how to improve this decades-old process by helping banks adopt some of the approaches pioneered by organizations like Kabbage and CAN Capital. The challenge is developing the wherewithal to navigate the archaic and often frustrating internal politics of the banking world. Fintech is hot, but investors and entrepreneurs alike should remember that banks aren’t going away any time soon. The best fintech companies will be the ones that figure out how to make banks better, not destroy them. Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a web application designed to help small businesses manage their finances.

“Have i gone mad?I’m afraid so, but let me tell you something, the best people usually are.”  ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Who would give up their weekend and take on the challenge to build a MADtech startup with strangers in only 54 hours? Perhaps some mad people, or according to the quote from Alice, some of the best people. That is exactly what happened earlier this May at Havas Media UK offices in London for Startup Weekend Marketing and Advertising Technology. A Friday afternoon, 28 great people came together to get out of their comfort zone, take a chance, co-create and for the majority of them, make their first foray into entrepreneurship. We kicked off the evening with pizza, beers and some fun warm up exercises to break the ice. As the evening unfold, 16 people felt brave enough to take the stage and pitch their idea within only 60 seconds. Pic by Lu LiAfter that it was time to network and convince people to vote for their idea. Each person in the room, regardless if they had pitched and idea or not, had 3 votes to place on one or more ideas. The point of voting is to be left with a number of ideas around which we can form meaningful teams. Startup Weekend isn’t a lonely experience! Pic by Lu LiAfter a lot of laughs, debate and some promises for free candy the vote was in and it came down to 7 ideas. Followed a second round of networking and debate, this time to build teams. A little before our venue closed we ended up with 5 teams, with lots of energy and drive to take over the (startup) world within the next two days! Pic by Lu LiSaturday morning teams went straight from breakfast to brainstorming, mapping out their roadmap and determining priorities and roles within each team. Saturday is an intense day that can easily get overwhelming if you don’t throw a pinch of fun in your work load! Pic by Lu LiOn Saturday teams focus on getting all their ideas on the table, customer validation and determining their MVP for Sunday. Through all this work they had the support of amazing coaches and of course the support of each other. Pic by Lu Li Pic by Lu Li Pic by Lu LiTeams held on tight to the roller coaster of emotions, validating with customers, combined with tough love by coaches, can be, and tried to go through their rush of ideas with a clear mind. Livestreaming Eurovision was just the fun break they needed, even if we got the vote wrong! Seriously Bulgaria was great!Morning of Sunday found the teams in hustle mode! Time goes fast when you have to finish building and validating, along with creating a great presentation, all in a few hours! Coaches came in on Sunday as well this time to help teams stay focus, not pivot and get ready for their pitch! Pic by Lu LiSunday Pitches The team pitch in front of an esteemed panel of judges to determine the overall winner based on 3 criteria: Validation, Execution & Design and Business Model. Big round of applause and the show is about to begin: First up: TagTarget Audience Intelligence for Better Content Next up Streeam user generated videos platform for live events DeadHungreee a student community around food, took the stage next to give the most energetic presentation! SFY (Security For You) is a mobile booking platform for female bodyguards The last one to pitch, ADaVoice: A block-chain based ad marketplace connecting brands directly with ad space owners for seamless media planning, better targeting, and increased transparency. The winning team, getting mentoring hours with 18 Havas London and tickets to the Lean Summit was AdaVoice, runner-up getting mentoring hours with Collider was Streeam and a special Black Belt award along with tickets to Lean Summit was given to SFY! All in all, it was a weekend to remember ;) Find more pictures from Startup Weekend MADtech here

While The Benefits of Online Reviews for Your Business, the first part of Reviews & Comments trilogy, was an easy peasy introduction, the second part is more insightful and requires more engagement. Today we’re going to talk about how to start it off. The success in gaining online reviews is an uphill, yet overwhelmingly rewarding struggle. Been there, done that. Absolutely worth doing. It’s important to bring to your customers’ attention the issue of your business’ online reviews and encourage them to put in a good word for your business. Research conducted by Socialnomics proves that 25% of search results direct customers to user-generated content from review sites, blogs, and social media. See? Reviews matter. Below you will find some tricks and tips how to start. 1. Create Company Profiles on Various Review Sites, Marketplaces and Social Media. It’s the first step before reaching out to your customers and asking for reviews. You aim at expanding your company’s online presence through various channels, such as review sites, social media platforms, and marketplaces. To put it simply, you need to widen your online presence to make your company particularly visible. To do so, create your company profiles on social media, marketplaces and review sites, and fill them with all the necessary information. Below I point out a couple of them: Review sites — if you’re an entertainment, restaurant or leisure business, you should focus on reviews sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp or Foursquare. Even though these businesses have hardly anything to do with e-commerce, it’s good to mark your online presence on review sites. Just take a look at TripAdvisor; the site is just packed with user reviews! Marketplaces — these are the perfect places for SaaS companies to list their business software. Marketplaces such as Capterra, AlternativeTo, GetApp or G2 Crowd have numerous categories and alternatives. Users can easily filter tool categories, compare tools and pick the one that fits them best. Check our profile at G2 Crowd and feel free to leave a review! Social Media — social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ allow submitting business reviews, too. You can easily moderate and answer them. What’s important, social networking sites are extremely popular and accumulate a big audience. These are perfect places both for e-commerce and traditional commerce. A complete company profile is more encouraging for customers to leave a review. If possible, add content related to your company and product, such as videos, infographics, presentations, demos or screenshots. Here’s an example: 2. Put Testimonials on Your Website. It’s crucial to allow your customers to submit their opinions directly to your website so that they could be visible to other customers. Create a subpage that enables submitting reviews. To keep it simple and effective, you only need 3 fields, including Name, E-mail address, Company and, for example, Share your opinion. Also, you can create a landing page with a form encouraging customers to leave reviews. Having testimonials on your website is just as important as having them on external review sites mentioned earlier. It is on your website where customers make the decision whether to buy or not, and testimonials should be at a hand’s reach for reassurance and social proof. What’s more, they should be displayed on your homepage — you don’t want to send your customers off your website to look for testimonials. Think also about another eye-catching feature, that is your customers’ brand logos on your website. It’s a simple step but worth a thousand words. See how we do it: 3. Create an E-mail Marketing Campaign. Launch an e-mail campaign that encourages your current customers to support you by reviewing your product. You can run such campaign occasionally or implement it on a regular basis with a CTA, for example in your weekly newsletter. Explain that online reviews matter both for your company and your customers, as they provide you with the most valuable suggestions for improvements. It so happens that they benefit all your customers. To make it easier for your users to share their feedback, you can send them short surveys. 4. Respond. Respect your customers and show that you appreciate their time and engagement by responding to their reviews. Address not only negative reviews but also positive ones. Create a relationship with your customers so that they see you care about them. What often seems to be a problem is responding to negative comments. They’re frequently painful both emotionally and financially, and responding to them requires cold blood. See how to handle them: Keep it positive It’s crucial to be always positive. Be friendly and thankful for every single, including negative, review. 2. Keep it cool Don’t let yourself being thrown off-balance. Don’t act impulsively and handle negative comments with particular care, as they may address an important issue. 3. Keep it fast Time is of the essence in social media. It often happens that customers post negative comments because they get the impression that their requests are left without attention. 4. Keep it empathetic Customers don’t care about the causes of a problem. Unfortunately, in response to a negative comment, many companies begin to list all the excuses that in fact irritate customers. 5. Keep trolls away From time to time you stumble upon people who intentionally cause trouble with their negative comments. Try not to argue and explain publicly that their review is inaccurate. 6. Keep it humble Acknowledge and apologize. Reassure your customers that you are about to tackle the problem in the nick of time. 5. Use Helpdesk. Use your helpdesk tools, such as Intercom or LiveChat to collect feedback from your customers. Once your helpdesk team solves a customer’s problem, it’s good to make hay while the sun shines and ask about feedback. In this case, you can send them a link to a review site, a marketplace of a review form. When a customer is happy with your helpdesk’s work, there’s a bigger likelihood that they leave a positive comment. Ask if you can publish it as a testimonial on your website. 6. Listen to the Online Buzz. Apart from the places mentioned above, there’s also another dimension of the Internet where people review your product. I’m talking about discussion forums, blogs, and other websites. To get your feedback from these places, start using a web monitoring tool that gathers your company mentions not only from social media but also from blogs, discussion forums, and other places. That’s It for the Second Part In the next part, you can expect a piece of advice on how reviewing products and establishing yourself as an expert can benefit your business. If you skipped the first part, it’s fine. You can read it here! Originally published at blog.brand24.com on May 31, 2016.

How To Evaluate A New Digital Product Business You’re in love with your idea, but love is blind. I’m here to provide a friendly slap around the face and to tell you what everyone else is afraid to, before the honeymoon is over and you find yourself slumped on the sofa watching box sets and eating ice-cream straight from the tub, alone. I often get asked the same questions by people who are working on their first start-up. The questions usually centre around how to get funding or how to develop an MVP, and the process of answering them usually involves me finding out about their business model, the hypotheses they need to test, and what else they have done to validate their assumptions so far. It never fails to amaze me how keen people are to jump into the expensive undertaking of developing an MVP without having done the research and planning that will save them from some very expensive mistakes along the way. You need a plan, even when you know it’s going to change. In this article I’m going to break down the repeatable process that I use to evaluate and develop a strategy for a new start-up, and I’m going to try to do it without using too much tech industry jargon in order to make it more accessible for those of you who haven’t been through this before. I’m also going to provide a worked example of a digital product business from concept through to MVP stage, along with various resources that you can use for your own business. In essence, these are all the steps you need to go through before you get to thinking about raising investment. The Idea Pick something that you know and care about. When a TV exec tells me they have a brilliant idea for a disruptive fintech business, I get worried. Ignore what is popular — you might think it’s easier to get investment for something that is the flavour of the month, but everybody else is thinking the same thing, and they’re wrong. Even if your fintech idea is really good, be honest about whether you’re the right person to do it. Do you have a deep understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve and do you care about the people you’re solving it for? Do you have the right skills and experience? If not then: It’s easy for someone to come along and do it better than you can. Always a risk, but not insurmountable if you’re genuinely into what you’re doing and willing to work harder and smarter than anyone else. After a few years, the novelty will wear off and you might find yourself deeply invested in working on something that you don’t really care about. It’s already over, but sunk cost fallacy will make you drag it out. Let’s start developing an idea. I’m going to pick something related to my first love — music. As well as playing piano and guitar, I like to collect vinyl records. I wouldn’t call it an obsession, but I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager. This makes for a good foundation — I understand the space and my interest in it has already passed the test of time. What problems are there with collecting vinyl records that I could solve with a digital product? At this point, I decide to get in the bath and think through recent vinyl purchase journeys, almost all of which were online, not allowing myself to get out until I had at least two useful insights. These turned out to be: There is a disconnect between where I discover music (e.g. Spotify, radio, friends) and where I purchase it (e.g. Amazon, Juno Records etc.). It’s expensive to buy vinyl, so I tend to only buy things that I really like and will want to play again and again. There is nothing right now that prompts me to buy things that I’ve been listening to recently. I will usually have to check in a couple of different stores before I can find what I want. If the record is available in multiple stores, there can be a lot of price variance - I’ve seen 50% price differences. This only really applies to new vinyl — for second hand we already have the discogs.com marketplace. Bathing will solve a lot of your problemsThe Proposition In response to these problems, we need to propose a solution. I propose an app that: Acts as a price comparison service and aggregates results from all online vinyl retailers. It should simplify the buying process by removing several duplicate search steps, and presenting the best option for combination purchases, where you’re buying multiple records and if you can get them from the same seller you can often save a lot on postage. Integrates with the places where I’m discovering and saving music that I like — in my case Spotify playlists, but could also be other streaming services, Shazam, or even recommendations from friends on social. It should be able to make smart recommendations for albums I want to buy based on what I’m listening to. Provide regular reminders, via email for example, to buy music that I’ve been listening to a lot recently on vinyl. Ok, this all sounds pretty good, and if you’re anything like me you’ll be champing at the bit to get on with making an MVP. Sure, the ultimate test will always be whether we can get people to actually pay for our product, and in order to validate that we will need to build it. But wait! There’s a lot more we can and should figure out first. Must resist building anything yet, but the odd sketch won’t hurtThe Lo-Fi Business Model Canvas So called because what I do here is based on Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas, but I like to keep it lo-fi and work entirely in a single text file, Evernote, or even a physical notebook. This stops me from getting distracted with presentation and allows me to spew out thoughts with minimal inhibition. It also means I can be fairly loose in the format and change the questions that need to be asked based on the business I’m working on. This is all about planning out the business on paper, and allowing the concept to develop along the way, while it’s still cheap to change direction. Turn off your phone, and give yourself a few hours to write down everything you can think of in response to these questions: Revenue Streams — What are the different ways in which your idea could make money? Market — What do you know about the potential users of your product. Is there an established market / sector already, if so what are the segments, demographics, how big is it and how much of it could we capture? Customer Acquisition — What would we need to do to get customers? If our business is B2C will we need to do lots of advertising or paid search to make people aware of our product? Is it an option to partner with companies who already have the customers? What sort of marketing strategies would be applicable? Competition — How are people solving this problem right now? Are there direct competitors or indirect competitors? How do we differentiate ourselves and maintain an advantage? Risks — What assumptions have you made? There are probably a lot more than you think — for instance you’re assuming that the problem you’re addressing really exists, and that people will pay to solve it. List all the things that could happen to wipe your business out. Pivots — Think about other angles and related ideas. How might the tech you’ve made be repurposed? Even for a completely different industry. You might think it’s too early to think of this now but it’s an important creative exercise to go through that might change your core proposition. Here’s a snippet of what this looks like for our vinyl record aggregator idea: Note that at the end there is a section entitled Research Required. For everything that you don’t already know or that a quick Google can’t reveal, just note it here for now. This section should always contain some interviews with your customers, partners and suppliers — you can learn a lot just from talking to people. This section should also contain things you can do to test your hypotheses without building a product, and actions you can take to mitigate the risks you’ve identified. Do the Research You now have a nice fat list of things you need to find out in order to assess whether your idea can work, and effectively de-risk any further endeavour. Go and talk to people. Tell everyone about the idea, ignore them when they tell you it’s a great idea, but listen to what they say and take note of whether it is easy for them to grasp — if they are in your target market and find it hard to understand then that means something. Now go and talk to potential customers, suppliers and partners — share with them what you’ve found out so far, why should they help you if you’re not going to help them? Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. - Howard H. Aiken In the case of our idea, I went and talked to several people who ran small independent record labels — from a one-man band, to a niche premium jazz label with a turnover of around £300k, to the biggest indie label in the UK. I then commissioned a piece of research on online vinyl price variance on Upwork— it cost me £30 for someone to compile prices from the top 7 UK retailers for a cross-section of 50 albums that I chose. Doing the subsequent analysis took just a few hours, and found that the price of a new LP varies on average by 20% , and sometimes as much as 55%— validating one of our core hypotheses. Next I needed to do some wider market research, and one of the simplest ways to achieve this is with the online survey tool PollFish. I created a custom survey of 15 questions, and asked 150 people, costing $150. You only pay for people who pass your qualifying question — so you can target a very specific audience if you want. To target our potential customers, I asked how many pieces of vinyl you bought in the last year, and only qualified the user to take the survey if their answer to this question was 1 or more. From this survey I was able to validate two more of our hypotheses: Most people track the music they are about to buy on vinyl in a digital format that we could monitor to provide recommendations. Most people are already checking with multiple retailers when purchasing online. Validating our hypotheses with market research on PollFishRead up on how to avoid biasing responses with the question wording, or structure of the survey. It’s really important that you consider this carefully if you are to infer anything from the responses to your survey. It’s always a good idea to ask some open ended questions, you never know what you’ll find out. I asked people “What is the biggest problem you face when buying vinyl online” and a significant number of people responded with issues relating to delivery time and managing returns. Things that seem obvious in retrospect, but to which I had not previously given much thought. Running the Numbers By now you should know something about the size of your total addressable market and you should have an idea of how much revenue you can make. The flip-side of this is how much money you need to spend (on product development, and marketing for example) in order to realise this revenue. Here’s a financial model Google Spreadsheet that is a good template for most SaaS-type businesses. If you haven’t done costed out projects like this before, you will need help from someone who has. If it’s your first SaaS / recurring revenue business then you need to get acquainted with the basics of SaaS accounting. Perhaps the most important headline metrics are your cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) and customer lifetime value (LTV). As a rule of thumb, your LTV should be > 3x CAC for B2B products, and >1.5x CAC for B2C. Recognise that businesses which need to acquire millions of customers before they can become profitable are very risky and require significant capital to get anywhere near success. They usually have to monopolise their sector and grow incredibly fast. If you’re looking at one of these, face this fact sooner rather than later and ask yourself seriously if this is the sort of business you want. For our vinyl product, we first looked at an affiliate model, where we would use existing retailers to fulfil orders and they would pay us a percentage of the retail price. In order to calculate our CAC and LTV we might make some assumptions like this: The average customer buys 5 LPs through our site per year The average LP price is £20 The average affiliate scheme pays 7% Our customers are loyal and because we continually improve the vinyl buying experience, they stay with us for at least 3 years. So the customer LTV is: 3 years x 5 LPs x £20 x 7% = £21 If we want this model to work we need CAC to be £14 (LTV/1.5) or less. Those of you who are already familiar with SaaS finance will no doubt find this example to be grossly oversimplified, however these sorts of calculations work fine as an initial pass to see if a model has any chance of working. Time to Kill? Walt Disney used to be famous for (along with anti-semitism) having three rooms that he would move people between throughout the creative process. First in the “dreamer” room everyone was encouraged to express all ideas freely, the wackier the better. Then, in the “realist” room, the ideas would be developed into something that’s actually possible, and the constraints would be understood. Finally, in the “critic” room, those ideas would be coldly evaluated and most would be killed. Now that you’ve done your research and looked at the finances, you need to move to the third room and take a cold, hard look at things with a critical perspective. Have your initial hypotheses been supported, do the numbers stack up, is this still the right business for you? If your proposition has developed, go back and check that it actually addresses the problems you identified — it’s easy for a proposition to develop quite logically into something that nobody actually needs while navigating your way through this slalom. Have you noticed the main flaw with our toy product yet? While our research managed to validate several of our hypotheses, the numbers don’t look good. The initial idea we had of a simple affiliate business model doesn’t seem to be attractive enough if we were to believe the total market size for vinyl sales to be $350M/year. If we were able to drive 1% of those sales through our platform, our revenue would be 7% of the retail price — just $245k! We might try to adapt our model in response to this. From interviews with labels we found that 35–50% of the retail price goes to the distributer and retailer. What if we created a platform where we allowed smaller labels to sell direct to consumer, bypassing the existing retail and distribution channels? At this point we need to cycle back through the process. It’s perfectly normal to have to revise your business model and other aspects of your strategy many times over in response to what you learn along the way. Craft your Pitch For some people this step may seem a bit premature, but as you might have noticed I’m really hammering home this point about figuring things out before you jump into the MVP. The output of this phase will be a simple pitch deck that you can use to convince other people that you’ve got it all worked out, you can even start showing it to investors to get feedback. You’re now going to be selling your idea to others, aiming to get them onboard as partners, co-founders, or early employees. It’s a good idea to develop a basic brand at this point, don’t go nuts but do write a brand brief and come up with a name and workmark / logo — get someone else to do this if you’re not a designer. Check out this guide on what you should include in a pitch deck. It can be done in a number of different ways but make sure it contains at least the information in the example below, and try to tell a story. You need to condense all that research down into the most salient points and present your proposition as strongly as possible. What is the problem? What is the solution? What is the market? How do we make money? Why are you the right team to back and why is now the right time? Here’s a simple 9-slide pitch deck for our idea — I’ve dubbed it Vinyl.st. Can We Make Something Now? Yes, but first be clear on the hypothesis you want to test, e.g: People buy vinyl based on what’s in their playlists. We can remove significant pain points from the buying process. We can make you buy more vinyl than you normally would. We can acquire and retain customers with this basic service. Then ask: What do we need to build in order to test these? In this case it might be an app where you log in with Spotify, it mines your playlists and looks for LPs that contain the tracks from the most popular online retailers, presenting you with the best price. It will then email you each week with deals on albums you’re likely to buy, or which you have almost bought in the past and have subsequently dropped in price. We can ask people how much vinyl they normally buy when they sign up, and then see if our email recommendation system can improve on this. The best learning comes from actual user behaviour; be sure to rig your app with customer behaviour analytics tools in order to collect this data. There is a real art to deciding what to build for an MVP. It’s important to have some technical research going on throughout the entire process outlined in this article. You need to make sure that what you’re proposing is technically possible, and be creative in adapting your proposition based on opportunities that new technology presents. If you get this far, congratulations! My company Atchai specialises in creating smart, modern web applications and we can act as an interim CTO for you, helping you to develop your product, while you raise investment and recruit a permanent team. If you’re ready to take your product to the next level then send me a mail! Subscribe to my Medium postsEnter your email to receive updates from me.

Discoverability, accessibility, and valuable metrics for marketers Publishers are battling it out for a spot in Snapchat’s Discover feed, the area on the app dedicated to branded content, to reach this platform’s estimated 200 million monthly active users. According to Snapchat, the Discover feed attracts about 70 million views a month with its top channels averaging six to seven minutes per visit from each visitor. But there is some hesitance within the media industry about the future of the platform and what it can truly offer publishers. “In its early days, Snapchat was a counter-culture hotspot for young people to use the Web without leaving a digital footprint,” The Next Web’s Matthew Hussey writes on the evolution of the platform. “When it first unveiled its Discover channel, the idea was for Snapchat to closely curate the publishers in accordance with what the company thinks is appropriate for its audience. Today, it’s more about how many millions of people companies can reach if they stump up the cash to be on it.” The audience is young and highly coveted by publishers. Snapchat says 37 percent of the app’s users are between the ages of 18 and 24. BuzzFeed says about 20 percent of its audience is on Snapchat. Cosmopolitan says it’s averaging 3 million viewers per day on Snapchat Discover. But, for other publishers without the resources to invest in Snapchat, it might be too soon to determine whether an investment on Snapchat is worth the effort. A Variety survey reveals what Snapchat users pay attention to on the app.For users, Snapchat is all about experience, discovery, and making connections. The ease and speed at which you and your friends can share messages, or “snaps,” is only one of its strengths. Snapchat makes users crave real-time content, and they want it fast. But it’s expensive for publishers to maintain a strong daily presence on Snapchat because content has to be created or repurposed for the platform, requiring a sizeable team and budget. Other limitations include Snapchat’s use of vertical video and content that is ephemeral, rather than creating an archive for users to browse. What might be the biggest disappointment for publishers is the lack of a concrete way to measure success other than a count of daily views and shares. Some publishers have gone above and beyond on Snapchat by investing significantly more time, people, and money than others. CNN has its cameramen take extra footage for Snapchat. MTV is reviving MTV Cribs exclusively through this platform. Comedy Central is creating nine series for its Discover channel produced by emerging talent. News-oriented media brands like iHeartMedia approach content creation for the Discover feed like a newsroom. Food Network’s Discover channel is one of the most viewed publisher channels.The competition may be small, but it’s already strong. The Discover feed includes more than 20 publishers creating content for the feed, and that number is growing. Some marketers are describing the Discover feed as a big piece of real estate, but an over-saturation of publishers creates a competition for user attention, which is already limited. Additionally, the lack of visibility on the application for Discover feeds may deter some users from watching. Advertisers say some channels are thriving, but others have low traffic. While some publishers are building teams of up to eight people to create content for Snapchat, others are inevitably falling behind due to a lack of resources. Food Network is among the highest viewed Discover channels. However, it remains to be seen whether the investment will pay off. The Snapchat Discover Feed features 20 channels with publisher logos.“You, as a publisher trying to determine whether or not it’s going to be worth all the work and all the effort, if you’re going to make enough money to cover your costs, you have to think about what is the future of that real estate worth and how much is that audience worth five years down the road,” Vikki Neil, Scripps Networks SVP and GM of Digital and producer of the Food Network Discover feed, said about publishing on Snapchat. Snapchat can also drastically change overnight. There are rumors that Snapchat will introduce an algorithm to serve as a “gatekeeper between brands and publishers and their audience,” Garett Sloane writes for Digiday. Similar to Facebook, the algorithm would filter and rank the content, penalizing some brands while boosting others. “That’s why you don’t want to be beholden to any one of these platforms or you’re suddenly stuck when the game changes,” a top publishing source close to Snapchat tells Digiday. Snapchat is also reportedly planning to redesign the Discover channel feed. The redesign may transform the Discover feed into a version of a newsstand, switching out logos to images in the hopes of drawing more viewers. So, what needs to happen before a Snapchat revolution? Three things come to mind: 1. Discoverability options for the audience to follow brands, beyond the Discover feed The Discover feed is not attainable for most brands, but it’s also not the only option for reaching Snapchat’s audience. Brands can create user accounts and connect directly with followers using the network’s built-in messaging capabilities, Story uploads, and more. Many fashion houses, including Burberry, Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, and Chanel have launched Snapchat accounts to show behind-the-scenes footage and stream runway shows. Presidential candidates have been using Snapchat in a similar way, updating followers on their campaign and urging Millennials to vote. These efforts may not require a huge team and could open up the doors for a more nimble and personalized approach. The biggest roadblock is that it is hard to identify which brands to follow on Snapchat unless you know their “Snapcodes” or usernames. Many users are stuck following the most popular accounts including DJ Khaled and Kylie Jenner. As entertaining as DJ Khaled is on Snapchat, that is not the “key to success” for brands. If you want users to ride with you through the journey to success, you’re going to have to publicize your Snapchat username. Publishers cross-promote their Snapchat “exclusives” through Twitter.2. Revenue opportunities for publishers, not just advertisers According to Digiday, Snapchat may take control of advertisements, which are typically sold by Discover publishers, and advertising revenue on its platform. Snapchat claims to be heading toward an audience-first strategy for its ads. Cookie Jam swipeable ad.Snapchat is paving a larger path for advertisers on its platform through its advertising arm 3V and experimenting with different types of ads. AT&T recently published what Snapchat is calling a “swipeable ad,” which took Discover viewers to an advertorial in the form of a listicle that incorporates text, photos, and GIFs. Snapchat is also producing app-install and shoppable ads, where users can download apps from Apple’s App Store without leaving Snapchat. Most ads keep the format that Snapchat allows users and publishers to use, such as the 10-second time limit and shareable features. These ad strategies are all very cool, but they are also expensive. Even though prices have dropped from the reported $750,000, a starting price of $50,000 is still high for most brands compared to paid promotion campaigns on other social media platforms. 3. Valuable metrics for marketers Snapchat has developed partnerships with Nielsen, Millward Brown, and comScore to offer publishers and advertisers a deeper understanding of their audiences. However, there’s still no measurement to determine whether it’s worth investing half a million dollars or more on the platform. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Snapchat’s audience never clicks through to a publisher’s site, meaning Snapchat publishers will have difficulty measuring the impact and reach of their content and ads. For the commitment to be worth the cost, Snapchat needs to show publishers it has a unique audience that other platforms cannot reach at the same rate. It should also inform publishers about what content is resonating with audiences so that publishers and brands aren’t operating blindly. Bottom line: Snapchat is still in its infancy. At the moment, Snapchat is a new growth opportunity for publishers and brands trying to reach younger audiences, but the platform isn’t easy to manage. Most organizations will have no way to integrate Discover into their workflow unless they hire an agency and barriers remain for user accounts not on Discover to be effective. While publishers are scrambling to buy in to the platform, Snapchat can change its algorithm overnight and erase months of strategic planning. Snapchat is constantly reinventing itself and embracing new changes, but will publishers be able to keep up? New platforms are just one of the many things we think about for clients at Atlantic Media Strategies. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, the Digital Trends Index, and get in touch with us on Twitter.

You know something has truly gone viral when your mom sends you links to a video. I don’t know if my mom has ever even been on Youtube before, but she sent me the video of Candace Payne the day after the video hit Facebook. “This is what your company does, right?” She’s right, it is. We all know the video that Candace Payne posted. It’s just her in her car, her phone, and a Chewbacca mask that she had bought from the clearance bin at Kohl’s. The video that she created and posted made millions of people stop what they are doing, and laugh with her. Then those laughing strangers went out and bought every mask they could get their hands on, selling out Kohl’s, Amazon, Walmart, ToysRUs and Target. It’s even selling on eBay for upwards of $500. Oh, the distance that people will go for a giggle. Think about that mask for a moment. My guess is that a team of marketers were involved in helping that product sell. They probably showcased it in advertising circulars and special end caps. I wouldn’t be surprised if digital advertising came into play. Of course, there is the name recognition of a little movie franchise called Star Wars that probably helped it out. A good amount of money went into the marketing of that product, and the mask still ended up in a bargain bin. So why did the mask sell out so quickly post video? There was something so delightfully genuine about Candace losing it. It was just pure silliness, and we just immediately join it. Laughter is as infectious as a yawn, but way more fun. $30 for sheer joy and a moment of goofy fun? Sign me up. There will always be a place for traditional marketing, but the best marketing departments should and pay attention to hits like Chewbacca mom. You could spend a ridiculous amount of money with scripts and professional video teams and never get that honest, giddy, infectious joy that Cadence showed in her video. The real question is, how can brands find these gems and use them in a legal way? Chewbacca Mom didn’t set out to make a viral hit. She just wanted to create some content to share with her friends on the internet. Those friends were struck by the sincerity and wanted to pass the video along to their own friends, and the situation snowballed from there. Now a mask that was in the clearance bin is a hot commodity and sold out nearly everywhere you can think to look. This is the power of user generated content. It can take something from which traditional marketing has already moved on and breathe new life into it, and it does this in ways that traditional marketing can’t even imagine. — Misha Originally published at shareroot.co.

By Heike Young Think of everyone you know who took a plane or train this year. The impact of transportation on our daily lives and most important memories is staggering. For Ken Knitter, it’s his job to ponder how transportation can come to life on social media every day. And he knows how to use every social channel to make more efficient, more eco-friendly travel a reality to his audience. On this week’s episode of the Marketing Cloudcast — the marketing podcast from Salesforce — we learn about the importance of pairing your social channel with your particular message, the advantages of plugging into the customer’s imagination, and how to build a better social content strategy. All this and more from Ken Knitter, Social Media Director of Bombardier. Bombardier builds planes and trains, but most importantly, Bombardier strives to sustainably bridge the distances between individuals and bring people together. Ken started as a trainer within the company and now operates as their social media mastermind. He shares his insights and his perpetual curiosity freely with us in this episode of the Cloudcast. If you’re not yet a subscriber, check out the Marketing Cloudcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, or Stitcher. Take a listen here: You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ken. Different Social Channels, Different Strategies—Same People “At the end of the day, we’re talking about interacting with individuals.” Each social story has its own way to be told—whether it’s the high-end luxurious appeal of a sleek and inviting Instagram photo, the accessible feedback channel of Facebook, or the recruiting platform of LinkedIn. It’s the social media marketer’s job to know which fits your message best. Another smart tip from Ken is to include employee recruitment tactics into your brand marketing plans. HR and branding are both about presenting the best and most interesting facets of your company. It makes sense to combine resources for added success on both ends. Have a Content Plan Before You Launch That Shiny New Channel “Launching the channel is the easy part. It’s feeding that beast that’s difficult.” Content, content, content. Quality and quantity are both key. Setting up a YouTube or Snapchat account isn’t enough. Do you know how to use it? Do you have a plan for how to fill it with material that will engage your audience and draw them back to your website? Ken recommends that you have a complete plan for creating enough compelling content before you invest in any new channel—no matter how much execs or internal team members insist that the channel must be opened. Be a Marketing Polymath “What marketing needs is someone who is experienced in a multitude of fields. And more important than that: unquenchable curiosity.” Be hungry for how and why everything works. Get experience with every part of your product experience. These days, change is the only constant in marketing. The only way to keep up with the quickening pace of social media change is to stay curious, have an explorer’s mind, and be ready to dive into any new channel that strikes your customers’ fancy. And that’s just scratching the surface of our conversation with Ken Knitter (@KenKnitter). Get the complete low-down on social strategy straight from one of the world’s most important transportation companies in this episode of the Marketing Cloudcast. Join the thousands of smart marketers who already subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Stitcher. New to podcast subscriptions in iTunes? Search for “Marketing Cloudcast” in the iTunes Store and hit Subscribe, as shown below. Tweet @youngheike with marketing questions or topics you’d like to see covered next on the Marketing Cloudcast.