In Smart Start-Ups, entrepreneur and angel investor David Silver reveals how social networking will change the face of business and create thousands of new millionaires over the next decade. More important, he shows entrepreneurs and corporations how to tap into this powerful trend using visionary business plans to build social networks that will make millions. Using case studies of companies you might not have heard of yet—but will—Silver explains business plans and models for start-up online communities, showing how to produce value for members, attract more paying customers, and make it all work at a profit. You’ll learn what’s happening in social networking, who the major players are, and what makes them successful. Plus, you’ll have all the tools you need to research, facilitate ideas, and develop a business model for your own profitable and unique social networking start-up. Plus, launching an online or mobile community is relatively inexpensive—as little as $300,000!
Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities, by David Silver is available via AMAZON. This book (in print) is available for members of SOCOHANOI, a coworking space in Hanoi. Please write us at long@socohanoi.com to know more about the membership or write to info@infobizvn.com to know how to have a copy.
Social networking sites let members connect and share ideas, insights, and experiences. Business marketers see membership on social sites swell but wonder if marketing there will raise awareness or generate demand. Rather than treat social networks like another channel for broadcasting messages, marketers should join in, listen to, and learn from community activity before deciding whether to build a branded destination targeting business buyers. Forrester offers three ways for marketers to kick-start social networking efforts that energize buyers to join technology selection and adoption discussion.
1. Participate as a community peer. Tap into social networking sites to listen for hidden pain points, discover innovative ideas, and share valuable experiences, all while improving vendorcustomer relationships.
2. Energize customers to help tell your story. Give enthusiastic customers new ways to engage with each other, share their stories, and gain accolades from peers, which is the recognition that matters most among tech-savvy buyers.
3. Nurture loyal customers by supporting their success. Beyond using online forums and community spaces to demonstrate thought leadership and become a trusted resource to buyers, top marketers use social sites to foster connections between their best customers and encourage them to share best practices.
The above is the executive summary of research entitled “B2B Marketers: Tap Into Social Networking Sites To Energize Community Marketing” by Laura Ramos of Forrester Research. The paper is available for members of SOCOHANOI, a coworking space in Hanoi. Please write us at long@socohanoi.com to know more about the membership or write to info@infobizvn.com to know how to have a copy.
A development team’s investment in the use of “inbound” social media must be question-driven. Some questions are urgent, having a bearing on a decision that the team needs to make right away. A good example is the perennial question: “What’s the impact of cutting this feature from the next release?” Ongoing investigations into markets, use cases, users, and competitors represent an equally important set of questions that social media can help answer. For a document management vendor that’s used to selling to customers in the pharmaceutical industry and now wants to expand into other verticals, market development is the sort of ongoing research project in which social media can shine a light on familiar business problems that the technology might help solve.
Before plunging ahead, product teams must first be clear about the question they want to pose. In fact, they need to ask five questions about their question. While that may sound crazily recursive, these five questions are critical for identifying the social media outlets that may provide the best guidance:
- Which aspect of the product requirements are we talking about?
- Is the issue product-centric or problem-centric?
- Do we need aggregate information, in-depth information, or both?
- Who is the user?
- What is the user’s interest in social media?
Excerpted from “When Looking For Product Insights, Not All Social Media Are Created Equal” by Tom Grant of Forrester Research. The paper is available for members of SOCOHANOI, a coworking space in Hanoi. Please write us at long@socohanoi.com to know more about the membership or write to info@infobizvn.com to know how to have a copy.
How does your eBusiness team stack up against others? How mature is the average eBusiness team? What characteristics should an eBusiness team exhibit — and excel at? To answer these and other common questions, Forrester developed a 35-question diagnostic tool, broken into four common eBusiness disciplines, called the eBusiness Maturity Model. In June 2008, Forrester fielded the 35 questions as an online survey to the eBusiness Council and current members of its eBusiness And Channel Strategy Professional Research Panel. It turns out that while Forrester’s 56 responding panelists have a positive outlook on some team aspects like organization and process maturity, there’s work to be done on others like channel integration and tracking key performance metrics.
The above is the executive summary of research entitled “Is Your eBusiness Team Ready For Prime Time” by Carlton A. Doty and Elizabeth Davis of Forrester Research. The paper is available for members of SOCOHANOI, a coworking space in Hanoi. Please write us at long@socohanoi.com to know more about the membership or write to info@infobizvn.com to know how to have a copy.
Forrester applied an adjusted version of its Search Marketing Review methodology to 300 paid search ads from the retail, travel, consumer packaged goods (CPG), media and entertainment, financial services, and business services industries. Despite some bright spots — primarily in retail and travel — the majority of ads failed. Retail, travel, and CPG companies must improve their calls to action; media and entertainment companies should screen out irrelevant clickers; financial services firms should mention keywords searched in their ads and landing pages; and business services marketers should learn paid search basics. All marketers can improve their paid search return by applying search for short- and long-term goals and across a customer’s entire purchase process.
The above is the executive summary of research entitled “The Best And Worst Of Paid Search In 2009” by Shar VanBoskirk of Forrester Research. The paper is available for members of SOCOHANOI, a coworking space in Hanoi. Please write us at long@socohanoi.com to know more about the membership or write to info@infobizvn.com to know how to have a copy.
