By Leo Valiquette
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are MarketingProfs, TechVibes, Forbes, Inc. and Dan Barker.
What’s next in marketing: 29 bold predictions for 2013
MarketingProfs’ Veronica Maria Jarski makes the rounds to find out what we should expect in 2013. We of course are particularly pleased by the prediction that content marketing will continue to gain prominence this year. However, there is a diversity of ideas in her article and we will leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide which are insightful and visionary or just so much buzz word-ridden bombast.
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By Francis Moran
This is a word cloud of the more than 200 blog posts we published here in 2012. In one fell swoop, it graphically illustrates our preoccupations over the past year, the subject matter we returned to time and again as we looked at the unique challenges of bringing technology to market.
Not surprisingly, the most frequently mentioned word — and by a significant margin — in all our content last year was”marketing.” We are, after all, marketing strategists, and we created this blog as a resource where technology companies, both startups and more established ventures, could find solid counsel on how to master this mix of art and science. This will continue to be our main focus this coming year.
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By Tara Hunt
It usually starts something like this:
“Hey! Everyone I know is on Instagram! We should start an Instagram for the company!”
The suggestion in itself isn’t wrong, per se; it’s just not made with much of an understanding of how these social platforms work. It takes less than five minutes to set up an Instagram account (if you have an iPhone or an Android device). That’s the simple part. But then the real work begins.
People who rarely use social networks love platforms … even when they, themselves, admit to not having enough time to use them. That’s pretty much what they see: Platforms and the numbers. “Why aren’t we on Pinterest/Foursquare/Tumblr/Google+/You Tube/Instagram/etc?” they’ll ask. They’ll tell you about all sorts of other companies that have set up multiple accounts on multiple platforms and how they read about it on Mashable. They’ll hint at being concerned about your expertise or ability to execute because you haven’t created accounts everywhere. They may even say, “It takes five minutes to set it up!”
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By Leo Valiquette
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are TechCrunch, Polaris Venture Partners, Pando Daily, Gust and MarketingSherpa.
Median angel deal size rises as startups look for more runway amid a series A bottleneck
TechCrunch’s Kim-Mai Cutler writes about how the median size of angel deals rose to $640,000 in the third quarter of last year – a five-quarter high – as startups looked for more runway amid a bottleneck for Series A rounds. Silicon Valley Bank partnered with data company CB Insights and the Angel Resource Institute to survey different angel groups about activity in the fall of last year.
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By Megan Totka
Traditionally, the work of social media-profile development has fallen on PR departments. Over time, social media efforts morphed into a department of its own in companies that could afford the manpower and saw the financial potential of a vast mobile following. Decision makers from companies of all sizes know the extreme value of a strong social media presence.
Beyond web platforms
In November, Flurry Analytics released some telling numbers on the ways Americans are spending time using electronic mediums. In 2011, Americans spent 72 minutes per day web browsing and 94 minutes per day using mobile applications. Both activities were dwarfed by television consumption, which came in at 168 minutes per day. Though the year is not quite over, the numbers for 2012 show stagnancy in web browsing and television watching, but a jump to 127 minutes per day in mobile application use.
Over the past two years, the number of events completed within mobile apps has increased tenfold to one trillion, or 1,000 billion. An event is an action completed by a user inside an app, such as completing a game level, making a restaurant reservation or tagging a song. While not all of these apps are social media based, these numbers should be sobering to all companies. Engagement with the marketplace through mobile apps is becoming increasingly important.
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By Leo Valiquette
