This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Andrew Penny, an Ottawa-based business development and market strategist for B2B companies, and president of Kingsford Consulting Ltd. We welcome your comments.
By Andrew Penny
Since the first acts of commerce, the seller has always had the upper hand with respect to product knowledge, performance, service, costs, and all the other factors that a buyer wants to know. Today, your buyer has access to all that information before they even meet you. In a few seconds they can find out where your president went to school, what your customers think of you, how you manufacture your product, what your approximate costs are (or should be), how the product works and if any other firms like theirs have bought it. A push (not to say pushy) salesperson doesn’t stand a chance.
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By Alexandra Reid
Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new which furthers my understanding of social media and the role of the community manager. I seek out new information and it finds its way to me. It’s a necessary and unavoidable part of the job description. But I’ve come to learn that success in my field depends on my ability to act on what I learn. Without the empowerment provided by a supportive, progressive and open-minded business environment, my ideas could never come to fruition.
Social media has become a new market point of entry for business, where individuals can reach the appropriate people, have their questions answered, concerns addressed and opinions heard with immediacy. As competition between companies for attention on social platforms becomes fiercer, social consumers have grown more sophisticated and discerning about the people and brands with which they interact, says an eMarketer study. They expect their needs to be met instantly and professionally. As intermediaries, community managers are the primary communicators of a businesses’ social media acumen. Employers must empower them with the opportunity to seek out better ways of engaging target audiences through social media and the support which develops the confidence to speak up and bring forward-thinking ideas to the table.
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This is the first article in a continuing monthly series that will chronicle the growth path of Screenreach Interactive, a startup based in Newcastle upon Tyne in England’s North East. Screenreach’s flagship product, Screach, is an interactive digital media platform that allows users to create real-time, two-way interactive experiences between a smart device (through the Screach app) and any content, on any screen or just within the mobile device itself. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
We first encountered Screenreach Interactive and its founder, Paul Rawlings, several months ago when we featured Jon Bradford, the man behind U.K. startup accelerators The Difference Engine and Springboard.
Rawlings and Screenreach completed the first cycle of The Difference Engine’s 13-week program in 2010. When we asked Bradford for an example of a successful graduate from that program, he was quick to sing Rawlings’ praises.
“He was not proprietary about his ideas, he was very open to new suggestions, new directions and wasn’t wedded to, ‘Look, this is what I’m doing and I’m not going to listen to anybody else,’” Bradford said.
“I think having an open mind, being able to listen, to react in a positive fashion was probably the making of him. He was also not very selfish about bringing in other team members, making sure he had a good team around him beyond the program itself. One of his mentors (Sam Morton, pictured right in the photo below with Rawlings) became one of his members of staff.”
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This is the next commentary from guest blogger John Craig, a veteran of commercializing mobile technologies. We welcome your feedback.
By John Craig
One thing that has guided Purple Forge more than anything else since our inception is our product philosophy. We develop mobile applications around a high-level concept called mobile community engagement. Sound catchy? Well, as it turns out, it is and has become both a point of market differentiation and a guiding mantra for those customers we choose to work with and the business verticals we target.
In 2010 the mobile application market was filled with companies offering custom mobile application development and do-it-yourself development services. It was a “Is there an app for that?” culture and everybody had a hot app idea they needed you to build. The problem was that when you dug a little deeper into the idea, there was no guiding philosophy. Over and over again, customers would tell me they wanted the same thing – a flashy, five-star app that would make them millions of dollars. These customers all had what I call “Angry Birds envy,” which is a condition where you think you have an app idea that is simple and addictive like the massively popular game Angry Birds.
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By Alexandra Reid
I have discussed thought leadership here before, but never laid out just how important it is and the critical social media steps entrepreneurs can take to establish themselves as, and tap into the minds of, thought leaders in their industries.
In a study conducted for The Society for New Communications Research called New Symbiosis of Professional Networks, 44 percent of respondents said the primary reason they visit online networks and communities is to access thought leadership and information they couldn’t get elsewhere, while 43 percent said the primary reason is to showcase themselves or their companies.
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