By Alexandra Reid
Monitoring social media is like drinking from a fire hose. If you don’t abridge the flow, you will get washed away. As a community manager, I have an intimate understanding of what it feels like to be pummeled and drenched by the waves of content that constantly come at me. However, I also realize the tremendous opportunities that float alongside the masses of Tweets, status updates and blog posts published on the web every second of every day.
Measuring market demand through social media is a growing opportunity that may prove to be extremely valuable to entrepreneurs. There are many companies currently developing software to measure “social media sentiment” to determine public perception over time and pinpoint when a brand is under attack and, more importantly, why. This tactic requires software to siphon targeted streams of content from the social media fire hose to measure mentions of a company or person as well as if the mention was positive, negative or neutral. However, software of the caliber produced by companies like Meltwater Group is still in its early stages and can be expensive for a startup budget and produce overly intricate analysis for early stage companies.
Read More
This post is by Associate Peter Hanschke, an Ottawa-based product management specialist. Peter’s post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Peter Hanschke
Here’s the situation: Your development team is busy creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). You have people off in all directions trying to secure some funding. But do you have a Market Validation Plan? Furthermore, are you executing this plan along with all the other activities? In other words, is this an activity that you are currently performing?
As the name suggests, a Market Validation Plan (another MVP for those who like TLAs) is about reaching out to your target market to determine whether:
- The market likes your product or product concept
- The market is willing to buy your product when you have it ready
Read More
This is the ninth article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
There is a German proverb that states, “An old error is always more popular than a new truth.”
This is often evident in the business of getting technology to market, particularly among nascent entrepreneurs and startup management teams who are coming into the process of commercialization well-versed in the engineering of a product but not so much in the fundamentals of business planning, customer engagement and market development.
Read More
By Francis Moran
No sane person setting out on a long journey of indefinite length would wait until they had arrived before filling up the gas tank.
And yet technology companies tell me all the time that they’re going to do exactly that.
“We’ll start marketing as soon as we have some customers,” is a variation of a line I’ve heard often but that still pains me deeply every time I hear it.
I heard it again just the other day from an amazing company I’ve been watching for a while. Like most promising technology companies, this one has developed a new way of doing something that creates massive value for users. Their product costs less money to use than the alternative, saves huge amounts of incredibly expensive time at a critical juncture for its potential customers, and avoids the considerable environmental damage wrought by existing approaches.
Like many compelling technological advances, however, the adoption of this company’s product requires significant changes in behaviour in a risk-averse industry.
In short, this company needs marketing, and lots of it.
Read More
This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Bob Bailly, a Calgary-based neuro-marketing practitioner.
By Bob Bailly
Rather than working earlier this week, I was looking over pictures of my last month down south in Argentina. As I was smiling over a photo of a Buenos Aires dog walker – who are well represented in that great city, can be seen everywhere and are not always so good about cleaning up after their care – I was reminded of some research I recently uncovered. It’s about dogs too. But more specifically, it’s about the potential business implications of our relationship with “man’s best friend.”
Have you ever had a dog as a pet? Did or do you consider it part of the family? If you answered yes, or even if you’ve never personally been involved with a dog, it’s not hard to see that humans and dogs have formed a symbiotic relationship that is beneficial to both species. In Argentina, proof is on the streets in the form of hoards of professional dog walkers and the need to watch your step.
Read More
-
Who is the custodian and guardian of Intellectual Property in your firm?
March 23, 2011 by David French
In my previous post, I addressed the importance of a company’s intellectual property and how it can contribute to the bottom line, negatively or positively. In this part, I address the issue of how intellectual property is being managed within your organization. Who in your organization knows or is able to understand all of the issues and requirements in order to ensure that you have good IP hygiene? […]
Read more... -
How influential is influence?
March 22, 2011 by Linda Forrest
Whenever the concept of influence comes up, I’m immediately confronted with a mental image of Will Farrell positing that he’s “kind of a big deal,” a memorable and oft-quoted line from the raunchy comedy Anchorman. The irony is that in the film, he is, as stated, kind of a big deal. The same is true of influencers, tastemakers, trendsetters, or whatever term best describes people whose opinions and actions hold weight amongst your target market […]
Read more... -
-
Words of wisdom: What can you learn from a thunder lizard?
March 21, 2011 by Francis Moran
A startup is ultimately about, not just about whether an idea or a product works, it is about whether or not you can create a business around it. Whether or not the ecosystem will support it, the customers will buy it, if the channels will support it, and if the manufacturers will actually create it. And because of that, we need to be able to test all these different facets of our business model, and do so quickly […]
Read more... -
Online communities: the value for startups
March 18, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
As a community manager, I admit I am rather biased when it comes to explaining the value of online communities, so I promise to do my very best to be both fair and accurate as I weigh in their merits and demerits. If you’re reading this post, you’ve likely already heard the hoopla about how a bustling and engaged online community can be highly valuable for businesses […]
Read more... -
-
It’s not easy being a marketer
March 17, 2011 by Francis Moran
When I launched this blog a little over six weeks ago, I said that I wanted to overturn the myths that surround the marketing of new technology products and services. I acknowledged at the time that many engineering-focused executive teams at technology ventures are leery of what they see as the black art of marketing. I also said I can forgive them for their skepticism […]
Read more... -
What your business can learn from Chilean wine
March 16, 2011 by Phil Newman
Yield management involves the strategic control of inventory to sell it to the right customer at the right time for the right price. Book your flight to New York two days before you’re due to fly and you’ll get the idea of purchasing at the top-end. Rather than considering late booking as a negative, why not apply airline pricing to your business to create demand among early buyers, or early adopters? […]
Read more... -
-
Driving social media policy: how to avoid a PR disaster like Chrysler’s
March 15, 2011 by Linda Forrest
Last week, Chrysler experienced a PR crisis when a Tweeter at its social media agency posted a Tweet that not only used an expletive, but was completely off brand. From a marketing perspective, this came at a very bad time for the company, which had made a splash with its “imported from Detroit” campaign, launched at the SuperBowl […]
Read more... -
Is that person in the mirror standing between you and success?
March 14, 2011 by Francis Moran
“Nothing disheartens me more than meeting an entrepreneur in B.C. who says his ambition is to one day conquer the Ontario market,” Anthony Lee, general partner at Altos Ventures and co-founder of the C100, told us in an interview a few months back.
While building a globally competitive company […]
Read more... -
By Alexandra Reid 
Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]