Erica Swallow
There’s no set formula for startup success. Some companies focus on design, mastering industry research or one-upping competitors to make it to the top. In the case of Internet startup Klout, though, the focus is on users.
From day one, Klout Founder and CEO Joe Fernandez’s goal has been to “help people understand their influence and to [help them] leverage that influence.”
The San Francisco-based company measures an individual’s influence across the Internet and scores that user’s influence on a scale of 1 to 100. Prior to Klout, no other company had tried to tackle the space of Internet influence — as a result, Klout has become the de facto standard of online influence, defining the industry. Some of the world’s largest brands even use Klout to identify and reward influential consumers in their categories.
During late 2007, Fernandez was recovering from jaw surgery with his jaw wired shut for three months. Unable to talk, he turned to social media to communicate. “When social media became my only form of communication, it changed the way I looked at it,” Fernandez says. “It was amazing to me that for the people who trusted me the most, I could tell them my opinion about anything instantly from my phone and it would have some sort of impact on them, just as what they were saying or thinking or experiencing would have an impact on me. Even more exciting was the idea that all the data was there to measure it.”
Fernandez started building Klout during his recovery period. Since then, the startup has received massive press and a lot of investor attention, with $10 million in funding. It has also built quite a large audience, and has assigned scores to more than 100 million people and brands. Klout is all about data — it analyzes 2.7 billion pieces of content and connections per day, receives more than 8 billion API calls per month and has worked with more than 5,000 partners and developers.
We recently spoke with Fernandez about the journey he has taken in establishing Klout. Fernandez shared four key thoughts on how the company has maintained a focus on its users in order to learn and grow. Here are his thoughts on putting users first.
The first step to connecting with and learning from users is to ask for and act upon their feedback. Fernandez recommends keeping your ears open for every single mention of your brand across online and offline — great feedback can come from anywhere.
But for the really nitty gritty details, go to your super users, the people who love your product and use it nonstop. At Klout, these users are part of a small, invite-only group called Klout Squad. These users are the first to know about, experience and give feedback on new Klout features.
“We’re creating a standard around something that’s inherently subjective, trying to evolve the product and iterating really quickly,” says Fernandez. “It’s really exciting to have a group of people that may or may not agree with everything we do. They offer different perspectives and engage in intimate conversations around product and strategy and give us feedback. It’s a key part of how we want to grow this business.”
Klout also hosts Klout Chats on Twitter to engage with a larger audience of users regarding new features or important topics — Fernandez says that these Twitter chats attract 5,000 users on average. That’s a lot of feedback to act on.
Consumer feedback is important for all businesses. While it can be a challenge to connect with users, it’s essential that your business overcome all obstacles to engage with users.
Klout is very accessible online, having a very active presence on Twitter and Facebook, for starters. But Klout receives more than 1 million @mentions on Twitter every month, so sorting through the madness can be a bit of a task.
As a result, Klout makes it a point to host in-person events where Klout users can mingle with one another and get to know the company.
Deemed “KloutUps,” these events give users and employees a chance to learn about Klout, face to face. “We leave more informed about what may or may not be good about our product, and they leave more informed about what our intentions are,” says Fernandez.
“We’re putting scores next to people, and it can feel really cold,” Fernandez explains. “The more we can humanize our company and be accessible to the community, the better.”
Klout introduced Klout Perks earlier this year to offer exclusive products and experiences to online influencers. Users can earn exclusive access to new online services, invites to events and free merchandise, based on how influential they are in certain topics.
Klout Perks “makes the value of your Klout Score tangible,” says Fernandez. “The idea that for just being who you are, for just being as passion as you are for whatever topic, that brands want to recognize and reward you, is pretty awesome to me.”
So far, the the Perks program has been a hit in 2011 — Klout distributed 300,000 Klout Perks to users.
If your service lacks tangible value for users, figure out a way to solve that problem. You’ll keep users interested in interacting with your product if they can see the true benefit of staying involved.
Klout monetizes its business through Klout Perks, but in the process, it maintains integrity and manages to keep 100% of personally identifiable user data out of its advertisers’ hands.
“One of the things that I’m really proud of, but that I think people don’t really get about Klout Perks is that we don’t actually give any data to the brands [that connect with users via Klout Perks],” says Fernandez. “It’s really all about empowering the user.”
Brands pay to connect with influential users — and that’s the end of the brand’s involvement. Klout strives to protect users’ data by dealing with all of the administrative portions that may come up regarding Klout Perks, such as emailing eligible Klout users and shipping redeemed Perks to users.
After a brand’s Klout Perk campaign has ended, Klout delivers a stats report to the brand, detailing aggregate counts of how many users the campaign reached, how much content was created around the brand as a result and what user sentiment amounted to.
In an age when most companies are happy to fork over email addresses, usernames and other information for a pretty penny, it’s always a pleasant surprise to see companies resisting the urge to build trust with their users.
Images courtesy of Kenneth Yeung, Mike Henderson and Klout.
More About: ceo, features, klout, mashable, Small Business, startup, users
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In-demand products, unparalleled site design and usability, competitive search engine marketing, continuous innovative, exciting holiday specials — these are just some of the variables that make up a successful ecommerce business.
On the other hand, some of the top pitfalls for Internet retailers include lousy service, uninventive products, confusing corporate messaging and ineffective advertising.
We’ve seen a little bit of everything in 2011. As the year wraps up, it’s the perfect time to recount the ecommerce wins and fails of 2011. Some strong houses continue to dominate this year, while previously lauded companies fell a bit from grace (cough, Netflix).
Let’s take a look at the winners and losers in online commerce for 2011.
As the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon has been making great strides for years, and 2011 was a fun year to watch the company do its thing.
First and foremost, Amazon released a refreshed line of Kindle products, including the Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G and Kindle Fire tablets. Kindle devices continued to fly off the shelves all year — the company announced last week that it was selling “well over 1 million Kindle devices per week,” outpacing the launch of the original iPad in early 2010.
Though it has been met with criticism (and a software update to appease frustrated customers), Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is the retailer’s bestselling item ever, having only launched three months ago.
It’s not just the devices that are making waves in the market. Kindle books are a big deal for the company too. As of April, Kindle electronic books began outselling physical books on Amazon. For every 100 print books Amazon has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books.
Amazon also celebrated a number of other milestones this year, including the introduction of Amazon Deals, Cloud Player, the Android App Store, MyHabit.com, the ad-supported Kindle 3G and the Mac Downloads Store, along with the acquisitions of The Book Depository and LOVEFiLM.
With the weight of its brick-and-mortar stores, Barnes & Noble looks like it’s fighting a losing battle.
This year, its ecommerce site performed tremendously well. The Nook ereader drove digital sales. But the website’s increasing sales are no match for the total decline in revenue the company is facing.
Barnes and Noble’s November launch of the Nook tablet, the successor to the Nook Color, was a positive event for the company — the device received celebratory reviews and online buzz.
But one can’t overlook the fact that BN.com and the house of Nook are severely impeded by the retail stores’ extreme losses. Although I’d like to declare Barnes and Noble a winner this year for its feats in the tablet and ereader markets, I just can’t bring myself to reward mediocrity.
Apple introduced the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S this year, basking in the glory of a full-fledged hype mill at each launch.
The iPad 2 helped drive sales of the iPad to 40 million units, since the original was introduced.
While the world would have preferred to see the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S was received well, with record weekend sales of 4 million devices. Thanks to the iPhone 4S release, the company is on its way to selling a record number of iPhones this quarter.
Apple also set a new record for Mac sales in Q4 of 2011, having sold 4.89 million units.
What is up over at HP? I can’t even begin to explain all of the horrible problems that company is facing.
It holds top market share in the PC market, with Dell and Apple following suit, yet it has no idea where it’s going. To WebOS or not to WebOS? Furthermore, to PC or not to PC? Those were the questions Meg Whitman finally helped the company answer after taking over for confused HP CEO Leo Apotheker.
After the failed HP TouchPad launch, the company is now out of the tablet business, but hopes to be back in the game by 2013. I’m sorry, that’s just sad.
In August, Mashable‘s Christina Warren declared Walmart’s recently purchased online movie service Vudu a “bonafide hit.” For the first half of 2011, Vudu had 5.3% of the U.S. market, putting it in third place after behemoth iTunes and Microsoft’s Zune Video Marketplace. Vudu even eclipsed Sony PlayStation Store and Amazon.
Although it shut down its seven-year-old MP3 music store, Vudu, along with a few other Internet wins, places it on my winning list.
The retail giant is trying its hand at Facebook giving this holiday season, divvying up $1.5 million of holiday grants via the world’s largest social network with its 12 Days of Giving campaign.
And speaking of social media, Walmart’s social media strategy is top-notch when compared to other large retailers. It provides on-message, utility-focused videos on YouTube and showcases a team of 15 specialized tweeters via its Twitter channel.
Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of Walmart’s animated Frank the Fruitcake Facebook spam, but its social strategy is going in the right direction otherwise.
And while we all love to dote on Amazon, Walmart is still the largest retailer in the world by a long shot, if you count offline business; and it ranks in the top 10 for online retail.
Walmart still needs to work on diversifying its online audience, though — a recent comScore report illustrated that 83.4% of Walmart.com’s visitors came from North America in June.
Much of 2011 went quite well for Netflix, but all hell broke loose after the company implemented its 60% price hike in September. Shortly thereafter, CEO Reed Hastings apologized and announced that the company would be splitting its streaming video and DVD business, rebranding the DVD-by-mail service as Qwikster. Of course, Qwikster sounded like a stupid idea to everyone in the community, so that idea was qwikly abandoned in October.
As a result of all of the madness and confusion, the company’s stock plummeted and the company disclosed a loss of 805,000 subscribers in the third quarter.
Hopefully for Netflix this huge snafu will be forgotten in the new year — but that’s unlikely.
Although it was only founded in 2007 and focuses solely on ecommerce, Gilt Groupe ranks in the top 50 Internet retailers, beating out household names like J. Crew, Scholastic, Crate and Barrel and American Eagle Outfitters.
Gilt Groupe has even broken the record for highest grossing revenue in Silicon Alley history.
This year has seen announcement after announcement from Gilt, showcasing the company’s ability to innovative quickly and to build upon its pioneering flash sale site model.
In May, Gilt raised $138 million in a round of funding, bringing it to a total of $240 million to date.
From there, it introduced its online culinary magazine Gilt Taste, an exclusive Facebook commerce offering and the relaunch of Gilt Home.
In November, Gilt Groupe began shipping to more than 90 additional countries (beyond its U.S. and Japanese operations), making it more global than ever.
Gilt also introduced its full-price men’s retail site, Park & Bond, in 2011, though performance is yet to be determined.
This year was difficult for electronics and entertainment giant Sony. The company is forecasting a $1.1 billion full-year loss, which would make its fourth straight annual net loss. So, what’s going on?
For starters, the strengthening yen, the unfortunate and lengthy PlayStation Network hacking affair, and declining LCD TV sales put the company in a bad place. Besides these more predictable problems, Sony also faced two natural disasters that hit its business badly, including floods in Thailand and the Japanese earthquake.
Sony, like its competitors, is facing difficulties adjusting to the ever-changing consumer electronics sector, and this year counts as another addition to its losing streak.
This post outlines some of the most buzzed about ecommerce stories of 2011. I could get into the nitty gritty of other companies — after all, there are hundreds of other Internet retailers out there in the green and red. But I’d rather get your thoughts on the industry.
Let me know your thoughts about this year’s biggest ecommerce winners and losers in the comments below.
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, desifoto, Flickr, Noelas, Walmart Stores
More About: amazon, apple, ecommerce, features, gilt groupe, HP, Kindle, netflix, nook, Opinion, sony, Year End 2011
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Non-traditional resumes, while unique and eye-catching, may limit a job applicant’s chances of landing his or her dream job.
Many companies, especially large corporations, use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to automatically parse through submitted resumes in search of keywords that indicate desired skills and experience.
When dealing with an ATS, a text-based resume with clear headers is the best way to go. That way, the software can parse through your resume accurately, picking out all of the juicy details the hiring manager is seeking (i.e. “brand manager,” “Harvard,” “marketing”).
Creative formats such as infographic resumes and video resumes cannot be properly scanned for relevant information. As a result, these formats could cause an applicant to miss out on his or her opportunity to move through the hiring process.
The below infographic, created by resume builder Resunate, illustrates how applicant tracking systems work. If you’re applying for a job via a company’s career website, it’s likely the company uses an ATS — so don’t make the mistake of submitting a resume that isn’t compatible.
We’d recommend that you keep your edge, though. If you’ve been considering a non-traditional resume, it may still be a good idea, especially if you’re applying for a creative position, or already have personal contact with a recruiter or hiring manager who is likely to read your resume.
Would you shy away from creating a non-traditional resume, knowing that your employer of choice may be using an applicant tracking system? Let us know in the comments below.
Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!
Image courtesy of Flickr, tychay
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For big brands, Google+ is probably a good investment — but is Google+ an efficient use of time for small businesses?
Google unveiled Google+ brand pages in November, enabling businesses and brands to join its social network. Since then, big brands — including Pepsi, Macy’s and Toyota — have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, creating yet another hub page for their content-hungry fans.
We reached out to our community to better understand how (and if) small businesses are using Google+. We received more than 50 responses detailing the merits and downfalls of using Google’s social network as a small business.
Below are some of the top thoughts on the pros and cons of using Google+ as a small business. Read on and add your thoughts in the comments below.
A bulk of the small businesses we spoke with said they feel Google+ is an important social platform because it was developed by Google, one of the Internet’s favorite brands and one of the most influential websites when it comes to site referrals. But small business owners gave a plethora of reasons for being early adopters of the platform. Here are some of the top reasons we heard for using Google+.
1. Get an SEO Boost: Bob Shirilla, director of marketing at Simply Bags, says that his business joined Google+ because he relies on Google search referrals for sales conversions. “Google+ influences search for all the people who have included my business in their circle,” he says. “We have also put a +1 button on each product page. This is a great way to get free promotion from people who like the product to people with similar interests.”
2. Host a Hangout: “Hangouts offer an amazing opportunity for businesses to engage in a highly personal way with clients, customers and industry thought leaders,” says Roger Friedensen, president and CEO of Forge Communications. “Plus, employees in remote locations can hold team meetings to brainstorm with one another from an interface that affords them immediate and easy access to share and collaborate on most of the information materials they might need, such as documents and spreadsheets.”
3. Expand Content Distribution: Phyllis Khare, the social media editorial director of iPhone Life magazine, says that Google+ is a great platform for expanding the publication’s content distribution. “It took us almost a year to get 1,000 Likes on our Facebook Page, and three days on G+ to get that number to Circle us,” she says. “We are gearing up for Hangouts with some of our writers in 2012 to answer iOS questions and a few other fun things with contests and giveaways.”
4. Connect with Early Adopters: If your business falls in the Internet or technology industries, Google+ could be a great place to connect a tech-savvy audience. “The people that are on Google+ already are most likely going to be early adopters of other technologies and marketing channels,” says Jason Pinto, CMO at interlinkONE. “When we look at what defines an ‘ideal customer’ for our products, that criteria is certainly high on our list.”
5. Segment Your Audience: “The obvious benefit of Google+ is that it allows us to share select content with specific audiences,” says Chad Udell, managing director of Float Mobile Learning. Google+ makes it easy for businesses to segment their audiences and share content directly with those certain groups of followers.
6. Use Google+ to Network: David Greenberg, president of Parliament Tutors, says that his business does not have a Google+ page, but that he uses his personal Google+ page to network and gather contact data and research the “personal side” of relevant contacts, such as journalists and potential clients, so that he can better create a connection with them. He adds that the “About” section of a contact’s Google+ profile is usually a great start.
7. Just Explore: Netronic Managing Director Martin Karlowitsch says, “We currently use Google+ for exploratory purposes. It is still a niche platform, but quickly growing and with a platform giant behind it. Knowing the impact that Google has on the way people find relevant information on the web, Google+ soon can become significant by combining social and search. I want to start early using this platform to be prepared when this inflection point arises.”
While most of the small business owners we spoke with had a very positive outlook for Google+, we also spoke to a number of skeptics who identified numerous flaws in the social platform. Here are the top five reasons that small business owners gave for limiting their engagement on Google+.
1. Administration is Difficult: “The pages need to be created from an individual’s Google+ account, and you cannot add admins or any other users to manage the account,” says Jason Donaldson, an account executive at Formic Media. “Depending on the size of the business, this may not be an issue. For example, if you only have one or two employees, there probably isn’t an issue accessing the page from a personal Google account. The problem becomes more exaggerated with businesses that don’t have a dedicated social media manager (unlikely with small businesses), because of the need to give out personal account information for users to post on the business page.”
2. Facebook and Twitter Reign: Many of the small businesses we spoke with pointed out that they maintain engaged audiences on Twitter and Facebook, but most of their customers and clients don’t use Google+. So, the platform isn’t much of a priority for their business. In the words of TwiloPR President Chris Heuwetter, “The true value is in Facebook, where we see a nice return on our efforts. Google+ seems like a ghost town [for many small businesses].”
3. Social Dashboards Don’t Integrate Google+ Yet: While more progressive social media dashboards, like Hootsuite, have integrated Google+ into their products, many social dashboard services on the market do not enable users to post to Google+. For businesses that manage their social presences from one central location, the lack of Google+ integration is a huge barrier to Google+ usage.
4. Google Side Projects are Unreliable: James Beswick manages online marketing for a bar in San Antonio called Drink. He looked into creating a Google+ page for the bar, but decided against it, since he’s not certain that the social network will pan out. “Google keeps starting and shutting down products — Buzz, Wave and Hotpot, to name a few — and I’m not entirely convinced the same thing won’t happen with Plus,” he says. “Given the time and cost of engaging followers, I think the effort is better spent on Facebook.”
5. Growth Is Small: Tara Parks, senior marketing administrator at Convergence Networks says that she sees potential in Google+, but that growth has been small for her company. “The biggest drawback to Google+ so far is that it’s hard to grow a fan base, since businesses can only add other businesses to their Circles, and not individuals, the way you can on Twitter (until they add you, that is),” she says. “It will definitely be a lot more fun once more people start using Google+.”
Is your small business using Google+? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
More About: Brand pages, features, Google, google plus hangouts, mashable, open forum, outreach, Small Business, trending
This year has lent itself to a slew of new buzzwords, and gamification is easily one of the most buzzed about in the marketing industry.
Businesses clamored this year to understand the concept of gamification and apply it to their digital and mobile products, offering badges and points galore … but how many of them actually understand the point of gamifying or if it’s even useful for their business goals?
Dustin DiTommaso, the experience design director at design studio Mad*Pow, recently spoke about designing meaningful interactions through game design thinking during his presentation at Geekend 2011, a techie conference presented by BFG Communications.
DiTommaso explained his framework for gamification and dished out seven essentials steps for approaching the subject. Read on for a thorough encounter of DiTommaso’s model for architecting more meaningful interactions and successful business goals, and let us know your thoughts on his method in the comments below.
Yes, gamification is a sexy word. No, it isn’t right for every business.
DiTommaso recommends that businesses looking to gamify their products or services ask themselves three critical questions before moving on:
If you can answer these questions with confidence, if gamification seems like a good fit for your business’ product or service and if the users enjoy it, then move on to exploring your business goals. DiTommaso recommends exploring the following three questions:
If this exploratory phase yields positive feedback, your business is ready to move into user research.
It isn’t enough to understand your business goals when considering gamification — you also need to understand your users and what motivates them. Research your users before you begin designing your gamified product, focusing on how they use your software, what they want and what motivates them.
DiTommaso laid out a number of questions to help businesses achieve research-inspired design:
Game designers must also understand what motivates users to play their games. There are a number of motivational drivers, but DiTommaso recommends simplifying to four key factors. Decide if your users are motivated by:
Knowing these details about users and their motivations will assist game designers in determining how the game should be laid out, how much autonomy to allow, what the users’ goals should be and so on. Let’s explore exactly what comes next in the designing process.
The user’s path to mastery should entail “a journey up, with a quick little dip for relaxation — where you have either a break or a new challenge to master, like crossing a log — and then one, final, arduous climb to the top,” says DiTommaso.
Once you understand your business goals and your users, you can begin to design goals and objectives while thinking about long-term and short-term user goals.
DiTommaso advises, “Figure out a way to make long-term and short-term goals as exciting and aspirational as possible.” Users want to be heroes — design their gaming experience so that they can achieve that.
The long-term goal must be compelling and fairly difficult to achieve, says DiTommaso. This can be framed as the mastery of a new skill or habit, or the acquisition of an achievement or title. In the end, though, it is important that the long-term goal signify a “pinnacle of personal growth,” says DiTommaso.
Once you figure out a long-term mission for users, break it up into small milestones that take users along a path to success. These “discrete and satisfying challenges” should motivate users to continue on and help them improve along the way.
Make a list of all of the abilities that are necessary to win your game. DiTommaso breaks these skills into three categories for easy brainstorming:
DiTommaso advises that game designers choose skills that take time to master, can be developed over time and can be broken into smaller “skill-chains.”
It is important to determine if and how the skills you are considering can be measured, so that you can track a user’s advancement. Determine whether there is existing technology that can help you monitor and track progress of certain essential skills.
In “The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses,” Jesse Schell outlines the psychological lenses that are key to making top-notch games. Lenses help game designers view their games from many different perspectives, or lenses.
While Schell’s book identifies 100 lenses, DiTommaso pointed out 10 particular lenses to focus on for starters:
Framing problems, core objectives and actions in your games using these tenets will often yield a better gaming experience for users.
Think about the types of rewards and punishments that will result from a user’s actions — this should create a feedback loop that motivates users to improve.
Positive feedback could include rewards, such as moving up a level, unlocking a badge or earning points — and negative feedback might entail starting a challenge over, for example.
“Outcomes can be contingent or schedules,” says DiTommaso. “Players can trigger an outcome based on specific actions they take or based on a time frame within the game.”
No matter the time frame, though, players should always see their progress towards the “ultimate objective,” which DiTommaso also calls the “Epic Win!” Incremental success and failure will guide them along.
“Platforms are never done,” says DiTommaso. Once you have the game build, test and polish it. Here is a framework DiTommaso suggests for analyzing the game:
DiTommaso recommends that game developers not spend too much time testing games, though. “Get it out there and let your users be the testers,” he says. Users expect iterations and software updates, so don’t be afraid to release and iterate, he says.
This seven-step framework for approaching gamification is a very thorough resource from Dustin DiTommaso. If you still have questions, though, view DiTommaso’s entire Geekend presentation slideshow embedded below and ask further questions in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Flickr, andyburnfield & andercismo
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As this year wraps up, we look back at the technological advancements that small businesses have benefited from and predict how those technologies will affect entrepreneurs in 2012.
We spoke with a number of small businesses to get their thoughts on how the market will continue to adapt to changing technologies as we move into the new year.
Based on those discussions, here are our seven small business predictions for 2012. Read on and let us know what you’d add to the list in the comments below.
Many of the small business owners we spoke with pinpointed 2012 as the year of big data. “Companies are realizing that they have a lot of information on their hands and will need tools to mine it, make sense of it and monetize it,” says We Are Cloud CEO Rachel Delacour.
“What will really matter for SMBs in 2012 is the fact they can, for the first time, mine their own business like the big guys, and do so quickly and cheaply,” Delacour syas. “SMBs can use powerful, high-end tools delivered via their desktop browser or onto their tablet for just a few dollars per month to see what’s happening with their HR, their sales, their social media engagement. Those SaaS tools give a one-man shop or a 50-person outfit almost instantly the same firepower as a whole department with its own IT staff inside a multinational.”
Jeff Judge, CEO of Signal, agrees. “According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created daily, and 90% of the data in the world today was created within the past two years. 2012 is the year when small businesses start to bring together data from their website, customer purchase behavior, digital marketing campaigns and social media activity around their brand to drastically impact the quality of their digital marketing efforts.”
Forrester Research predicts mobile commerce will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 39% through 2016, and Infinite Research forecasts that tablet adoption will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 56% per year through 2015.
Alex Schmelkin, co-founder and president of Alexander Interactive, believes that 2012 will bring an explosion of tablet commerce. “Widespread adoption of Apple’s iPad has made it imperative for retailers to optimize their websites for tablet usage,” he says. “While companies will continue to develop native apps for the device, web browsing is the number one activity, and most t–commerce will continue to occur in the browser. Small businesses should review their sites to optimize for touch and fix any usability issues.”
Lisa A. Shorr, vice president of marketing at PC Troubleshooters, would go as far as to say that 2012 is the year that tablets take a stand in the small business arena. She explains, “Since its launch in 2010, the tablet has been used not only as a browsing mechanism, but a true mobile business tool as well…Our clients are demanding more mobility and integration of mobile devices for document sharing, emailing, social media and more.”
“Content is King.” That’s an Internet mantra we’ve all heard way too many times, but there’s truth to it — and next year, small businesses will start to see the light.
“2012 will mark a surge in businesses not only being the publishers of their own content, but [being] disseminators as well,” says Affect Strategies‘ president and founder Sandra Fathi. “Whether it’s a company blog or a corporate e-newsletter, small businesses will focus on creating the content and developing their own publishing vehicles to get their messages to market. They will bypass traditional media outlets and go directly to their target audiences by creating branded niche media properties.”
Who doesn’t love free stuff? Small businesses have been accommodating that love for decades — each year, loyalty programs just keep getting better and easier to use.
In 2011, Foursquare and other location-based services were huge inflencers in taking loyalty programs digital. Small business certainly played their part in the game, making check-ins all the more fun for consumers.
Next year, though, we’ll see greater adoption of digital loyalty programs. “Punchcards are a thing of the past,” says Doug Hardman, CEO of SparkBase. “Businesses will start transferring their loyalty reward programs into the digital space. This is a twofold trend to keep up with bigger businesses such as Starbucks and Subway, who have digital reward programs, and also to compete with daily deal sites. Small businesses want to differentiate themselves and offer special deals without having to work with Groupon or LivingSocial. Mobile digital loyalty programs allow them to do this.”
“The shift to mobile shopping is accelerating as nearly half of all shoppers use their mobile phone to scout deals and compare prices,” says Hardman. “Mobile coupon redemption is forecasted to exceed $43 billion globally by 2016, and merchants need a way to connect with shoppers [on their mobile devices].”
CEO Jeff Judge of Signal agrees. He says, “The next wave of loyalty programs for small businesses will leverage customer databases of purchase history, marketing campaign response rates and social media activity like check-ins and brand mentions to customize rewards to an individual. One only needs to look at companies like Bellyflop, Stampt and SpotOn — and Google’s acquisition of Punchd — to see this emerging already.”
Ian Aronovich, CEO of GovernmentAuctions.org, believes that more small businesses will integrate social login on their websites in 2011. “Social login is where you can use your Facebook, Yahoo and Google IDs [among others] to login to various websites,” he says. “It’s quick and easy to use. Social login is great because people don’t need to create dozens of new usernames and passwords every time they find a site that they want to use.”
Because Facebook is the most popular social network and Internet users’ top choice for social login, small businesses may want to focus initial efforts on the platform. “A study by Social Labs shows that 50% of ecommerce visitors are logged in to Facebook simultaneously,” says marketing manager Alanna Francis of Blue Fountain Media. “This means that with Facebook Open Graph integration, small businesses can show customers recommendations and Likes from their social circles. Since many retailers have shown that social reinforcement increases sales, small businesses will want to consider this strategy in 2012.”
Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial brought lots of excitement in 2011. While we saw a lot of small businesses success stories in the group buying space, we also heard of a number of disasters, including the story of a baker who almost went out of business after running a Groupon deal. For small businesses running on low margins, daily deals aren’t worth it.
“The daily deals tallies on customer retention and profitability continue to be ugly for merchants,” says Tarek Pertew, co-founder of Parrut. A recent Rice University study suggests that nearly half of all merchants are making money on deals. And with Groupon’s own data suggesting that only 22% of customers are coming back, we [at Parrut] assume that a significant pullback is due. That said, the daily deal business is evolving, and it’ll certainly be a major outlet for lead gen spend going forward. At the same time, we think small businesses used daily deals as a ‘gateway’ to social marketing, but will now focus on their own content and other technologies which give them more control over sustainable growth and profit.”
Jerry Nettuno, founder and CEO of Schedulicity, may be a little biased, but we like where his head’s at. “The appointment book is dead,” he says. “The business sector as a whole has seen a shift to automation. The success of sites like Schedulicity, OpenTable and ZocDoc only reinforce the idea that the traditional pen and paper appointment book may see its demise in 2012. The number of online appointments is growing exponentially, as Schedulicity alone has seen nearly 7 million appointments booked online since mid-2009. Over the next two to five years, the physical appointment book will be gone altogether and replaced with online counterparts.”
In 2010, Seattle-based Emerson Salon, sourced 75% of its business from Twitter, Facebook and its blog, greatly due to its online booking options and social media savvy. Other small businesses should take note and move towards digital scheduling in 2012.
Images courtesy of Flickr, Horia Varlan, Mykl Roventine, Nick J. Webb, KEXINO and Your Secret Admiral
More About: Business, features, future, predictions, Small Business, Year End 2011
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Professional inspiration can come from anywhere, even the unlikeliest of places. This month, I was inspired by a rapper imparting business advice to startups.
Hip-hop historian, music technologist and founder of hip-hop band Stetsasonic, Glenn K. Bolton — also known as Daddy-O — recently spoke about the parallels between budding hip-hop artists and startups during his presentation at Geekend 2011, a techie conference presented by BFG Communications.
Daddy-O’s advice for hopeful rappers and startups were astoundingly similar. As a successful rapper himself, Daddy-O’s own experiences brought truth to his words.
Inspired by his story and wisdom, we’d like to share some of Daddy-O’s thoughts on what early-stage startups — and businesses of all types, really — can learn from hip-hop artists.
After this primer, we also recommend studying up on the Notorious B.I.G’s 10 Crack Commandments, a rap introduction for beginner crack dealers that, oddly, also translates well to the startup world.
“If you do not keep your business people in the back room, patching people up, they’re going to muck it up,” says Daddy-O. “You let them talk, you’re done.”
Daddy-O is a big fan of putting the creative brains of an operation in the spotlight and keeping business people in the background for support.
In the hip-hop world, the creative people are the rappers — the business people include the record labels, the managers and anyone else helping distribute and manage the rappers’ music. Daddy-O explained that many successful rappers started off as independent artists — Master P, Cash Money, P. Diddy, to name a few. “The big checks come, they run to the big checks,” says Daddy-O. “And then ultimately, you see some of them fall off.” When business comes before art, the art suffers.
Startups and small businesses face this same problem if the business side of the operation comes before the product. Startups should focus on developing sound products, just as rappers should focusing on creating the best music that they can. Once the product, whether it be an app or a new LP, is at the top of its game, it shows — and the business will roll in from there.
Daddy-O compared business and art to a war zone — you have your foot soldiers (artists and creatives) out on the front lines, getting things done, and you have M*A*S*H (the business heads) back at the base, making sure everything runs smoothly.
“Passion is the kid in his mama’s house with one Marshall amp and a guitar, and his mother saying that he’s a bum, and he’s still doing it. Passion is those kids in a garage with a piece of software,” says Daddy-O. “If you’re going to be passionate about anything, you better not let odds get in the way. Because you can just strip the word passion out of there.”
Daddy-O explains that nothing should stop your passion, whether you’re a would-be rock star or a hopeful startup entrepreneur. For founding hip-hop artists, such as Daddy-O, who started rapping in 1979, there were a lot of critics of the genre who were calling it a fad or listening in disgust as DJs rubbed records the wrong way. “You think we listened?” Daddy-O asked. “It only made us scratch more. It only made us rap more, because we didn’t really care.”
Everybody’s odds are different, and you may think that attaining your business goal is impossible — if you put your passion behind it, though, you’ll always win. Whether you reach that final goal or just get pretty dang far along the way, you’ll learn something that makes it all worthwhile.
“You’re not going to be sure about most things you do in life. As songwriters facing a high degree of uncertainty, we embrace it. It actually energizes us. It’s the same butterflies that Michael Jackson got every time before he hit the stage. That degree of uncertainty is healthy if you look at it the right way — embrace it, because that’s what makes winning exciting.”
“Businesses fail, because in the beginning you’re always practicing, always using your gift — whether that’s writing code or a new rhyme. But after your program gets picked up or after the record company signs you, you stop.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” says Daddy-O, and he points to inspiration as the driver to keep practicing. Whether you were inspired by someone else’s work or you feel that your talent is a God-given gift, your only option is to stay inspired. Here’s a fun anecdote Daddy-O told:
“You’re in the beginning of a startup — you subscribe to Fast Company, Wired, Inc.; you’re following everything Guy Kawasaki says online; you bought all of Brian Solis’ books; you’re talking back and forth with Chris Brogan all the time, cause he’ll answer anyone; and you feel like you’re getting it. That’s until someone cuts you a check, and all of a sudden you’re out the window. All of a sudden your inspiration becomes your competition, and you’re no longer tweeting. What happened to that blog you were doing every week? What happened? Oh, you’ve got a check now. You don’t wanna fail? You don’t have an option — stay inspired.”
“The golden egg isn’t winning — it’s usage. Usage is enough. That’s all you have to do — use what you’ve got,” says Daddy-O. “That’s what Jay-Z does. He never stopped rhyming. That’s what Sean P. does. He never stopped rhyming. Every engineer I know, every developer I know, every designer I know, that’s all they do — they just use what they’ve got.
“You will continue to be inspired if you keep on doing it. There’s no way to be a break dancer and keep dancing, and not be inspired — because you will evolve if you keep doing it. You aren’t going to keep doing the same four moves every time. You’re going to get tired of the same four moves. If you’re writing code, you’re not going to keep writing the same four lines of code over and over — you’re going to get better.”
In the beginning, rap was about keeping it new — rappers were required to have a new rhyme every time they took the stage. Making rap albums was considered “whack,” explains Daddy-O, because it meant you were recording your routine, nothing was new. As a result, rappers were constantly writing new rhymes. To get better, you’ve got to use your mojo, says Daddy-O.
This lesson has stuck with Daddy-O over the years. His business motto is, “Your evolution is inevitable if you keep doing it.”
Using what you’ve got is just as true for equipment as it is for mojo. “You ask any guitarist, and they don’t want a crappy guitar,” says Daddy-O. “But I guarantee you, Flea plays just as well on a sucky bass as a good bass, because he learned to play on a sucky bass. Use what you’ve got, and it will get you to the next level.” Don’t be jealous of the shiny, new goods that other artists or entrepreneurs are working with — make the best of what you have. Whether that’s talent or equipment, use it until you’ve exhausted it, advises Daddy-O.
When you listen to a hip-hop artist, it’s inevitable that he will give a shout-out to his hood — be it Brooklyn, Atlanta or the Bay, a rapper’s home turf is a part of his music.
Marketers would call this concept “knowing your market,” says Daddy-O, but rappers look at it as knowing where they belong in the music world.
For businesses, it is important to understand what cluster of people your product or service is targeting and then communicate and act accordingly.
Along your journey to being a successful businessperson — or rapper — you’ll get the opportunity to do a lot of the work yourself, learning about different aspects of your industry and business. The only thing you should never categorize as a DIY project, says Daddy-O, is legal work. If you’re negotiating a contract, always seek legal advice. But other than that, he says, get your hands dirty.
Image courtesy of Geekend and iStockphoto, MivPiv and Flickr, Marco Raaphorst
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Sales Ninja, Linux Geek, Marketing Rockstar. These are all real job titles being used in the business world today, and according to data from online business card printer Moo.com, these creative titles are on the rise.
You’ve probably seen some of these tongue-in-cheek titles at digital conferences or among savvy startup entrepreneurs. But is an imaginative title like Word Herder or Copy Cruncher a fit for you?
We spoke with a number of HR professionals and hiring managers to get their thoughts on out-of-the-box job titles, and in the end, it all came down to corporate culture and communicating a clear role at your organization. The list of pros were few and the cons were many. But that shouldn’t discourage those of you out there hoping to be known as the Head Honcho or the Website Weaver.
Read on for a look at the pros and cons of choosing an inventive job title, from the perspective of 12 hiring extraordinaires.
In our chats with recruiters, three main positives came up when dealing with imaginative job titles. For the most part, these pros were cosmetic, and the underlying feeling among all of our interviewees is that job applicants must be able to back up their creativity with a boat load of qualifying experience, just like every other candidate. So, could a wacky title help get you noticed? Maybe. Here are the top three pros for thinking outside of the box:
Our HR experts identified a long list of reasons why a clever job title could hurt your odds in the job market. If you have your heart set on a unique title, though, don’t let these words of wisdom stop you — most of the cons are based on the workings of traditional business. If you have your eyes set on a more progressive company, then a list of edgy previous titles may just catch the recruiter’s eye.
Imaginative titles aren’t all candy and rainbows, though — think hard before you make the leap, because you may have a lot working against you. Here are some of the cons associated with job title wordsmithing:
If the long list of cons doesn’t scare you, and you’re thinking of getting creative with your title, here’s a little inspiration. These are the top 20 modern job titles, as determined by Moo.com:
- 1. Sales Ninja
- 2. New Media Guru
- 3. Word Herder
- 4. Linux Geek
- 5. Social Media Trailblazer
- 6. Corporate Magician
- 7. Master Handshaker
- 8. Communications Ambassador
- 9. Happiness Advocate
- 10. Copy Cruncher
- 11. Transportation Captain
- 12. Web Kahuna
- 13. Marketing Rockstar
- 14. Problem Wrangler
- 15. Superstar DJ
- 16. Digital Dynamo
- 17. Designer Extraordinaire
- 18. Head Cheese
- 19. Plumber Hero
- 20. Movie Magic Maker
Do you have a creative job title? If so, share it in the comments below. If not, what are your thoughts on changing the pace with a more imaginative title?
Image courtesy of Erica Swallow
More About: Business, business cards, features, job titles, Marketing, mashable, networking, recruite, Recruiting
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Sales Ninja, Linux Geek, Marketing Rockstar. These are all real job titles being used in the business world today, and according to data from online business card printer Moo.com, these creative titles are on the rise.
You’ve probably seen some of these tongue-in-cheek titles at digital conferences or among savvy startup entrepreneurs. But is an imaginative title like Word Herder or Copy Cruncher a fit for you?
We spoke with a number of HR professionals and hiring managers to get their thoughts on out-of-the-box job titles, and in the end, it all came down to corporate culture and communicating a clear role at your organization. The list of pros were few and the cons were many. But that shouldn’t discourage those of you out there hoping to be known as the Head Honcho or the Website Weaver.
Read on for a look at the pros and cons of choosing an inventive job title, from the perspective of 12 hiring extraordinaires.
In our chats with recruiters, three main positives came up when dealing with imaginative job titles. For the most part, these pros were cosmetic, and the underlying feeling among all of our interviewees is that job applicants must be able to back up their creativity with a boat load of qualifying experience, just like every other candidate. So, could a wacky title help get you noticed? Maybe. Here are the top three pros for thinking outside of the box:
Our HR experts identified a long list of reasons why a clever job title could hurt your odds in the job market. If you have your heart set on a unique title, though, don’t let these words of wisdom stop you — most of the cons are based on the workings of traditional business. If you have your eyes set on a more progressive company, then a list of edgy previous titles may just catch the recruiter’s eye.
Imaginative titles aren’t all candy and rainbows, though — think hard before you make the leap, because you may have a lot working against you. Here are some of the cons associated with job title wordsmithing:
If the long list of cons doesn’t scare you, and you’re thinking of getting creative with your title, here’s a little inspiration. These are the top 20 modern job titles, as determined by Moo.com:
- 1. Sales Ninja
- 2. New Media Guru
- 3. Word Herder
- 4. Linux Geek
- 5. Social Media Trailblazer
- 6. Corporate Magician
- 7. Master Handshaker
- 8. Communications Ambassador
- 9. Happiness Advocate
- 10. Copy Cruncher
- 11. Transportation Captain
- 12. Web Kahuna
- 13. Marketing Rockstar
- 14. Problem Wrangler
- 15. Superstar DJ
- 16. Digital Dynamo
- 17. Designer Extraordinaire
- 18. Head Cheese
- 19. Plumber Hero
- 20. Movie Magic Maker
Do you have a creative job title? If so, share it in the comments below. If not, what are your thoughts on changing the pace with a more imaginative title?
Image courtesy of Erica Swallow
More About: Business, business cards, features, job titles, Marketing, mashable, networking, recruite, Recruiting
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While it’s an oh-so-predictable event, many job candidates aren’t prepared to shine when they reach this final test in the interview. Failing to ask any questions or asking the wrong questions can send the wrong signals.
Stephanie Daniel, senior vice president of career management company Keystone Associates, spoke with us about her thoughts on how job interviewees can take control of their next job interview by asking the right questions. Read on for her thoughts on what to ask and which questions to avoid when it’s your turn to interrogate.
When the interviewer gives you the opportunity to ask your own questions, be prepared. Daniel recommends that interviewees prepare five to seven questions, with the expectation that there will probably only be time to ask just three. “Keep in mind that some of the questions you might have prepared will be answered during the course of the interview, so it’s always a smart idea to have back-ups,” says Daniel.
“Too many job seekers respond to this standard interview question with the standard ‘safe’ responses,” says Daniel. “‘Will I be hearing from you or should I contact you?’ or ‘Why is this position open?’ In this very competitive job market, job candidates cannot afford to ask safe questions. Candidates must show that they are the best candidate by demonstrating that they are looking out for the needs and interests of the interviewer.”
So, what types of questions should you ask? Daniel suggests considering a few of the following:
“Here’s your opportunity to demonstrate a genuine interest in the day-to-day challenges your future manager is facing, Daniel explains. “By asking this question, the interviewer will start to envision you as an employee and will give you some initial thoughts on how you might help solve their most pressing problems.”
“Asking the interviewer about the most gratifying aspect of the work she or he does helps you better understand what drives them,” Daniel explains. “Drivers include things like making the best product on the market, helping others, making money, curing an illness or creating a hot, new technology, etc. Ask yourself how the interviewer’s drivers align with your own. The answer to the ‘best advice’ question yields valuable insights on what behaviors lead to a successful transition into the company. It gives you clues on what you can do to put your best forward in your potential new role vis-à-vis building new relationships, gaining product knowledge, and avoiding potential pitfalls.”
“The ideal qualifications were probably outlined in the job posting,” says Daniel. “But many of these postings are not actually written by the hiring manager. Here’s your chance to directly ask the interviewer what he views as the most important qualities of the successful candidate and why.”
“This question allows you to turn your attention to the interviewer and his most important priorities,” says Daniel. “Is there a particular goal the interviewer has talked about that lines up well with some of your current experiences? If so, let the interviewer know how you can contribute.”
Other great questions may revolve around key drivers for employees, what characterizes top performers at the company and whether the interviewer would like to know anything more about the interviewee’s background, says Daniel.
To avoid making a bad impression at your interview, Daniel suggests thinking about the connotations behind each of the questions that you’re asking before you ask them. Here are three questions that tend to leave a bad taste in interviewers’ mouths, she says:
“A valid question, yes, but if you ask it too soon, it might appear that you are more concerned about the work schedule than you are about the actual work,” says Daniel.
“Telecommuting can be a positive thing for both the job seeker and the company, but your timing in asking this question is critical,” Daniel explains. “If asked too soon, it will convey a lack of enthusiasm for getting to know the team and work environment. Demonstrate your interest in the role and potential contributions to the company before inquiring about telecommuting/flex-time, etc.”
“A desire to grow in the organization is admirable,” says Daniel. “But if you’re asking this question early on in the interview process, the interviewer may question your genuine interest in the position you’ve applied for. Frame the question in a way that demonstrates both your long-term commitment to the company and your professional growth.”
Once you’ve chosen which questions you’d like to ask, you can either memorize them or write them down. Daniel advises:
“It is not unprofessional to bring a list of questions on paper. If you choose to write them down, make sure you bring them in a presentable notebook or folder, not on a crinkled, loose-leaf sheet of paper. Presentation is very important. That said, make a conscious effort to remember the questions so that you don’t have to rely on your notes. Opening a notebook can be somewhat distracting, and what’s even worse is reading the questions verbatim without making eye contact with the interviewer.”
Once you’ve finished asking all that you’d like to ask, it’s important to close an interview on a good notes, says Daniel. “Rather than fretting about running out of questions, take the left-over time to thank your interviewer and let him or her know how much you’re interested in the position. Cite specifics about why and briefly reiterate a key point about your background that relates to the position. This is called the ‘close,’ and it’s a critical phase of the interview.”
Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, danleap
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