DataSift Adds Tools to Help Businesses Make Sense of Social Data |  |
- DataSift Adds Tools to Help Businesses Make Sense of Social Data
- 5 Ways To Prepare For Success With Intelligent Forecasting
- Michael Westgate of Microsoft: Leveraging Participatory Marketing
- Dot Matrix Printer: Please Help
- Excelerate Labs Announces 10 Startup Winners
| DataSift Adds Tools to Help Businesses Make Sense of Social Data Posted: 31 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT It seems like the vast majority of companies are using some kind of social media in some capacity, whether its promoting new products or services, making connections with other professionals, or simply gathering data to learn more about their customers or network. The limitless amounts of information that can be garnered from these sites can be quite useful, but only if companies can find a way to decipher the huge pool of data and turn it into usable conclusions.
DataSift, an online platform that manages social data, has just introduced some new tools that can help companies more easily decipher social data and incorporate it into existing business and development platforms. The changes include the option to receive small bursts of data instead of a constant stream, the ability for non-technical managers to perform complex searches, and other features that aim to make the service easier to manage. DataSift is used by companies to wade through the large amounts of social data from sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various blogs and forums, finding relevant demographics data, interactions, online influence, and more. Companies can apply complex filters, allowing DataSift to search through all the data in the company's social network, find what is relevant to the search, and then turn that unstructured data into digestible information that could be turned into real results for your company. For example, users can ask DataSift to show a real-time feed of what certain consumers are saying about a brand, what the most influential people in a network are posting about, or data from a specific geographical region.
For companies that use social media, the large amount of data that can be garnered from network connections and their posts can seem overwhelming. Finding data is one thing, but figuring out what is relevant and what it actually means for your company or brand may require some help. There are plenty of companies and online tools that claim to help brands sift through social data, but DataSift is unique because of its natural language processing and complex search abilities. The service has a number of different monthly plans and pricing to choose from, depending on your company's needs. There is also a pay-as-you-go option and a free trial version. From Small Business Trends |
| 5 Ways To Prepare For Success With Intelligent Forecasting Posted: 31 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT My company, Journyx, has been around for sixteen years now and during that time, we have weathered one of the biggest economic downturns in history, the emergence of the simultaneously exciting and terrifying social media sphere, and major transitions in how software is purchased and delivered. However, we were not always so hardy.
In the beginning we came close to absolute failure a couple of times. It had nothing to do with our product; customers found it delivered on its promised functionality and then some. It also didn't have to do with our team, or any shoddy internal politics. The reason I'm telling you this back story is because there's a lesson to be learned here: we did not have a clear vision of our pipeline and cash flow. We had difficulty predicting how much cash we would have in the bank several weeks in the future. It was a serious problem and, unfortunately, a common one. Perhaps even one you've experienced in your company. It is easy, particularly for small businesses and startups, to focus on the excitement of the here and now. The future is an abstract concept for enterprise-level businesses, until it isn't. You have to focus on growth from the beginning. Success is not a pipe dream, but paradoxically it can destroy you if you aren't prepared for it. We were not the first company to face periods of growth we were not able to handle and we won't be the last. Fortunately, it is simple to implement a system that allows for intelligent forecasting. Following are five steps you can take to make sure your business doesn't face the same problems: 1. Track Projects Individually Tracking employee time spent on projects is great, but you will reap maximum benefit when you track each project separately. This allows you to view each project as a unique element in company profitability. This insight is incredibly valuable when allocating resources because you will know the parameters for each project relative to the current availability of the company. 2. Monitor Employee Tasks and Changes in Productivity In any organization, the benefits of knowing what your employees are doing at any given point are obvious: you want them working on tasks that are actually beneficial to the company. But it's also important to consider which jobs they are most effective at. Implementing a system that allows employees to track time against specific tasks will allow you to see where they are most useful. Odds are that's what they enjoy doing best. No need to change employee job roles every day, but do consider a change when the evidence suggests that they've honed skills in a new area and could be of more use elsewhere. 3. Build a Database of Prior Projects Having a backlog of your projects will be incredibly valuable, though it takes some time to build. With this information, you can determine how many people it normally takes to finish a project; improve accuracy of your budgets based on scope; and perfect timelines based on overall project parameters. Even the least efficient projects become valuable because you can glean just as much information from them. You will know what did not work, what factors caused you to go over budget, and learn from the mistakes. 4. Always Know Your Available Resources A critical piece of any project plan is creating your team. This task is easier when you know exactly who is available (with the skills you need), and what their schedule will be for the duration of the project. If you have an automated project management system, employee schedules are readily apparent and any requests for leave will be noted. You will also know the tasks that other employees are working on so you can avoid stretching resources too thin or allocating an individual to tasks for which they aren't well suited. 5. Constantly Monitor Resource Use Relative to Budget and Schedule If you compare time and resources spent on a project versus percentage complete, you can see which projects are absorbing too many resources to remain profitable. This allows you to redistribute assets to projects as necessary or even kill projects that are too far gone to benefit your company. It is always better to determine issues early on, and a dynamic tracking system provides that insight. Sometimes it's best to cut your losses and move on; costs can quickly spiral out of control, causing your situation to worsen. While it is possible to keep track of these systems using basic business programs (we used Excel and QuickBooks early on), automated, programmable systems will greatly reduce cataloguing time and errors. Whatever method you choose to use, start ASAP if you haven't already. Growth should be a cause of excitement, not concern. From Small Business Trends |
| Michael Westgate of Microsoft: Leveraging Participatory Marketing Posted: 31 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT Social media has opened up many new marketing doors and along with it, new marketing perspectives. Michael Westgate, Sr. Marketing Manager and Social Media Lead at Microsoft, joins Brent Leary to discuss a concept he calls participatory marketing. Tune in as Michael discusses how to best leverage social media using this concept. * * * * *
Michael Westgate: I’m part of the small and mid-sized business organization and I manage our customer acquisition efforts, which includes social media and digital media. Small Business Trends: Can you tell us what behavioral marketing is and how social and mobile has impacted that area? Michael Westgate: I don’t think behavioral marketing necessarily is a new term, but maybe a more relevant term for the social media space would be participatory marketing. How do we not only engage audiences, but allow them to share news, reviews, attitudes and ideas about products and services? How do we get them engaged in not only conversations with us, but activities that might be a value-add. That’s what I’m referring to with regards to behavioral. Small Business Trends: Are we getting to the point where companies look for how social media is translating into long term advocacy from customers as opposed to how many followers they have, etc.? Michael Westgate: We think about social media and how we can attribute different actions back to either "likes" or engagements. We are looking at easier ways to track things such as "likes." We’re also trying to dive a bit deeper and segment how different engagements look. What types of users are engaging? Who is more active? Who might be advocates? Small Business Trends: What are some of the things Microsoft is doing? Michael Westgate: Microsoft might be unique in this as we do have a social presence for a lot of different products. I’m in an audience team. So, Microsoft's SMB team has social profiles on Twitter and Facebook. We also have a YouTube channel because we believe that is where our community, our target audience, resides and shares ideas. There’s enough proliferation in Facebook and Twitter, where we don’t need multiple accounts. But if they’re serving a distinct purpose, for instance, specific to Microsoft for small and medium business, it makes sense to have conversations there. Because we find a lot of small businesses are looking for ideas on technology, listening to thought leaders, following particular conversations and hash tags. To understand what is the latest and greatest in productivity, networking, and so forth for their business. Small Business Trends: How do you measure if you are hitting the mark? If you are using the right channel? Or if you’re using the right kind of content? Michael Westgate: What we’re trying to understand best is not only how can we use the right property, but what is the right way to measure that property? We feel if we have been able to develop a dialogue and solve a customer service issue, answer a product question, or maybe even connect a customer to a local partner that needs technology support and deployment and services, those are the metrics that we’re most interested in. It’s an amplification of the rest of our marketing efforts really. To once again engage that customer make sure we’re meeting their needs no matter where they find us. If they found us on our website or if they happen to come across us in Facebook, it’s a consistent experience. They’re able to either connect to a partner or find answers to the questions that they have. Small Business Trends: How would you recommend a new company try to figure out how to leverage social media to engage their audience? Michael Westgate: The most important thing is to identify who your target is and then ask yourself, “Where do they go for information, and reviews, and ideas?” If you can identify in the social space that there are specific locations, conversations and groups, go and participate there. I think that’s a great place to start, whether it’s Facebook or it’s a LinkedIn group. If you’re continually delivering value and creating a strong network with engagement and response, and you’re human and relevant, then your community will build in size. You can continue to liberate even more value there. We sponsored a service called Brandify.com. It’s basically a free online tool for small businesses to understand their Web presence and search ability, their social media foot print. It will find your Facebook page or your Twitter location. It’ll find your Bing local ad business listing and then tell you, based on search engine optimization principles, this is how searchable you are in this category. Here are the sites you have. Here’s your score today. Here’s some very easy steps to how you might improve it. It’s for those of us with small businesses that are just getting into the game and really want to understand how better to market in the modern age of social media. Small Business Trends: Klout has recently updated their formula. What role do they play? Michael Westgate: I think it depends on how Klout scores are viewed. They could be very helpful to a business. Because it takes you one step deeper into not only understanding how many in aggregate followers you might have, Facebook likes for instance. But what are the network effects of those particular users? Especially those that are taking action. I also have heard detraction as well. I heard that in London, Big Ben has a Klout profile and a score higher than everybody else. Because every time you log in, it tweets a tweet giving the time. A lot of people share that and the Klout score is through the roof. So you have to ask questions and understand, “Now what is this metric? Is it most relevant to what I’m trying to measure here?” Small Business Trends: Where can people lean more? Michael Westgate: Go to Microsoft for SMB on Facebook or on Twitter @MicrosoftSMB. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
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| Dot Matrix Printer: Please Help Posted: 31 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT
At one of my earlier jobs we had some really old tech. Green on black monitors, mainframes in the back and the gigantic old dot matrix printer that, if you didn’t know better, you’d suspect was somehow steam powered. Everyday it chugged and wheezed and printed purchase orders, checks, and statements galore. And then one day, it stopped. As much as I’d complained about our ancient tech in the office, I have to admit I was just a little sad when I saw the beige behemoth sitting next to the garbage can. Sad, that is, until this cartoon popped into my head. I’m sure it’s sitting in some landfill somewhere as we speak, but I like to think of this cartoon as a last little joke we shared. From Small Business Trends |
| Excelerate Labs Announces 10 Startup Winners Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:30 AM PDT Startups are hot right now, despite, or maybe because of a tough economy. Organizations like Excelerate Labs based in Chicago give startups a chance to shine and move to the next level. When starting a business, not every entrepreneur needs the same things. Our roundup focuses on the basics, and some ideas every small business startup should know. The Startup SceneThe top five. Startups participating in the Excelerate Labs Demo Day are not limited to Chicago-based companies. Firms from around the world competed for the top recognition. Ten companies in all won financial grants and the chance to pitch their companies, products, and services to angel and early stage investors. Here are five standouts from the winners group. Bloomberg Businessweek The social startups. Social media channels are more than just a way to market your startup. They can also be the basis for clever startups. Take Pinfluencer, which helps retailers and brand advocates track competitors, successful products, and categories by checking “pins,” “repins,” and relevant keywords on Pinterest. The Wall Street Journal No Experience RequiredSo you want to start a business. Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell chats in this interview about how she launched her flagship Website, tips on how to grow a business, the challenges she faced making the transition from corporate America to small business owner, and the challenges she still faces today. For more on how to start a business, read this interview. Damsels in Success Start with a team. If you want to create a great business, start by building a great team. In this post, Toronto-based entrepreneur and founder of customer management startup Commonsku Catherine Graham says the most important part of a business is the people who make it work. Place the emphasis on finding the right people to make your business successful. Sprouter Blog Dos and Don’tsTell a good story. Marketing your startup is a huge concern. The key, says Mike Abasov, is to know how to tell the right story about your product, service, or brand. Unfortunately, there are a number of mistakes many entrepreneurs make along the way. Here are some of Mike’s tips to consider while brushing up on your storytelling skills. Marketing Before Funding Have loads of ideas. Talk to any entrepreneur and you’re likely to find a long list of ideas they haven’t pursued while focusing laser-like on their startup. Geoff Cudd shares some startup ideas he hasn’t moved on, including some that have since been validated by others. Focus on the best ideas, but have plenty of them too. Don’t Do It Yourself Be a survivor. The reality is that hard work and great ideas aside, some businesses will fail. New businesses may, at the very least, experience some anxious moments. Skilled entrepreneurs must know how to survive both, and come back swinging. Fortunately, there are some simple tactics veterans of the startup arena can share. Good luck! Open Forum From Small Business Trends |
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