Archive for March, 2011
WEBCAST: From VCs to Super-Angels — The New Rules of Startup Investment #uktivc
I delivered a sample pitch to the assembled venture capital folk, which included Christina herself as well as Maria Dramalioti-Taylor of Incito Ventures; Alliot Cole of Octopus Ventures; and Dermot Berkery of Delta Partners.
You can read more about the event here but the full webcast is still available for free viewing here until the end of April 2011 — so be quick!
And here you can find my presentation from this morning:
If you want to find out more about the companies that presented pictches, read our rundown of them here.
Google’s “+1” social layer and rival to Tweet and Like arrives!
Use +1 to give something your public stamp of approval, so friends, contacts, and others can find the best stuff when they search. Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want them, in your search results.
To participate in this experiment:
- Make sure you’re signed into your Google Account (required)
- Click ‘Join this experiment’
- Search for something you love on Google.com
- Click the new +1 button, and make your mark on the web
Your +1’s are public. They can appear in Google search results, on ads, and sites across the web. You’ll always be able to see your own +1’s in a new tab on your Google Profile, and if you want, you can share this tab with the world.
The rumour mill have long suggested Google was working on its own social network to rival Facebook, which the gossips pitched as GoogleMe. Then the chatter suggested it would become something less encompassing, a social layer for existing Google feautures called +1.
Well they were right and it’s now here. Click the link above to add it to your search results and to find out more.
I’ve just activated it myself and I’ll be playing with it over the next few days. If you do the same come and let us know what you think!
How people sign in to WeCanDo.BIZ — the spread of Shared Signins across the Social Web #sso #social
A year ago we published details of which third party web identities our members were using to sign in to WeCanDo.Biz. Here’s an update.
It is almost a year to the day (it was 31 March 2010) that we first published details of how people were signing in to WeCanDo.Biz using third party identities, some seven months after we first added the feature. Twitter ruled the roost with over half of sign ins using this access method back then.
How things have changed since!
The graph above shows some big differences in what people use to sign in to business focused sites like ours in particular.
Here’s a breakdown of what a difference a year makes (last year’s percentage in brackets):
Twitter 37.3% (down from 52.4%)
LinkedIn 34.6% (came under “other” last year!)
Facebook 17.7% (up from 16.7%)
Google 7.7% (down from 15.3%)
Windows Live 1.2% (down from 2.3%)
Yahoo 1.2% (down from 3.7%)
Other 0.4% (down from 8.6%, although included LinkedIn last year)
Our conclusion? Social networks are proving more popular as shared sign in methods, nudging email down. But it would seem most users like to keep their online life compartmentalised — they sign in to our business networking site with identities they use for other sites they see as business focused in preference to using identities they see as more personal.
What do you think? Just add a comment below.
If you want to try signing in with a shared, third party identity you can do so here.
VIDEO: How to join the discussion on the BRX website #brx
WeCanDo.Biz powers the Discussion on the website of BRX, business networking and business development groups. Here’s how it works and how to join in.
A quick video showing you how the Discussion on the BRX website works, including how to sign in, contribute to an existing discussion or start a new one.
VIDEO: How does social media impact SEO? #social #seo #SMCFeb2011
From Variety Event’s Social Media Conference, held in Bracknell last month.
Here’s a video of the presentation I gave last month on “How does social media impact SEO?” at Variety Event’s Social Media Conference at the Blue Mountain Golf Centre in Bracknell. It’s a long video, longer than YouTube will allow, so it’s on Vimeo for you to view here.
Social media presents new ways to promote yourself and your business. I cover:
- Why people are asking on social networks rather than finding on search engines
- Listening for needs rather than pushing messages
- The Worst Crime: using social media to drive website traffic
- How search engines reference social media and how to benefit
- Facebook and Twitter for search, Google for social
If you want to attend the next such conference in Berkshire/Hampshire with Variety Events then keep an eye on their website for details of the next one, which I recall is in June 2011.
You can also buy a DVD with this and a stack of other great social media presentations from the conference here.
New WeCanDo.Biz Social CRM on its way! Get a sneak peek… #scrm
We’ve been hard at work on a new version of our online business network for sales leads and business referrals… Version 2 beta went live at the end of December. Here’s the latest of the new features we’ll be detailing (see them all here).
We’ve had Social CRM as part of the WeCanDo.Biz offering since November 2009 and nearly 1,000 small companies have made use of it since then. With our Version 2 release, which launches fully early next month, we, along with our partners InTouch, have upgraded the system to offer more features while also making it much easier to use.
We asked ourselves the question: if a system isn’t saving you time or making you money, what use is it? This has influenced a ground up rethink of our CRM system, which is available for as little as £5 a month to Pro users of our site (the full featured Comprehensive CRM offering with integrated email marketing and reporting is £23 a month).
Still included is the ability to save social sales leads, generated on our site amongst our members or through our Twitter Sales Leads tool, to progress through to the close; but in addition the CRM is now much easier to start making productive use of faster. It’s easier to add contacts; easier to upload existing data lists; easier to add and manage tasks; easier to add and manage leads from any source; and it’s a hwole lot easier to deliver fantastic looking HTML email campaigns to the contacts you’re picking up, with full open and clickthrough reporting so you can identify the hottest leads!
Coming in May is additions to make our Social CRM THE best way to manage your contacts, regardless of whether they are on email, WeCanDo.Biz, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn… or ALL of them!
Not yet on our site? Click here to register for free ahead of the Version launch next month.
Getting social with the customer: What is “Social CRM”? #scrm
Getting social with the customer: What is “Social CRM”?
The role the customer plays in corporations is changing fast and their influence is growing like never before. The subject of customer relationship management over social media was discussed at length at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising expo recently. New Media Knowledge went along to learn more. By Chris Lee.
By Chris Lee
The Technology for Marketing and Advertising (TFM&A) expo is a massive feature on the UK internet marketing calendar and NMK went along to Earl’s Court in London to hear a fascinating debate as to the future of customer relationship management (CRM) and, in particular “Social CRM”. Social CRM focuses on how companies can – and sometimes are already – relating to customers via social networks.
A round table debate brought together a number of leading lights on the subject of why Social CRM matters and how organisations should be engaging with customers over social media.
Data mining
For Ian Hendry of online new business network We Can do Biz, Social CRM matters because people are making comments and recommendations in public via social media, often sharing views and information that they would not usually share with a company – even when asked to.
“There is a wealth of data on the Web around the customer,” Hendry told delegates, citing Twitter’s 185 million-strong user base. “A lot of it is rubbish but a fair chunk is useful.”
The key challenge for organisations is to mine that data effectively.
“The most powerful customer now is not the one who buys the most but who can reach the most people,” he argued.
Understand the customer
Graham Hill from consultant group Optima Partners said there is often a misconception within organisations that Social CRM is a technology issue, when actually technology is simply the enabler.
“All those capabilities we currently use for CRM we need for Social CRM too,” Hill said. “It’s more than a load of channels; it’s a way to interact.”
Hill said that organisations needed to understand the customer and their journey, the outcomes and what they wanted to achieve.
“The job is to provide [the customer] with better tools,” he argued. “We used to do things to the customer, then for the customer and now we do things with the customer.”
Fellow consultant Laurence Buchanan -head of CRM and Social CRM at Capgemini – agreed, stating that the true meaning of Social CRM should be about building long-term win-win situations for both companies and customers.
Changing channels
Organisations need to be aware that customers operate on the channels they feel most comfortable with and need to monitor and respond to them accordingly, said Heather Taylor, formerly social media manager at mobile network GiffGaff.
Taylor said GiffGaff enjoyed good customer relations because it gave its users a sense of ownership.
“The company was theirs as much as it was ours,” she said.
So what’s the key to good Social CRM in Taylor’s opinion?
“Put procedures in place for those on the front line to get things fixed,” Taylor concluded. “Unless you give them help [those problems will] continue to happen.”
Computer company Dell is an interesting case in point, having recently launched its “Social Media Command Center” to help deal with customer issues that arise over social networks. NMK recently interviewed Dell on the launch, which you can read here.
StumbleUponGood write up of the session I did at TFM&A a couple of weeks ago by Chris Lee. Original article linked above (on a rather messy web page!).
Have you got comething to say about Social CRM? Just add your throughts below — we’d love to read them.
Four exciting new UK web ventures pitching for funding later this month — share your thoughts
Ether Books is a disruptor in the Publishing sector and is to reading what iTunes is to music. From
newspapers to magazines and books to columns – Internet enabled touch screen devices (like the iPad) have created a paradigm shift in consumer reading. Ether disrupts the publishing landscape by directly connecting writers to readers and cutting out inefficiencies in traditional publishing. Writers work directly with Ether thereby reducing publishing time to market >1 year to <2 weeks. Consumers download content to their devices; writers retain a higher % of profits. Publication costs are low, allowing margins to increase with each sale.
Ether launched in less than 6 months. Ether already has early revenues from writers including Sir Paul McCartney and Hillary Mantel. Featured on CNN, Radio 4, The Guardian, The Times, and Wall Street Journal, Ether is already a well-known new entrant in the UK publishing sector. The founders have a track record of developing high growth “download” businesses in music and mobile. EBITDA is projected to be £2m by 2014 when a trade sale is anticipated. www.etherbooks.com.
Slick FlickSlick Flick is a photo story platform in the form of a mobile/tablet app. Photo stories are a mezzanine level situated between basic mediums such as book, script and photography and more complex ones like film, TV, video games. They can be as simple as a storyboard or slide show and as complex as a graphic novel. The simple format of photography and text has maximum flexibility in creation and distribution, while retaining the key elements of more complex content forms, such as visual representation, story line and information content.
Slick Flick aims to create a seamless system that will make creation and distribution of photo stories effortless for authors and viewing a pleasure for consumers, in a market like environment that fosters creativity and helps generate high quality content contributions. www.slickflick.com.
WeCanDo.BizWeCanDo.Biz is an online new business network for sales leads and referrals. Using social networking methods to broker valuable new business relationships, it provides simple tools to members that help generate sales leads, leverage customer referrals and win new business.
The two founders have over 50 years in the software industry behind them, including successful startups and exits, and have been involved in social networking since 2003. Version 2 of the web-based service, which already has 16,500 registered members, launches in early April 2011 at www.wecando.biz.
MatesRatesMatesRates is an online private membership club where second home-owners can rent out their properties to recommended, trusted individuals at preferential rates within a closed, invitation only environment. In this way they are able to unlock income that they may previously have been reluctant to exploit. The home-owners determine the membership as they invite their friends or trusted contacts.
The longer-term objective is to create an exclusive community of affluent individuals who will leverage their relationships to provide and access a range of services at a “MatesRate”. This takes the networking aspects of Linked In and other social networks to the next level by introducing a direct commercial trading aspect. The founders each have over 18 years experience of founding, growing and exiting start up businesses in Europe. The team is also able to call upon extensive experience within larger corporate environments at an operational and strategic level running large web services, marketing, customer operations and business integration. www.matesrates.co.uk.
What do you think of the four above? Which is your favourite? Share your comments below.
Finding new clients… a success story
It’s always great to read of success stories from members of our online business network for sales leads and referrals. Here’s one I found on a business forum this morning.
We’ve shared over 140,000 leads through our service, which means each member has been passed 8 leads on average. Not a bad return for a free website!
So it seems odd then that we’ve never surveyed our 16,500 members to ask them about business they’ve closed, which might enables us to put an actual value on just how much business we’ve helped generate. Instead, we find ourselves picking up anecdotal evidence of the sorts of sales our users are closing (note to self: do survey!).
Here’s the latest I’ve picked up while I was taking a look at UK Business Forums this morning. You can read the original post here.
I’ll see if I can get the person who posted their success to come and tell us more.
In the meantime, if you’ve closed business with WeCanDo.Biz come and share it with us and we’ll happily write up a feature on it. Contact us through our profile here (now also features videos!).
Unofficial WeCanDo.Biz Updates & Information 
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