social-media

4 Keys to Reining in Social Media Overload

by Paul Joseph February 9, 2012 Featured

Most businesses understand that they need at least some kind of social media presence nowadays. But what about those who are too deeply entrenched in Facebook status updates and tweets? Or those that can’t keep up with LinkedIn invites and Tumblr reblogs? What about entrepreneurs who are finding it harder and harder to manage all of their social media profiles and run a business at the same time? It’s easy to get overloaded with social media, but if you feel like you’re drowning, it might be time to start simplifying your routine and finding ways to cut back on your time spent without sacrificing your level of community engagement. 1. Pick a Management Tool Balancing all of your social media accounts sometimes comes down to switching back and forth between different applications and websites. This can waste your time, especially if you have to manually go to the Facebook and Twitter websites to see if you’ve received any comments or mentions. To combat this, download a social media management tool like HootSuite or TweetDeck. These applications allow you to monitor and use all of your social media profiles from one convenient interface. Of course, the constant messages popping up on your desktop to inform you that you’ve received a new comment or mention can be distracting. To save time, turn off these notifications. 2. Focus Your Efforts While the primary thing you should be doing on social media sites is being social, don’t let this distract you from your overall goal: to interact with customers and market your business. Your first priority should always be to relay a specific message to your target market. Don’t try to speak to everybody, everywhere. Speak only to those that would be interested in purchasing your product or service. Seriously, generic status updates and tweets are the bane of businesses. Be specific and you’ll be interesting. Also, avoid checking social media sites over and over again each day. Set aside a specific time to check them and post updates. Schedule them if you have to. Just don’t cut away from your business tasks every five minutes to check comments on Facebook. That’s a super productivity killer. 3. Use What Works If you have no need to use Tumblr or Pinterest for your business, don’t. There’s no law saying you have to use every social media site out there. Instead, only use the sites that work for your company and that are easy to manage. You should be getting more out of your social media efforts than what you’re putting in. If that’s not the case, it may be time to reevaluate your approach or ditch that specific site. 4. Take a Break If you still feel up to your ears in social media, it may be time to take a break. We have a tendency of being connected to our networks too often, in both our personal and business lives. To cut down on the noise, set aside 30 minutes a day to shut off your phone and close your browser. Take some time for yourself to think uncluttered thoughts. It can do wonders for your productivity once you switch your connections back on. Adam Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Matthew. Adam is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: business psychology, entrepreneur, facebook, internet marketing, management, marketing, social-media, twitter

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TaxMantra.com: Say Bye To All Tax Worries as Taxation now Goes Online

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

They say, to have a smart wife is a luxury, but to have a smart accountant is a necessity. Bearing testimony to this proverb, Alok Patnia founded Taxmantra.com, an online platform that aims to understand and address the pain points of individuals, businesses, companies and new start-ups by providing timely and quality tax solutions in the most hassle free manner. In conversation with Abhilasha Dafria for YourStory.in, Alok, a qualified Chartered Accountant and a commerce bachelor from St. Xavier’s College, tells us more about how Taxmantra.com lives by the motto of “Experience Excellence” and “Stay Hassle Free”! Please introduce Taxmantra.com to our readers. Taxmantra.com provides a one stop solution platform to individuals, Startups and businesses to resolve their pain points with its unique and hassle-free services such as tax return filing, Company/ LLP creation, accounting, company law compliances and such other day to day business maintenance services. So how did you come up with this idea of starting a venture in the taxation space? I noted something very interesting during my stint with the big 4 accounting firms in Bangalore, that even though clients were locally based, we hardly met them face-to-face.  Client delivery used to happen via exchange of mails, with post discussions either through video conferencing or con-calls. Startups, new businesses, SMEs or for that matter even individuals have to still take time out from their work to visit a local consultant, as it is a common knowledge that not all can afford to hire big accounting firms. Thus, it thrilled me to start a service wherein, we can address the pain points of individuals, startups, by using internet as an enabler to reach clients irrespective of their locations with excellent service at the most affordable price Could you tell us in detail about the services you offer? Taxmantra.com provides complete taxation, accounting & financial solutions to individuals and businesses. The sole objective of Taxmantra.com is to bring full gamut of accounting, taxation and financial service on a single platform under three broad service heads; (i)     Individual Taxation Services, which includes services like Online return filing services, Tax planning and save taxes service, Tax refunds services, ITR Rectification Assistance in allotment/ Correction/ Surrender of PAN number/ Issuance of Digital signature certificates and all other services related to individual taxation, covering both Salaried and Non-Salaried Individuals. (ii)   Business Incorporation or Startup Services includes services such as creation of private limited company, creation of Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs), Start-Up Counseling and all other services related to business incorporation like local registrations. (iii) Business maintenance Services includes services  such as accounting, auditing assistance, Taxation, Company Law (ROC), Service tax and all other services related to business maintenance covering both Corporate and Non Corporate Entity. How many clients have you had so far? Without stating the actual number for obvious reasons, we can say that we are able to engage thousands of salaried & non – salaried individuals in filing their tax returns and also helping them in solving their tax issues. We are also assisting a good number of new businesses, startups, SMEs and some major businesses in handling issues relating to taxation, accounting, auditing, company law, service and such other issues. What is your clientele like? Could you share some demographics and tell us about your tie-ups if any? We have clientele based from metro cities, from B tier cities in India and also NRI clients from outside India. Our clientele includes Individuals (salaried and non-salaried), Startups, Businesses, Corporate and other businesses. We have associate tie-ups in Bangalore and Hyderabad and wish to extend our presence to other cities as well. What is the market-size you are trying to capture? With internet technology taking the centre stage, the government has made company law compliances  including incorporation of company, LLP, service tax returns, sales tax, vat, TDS Compliances, to name some, fully automated now and is taking added effort to make these more seamless and hassle free.   Also, to give you some data for Financial Year 2010-11, more than 15 million tax payers have preferred to file their returns through online medium. There is increased eagerness amongst Entrepreneurs, Start-Ups and other corporate and Non-Corporate businesses to prefer online medium for availing services due to paucity of time and hassle of visiting local consultants.  Thus, we think that there is a huge market for us to cater to, though initially there may be some bottlenecks. How many people visit your site every day? Tell us about the traction on your site. We have a targeted visitor of around 6K to 8K on a daily average from all virtually all parts of India and also non-resident Indians from abroad. Are there other players in the market doing similar things? What is your USP? Without naming any one in particular, we know that there are number of online service providers in this segment, with few of them providing only online tax filing for salaried individuals and then there are few engaged in rendering business incorporation services or accounting services and such others. But, what is so unique about Taxmantra.com is that, it brings all, salaried individuals, non-salaried individuals, Startups, businesses, SMEs on a single platform, wherein they can avail different services without getting into hassle of visiting different consultants for different set of services. How does the revenue model work? Our revenue model is very like any other service industry; that is, to provide excellent service fully customized to the needs of our client’s at most affordable price. For us client satisfaction is top most priority, and we believe that client retention is as important as new client acquisition. Since when are you operational? Where are you based? We are operational from first quarter of 2011. We have a fully functional integrated client delivery office in Kolkata and associate tie-ups in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Dhanbad.

Tagged as: enterprise, innovation, learning, non-tech entrepreneurs, online marketing, password, social-media, technology

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Exploiting Innovation for market dominance: A case for Technology Startups

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Government of India has declared this decade (2011 -20) as the “Decade of Innovations”. Manmohan Singh has promised to increase R&D spending from 0.9% to 2% of GDP by 2017. MSMEs are economic growth engines for developed and more for the developing country like India. With this notion, InnovAccer – an Indian Innovation Management firm collaborates with Yourstory.in to create awareness of Innovation and Intellectual Property amongst startups. Starting from today, InnovAccer will release one article every week for 20 weeks to help startups gear up to innovate in the right direction and protect intellectual property at its best. Anyone can run a business, but running a sustainable business depends on whether you provide cost advantage to the customer or present to them new innovative products or services. With fluctuating economy worldwide, cost advantage is no more a reliable strategy. Even China who is a master of providing cost advantage has initiated innovation strategies after rise in their labor cost. Multi-National Corporations have huge assembly lines and supply chains in process to release out a product within months, while startups have to rely on their innovative technology which is unique in the marketplace. Thus, Innovation and protecting that innovation is a key to sustainable growth of a technology start-up. Let’s shift our gears to economic advantages of obtaining a patent besides its value for exclusive right protection. Consider a scenario below, wherein figures represent cost of production. Company II is playing on cost advantage and ruling the market share. Now assume that company I obtained a patent. Whole market scenario changes from thereon. Company II and III have to give license fees to Company I and thus Company I has cost advantage over Company II and III. A company like company III which has neither cost or innovation advantage loses the race. While innovation company I always wins the race. Future posts will cover stimulating and resourceful articles on how to exploit patents to create & benefit your business and make it into a sustainable model. About InnovAccer InnovAccer (Innovation Accelerated) is an innovation management and acceleration company focused and dedicated to provide high quality innovation management services to accelerate every step of an innovation life-cycle. InnovAccer was founded with a vision of people in the fields of Intellectual Property, Business Innovation, and Technology to change and accelerate the creation of innovation ecosystem in India.  InnovAccer’s team comes from a varied background of engineers graduated from IITs, intellectual property specialists graduated from Franklin Pierce Law Center, USA, analysts, statisticians, and business innovation experts. Website: www . innovaccer . com

Tagged as: accounting, enterprise, india, innovation, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, startup, technology, the-wachox-way

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YCombinator vs. 1M/1M at 114th 1M/1M Strategy RoundtableForEntrepreneurs

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Today’s roundtable, as usual, was an international affair, with entrepreneurs presenting from different parts of the US, India, Israel, and many other geographies. Before I share what we heard from them today, I want to highlight an important aspect of 1M/1M that is repeatedly underscored in these roundtables: the international, inclusive, democratic nature of the initiative. In fact, one of the best ways we can delineate this phenomenon is by contrasting 1M/1M with YCombinator. This short video explains how the two programs differ: Bottomline: YC, superb incubator, is a program that applies to less than .01% of entrepreneurs, whereas 1M/1M is an inclusive, global program. The businesses we will discuss today will put this distinction in perspective. Hooduku First, Sudhendra Seshachala from Houston, Texas pitched  Hooduku , a professional services business that already has significant revenue from cloud integration work. Hooduku is a 1M/1M premium member and is interested in moving away from pure services toward a product+services model. Sudhi presented the idea of a platform that bridges between Microsoft Azure customers who are also using RackSpace and other Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers for their content management and delivery. He uses a classic and highly successful mode of building products, that of being deeply immersed in customer situations through services projects and using that domain knowledge and relationship to identify opportunities for building products. A major example of such a company is Appirio, which went on to get funded by Sequoia Capital and has since built a strong product-services company in the cloud integration domain. My advice to Sudhi is to not position his company as a ‘platform’ but rather pitch the value proposition as an ‘integration framework’. These subtle wordings make a huge difference in how a company is viewed. Buy Or Boycott Next Doug Lowenthal from Jacksonville, Florida presented  Buy Or Boycott , which he came up with at the recent Startup Weekend program. Buy Or Boycott wants to offer consumers an easy way to avoid buying products that have major issues, be it political or environmental. However, the user experience that Doug described to deliver this was not convincing. He proposes to offer a mobile app with which to scan every product in your grocery store shopping cart. I don’t believe consumers would do this. When we stand on grocery store lines after a long day or week, the last thing we want to do is scan a bunch of products with our mobile phones. NXI Group Then Kaushik Mitra from New Delhi, India, pitched the  NXI Group of Companies , a custom hardware vendor that presented itself as a laptop and tablet company. It took me a bit of time to parse through the details and figure out that NXI is NOT a laptop or tablet vendor competing with HP, Dell and Acer. Rather, it is developing custom hardware for consumers with specific needs. For example, they are in the midst of developing RFID-enabled tablets for the universal ID effort by the Indian government. Kaushik’s company already has $400,000 in revenue, and while the business is not a typical venture-fundable one, I see no reason why the company cannot continue to grow in its niche. Koolaring Last, Edoe Cohen from Tel Aviv, Israel pitched  Koolaring , a SaaS solution for building private alumni networks a la LinkedIn. I have seen numerous startups with this general idea. It makes perfect sense for universities to have their own private alumni networks, and it is only a matter of time before they do. Whether Koolaring will be the winner in that space or not will depend on execution. So you see, I just shared with you four businesses, none of which would suit YCombinator for a variety of reasons outlined in the video. However, 1M/1M is delighted to help any and all of them. If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to  join the 1M/1M premium program . If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially  What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program  and the  FAQs . If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.

Tagged as: facebook, learning, lose-something, online marketing, social-media, sramana-mitra, technology

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Bullets for your valentine (Fired from the internet)

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Bullet Points that might help you decide what to gift on Valentine’s Day We’d all want every day to be a Valentine’s day but reality always has an interesting take on things. This makes it mandatory for us to earmark a day for love. So, Valentine’s Day will always remain a day when hearts pound hard and so do the ring of the cash register (now replaced by data packets over the internet).  With only a week to go before V-Day, one must have a fair idea about what he/she would be turning up on the big day. Lovers will gift flowers and chocolates till the times we run out of cocoa or something goes terribly wrong with pollination but with the advent of the internet, there are a gazillion other things to spruce up your love life. Here are some of the options followed by the ever  green   red options. Players like Chumbak or a lesser known but equally interesting Shopo.in come with a unique offering for Valentine’s Day wherein they add a lot more meaning to a gift. Shopo has an interesting serivce wherein LoveGuru Aisha would be online in the evenings to suggest gifts.” We’re celebrating the season of love which started from January 20 and we’re seeing amazing response which was very much expected. Usually it’s a wee bit difficult for girls to find something for their men but we have a special offering this time around exclusively for men as well”, says Krithika Nelson, founder at Shopo. Deal sites like Vouchersmate also have an interesting offer. “Our Valentine catalog for 2012 is exclusive greeting cards collection with selected flower bouquets and range of gift vouchers from top brands, a complete gift box for everyone you love and care” informs Amit, Founder Vouchersmate. And if you for some reason you don’t believe in gifts, you can do something special like go for a desert making workshop! This, if you happen to be in Bangalore, can be done at Chaipatty. And if your hormones within have started whispering about how experimenting can ruin it sometimes, here’s a more conservative list. Flowers The world’s flower trade is pegged at $100 billion which makes it very easy to believe that the first thing that would crop up in one’s mind when one picture Valentine ’s Day is a red rose (and a heart). You can always get a red rose on any other day but if you’ve woken up too late, you would be lucky to find a rose stem which could signify the purity of your love. Be prepared and get your flowers before hand from the likes of FernsNPetals. A TOI report says the highest price that a rose could fetch was Rs 36 last year. But the quality of these roses which have been stored and treated for the special day (to fetch rosy prices) is contentious. In this age where every Romeo, Laila and Majnu knows about the buzzword- innovation, flowers don’t fit in the bill. it always works as an accompaniment,  but you need a plan A. Perfumes The market for perfume in India is huge now where a luxury mall can expect to do a sale of Rs 50000 on a normal day. And a well informed decision about a fragrance can definitely earn oneself some brownie points wherein the polished connoisseur part of you is to be showcased. There are a number of e-commerce companies like Perfume2order catering to this need where you can find perfumes from a Chanel to a Nina Ricci. Perfumes might burn a few holes in the pockets but it definitely mends the heart. Chocolates The chocolate market in India is Rs 2000 crore as of 2011 in which Cadbury has 70% and Nestle has 25% of the market share! But the dark horses (or the chocolates) in these race are the ‘home made chocolates’ which are no longer only made in homes but have a very high gift value. Many ventures including startups like Chocofthetown have special packages for Valentine’s Day which see huge business.   Lingerie A bold option but for a fast moving India, certainly a hot topic with e-commerce players like Zivame and         MyLace doing really well. The discounts for the Valentine’s season are as high as up to 85% which would surely be enticing. And the other plus here is that both the parties involved so this might be the option worth trying wherein both the parties would benefit. Zivame founder Kapil Karekar says, “We started the campaign in the third week of January and the response has been overwhelming!” Here is a compilation of the websites mentioned in the article (the list is solely an indicator to the possible service providers in the various segments): FernsNPetals  (MD, Vikas Gutgutia’s romatic story about finding FNP),  Perfume2Order ,  ChocOftheTown ,  MyLace ,  Zivame ,  Shopo ,  Vouchersmate  and  Chaipatty .  Hope you find the match for your match! – Jubin Mehta

Tagged as: accounting, business, education, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, unsexy-startups

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Did Online Marketing and Social Media Change 4 P’s of Marketing?

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

All MBA students, marketers, advertisers are taught the 4 (important) P’s of marketing. Invented in 1960s, these P’s have formed integral part of marketing education since then. All elaborate marketing plans for brands and businesses are (or were?) based on Price, Promotion,  Place and Product. But, with the growing influence of social media and online marketing, have these 4, well at least 3, P’s of marketing changed? Let’s look at each of those in this light: Price: This P of marketing says that you should price your products or services competitively across distribution channels. But do you really think you can do that when there are so many deal sites and comparison sites? Today, price is one of the major factors because of which consumers join social media sites – especially in case of travel. Aren’t companies forced to let the market decide the price? Additionally, with Internet, mobiles, social media, it has become very easy for consumers to identify inconsistency in pricing if you have introduced any. This can be very dangerous for the brand image because consumers will immediately find that out and even worse, talk about that more openly and to a wider audience. So Price can rarely be of marketing advantage. Promotion: With rising costs of traditional advertising and lack of ways for measuring effectiveness, many companies are turning away from costly advertising media like TV commercials or billboards. In past as well, many brands have succeeded without costly advertising and marketing. For example: With its umbrella marketing strategy, Amul spends only around 1% of turnover for marketing. When around 3.5% of revenue is being spent on advertising by fashion retailers, the popular Zara brand spends just 0.3%! Ferrari, the Italian sports car manufacturer does not spend a single penny on advertising space. They rely completely on special exclusive events, word of mouth and of course social media as their marketing weapons. Google started advertising only recently and Facebook also did not reach the valuation to the tune of $100B with advertising. But, with Internet and social media, word of mouth and forming a close connection with customers and users seem to be the key to promotion. Conventional promotion mechanisms are no more being banked on when the world has become such a smaller and well connected place with Internet. Place: Does place really matter in the Internet age? With so many online shopping sites, eCommerce sites, reviews and social shopping sites, aren’t consumers going on web for shopping? Most of the large stores like Shoppers Stop also have special offers for online buyers. I think, therefore, the ‘place’ parameter has seized to have significant place in the strategic marketing planning. Product: So we are left with last P –Product. ‘Product’ definitely has not have changed. No matter what you use for promotion, what price you keep and where you sell it – you got to have a great product. Yes, but one thing has changed. In this age of social communication and connection, you have to not only make products that meet the needs of consumers but also make them newsworthy. Today the verdict about product on social media reaches the consumer before the company’s advertisement. So make sure your product delivers the value beyond the expectations of the consumer. Users did not want an iPad until it was built but now they wonder how they lived without it for so many years. The key here is building great products, newsworthy products and enjoyable user experiences. I think Kotler’s conclusion “ The best way to hold customers is to constantly figure out how to give them more for less. ” holds very true – even today! : – )

Tagged as: business, culture, facebook, india, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, technology, unsexy-startups

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Only 1% of Facebook Fans truly ‘engage’ with a Brand : Study

by Paul Joseph January 29, 2012 Featured

Facebook has emerged as a very important marketing medium owing to the huge number of people who access it and the amount of time people spend on it. Facebook advertising features prominently when firms outline their digital marketing strategy, with some brands advertising just their Facebook Page URL than their website in hoardings and TV commercials. But does an increase in the fan count or likes in your brand fanpage guarantee engagement? A study by Australia based marketing think-tank  Ehrenberg-Bass Institute suggests that only 1% of a brand’s followers on Facebook actually engage with the brand. The results are based on one of Facebook’s metrics ’People Talking About This’. This feature measures the interaction between followers and the fanpage in terms of likes, shares, tags, comments , mentions etc. The institute studied the top 200 brands on Facebook over a 6 week period and found the average ‘People Talking About This’ percentage to be 1.3%. If one removed the count of ‘likes’ which takes just a click and count only the more engaged forms of interaction, the percentage drops to 0.45%. This suggests that less than half a percent of a brand’s followers are creating content or engaging directly with the brand. Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute who describes herself as a “Facebook advocate” points out that this research does not conclude that Facebook as a medium is ineffective. ”People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can’t do. Facebook doesn’t really differ from mass media. It’s great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic” she said in an interview to AdAge . Source: Ad Age

Tagged as: 2up2down, disclaimer, facebook, indian, namrata-shah, pallav-nadhani, partners, random-member, social-media, unsexy-startups, yourstory-in

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10 Do-or-Die Tactics for Facebook Success

by Paul Joseph January 26, 2012 Featured

A couple years ago, having a Facebook page devoted to your business would have been enough. Simply existing on the site had the ability to set one business apart from the rest. Times have changed, though. Boasting over 900 million accounts – both personal and business, Facebook has now gotten to the point where it feels cluttered at times. How can you break through the clutter and make your target audience aware of what you have to offer? Below are 10 tactics that will help your business achieve success on Facebook. 1. Create a Profile That Works Make sure your profile is completely filled out. Never leave your profile looking as though it’s only half complete. Maintain a level of professionalism while making it clear that you care about your customers and will be there to answer any questions they might have. Your default photo needs to be professional looking. If you don’t have an actual photograph to use, your logo can take the place of a photo. 2. Involve Visitors in Discussions A great way to get visitors to “like” you on Facebook is to involve them in conversations. Start discussions about your business and how it’s able to help people. This will keep them coming back to add input and read what others have to say on the matter. For example, if you sell yard care services, start a conversation about landscaping, different types of flowers that will grow in certain areas, and landscaping on a budget. Encourage people to join in the conversation and include them in any way you can. 3. Personalize Your Page Allowing your page to look exactly like all of the other Facebook pages out there doesn’t benefit you in any way. Customize your page so it’s more suited to your business and your customers. Use images to make your profile memorable in a way that helps to brand you. 4. Special Events and Contests An effective way to bring your page to life and insure you’ll have repeat visitors is to host special events and contests. Any time one of your visitors RSVP’s to an event, their friends will see their RSVP on their Facebook page. This is a terrific way to reach an audience that you might not normally reach. 5. Sales and Offers Who doesn’t like a sale or special offer?  By offering sales and offers to your visitors, you’ll be piquing their interest. By offering sales, you are showing your customers that you care about their needs by giving them the best deal you can. 6. Multi-Media When possible, integrate audio and video content on your Facebook page. Doing so can be very affective in grabbing the attention of your visitors as this type of content has been proven to be much more effective than simple text. 7. Personalize Tabs Do away with the default tabs which are fairly boring and drab. By making the tabs more personalized to your business, your visitors will be more likely to remember you and your efforts. If you don’t know how to go about personalizing your tabs, there are tutorials that can be found online that will make personalization much easier. 8. Take Advantage of the Sidebar The sidebar of your page is the perfect place to put things like customer testimonials and bulletins. Placing links to any special offers you have going on in the sidebar is another way to effectively utilize the space. 9. Put a Survey on Your Page By placing a survey on your Facebook page, you are telling your customers that their opinions matter. Not only do surveys capture the attention of your visitors, but they also encourage visitors to interact with each other and your business. 10. Update Your Page Regularly One of the biggest mistakes people make is to let their Facebook page sit without any new content for extended periods of time. Make sure you’re regularly posting content to your page. This means posting new content and looking for ways your page can be improved every single day. Social media is one of the best ways to get noticed these days, so make sure you aren’t being left behind by failing to update your page regularly. By implementing these tactics, your Facebook page stands a much better chance of gaining new customers and keeping your current customers happy. Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: branding, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, internet marketing, marketing, social-media

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Twtbuck is now Zuvvu; Use your social influence to earn money

by Paul Joseph January 18, 2012 Featured

TwtBuck, which was founded in June 2010 focused on advertising on twitter and it was covered by Yourstory back then when Twtbuck was still taking its infant steps. Founded by Gaurav Sharma, the vision at Twtbuck has undergone evolution and Twtbuck would now be phased out, making way for Zuvvu. The renewed focus would be on other social media as well and hence the re-branding. The metamorphosis has been highlighted here. Zuvvu in brief Zuvvu is an advertising platform by signing up for which, a person can earn through spreading the word about an advertiser using his social clout. More the reach of a person, the higher would be his zuvvu score, the more he can earn and more would the advertiser be willing to pay. A user signs up for an account, shares the links and then gets paid per click. The Twtbuck to Zuvvu transformation Changes have been made both, on the publisher’s side as well as the advertiser’s side. “On publisher’s side, the platform has become more engaging by ‘gamifying’ the interface where publishers (read internet users) compete among themselves, share and discover cool content – everything related to their interests, skills and likes. We have opened up our internal publisher scoring and evaluation metrics to bring transparency to the system which will both boost confidence and trust among publishers towards Zuvvu. While, on the advertiser’s (business or ad agency) side, we have improved our targeting engine and have introduced a smart pricing model which also takes into consideration Social Media Page Rank and Publisher Quality”, Gaurav explained. Along with this, advertisers can choose their own publishers now which would ideally give them better control over their campaigns and they would also be provided with real time analytics. A zuvvu score might strike a resemblance with the Klout score. How is it different? Gaurav Sharma, Founder Zuvvu Zuvvu score is a numeric value on a scale of 100 that measures any individual’s social media reach, quality of social media reach, social media activity and the willingness to help brands with word of mouth publicity. Zuvvu score brings social media influence calculation more close to marketing strategy and ROI constraints of the brands”, says Gaurav, The extra dimension would be the major differentiator and it’d be interesting to see how   Zuvvu inculcates this. So, what is the Social media page rank here? Zuvvu ‘Social Media Page Rank’ is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the social web i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and Stumbleupon. Exactly like Google Page Rank for General web. Similar to Google Page Rank, Social Media Rank is also calculated on the scale of 0-10. As of now, the algorithm for social media rank uses around 46 parameters including the basic ones like Facebook Likes, Comments Shares, Tweets, Retweets, etc. Every parameter has its own fixed weight-age as well as dependent weightage depending upon values of other parameters. The free Social Media Page Rank widget is available  here How would Zuvvu earn? Monetization model is exactly like any ad network. Advertiser’s pay for ad campaigns with a minimum budget of $20 and a CPC Range $0.05 – $0.90. Zuvvu would share 50-70% with publishers depending upon their expertise and activity levels on Zuvvu. The iAccelerator push “I would consider coming to iAccelerator as one of the best decisions I have made in last 23 years. From mentoring to useful connects to fun, they are taking good care of nearly everything a Startup needs in its early days. All the sessions have been extremely helpful and the best of all, the chance to work along with 15-20 other budding entrepreneurs’ under a single roof has been invaluable!” Gaurav told us with a huge smile on his face. Zuvvu is about 30 days old now and has got over 30,000 unique hits with 5000 new publishers. The number is expected to rise once the transformation is complete and you could give it a shot here and drop in comments about Zuvvu and your Zuvvu score. – Jubin Mehta

Tagged as: advertising, social-media, tech entrepreneurs, twitter

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Millennial Branding on How Gen-Y is Using Facebook

by Paul Joseph January 12, 2012 Featured

Check out the infographic! Here at Young Entrepreneur, we have always said that “young” is more a state of mind than a number. We know that entrepreneurs in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond read and participate on the site, and that’s exactly what the YE site is for – all entrepreneurs with a young entrepreneur spirit. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 29, in addition to being young in years, you are a member of what’s known as “Gen-Y.” And as a member of that generation, you’re likely to use Facebook for personal as well as professional purposes. In fact, you make up a significant piece of the 750 million+ Facebook users worldwide. A new study, conducted by  Millennial Branding , sought to find out just how Gen-Yers are using Facebook. To do so, they looked at more than 50 million Facebook data points, compiled by  Identified.com . I’m sure you’ll agree that the results were quite interesting. For example, the study showed that although Gen-Y users primarily use their Facebook profiles for socializing with family and friends, they often use Facebook as an extension of their professional personality as well. So, what does any of this mean to young entrepreneurs? Beyond being interesting, Dan Schawbel, the Founder of Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y workplace expert, and author of Me 2.0 says… “Gen-Y needs to be aware that what they publish online can come back to haunt them in the workplace. Gen-Y managers and co-workers have insight into their social lives, which could create an awkward workplace setting or even result in a termination.” And from the standpoint of entrepreneurs, you can apply the same concerns when dealing with potential investors, partners, and even those you plan on hiring. This infographic breaks down the study results. To see it full-size, just click the image: About Millennial Branding: Millennial Branding is a full-service personal branding agency located in Boston, MA. Millennial Branding delivers online branding strategies for individuals who are looking to stand out and achieve career and business success.  Millennial Branding creates strategic marketing plans, custom website designs and runs PR and social media campaigns for companies, authors and entrepreneurs. Data and analytics provided by: Identified.com is a data and analytics company that professionally interprets your Facebook network and provides ranking and relevance to the network with the Identified Score. Identified helps users understand how they professionally compare to others and provides Facebook recruiting solutions to social employers. See how you professionally rank against your peers with with  Identified.com . Adam Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Matthew. Adam is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, internet, social-media

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