Category: websites

The Best Social Networking tools

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We often wonder which are the best social networking tools to promote our business. In many ways it’s all and none.

There’s no shortage from which we can shoose from a business perspective: My space, Facebook, Bebo, Youtube, Blogging, Twitter, Live streaming TV, Ranking sites like Technorati, delicious and Stumbleupon, Virtual world spaces like second life.

The list is endless. In fact wikipedia lists the most notable (well over 100) here.

The best ones to engage and use aren’t those necessarily with the most people, the most features or the most anything. The best ones to use are those which you use properly. The way in which they were intended. There’s no point having your brand or startup on any of them – unless you engage the crowd in the conversation ‘they want to have”.

What does this mean?

It means be there often – turn up, and talk.

It means listen to them – it’s their place not ours.

It means share the information people want to have shared in ‘that’ forum.

It means, give first to them, and expect nothing back.

It means learn from their wisdom.

It means show your personaility and have an opinion.

It means create value to them, whatever value means in that forum.

It means be part of a dialogue, not a monologue.

In real terms all these tools are, is a personification of yourself, startup or brand. Don’t engage in behavior you wouldn’t engage in while in the real world. We mustn’t act like an Amway Sales Agents on line. If it’s bad form in the real world, it’s bad form in the on-line world.

If we just put our brand on all of these spaces and don’t get involved – it’s a waste of time for all parties involved. We are much better off embracing one or two forums and using them often and consistently. Going there, isn’t the same as being there. They are not shortcuts to brand fame. In fact, they take longer, but can be of greater value.

Given that the web is a conversation – we must embrace it and have manners. If we’re patient it’s worth the effort.

UGC & Crowd Sourcing – Beware the Homer mobile

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There is plenty of buzz around UGC (User Generated Content), Crowd Sourcing and Mass Customization at the moment. And the truth is I am a sucker for it. I embrace it, love it and really believe it is an economic revolution. In fact many of the new features we’ve implemented on rentoid have been at the suggestions of our members…. but there is a downside.

We need to be aware that not every consumer knows what they are talking about, and not every idea we get from the crowd happens to be a good one. The crowd can get it wrong occasionally. Yep – there are people out there with ideas that just might send you broke if implemented.

If we are building a forum for people to create & share their own stuff on like Youtube or Etsy – that’s when it’s a cool idea to let the crowd take over. That’s when it’s cool to build the forum and get the hell out of the way. But when it comes to them designing and creating products for others – we need to keep our heads. In fact if there is one piece of advice startup blog can give is know which business you are in:

A) Are you building a forum for them to connect on?

or

B) Are you building a product for them – with their input?

If you are doing the latter – that’s when you need to be wary of the Homer mobile.

Instead, what we need to do when we want the crowds input is look to our “lead user group”. The lead user group is our base of fans who are knowledgeable, expert, style leaders or simply influential. These are the people we need to listen to when UGC is part of the mix, but not the whole story.

12 seconds

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I really like the idea of ‘small’ – Making the macro, micro. 12 secondsTV does it: www.12seconds.tv

As far as marketing insights are concerned it proves that categories don’t converge – but split.

We recently used it for rentoid to kill a few birds with one stone:

  • Rewards passionate fans with a bit of fame,
  • Create an important dialogue
  • Generate some ‘realworld’ market research to boot.

The cool thing is that we’ll publish what people think about rentoid good and bad – so then we have to act on any mooted improvements. Check it by clicking here:

So in the spirit of involvement – I’d love to get a 12 seconds.tv spot from the startupblog crew – ‘yes that means you’ with any piece of business / entrepreneurship or life advice you feel approporiate.

Put your 12 seconds link in the comments and I’ll put it up as it’s own post with a link to your blog / startup / business or whatever.

Get on it.

Freshness

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

On first thoughts we’d assume that green grocers and web developers are in an entirely different business. But upon closer expection there are quite a few similarities. Similarities which can’t be ignored.

First of all – it needs to easy to find what your after. If it’s not obvious, if we can’t see it  we’ll assume it isn’t there.

Secondly – we need things clearly categorised.we need to be able to sort the apples from the oranges. So it makes sense to have them in different sections. Not all bundled up in the one place in a rainbow of colors.

But most important of all things need to be fresh. They need to know it and we need to show it. There is nothing worse than a static website – not only do we want, but we ‘expect’ frequent change.

Clue number 1 – the refresh button.
Clue number 2 – it’s software – it’s made to be malleable.

People want to see what ‘we’ and ‘they’ the members / users are up to. What members are doing, what’s changed, that it’s live, that the site represents what’s happening in the physcial world. This matters for every website, that is any business which happens to have a website. Not just businesses with the web as it’s primary forum.  Youtube does it with it’s most viewed by the day, feature videos and promoted videos. Flickr shows a different photo everytime we click in it. Most cool sites let us register for updates or run a regularly updated blog. It isn’t hard – just important.

Start blog says – change things up a little a lot

Media diet – startup style

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

As promoted in the 4 hour work week a media diet is a nice way save time. For entrepreneurs a different type of media diet is required.

A business trends diet

Here’s how – avoid all business related articles as they pertain to new strategies & trends.

Here’s why – We already know enough to be successful. Our problem is doing the stuff.

Unless we are just starting in the business world – we’ve heard every strategy and the fact is that most ‘new’ business ideas are simple derivatives of business theories which have been around since the birth of commerce. Cables channels and tech stuff is the worst. Who’s got the time to read 86 posts from techcrunch every day? – not me.

We ought just trust our judgment and make the call that we know enough to get moving…and the rest we’ll learn on the job…. So in the spirit of this blog entry, ignore the articles you were about to read and get back to your stuff.

Outsourcing – Visuals vs Backend

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

As webpreneurs we all now employ offshore coders to develop sites using super cool resources like Odesk and Elance. The process is a simple one. But just like all things good, there are some catches. Here’s some advice from someone whose done, does it and occasionally avoids it.

The main thing you need is patience and very considered briefs. When there is a language barrier, ideas and words can be taken very literally.

Our experience is that some (not all) offshore IT practioners are indifferent with ‘visual’ requirements. Maybe it’s a cultural implication. And there are many things we’ve had done much better offshore, like finding creative solutions to technical problems. We’ve worked with some great creative bootstrappers. But it’s clear that more developed markets put a much higher value on ‘aesthetics‘. So we get all our rentoid visuals done locally, while we outsource alot of our backend work. It’s akin to a convenience store you might see in India, there just not quite as pretty as those in Australia and the USA. See below.

Western Convenience Store

Convenience Store India

Engage your customers

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Really the title should say “people” – we don’t do business with customers, it’s the greatest lie of all time. People trade with people. But I just gave it that title so I could teach people this who stumbled upon this blog entry…

So here’s how we do it at rentoid.com

We have a live chat session with our people. Answer all their questions, assess their concerns and just get to know them. Tonight we are doing it at 7.30pm Aust Syd / Melbourne time.

Go here to log on: http://rentoid.com/live

You can see the startup blog author in action live and see if he (me) can deliver it all live. So tune in, tell your friends and get a shout out!