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5 ways brands can use Emerging Platforms better

Originally posted on 1000heads.com

Continuing our newest blog series aiming to polish up your community management tactics, this week we’re discussing emerging platforms and some best practices for discovering as well as leveraging them effectively.

When it comes to social media, emerging platforms tend to vary significantly in terms of quality and value propositions. Often the result of a small, passionate team at an unknown startup, identifying what is actually relevant to your brand has become increasingly challenging. How do you know what is worth your time? Here are a few points that should help guide your thinking.

1. Look in the right places, reach out to the right people

You can’t rely solely on a Mashable or TechCrunch to keep you up to speed. Dig deeper. Challenge yourself to uncover platforms before they hit the tech press circuit. Keep a close eye on accelerator programs, hackathons and local startup Meetup groups for standout prospects. Reach out directly to co-founders over Twitter and offer to provide them with valuable product feedback. You’ll likely receive early-access instantly. Establishing a network of respectable early-adopters over time who share your hunger for innovation will obviously help you cast a much larger net.

2. Avoid shiny-object syndrome

Learn when to ignore the “hype” and always take a look for yourself before making assumptions. Understand that there is likely a hidden agenda and plenty of extreme biases in tech press regardless of how much credibility a publication or blogger may have. Do your own research and form your own opinions over time.

3. Think like a VC

Think about if the platform is truly a solid investment for your brand. Is this an actual product or simply a feature that is highly vulnerable to larger competition? Look beyond the current offering and examine the addressable market size. Feel confident that enough users will also appreciate the unique value proposition. Why will this be disruptive and to who? Discover key synergies with other platforms, identify potential suitors and anticipate an acquisition long before it happens.

4. Learn the signals to watch for

What sort of user traction has it received? Who are the co-founders and what else have they accomplished? Make use of Crunchbase and AngelList. Who led the most recent round of financing? Sequoia Capital or ScrubFund XYZ? Although it may not always be relevant, offering an API (or at least plans for one) can say a lot about the roadmap and vision. A thriving ecosystem of passionate developers leveraging the platform to innovate on their own is generally an ideal scenario.

5. Prove how it will impact business objectives

Most importantly, you must always attempt to find the best way to tie the platform to actual business objectives for your brand. This can often be a struggle initially, however, it will guarantee that you receive long-term buy-in from above. Get creative with your metrics. Consider how the platform helps to boost your efficiency or how it exposes your brand to key target audiences that can be translated into a high media equivalent value.

Never rely exclusively on others to push the envelope. Have the confidence to engineer unique approaches for leveraging new platforms and don’t be afraid to be the first one to jump in when it makes complete sense for your brand. You’ll likely be rewarded for your ambition and thought leadership.

Stay aHead Series (cont)

Flattr, Critterism and Aviary

FlixMaster, Scriball and Winston

Swipp, Ditlo and Hipmob

Vinepeek, Cube26 and Tinder

Fleksy, Branch and CouchCachet

Leap Motion, Unpakt and Grokr

Videogram, Gyft and Tred

SeatID, HERE Maps and LearnStreet

Shareist, Eta Devices and OffersBy.Me

Pinbooster, Chirpify and Icenium

SeeSaw, Peek and Pinalytics

WebPlatform.org, CloudAxis and Shelby Genius

StyleSaint, TypeScript, and Wantful

MindMeld, YourMechanic and Memstash

Dekko, Livebolt and HeatData

Referly, Flightfox and Lumia launch

Branch, Google Octane and HTML 5

Originally posted on 1000heads.com

Stay aHead Series

Survata, ThinTouch and Bootstrap 2.1

Microsoft Dev Center, Wolf Repellent and SoundWave

Facebook Content Targeting, Same-day eBay and Nina

Flag Tags, Homescreen.me and Pinfluencer

Vyclone, Ptch and Meograph

Office Hours, Brewster and StoryBox

Tablets, SnipSnap and Condition ONE

SongPop, Viggle and RebelMouse

Surface, Battery Science and Twitter Polling

Apps, Efficiency and Notable Disruption

Facebook IPO, Apps and Color

Originally posted on 1000heads.com

Calling All Storytellers

With Wednesday’s fMC event, Facebook officially kicked off the latest iteration on its quest for advertising revenue. The new “Premium” suite of offerings is a solid strategy to capture ad spend from marketers who would clearly be willing to buy any sort of inventory thrown their way from the social giant. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg was not there himself to tell everyone that THESE are no ordinary ads. These are unique chances to create “compelling experiences” with “engaging content” and (INSERT additional Facebook propaganda HERE). The introduction of Timeline for Brands was the perfect opportunity for Zuck & Co. to reveal its true identity: Storytellers.

Timeline for Brands is the next chapter of Facebook marketing and, for many, it may be the last. Being able to express your brand in a more visual and engaging way certainly has its perks. However, what if you have no story worth telling? Or what if it’s just not worth the extra energy?

At the end of the month, when all pages are automatically converted to Timeline, the glory days of “Like”-gated default landing tabs will have ended. With a wider real-estate to work with (810px), developers will need to step up their game as a new generation of branded Timeline apps will emerge. Tabs can remain gated, but getting noticed will be a serious challenge. Facebook’s solution: buy their ads.

Social Media Monitoring: Return On Ignorance

Gary Vay*ner*chuck recently declared that there is “no such thing as social media”. Did he just say this to get a rise out of people? Probably, but his point is well taken. I’d take this a different direction and make the argument that there is no such thing as “social media monitoring”.

Call it whatever you want: monitoring, listening, measurement, intelligence, etc. The fact is that the majority of the snake oil being pushed today in this space is laughable. Actionable insights? Social Media ROI? More like vanity metrics and fancy visualizations. Simply aggregating social data and shoving it in a “dashboard” is far from adequate regardless of how elegant the UI/UX may be. The meaningful analysis is just not there and yet people continue to throw money at these scrubs.

AMAZINGness

Haven’t blogged on here in awhile, but new posts are on the way. Here’s a little something to hold you over…and yes, I definitely still have plenty of Hoosier spirit in me…