Leveraging Social Media

Leveraging Social MediaOR

Incubation 2.0

Dorai ThodlaTwitter: dorait,

email: [email protected]

6W Framework

Who Is Your Customer?

How Do You Reach Them?

How do they know you exist?

What Are Their Pain Points?

How Do You Find Out?

Why Should They Come To You?

Educate. Be very findable.

When Should They Consider Incubation?

What are their alternatives?

Where Do You Find Them?

What are their watering holes? Can you create a few?

Wearing A Startup Hat

What Do They Worry About?

Questions! Questions!• Funded or Bootstrapped?• Local or Global?• Products or Services?• Give it Away or Charge for it?• Breadth or Depth?• Low-end or high-end?• Use a platform? Or Be a platform?• Tools or Applications?• Improve Existing Product or Build New Product?• Incremental Innovation or Radical Innovation?• Established categories or New Categories?• Do I scratch my own itch or find a few people with itches?• Small or Big?• Direct Sales or through internet?• Java or dotnet?

And More Questions • What is the business model?• How does the world know we exist?• How do we keep up with information?• How do we validate an idea?• How do we know what it is worth?• How do we know that there is a market?• How do we get your first customer?• How can we be different?• What if I am a marketing guy?• What if I am a techie with no marketing expertise?• How can we ride a wave? How do I catch one?

Incubation 2.0

It is a PhilosophyEducate Entrepreneurs

Use Social Networks to Share Knowledge

Social Media Tools• Blogs• Wikis• Twitter (Micro-blogs)• Facebook• LinkedIn• Ning• Podcasting• Screencasting• Videos

Why Social Media?

Allows you to have conversations. Informs and educates and connects.

Some Winning Strategies

• Free Content of Value• How Tos• White Papers• Free Products• User Stories• Word of Mouth• Feedback • Deals and Offers• Awareness• Idea Funnels• Network of value creators for a startup

Eight Tips…• Think like a friend• Remember your strengths and play to them by being an expert, a

filter and a recommender(linker)• Be aware that your audience is bigger than the available evidence

provides – lurkers and future arrivals are part of the mix• Look for opportunities to provide support to users and chances to

build communities with your material• Help people cope with technology• Participate in the Web 2.0 world• Embrace the move towards mobility, constant connectivity,

perpetual contact• Ask for help/feedback

How Do You Leverage Each Social Media

Blogs

Blog about real stories, how-tos, resources. Offer free advice,

Wikis

Knowledge Repositories

Podcasts

Try to look at other models (Stanford ETL) and create a podcast series

SketchCasts and Videos

Demystify

Twitter and Other Microblogs

A hundred different uses for creating real-time streams

Facebook

Create a face book page

LinkedIn

Create discussion forums Answer as many questions as you can

What Is Your Social Media Strategy?

Connect (with users and among yourselfs). Educate. Share. Create a

Feedback Loop.

Time for a Virtual Networked Incubator?

Cross border? Can network to increase effort.

Questions?

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