Zero to Social – taking the social media marketing leap

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments

Everyone sees that the role social media plays in marketing is growing quickly if not exponentially. There were 4 Billion Tweets on Twitter in 2009 – analysts predict 40 Billion in 2010. Marketers hear about the millions of dollars in revenue Dell has generated. Reports of major brands increasing social marketing budgets, moving spending from print and TV. It’s a gold rush. (more…)

DEMOfall08 – Must attend conference

Posted on 15. Sep, 2008 by Dean Whitney in Uncategorized   and has   0 Comments

DEMO has become one of my ‘must attend’ conferences. In fact I opted to attend DEMOfall08 over Techcrunch50 and the Web 2.0 Summit in NYC. Here are a few reasons I attend this conference:

  1. See the presentations: The technologies and solutions provide insight on trends and innovation that add invaluable perspective for me that I can use for consulting and shaping our offerings. I’ve suggested to many vendors and start-ups that they watch the DEMO presentation videos and develop the same presentation format. At DEMO each presentation is 6 minutes and PowerPoint is not allowed.
  2. Identify partners: For brands it doesn’t make sense to build most of the engagement technology that applies to their campaigns and business. Leveraging ‘off the shelf’ solutions and SAS components lowers risk and reduces time to market. In most cases provide greater quality and functionality than could ever be achieved in a reasonable amount of time and investment.
  3. Discuss business: Its a great opportunity to discuss business with like minded entrepreneurs. Regardless of what kind of product or service we are providing we all face similar challenges. Staffing, innovation, leadership, outsourcing, funding etc., a few ideas can go a long way. DEMO attracts very experienced and qualified people that have been around the block a few times.

There were too many great solutions to discuss in this article; I will go into more detail on some in the near future. If you are a die-hard technologist, investor, entrepenuer or media/PR person I suggest you register for DEMO09 – I’ll see you there.

Photos

Angelsoft 3.0 – Web 2.0 matchmaker for angels and ideas

Posted on 02. Sep, 2008 by Dean Whitney in Social Media, Web 2.0 Technology   and has   0 Comments

Angelsoft announced today their new release of their angel investor marketplace. I’ve heard the complaint that there was the application/quality ration was far too low on Angelsoft so they have built in some great crowdsourcing tools that allows members to rate both applications and portfolios. They have also reduced the number of applications, or how many angels an entrepreneur can submit an idea to. They have also included a Google mashup showing deals by location and they have a comprehensive listing of angel investors that you can sort and search through – that alone is a great resource. Unlike many Web 2.0 sites; its not free but if you have a great idea and have done the leg work its certainly worth the $250 to sign-up.

Angelsoft 3.0 Introduction Video from Angelsoft on Vimeo.