Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs – by Dan Schawbel
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Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs
March 12th, 2009 | by Dan Schawbel145 Comments
Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog.
Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground.
Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure.
Have another social site to add to this list? Tell us about it in the comments.
1. Entrepreneur Connect
Entrepreneur Media, the company that produces Entrepreneur Magazine, started a social network over a year ago specifically for entrepreneurs and small business owners called Entrepreneur Connect. Like all social networks, you have the opportunity to create your own profile, explore the community, share ideas with other entrepreneurs and network. Unlike most social networks, this one frowns upon too much self-promotion and applauds idea sharing.You can use this network to connect to service providers, suppliers, advisers and colleagues. Just like LinkedIn and Facebook (
), there are professional groups that you can join or create. Another cool feature is that you’re able to start your own blog and possibly have it appear on the main page. This is similar to what Fast Company has done with their website.
2. PartnerUp
PartnerUp is a social network for entrepreneurs who are searching for people and resources for business opportunities. Anyone can join, but business partners, co-founders, executives and board members will get the most out of this one. In this network, you can ask or offer advice, find commercial real estate and find service providers like accountants and marketers for your business.The big differentiator with this social network is the commercial real estate “MoveUpSM” program that serves entrepreneurs who have experienced a hard time trying to find office space for their business. They also have a Resource Directory that allows small and mid-sized businesses to advertise their services.
3. StartupNation
Most social networks neglect the content aspect that makes StartupNation so useful. With articles, forums, blogs, on-demand seminars, and podcasts, entrepreneurs will be better prepared for their ventures and have the resources required to make better business decisions.
There are a wide range of topics being discussed on StartupNation right now, including business planning, marketing and web-based business. The site also offers a series of competitions, such as a dorm-based 20 contest and an elevator pitch competition. If you’re an entrepreneur or hope to become one, this site is definitely one you can’t miss out on.
4. LinkedIn
It’s difficult to leave LinkedIn () off of any social networking list because it’s so useful for anyone who’s either searching for a job, is trying to network with like-minded individuals, or building a company. LinkedIn offers many resources for entrepreneurs, such as groups, including the very popular “On Startups” group that has over 54,000 members.
Entrepreneurs on LinkedIn should brand themselves properly so they can attract the right kind of business opportunities, and perform searches to find service providers or partners. As an entrepreneur, you should also be looking to participate in LinkedIn Answers, events and applications to spruce up your profile and become a valuable member to your community.
5. Biznik
This isn’t another LinkedIn clone. Instead, Biznik brands itself as a social network that “doesn’t suck.” The Biznik community is composed of freelancers, CEOs, and the self-employed. Like the other networks, this is a place for you to share ideas, instead of posting your resume. It is mandatory for all members to use their real names and provide real data, and Biznik editors actually review all profiles to ensure compliance with that policy. There are three levels of membership, including basic, active ($10 a month for an enhanced profile) and supporting ($24 a month for increased visibility).
6. Perfect Business
If you want to meet thousands of serious entrepreneurs, experts and investors from a variety of industries, then Perfect Business might be the perfect social network for you. The type of people you’ll find are potential business partners, potential clients and advisers. Additionally, the site has leading business partners like Entrepreneur and Virgin Money.
From business networking to a video center where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, a business plan builder and even an investor center, you’ll have most of the resources you need to create or regenerate your business. There is a free basic membership and a gold membership that costs $29.99 per month.
7. Go BIG Network
The Go BIG Network embraces job seekers, in addition to funding sources, service providers and entrepreneurs. In this social network, you post requests for help, which are then routed to other people in the network that can answer your questions or support you. Members of this social network can search through profiles of other members, contact them or post a request (a classified ad) to talk about what they are looking for (such as a business partner). The profiles on this network are targeted and specific so it’s easy to find an investor in a particular region.
8. Cofoundr
The Cofoundr network is made up of idea makers, entrepreneurs, programmers, web designers, investors, freelancers and executives. The primary purpose of joining this network is to start a new web venture. Unlike most of the social networks already listed here, Cofoundr is a strictly private network, which means that you can’t view member profiles before you register for an account.Membership requires having a valid university or work email address, which means high schools students and younger aren’t allowed. The first thing you have to do is sign up, then specify your abilities and the people you are trying to network with and finally, post your idea on the bulletin board or in the forum.
9. The Funded
The Funded is an online community of entrepreneurs who research, rate and review funding sources. Entrepreneurs can view and share terms sheets to assist each other in finding good investors, as well as discuss the inner workings of operating a business. General benefits of this site include viewing facts, reviews and commentary on funding resources, and accessing RSS feeds of the most recent public comments by members.
By joining the site, you have access to detailed fund profiles with specialty, reference investments, and investment criteria, in addition to accessing partner vCards that have full contact information of all partners at venture funds. In order to get any value out of this social network, you pretty much have to become a member.
10. Young Entrepreneur
If you’re young, entrepreneurial and socially active or just curious, then Young Entrepreneur is a great starting point for you. This community appears as a discussion forum, with topics such as e-commerce, search engine optimization, marketing, IT & Internet, and franchising. Aside from their main forum and threads, there is a popular blog and some great videos.
Tips for using Linked In
I wrote one of my best evergreen articles on using LinkedIn eight months ago–when I shared 10 tips to use the networking site professionally.
Recollecting last night’s social media workshop led by Tyson Goodridge when more time was spent talking about Facebook and Twitter than LinkedIn, I think it’s worthwhile to expand upon the 10 tips and offer 12 ways how you should use LinkedIn today.
- If you have a LinkedIn profile, please keep it updated. If you want to know why, ask your friend to open his or her web browser and search your name. Chances are, unless you are omnipresent everywhere online or your name is very common like John Smith (not that I’ve ever met anyone with that name), your LinkedIn profile will appear in the top 5 search engine results. That’s why it should be updated.
- Fill your profile with colorful language, not drab resume-speak. There is a reason why the site is called LinkedIn, not ResumePlace. Verify the headline either is a mirror of your job title or a description of what you do. Change your headline as often as you’d like; mine currently states, Online media strategist and community manager for business and government, and Newburyport City Council candidate. Flesh out the summary and don’t be afraid it’s too long. Most summaries I see are too short. Which leads me to…
- Write in first person, not third. Unless you introduce yourself in third person at job interviews, cocktail hours, and networking mixers, keep your page about you in your words. Be transparent to who you are, not a third-person essay of what you’d like people to think you are.
- Upload the same photo you use elsewhere online. Ensure the picture is what you look like today, or within the past few months. Don’t use a picture that’s more than a year old. Again, think of the cocktail hour; unless you wear a mask to the event, show me who you are and what you look like.
- Join a group. Prove to me that you can connect to random people who share your beliefs. The more groups you join, the better. But don’t overdo it. You can also choose, when joining groups, whether they appear on your public page or not. If you look at my page, I am displaying a fraction of the groups in which I belong. Don’t display irrelevant groups to the rest of your profile.
- Ask and answer questions. Social media is about a dialogue; and the more questions you ask, the more frequently your connections will see the questions you ask in their streams. The more questions you answer, the more likely your answer will be marked “the best” and appear next to your name for future questions and answers. There are dozens of topics you can participate in, so go crazy. I was selected for having the best answers in selected questions on blogging, organizational development, and using LinkedIn.
A recent answer of mine on LinkedIn- Don’t accept every connection request. This is a controversial topic, as some people prefer to use LinkedIn like a typical job recruiter and be connected to anyone and everyone; I am in the other camp. If we’ve met in person or communicated enough times online–if you’re someone I trust and respect and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to someone who asks for a referral, then I’ll connect with you. But if I don’t know who you are, I’ll archive your request, nicely reply no thanks, and ask you to connect with me elsewhere as a precursor. The caveat is if you’re seeking to hire me and indicate that in your introductory message, I’ll say yes.
- Don’t mirror your LinkedIn network with other social networks. Just because we’re friends on Facebook or mutually connected on Twitter doesn’t necessarily imply I will connect with you on LinkedIn. Point is, you can always decline. (Try not to click the “I Don’t Know” button which has negative consequences; just archive the request.)
- Recommend your connections. Whether someone is a friend, a colleague, a co-worker, a teacher or student, or any other connection to you, recommend the person. Some suggest you should recommend a new person every day, a strategy I sometimes commit for a few days and then forget to continue. You don’t have to work with someone to recommend him or her. I’ve recommended (and been recommended by) people whose blogs I respect, for instance. Just don’t add two sentences; make your recommendation prolific.
- Ask your connections to recommend you. Sometimes, people will recommend you if you recommend them first. Other times, they won’t. Either way, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
- Add applications to your profile. If you have a blog, there are applications to add recent posts. If you travel a lot and like to share where you go, or attend networking events, there are applications you may want to add to your profile. If like me, you have a Slideshare account for your presentations, link that.
Most importantly, be a person, not a robot. If you’re not connected to someone on LinkedIn and would like to be connected, don’t accept the default invitation text that would arrive in my inbox like this:
Dear Ari,
I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
-John
Tell me why you want to connect with me, for your assumption may be different than mine. Again, think of the cocktail party. If you give the same business card to every person with the same line, “Call me,” then please send the default invitation. But if you give the business card to people and personalize the action, why not echo that on LinkedIn?
How to avoid the next Ponzi scheme
Bernard Madoff scammed an estimated $50 billion from his investors over a 20-year period. Why was nobody watching? There are countless ways to perform due diligence, but many methods miss the mark. While it’s easy to blame the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for missing the signs and accusations, there is a long line of interested parties who also failed to clue in to Madoff’s scam.
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One lesson to be learned by this event is that due diligence means more than just dropping by for a visit or relying on the opinions of others. It’s a methodology that encompasses all aspects of an investment management organization, including investment policy, trading patterns and verification of investment returns. While there is no official handbook or checklist, a skilled due diligence team has the experience and know-how to complete the process. (For more, read the Investment Scams Tutorial.)
Hedge Funds and Fraud
While its easy for the hedge fund community to defend itself by pointing the finger back at corporate America’s debacles like Enron and WorldCom, the temptation and accessibility to perpetrate fraud from a hedge fund requires much less coordination. Enron and WorldCom required collaboration from multiple areas in the company and implicated the accounting firms and banks that participated in the success of the company.
The passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was designed in part to eliminate that risk of collusion within large organizations and force management to take personal responsibility for the financial statements and opinions. While there is no guarantee this large cases of corporate fraud won’t happen again, there are now stronger laws in place to prevent it.
Proper due diligence works well when all of the information is readily available with regulated investment companies. In the case of hedge funds, the rules are quite different. The private offering status of hedge funds excludes them from both SEC registration and frequent reporting. While their reporting requirements are loosely defined, their obligations as a fiduciaries are the same as for everyone else in the investment management business.
Hedge funds’ lack of reporting requirements has left many opportunities for abuse and scams like Madoff’s. With no formal requirement for hedge funds to file audited financials, investors have to perform their own research or rely on third parties like feeder funds to perform the duties. In the Madoff case, it appears that everyone was looking the other way. Madoff had used a small accounting firm, which may have assisted Madoff in cooking the books; Madoff was able to fake the rest himself. (To learn more, see Taking A Look Behind Hedge Funds.)
The SEC’s Fumble in the Madoff Case
It’s obvious now why investors missed the signs of the Madoff scam: they were relying on third-party opinions about the investment in the Madoff funds. The third parties participated in the profits with commissions and finders fees. Madoff himself was well-respected in the community and his returns, while seemingly impossible to duplicate, were better than most funds and offered diversification against major asset classes. The opinions and support of the third parties provided a level of security for investors, because these third parties claimed to be conducting frequent due diligence.
As for the SEC, it made a number of visits to the Madoff offices, conducted some forms of their profiled evaluations and even investigated reports or misconduct. Unfortunately, they just did not dig deep enough. Instead, they made assumptions and took Madoff’s word on many occasions. They failed to evaluate even the most basic custodial statements which would have easily exposed the fund’s actual value. Even a random sampling of trading history would have at minimum raised some red flags. Unfortunately, the only upside of a major scam is to draw attention to lax standards and hopefully force investors to be more proactive in the future. While it’s easy to blame the SEC, you can only imagine the arduous task of reviewing and tracking such a large volume of companies with such limited resources. (For more, see our slideshow on Biggest Stock Scams.)
The Origins of Due Diligence
The term “due diligence” is used in many ways and has vague interpretations for many. Due diligence in its basic form is based on a certain standard of care or level of prudence. It can involve the evaluation of a person, a group or a specific act or set of events. It is considered an open format for the party or parties under evaluation, meaning that any segment of the business is open season for review and unfettered access must be granted. Businesses themselves conduct frequent internal evaluations as part of the normal operating procedure usually called internal audit or internal operating business review.
The origins of due diligence in the investment field can be found in the Securities Act of 1933, which used the term due diligence in its description of how a broker dealer would evaluate a security offered to an investor. This early groundwork provides a standard against which the modern business practice of review in the investment and investment banking industry has evolved.
Levels of Investment Research
Whether they realize it or not, individual investors perform their own version of due diligence when they read a prospectus before investing in a mutual fund. While this form is quite after the fact, it relies heavily on the many hands that participated in the process along the way. That’s one of the reasons a broker-dealer is required to provide a prospectus to investors before selling an investment to a client. (For more insight, see Don’t Forget To Read The Prospectus!)
Broker-dealers themselves perform a form of due diligence on the individual investors who buy in to their funds by evaluating their tolerance for risk and investment time horizon. This process shows that there are a number of due diligence processes occurring at the same time. With its various potential outcomes, it’s easy to assume that due diligence is a somewhat casual engagement, but in fact it its not. While there are various formats for due diligence, the evaluation of investment management firms, including hedge funds, follow a commonly accepted general plan and are much more formal.
4 Madoff-Proofing Portfolio Requirements
A robust due diligence plan includes a very comprehensive evaluation of the complete operation of a hedge fund, from the stated investment policy to the audited financial statements. These items would be considered a minimum requirement:
- A Strategy
A defined, written investment strategy must be determined. This is usually termed an “investment policy statement” or “investment management agreement” when written for specific clients - Historical Returns
Your portfolio’s historical returns, preferably in the format accepted by the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS), should be determined. GIPS is very comprehensive as it includes an accurate representation of a client’s historical performance in both relative and absolute returns. The fact that a firm has adopted the standard also suggests its commitment to honest reporting and accountability because doing otherwise would put its credentials are on the line. While there is no guarantee that the performance is 100% accurate, at least there is some transparency for the evaluation party to locate potential gaps. - Audited Financial Statements
Audited financial statements are required if the fund is registered and regulated by the SEC. Federal laws require companies that register and are regulated by the SEC to submit complete, accurate and truthful statements, which are prepared according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). It is also important to know who the independent auditor is and to do some research on it as they as well, as its opinions will provide a significant weight in the overall evaluation of the due diligence. - Current Prospectus
A current prospectus - or the equivalent of one in the form of an ADV – and a complete outline of the assets under management, risks taken, investment professionals’ biographies and actual copies of investment statements, preferably from a reputable custodian, are must-haves in the due diligence process. These documents should containing details regarding the valuations of investments, particularly those investment that are not actively traded with current market values. (For more on due diligence, see Due Diligence In 10 Easy Steps.)
The Bottom Line
In its purest form, due diligence does work. A methodical, complex review of all aspects of an investment management firm can provide a clear and concise summary of its merits. Hedge funds, on the other hand, require a more robust process of due diligence because they are not subject to the same reporting requirements as registered firms. The SEC has proved to be very effective in its pursuit of investigations, but missed opportunities to close in on the scam taking place right under their noses in the Madoff case. You can be assured that the SEC will be on the lookout for more Bernie Madoffs and will most likely be more proactive in the future. (For more on this topic, see our related article Hedge Fund Due Diligence.)
by Michael Schmidt (Contact Author | Biography)
Michael Schmidt, CFA earned an MBA from Loyola University of Chicago and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Mr. Schmidt contributes to the CFA Institute as part of the Educational Advisory Board helping shape future CFA exams and has been part of the annual grading team since 2001. He has spent 20 years working for management and consulting fields, such as William M. Mercer, INDATA and Coastal Asset Management. His roles there included asset allocation and integration of pension investment assets. As an analyst at Mellon Bank, Northern Trust and Evergreen, he provided buy side research while publishing reports on various buy side sites like Dutton, Investrend and InvestSource. He has also managed investment portfolios for the institutional and the ultra high-net-worth arena with specialties in value and quantitative equity styles and multiple fixed income strategies. Mr. Schmidt is currently working for the NASD (now FINRA) Dispute Resolution Board as an arbitrator, chairperson and professional mediator. He has also testified as an expert witness for claimants/plaintiffs and respondents/defendants. Mr. Schmidt also consults to the website Invest Safe as an expert witness. You can contact Mr. Schmidt through this page or locate his consulting services on www.liveperson.com
10 Ways to Support Charities using Social Media
#10Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media
Posted: 14 Jul 2009 09:02 AM PDT
This post is a collaboration between Mashable’s Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell’s “10 Ways” series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs.
Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.
Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.
1. Write a Blog Post
Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.
Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.
You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.
2. Share Stories with Friends
Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.
You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.
3. Follow Charities on Social Networks
In addition to sharing links to articles about issues that you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you’re increasing the size of their reach. When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it.
Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it’s a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers.
You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities:
Oxfam America (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube)
The Humane Society (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr)
LIVESTRONG (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr)
WWF (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr)
4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs
Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with non-profits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.
It’s important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they’re another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you’ll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.
5. Find Volunteer Opportunities
Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed, and Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the non-profit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers.
For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.
6. Embed a Widget on Your Site
Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money.
Mashable’s Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.
7. Organize a Tweetup
You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that’s important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real.
Be sure to check out Mashable’s guide to organizing a tweetup to make sure yours goes off without a hitch, or check to see if there are any tweetups in your area to attend that are already organized.
8. Express Yourself Using Video
As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real. You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message.
Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good. That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac — the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports.
If you’re more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities like Unicef and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital by sharing viral videos by e-mail.
9. Sign or Start a Petition
There aren’t many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change. There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years.
Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered. Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.
10. Organize an Online Event
Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized “tweet-a-thon” like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.
In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.
Bonus: Think Outside the Box
Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew’s Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew’s cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease.
Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.
The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments.
Special thanks to VPS.net
Facebook employees selling stock
Facebook doesn’t plan to go public for years, so it’s trying to keep employees happy in the meantime by letting them sell stock to Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies. Employees who own common stock can sell for $14.77 per share, starting now and continuing until sometime in August, DST tells me. The investment holding firm has previously bought around two percent of Facebook’s investor-class preferred stock for $200 million, and it plans to spend up to $100 million more buying stock from employees.
The question for Facebook’s nearly 1,000 employees (at least the ones who own stock), is whether they should sell now or not. The price is non-negotiable and DST has an exclusive deal to buy the stock. Employees cannot shop it around and try to get a higher price. But at least for those who want cash now, they have an option. Facebook first introduced the concept of letting employees sell stock last year, but suspended the program last fall as the economic recession grew worse — and as Facebook’s own value stayed murky. Here’s what chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says today:
While individuals must make their own decisions about participating in this program, I’m pleased that the price DST is offering is much greater than the price originally considered last fall. This is recognition of Facebook’s growth and progress towards making the world more open and connected.
The change in price is due to Facebook’s recently rising revenues. In 2008, the company brought in slightly less than $300 million from a mix of traditional and experimental advertising services and was not profitable. However, in 2009 it began seeing upticks in the new-fangled advertising options, including self-service ads popular with performance marketers, and ads that direct users to do things like join advertisers’ fan pages and events. In March, the company said it was beating 2008 revenues by 70 percent, leading us to calculate a 2009 revenue run-rate of more than $500 million. Other reporters have since confirmed this number. Most recently, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen said he expects the company will make billions in future years. Facebook itself expects its revenues to gradually rise as its user base continues to grow (it currently has 225 million monthly active users worldwide). It is designing the site to encourage people to share more and more information, then using data about people and what they share to better target ads.
So, despite many pundits doubting Facebook’s viability as a business over the past several years, the company seems to be coming into its own. Employees should think twice about selling any stock, because it looks set to go up in value.
DST, for its part, probably doesn’t want me saying that. While the common stock it’s buying from employees now doesn’t come with the sorts of investor privileges that its privileged stock did — typically, anti-dilution clauses in the event of future rounds, first liquidation preferences, etc. — it clearly wants any sort of Facebook stock it can get.
For those wondering about Facebook’s overall valuation, here’s a little more. The common stock sale price implies a company valuation of $6.5 billion, while DST’s preferred stock purchase earlier this year valued the company at $10 billion. These numbers may seem puzzling if you’re not familiar with the nuances of private company stock structures — the two numbers are not mutually exclusive. Common stock is typically worth less than preferred stock precisely because it does not come with investor rights and protections that make the preferred class of stock more valuable.
A final note about today’s news. As Zuckerberg suggests in his statement, the company’s valuation fell last year compared to 2007 when it raised $240 million from Microsoft at a $15 billion preferred stock valuation. But last summer, some former executives were going around selling (or at least trying to sell) their stock at reduced prices. Numbers I heard from potential purchases put them selling stock based on a $3 billion company valuation. It is clear today that those people could have made more from DST if they had waited. What about senior management currently at Facebook? Sources close to the deal tell me executives have some sort of separate program, and they’re not part of the DST deal now.
10 Largest Blogs (most followed)
Top 10 Most Popular Blogs: The Most Popular Top 10 Blogs Review
There are a lot of different ways to decide which blogs are the most popular- visitors, comments, revenue- here are some of the consistent leaders across all criteria:
Top 10 Most Popular Blogs:
1. The Huffington Post
They nailed the formula, have the funding, and basically set the tone for how a popular blog should look, act and behave. Breaking news that bills itself as the future of journalism and the “The Internet Newspaper.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
2. Tech Crunch
If you want to know all things tech and tech related about the web, from trends to news, this is the blog for you. Geeks writing about geeky stuff- it is THE source for technical news about the web. A must read. http://www.techcrunch.com/
3. Mashable
Mashable is everything social about the web. With great contributors and the ability to RIGHT ON breaking news, Mashable is always the go-to source for internet community news. They also have an impressive library of “How To” posts that can teach you all you need to know about things like Twitter and Facebook! http://mashable.com/
4. Boing Boing
Boing Boing is everything fun and quirky and culturally relevant going on on the interweb. You have to check it out to appreciate it- it has been following and setting trends for years. http://www.boingboing.net/
5. Pro Blogger
This has made other blog lists of mine, and with good reason. With thousands of blog posts going up everyday and new blogs constantly starting, all those bloggers need to turn to somebody for guidance- that person is Darren Rowse at Pro Blogger. If you blog, you need to read it. http://www.problogger.net/
6. Life Hacker
As they aptly and succinctly put it: “Tips and Downloads for getting things done.” If you have gadgets, go there http://lifehacker.com/
7. Post Secret
Where does the quirky art you put on your refrigerator live on the Internet? On Post Secret- “PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.”
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
8. Ezine Blog
Ezines Blog is a user-generated blog that has a gigantic fan base and consistently, if spotty quality, interesting material and posts. Think about if all that stuff you talked about with your friends in college were turned into blog posts… http://ezineblog.org
9. Seth’s Blog
Also on some of my other lists, Seth Godin is one of the most influential PR/Marketing/Etc. people on the Internet, a thought-leader and someone who has something pretty great to say everyday. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
10. Kahlee’s Blog: Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard
Somehow, people love this blog, written by the self-described Cheerleader on a Keyboard… “Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard! Observations and commentary by a modern libertarian cyberpunk on society, culture, politics and whatever. “ http://kahlees.wordpress.com/
Ad Spending on Social Networks
MySpace U.S. Ad Sales Expected to Fall While Facebook’s Rise
Posted: 09 Jul 2009 08:34 AM PDT
The folks over at MySpace sure have a lot on their plate, and the pressure is mounting. It’s no secret that the News Corp.-owned social network is playing catch-up with Facebook’s rising traffic, and the expiration date on its advertising deal with Google is looming. Now, in addition, U.S. advertising spending on MySpace is expected to fall 15 percent in 2009 to $495 million, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a study from research firm eMarketer.
News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, and the rest of the MySpace team better start making headway with their turnaround strategy for the social network — and fast, or falling behind in traffic won’t be its only Facebook-related worry. U.S. ad spending on Facebook is expected to rise 9 percent to $230 million in 2009, and the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is on track to exceed MySpace in advertising dollars by 2011, according to the Journal. Though Van Natta has been shaking things up at MySpace with a series of layoffs in the U.S. and abroad, it’s going to take more than downsizing to help the floundering social network regain the status it once held — if it can at all.
But MySpace isn’t the only one in trouble. Online advertising on social networks is expected to be down sharply from previous estimates in December. According to the Journal:
EMarketer predicts that U.S. ad spending on social networks will drop 3 percent to $1.1 billion this year. In December, it projected growth of 10.2 percent for 2009 to $1.3 billion.
A lot can happen before 2011, and MySpace will need to work something out with Google before that funnel of advertising revenue is cut off. MySpace still leads the social networks in U.S. advertising dollars, according to the Journal, and Murdoch has expressed that News Corp. is working hard to improve MySpace. It will be interesting to see how and when these changes on MySpace will happen, especially as Facebook keeps chugging ahead with over 200 million users and counting.
Some good quotes
You can’t get what you’ve never had without doing what you’ve never done
Leaders do not avoid or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
Necessity is the mother of invention
Successful people do that things that unsuccessful people don’t want to do
There are no failures, only quitters – Russell Simmons
Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing
Never regret. If its good its wonderful and if its bad, its experience
If there’s no struggle, there’s no progress
Winning is not the only thing… but only if you enjoy losing.
Connecting with people is an incredible skill… and you connect first in their world
…because that is where they live their life and where their interests and values lie.
It never ceases to amaze me how potential can be chiseled into a lame excuse for lack of action.
Leadership has a higher calling… a higher destiny… and a higher Path for Life.
Success is not what you think it is. It is what you believe it is, and most never believe.
Success never asks to be in your life… it asks if you are worthy for it to show up in your life.
Time is amazing…you spend it, and it multiplies… you invest it, and it intensifies… and you ignore
it… it passes you by.
Time has no favorites… and it doesn’t become kinder to one over another… it just gives us back…
what we put into it…
Goals are simply an image in your mind… that need to be crystallized on paper by your hand…
and embraced with your heart…
Goals are kind of like children… you pay attention to them, they evolve into something powerful…
you don’t… they evolve into something pitiful…
Leaders and Managers are different… managers ask How? Leaders ask Why? Managers say
“Do!”… Leaders say “Let us Do”…
Communication skills are the lifeblood of a successful life… if you plan on spending any time
there…
Communication is really all anyone ever gets paid for ultimately… and if you cannot effectively
communicate… you will PAY… not get paid…
Have you ever considered the cost of quitting? For a real eye opener… ask Thomas Edison…
Steve Jobs… Michael Jordan… Jim Carrey… ask them how much it would have cost them if they
had quit… what about you?
Winning isn’t everything, or even the only thing…it’s the single thing that determines
who gets the prize….
Persistence takes a focus that doesn’t see the obstacles but only sees the opportunity…
How in the world can someone say they are a loser when they made it over
millions of other “tadpoles” in their mother’s body? Incredible…
Organizing yourself is like eating candy, it makes you think twice about doing it… but once you
do…the outcome is SWEET!
Influence is a matter of trust and attraction… people are attracted to who you are… and trust where
you are going…
To inspire is an implant… to motivate is an injection… to manipulate is an infection…
Leaders know one thing… if they have no one following… it’s gonna be a long walk.
Working for a living is great… but only produces a living… nothing more…
Most people are too busy making a living to ever put more life in their living.
Life is like an apple… what you do with the core when it’s all said and done speaks volumes.
Motivation is said to be an inside job… actually it’s an inside career for very successful folks.
Productivity is determined not by work… but by EFFECTIVE actions disguised as work.
Wealth is a by product of persistence mixed with patience and wrapped with powerful belief.
Lack is more of an acceptance of it in your life than a condition… you accept it, and it shows
up…you refuse it… it goes away.
Lack is not something that happens to you… but within you.
Success can be measured easily… it’s the getting there that is rarely measured with most people…
nor tracked.
Being rich has more to do with a picture than a bank account… it is all about the picture you see in
your mind about your life… that determines what’s in your bank account.
Reality is… success rarely “shows up”…. it is lured and attracted day by day by the right actions,
thinking, and heart.
Your heart is the power core of all your success… no matter what you desire,
if your heart isn’t in it… then you will be without it.
Why do some people succeed and most don’t? Simple…True Expectations.
What we TRULY expect to happen in our lives… not want… does.
God has such a sense of humor… we have the opportunity to do whatever
we want with our lives… and He lets us!
Your thinking is simply a reflection… of your heart.
There is a difference between thoughts…and thinking… everyone has those familiar
daily thoughts… most never think past them.
Time is an interesting thing… it either molds you… or manipulates you… your choice.
Money is simply a tool… for success… or mediocrity… all depends on how you use it.
The heart of a leader is the heartbeat of a group… is your group on success life support?
Thinking has great value to most people… only when it is done though… which actually is rare…
Making a living is either a stairway to a coffin… or a stepping stone to greatness… your path awaits
you.
It has been said that success only shows up when determination does…but it must be powered by
a non-negotiable decision.
Have you ever really truly and honestly considered why you are not anymore successful? No?
Therein lays your problem…
Life is so hard… as I heard it once said… but only to those who are the walking dead.
Integrity is not something that you should have to think about… nor consider doing… but something
in the heart that is already done… then you will see long term success.
Patience is something that most people want… quickly.
The true secret to success lies within not the mind… nor actions… nor visions… but feelings…
which is a fruit of the heart.
Making excuses is akin to faking a limp… both are a reflection of your true desires for a crippled
life.
There is no reason to ever quit… unless of course you had no plans to ever succeed…that is called
“Delusional Success”…
Time is one of those things that can slip past you quietly and easily… or you can squeeze everything
you can out of it and it kicks and screams all the way to Success.
Time has no conscience… it doesn’t judge… it only mirrors… what you have put into your time… it
mirrors back as your life.
Powerful thinking creates a powerful energy in your life… but it all starts with a powerful “Heart
Set”… which creates a powerful Mindset.
The word LOSE simply stands for Lack Of Success Expectancy.
What you want in your life occasionally
shows up… what you must have… always does.
The sound of failure is such a familiar sound… it can be found in the center of excuses.
Life really does take some planning… and doing… and persisting… trouble is… most operate only
on a third of what it takes…
Leadership is the art of seeing the invisible… then touching it.
Leadership is simply an energy that mobilizes people and moves them beyond where they
believed they could go.
Leadership can be found in the most unusual and unexpected places… like in your daily routine
when you live your life… amazing.
Achievement to most people is something that you do… to the high achiever… it is something that
you are…
Looking is so very important… especially in success… because what you look to happen in your
life… usually does… sad part is… most are looking down when success passes by.
Goals are incredibly important… or impotent. You decide.
The life you are leading is simply a reflection of your thinking.
Your paycheck is only a result of your thinking…
Your success… or mediocrity… or failure… is simply a reflection of you’re thinking
Lost Art of Tagline
The “Lost Art” of the tagline
A tagline is one of the most cost effective ways to express the value of a brand. The advertisers of the past knew the art of the tagline and spent time, money, and research in developing a short and easy way to communicate a brand message. Here’s a few taglines, many of which have endured, some fallen by the wayside:
- You’re in good hands with Allstate. Allstate Insurance
- Reach out and touch someone. AT&T
- Cotton. The fabric of our lives. Cotton Incorporated
- Quality is job one. Ford
- Fair and balanced. Fox News
- They’re g-r-r-r-eat! Kellog’s Frosted Flakes
- Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. M&Ms
- M’m, m’m, m’m, m’m, m’m…toasty! Quiznos
- Eat fresh. Subway
- Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Timex
- Only you can prevent forest fires. U.S. Forest Service
- Can you hear me now?…Good! Verizon Wireless
- Where’s the beef? Wendy’s
Inbound Marketing University
Posted on July 7, 2009.
When I recently attended at Inbound Marketing University, coordinated by HubSpot. Make sure to check out these excellent resources on inbound marketing, available through HubSpot Inbound Marketing’s Presentations on SlideShare and the Inbound Marketing Wiki.
Class 4: Successful Business Uses for Facebook and LinkedIn (GF202), Professor: Elyse Tager (Silicon Valley American Marketing Association)
- How You Can Use LinkedIn: Homepage, Profile (importance, add apps, build in keywords), Company pages (profile and search), Build and Maintain a meaningful network, Join Groups, Ask/answer questions, Show up in Service Provider (request recommendations), and Polls.
- Your LinkedIn Profile contains a Summary (who are you, what do you do, and an elevator pitch that you want to optimize), Education (use for connections), Interests (may be too personal for business use – you decide), Security Settings (decide how open and visible you want to be), and a place for adding applications ( for credibility – depth).
- A LinkedIn Company Profile includes a description (with keywords, an elevator pitch, and logo) and employee information. All are searchable within LI and outside.
- On Facebook: Start by building a personal profile, with basic info, contact information, and education.
- With your privacy settings, control who can see how much of your profile, who can search for you, and how much they can see. You can also control what of your activity is visible on your wall and newsfeed.
- Facebook for business includes Fan pages, groups, events, ads, and metrics.
- Tips for setting up a Facebook Business Page: “Be sure to sign up as your first fan. Have 2 admins – in case one disappears. Update frequently. Add FB page to your email address – promote shamelessly, FB badge on blog. Create a beefy page – videos, blog posts, discussions, and photos.”
Class 5: Viral Marketing and World Wide Raves (GF301) Professor: David Meerman Scott (author of New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave)
- A “World Wide Rave” is when people around the world are “talking about you, your company, and your products.”
- Rules of the Rave: 1. Nobody cares about your products (except you). People do care about solving their own problems. 2. No coercion required. 3. Lose control. 4. Put down roots. 5. Create triggers that encourage people to share. 6. Point the world to your (virtual) doorstep.
- Publish content around buyer personas, instead of around your product. Buyer personas represent what you want you want buyers to believe about your brand. As an example, Scott described web sites for hotel chains, which could be so much more effective, if developers organized content around buyer personas, instead of around the product. For example, a hotel web site’s organization and content might reflect each of these different personas: business person, corporate travel manager, family on vacation, and couple planning a wedding. Blogs on the hotel web sites could reinforce these various personas. Scott mentioned HubSpot’s user persona for an Internet Marketing Manager, as “Internet Ian.”
- Let customers speak in their own language, not yours. Avoid corporate Gobbledygook (overused words and phrases), which is a symptom of not understanding your buyer personas. See the Gobbledygook Grader, available via HubSpot, to detect and revise Gobbledygook phrases. Keep in mind that visual Gobbledygook exists, too. (Pictures of happy, smiling corporate people, around the conference table, for example, which become visual cliches.)
Class 6: Advanced SEO Tactics: On Beyond Keyword Research (GF401) Professor: Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz)
- “Links, as they pertain to both the domain and the individual page, are vastly superior in importance to the page’s content.”
- What determines high search rankings: According to data, using Alt Text tags to describe images, having a keyword in the URL, and placing keywords closer to the left resulted in a higher search ranking.
- The data did not support a high correlation between using keywords in H1 Tags and search rankings, as much as expected.
- For high search ranking, substantive, unique Content is very important. Data suggests that W3C Validation and the code to text ratio are not very important. Static URLs are somewhat better than dynamic.
- Subdomains likely “DO NOT inherit all of the ranking benefits of the Root Domain, but neither are they completely separate entities.”
- Nofollowing a link no longer passes more juice through the remaining live links.
- The new methodology for sculpting page rank is to use iFrames to block access to links you do not want Google to see.
- Recommended Reading: www.seomoz.org/blog, www.searchengineland.com, www.seobook.com/blog, www.seroundtable.com, www.mattcutts.com/blog, www.distilled.co.uk/blog, and www.searchenginejournal.com.
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Recent
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- 10 Largest Blogs (most followed)
- Ad Spending on Social Networks
- Some good quotes
- Lost Art of Tagline
- Inbound Marketing University
- RunMyErrand.com
- Drip Marketing – Closing Sales
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