Success

Want to Capture the Spotlight? Be Successful

Jan 5, 2011 By Mark Evans in Blogs, Media, Social Media 1 Comment Tags: Blogs, Media, start-ups, Success

Over the past two years, I have worked with a lot of start-ups looking to establish themselves and attract media and blogger coverage. After all, what better way to jump-start your business than quality coverage from high-profile newspapers and bloggers.

The problem is there are dozens, if not hundreds, of new start-ups looking to capture the spotlight each and every day. Even if you have created a better mousetrap, it doesn’t guarantee coverage. It can be a frustrating because there are start-ups with amazing technology and innovative services that fail to get even a sniff of attention.

The problem is there is too much digital noise and competition, which makes rising above the crowd challenging.

The start-ups that do get coverage in the New York Times and blogs such as TechCrunch are anomalies. For whatever reason, they have the right story at the right time, and it has little to do with the quality of their technology, service or the excellent pitches crafted by PR agencies.

So how does a start-up attract media and blogger coverage? The answer is simple: be successful.

It’s not enough to have an innovative product or service; what really matters is if you can attract enough users or customers to validate that what you are doing is interesting or, at least, newsworthy.

Only then will your story start to resonate with reporters and bloggers. It really boils down to what reporters and bloggers like: success or failure. If you’re wildly successful, that’s interesting. If you explode and make millions of dollars in venture capital disappear, that’s interesting. If you’re a start-up with an innovative service but few users, that’s not interesting or newsworthy.

Does this mean start-ups with few users give up on trying to get media and blogger coverage? Probably not. What it does suggest, however, is having realistic expectations about how much attention you will attract when there are few people using your product or service.

Rather than being disappointed when the world doesn’t beat a path to your door, a better approach is focusing on improving your product or service, and growing the business. Don’t worry about attracting attention from reporters or bloggers. If you’re business becomes a success, you can hit them again with a much more interesting story.

Bottom line: If you’re a start-up with no or few customers or users, getting media or blog coverage is a major challenge. It doesn’t mean what you’re doing isn’t interesting; it just means that it’s not newsworthy until more people endorse that what you’re doing is worthy writing about.

Six Tricks to Happy Blogging

Jul 12, 2010 By Mark Evans in Blogs, Social Media No Comments Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Success, tips

Last week, the Sysomos blog (which I write as part of my role as director of communications) became a member of AdAge’s Power 150, which features the leading marketing blogs. It’s great to be recognized for creating blog posts that you hope provide information, insight and value. At the same time, it’s also important to realize that blogging isn’t sexy or easy; it takes a lot of work and effort – and I’m not even talking about the “pro” bloggers at places such as TechCrunch, GigaOm or ReadWriteWeb that pump out multiple posts a day.

When I look at my own blogging activity (I also write a blog about Twitter called Twitterrati), here are my personal “rules”:

1. Be true to your interests and passions as opposed following the crowd or the hot news of the day. While it’s great to be in middle of the biggest story of the day, it’s also a noisy place with lots of competition for eyeballs. While playing in this sandbox is fine from time to time, a better place is sticking to topics that interest you.

2. Forget about trying to compete with the professional blogs such as TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. They’re online publishing machines with a mandate to generate lots of posts to attract readers and provide real estate for ads. These blogs have writers who post around the clock, which means they easily outgun the rest of us. While it used to be sort of easy to go head-to-head, those days are long gone, which explains why there are so few individual bloggers on the Techmeme Leaderboard.

3. Don’t force it. Sometimes, ideas for blogs just flow like water; sometimes, ideas are few and far between. If a blog post just isn’t happening, walk away from the keyboard. In fact, the best ideas for posts come when you’re doing something else other than being online. While Seth Godin or Chris Brogan would likely shiver at the thought, it’s actually okay not to write a blog post every single day.

4. Focus on quality, not quantity. This is related to points #2 and #3 but make sure whatever you do – whether it’s a 750-word opus or a 100 mini-post – offers some kind of value. For mental “burps”, use Twitter.

5. Don’t worry about the numbers. Sure, it’s great to have a lot of readers but “success” for most of us has more to do with who reads our posts as opposed to how many people read them. For most people, blogs can be a terrific vehicle to be part of the conversation, and show your insight and perspective. Unless you’re into blogging for the money, this is as important as having lots of readers.

6. Have fun. For most of us, blogging isn’t a job; it’s a passion. Enjoy the ability to write in a public forum with few barriers to entry. It wasn’t that long ago that writing and being able to reach a large audience was limited to journalists. Today, anyone can do it.

What are your secrets to happy blogging?

The Ingredients for Startup Success

Jul 9, 2010 By Mark Evans in Web 2.0, Web-based Services 4 Comments Tags: ingredients, startups, Success, sysomos

In my post about the success of Sysomos (which was acquired by Marketwire earlier this week), I talked about how Sysomos benefited from great timing – having the right product at the right place at the right time. This, of course, is just one of the many ingredients that, along with a healthy dose of luck, have required for successful startups.

So, what else does an online startup need to make it?

1. Perhaps the biggest “ingredient” is having a service that meets a need in a new or different way. Too many startups are vanity projects that cater to someone’s personal interests or needs as opposed to the larger market. They fail because they serve a niche that is far too small to create a viable company.

2. The service must be easy to “get” what the startup is offering and why a potential user should care. In the multi-tasking, time-strapped world in which we live, startups have small windows of opportunity to capture someone’s attention.

If consumers fail to quickly understand the service is being offered, they’ll quickly move on. This means a startup needs messaging that is clear, well-articulated and user-friendly. I’m personally a big believer in the power of the demo video because many people will watch a video before reading even the most well-written text.

2. The service or product has to do the job well. This is something that should be a given but you’d be surprised by how many startups create mediocre or, worse, bad services. This includes startups that launch an alpha or beta that instantly disappoints. Even if the messaging is clear, a bad service will quickly kill any interest from consumers.

4. The service has to be intuitive and user-friendly. Any hurdles, or “grit”, will quickly kill any kind of traction. This starts from the registration process to how quickly someone can start using the service or product. People have little patience, and want a gentle learning curve so having a service that is intuitive and user-friendly.

5. Fanatical customer service is also a key ingredient, particularly in the early days when a service is still being developed. The ability to quickly and effectively deal with problems or issues and actively solicit suggestions and feedback can make a huge difference.

6. Identify and nurture your champions and evangelists. As much as great messaging, terrific customer service and being active within the social media community are must-dos, the real marketing magic happens when a user is so excited with a service that they enthusiastically and actively start telling anyone and everyone. By identifying and supporting these people, a startup can jump-start its marketing and sales efforts.

There are, of course, a lot of other variables that go into creating successful startups such as having terrific employees and, if required, financing, but the ones above are “low-hanging fruit”.

What do you think are the most important “ingredients” for a successful startup?

Social Media is Not About Being Wildly Successful

May 28, 2010 By Mark Evans in Social Media 13 Comments Tags: digitcom, Social Media, starbucks, Success

I gave a presentation yesterday at the Visability conference yesterday, which naturally included examples of companies that have been very successful using social media. In thinking about the companies to highlight, I tried to stay away from the usual suspects – Comcast, Starbucks, Dell, IBM, etc.

It’s not that these companies aren’t good example, it’s that they are used time and time again to demonstrate the potential of social media, and why companies should be enthusiastically embracing it.

One of the problems is these examples provide a skewed view of how social media works. It gives companies the impression that if they get into social media, they too also enjoy wild success and a surge in popularity. If the old, if they can do it, you can do it too.

The reality is Starbucks, et al are anomalies. Through a combination of luck, timing and smart creative, they’ve hit the social media jackpot. Like a lottery, lots of companies are buying social media “tickets” but few of them win.

Perhaps a better approach in selling the benefits of social media is talking about companies that are enjoying solid success – however you want to define “success” – as opposed to extraordinary success. Maybe we should be talking about companies that have embraced social media, and made it an important part of their business operations.

A good example is Digitcom.ca, a telecom equipment reseller. A year ago, the owner, Jeff Wiener, approach me about starting a blog. I put together a strategic and tactical plan, and helped him set up The Telecom Blog.

Since then, Jeff has really worked it, and made it one of the most popular telecom blogs in Canada. It may not attract a huge number of visitors but the blog has helped bolster the profile for Digitcom and Jeff. It has opened doors for Jeff that may not have presented themselves otherwise, and it’s given Digitcom a bigger digital presence.

In many respects, Digitcom is a social media success story that is a lot more relevant and realistic for companies looking at social media. It provides a better idea of what social media can deliver without setting expectations that are far too ambitious or high.

What do you think? Are we guilty of over-hyping the mega-success stories in social media?

The Secret of Blogging Success

Apr 17, 2010 By Mark Evans in Blogs 6 Comments Tags: 1000 awesome things, Blogs, Success

What makes a blog successful? Why do some blogs thrive while others struggle to attract any kind of readership?

If I knew the answers to these questions, Mark Evans Tech would be a TechCrunch or a Mashable as opposed to a modest little writing project that chugs along on enthusiasm, curiosity and early-morning coffee

My thoughts about blogging success versus blogging anonymity were sparked by a recent article in the Toronto Star about “1000 Awesome Things”, a blog devoted to putting the spotlight on life’s small pleasures – e.g. the smell of a bakery, catching food in your mouth or taking a spin on grocery cart.

The blog isn’t rocket science or amazing prose but, for whatever reason, it has resonated with people to the tune of 40,000 visits a day. Please don’t take my description as criticism because the writer, Neil Pasricha, has hit upon a wildly successful formula that has led to two Webby awards and a book, “The Book of Awesome”, that comes out this week.

The blog’s success is one of the reasons why blogging is so intriguing, exciting and mysterious. With no barriers to entry, the blogosphere welcomes with open arms anyone and everyone looking for a public platform. In theory, anyone has a shot at becoming a blogging superstar by simply having the right content at the right time that captures the imagination of lots of people.

Another great example of this phenomena is “Stuff White People Like”, which became all the rage by being different, quirky, irreverent and entertaining.

On the flipside, a blog that my brother, Sean, and I wrote for about a year called “Four Reasons Why” (which has disappeared into the digital ether) had very little success even though we thought it was creative, original and different.

Four Reasons Why offered four reasons about a wide variety of topics such as “Why Ketchup is Better than Mustard”, or “Why Thanksgiving is the Best Holiday of the Year”. It was a labour of love that eventually ran out of steam partly because the audience was so small.

1000 Awesome Thing’s success demonstrates one of the awesome things about blogging – the fact that anyone has a shot of making it..and making it big.

What do you think makes a blog successful? Are there any secrets?

More: Speaking of blogging and success, Tumblr has sort of rejected the idea of embracing advertising, according to the LA Times. “We’re pretty opposed to advertising,” said founder David Karp.

Why Do Some Online Services Thrive?

Sep 28, 2009 By Mark Evans in Web 2.0 12 Comments Tags: dropbox, freemium, KISS, Success

Last week, TechCrunch reported that Dropbox had attracted two million users, just four months after it reached the one million active user mark. It got me thinking about why some online service become so popular, while the vast majority struggle to get any kind of traction no matter how hard they try.

Now, if anyone had the definitive answer, they’d be sitting on a pile of gold. But there are some fundamental things that wildly popular online service have in common.

1. They meet a basic need that quickly resonates with users. For Dropbox, it’s a simple proposition: the ability to synch files across multiple computers. For people who work in multiple places or have multiple computers, Dropbox is a service that quickly strikes a chord.

2. They’re user-friendly and easy to use. These kind of services do what they need to do without unnecessary frills or feature creep. There’s nothing that kills a good idea than developers who believe that more (features) is better. This only confuses users by giving them too many options. At the end of the day, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is a much better approach.

3. The barriers to entry are low because the basic service is free, while premium services are available for people who want more features, data, etc. For all the talk about freemium, the most successful online services seem to thrive because they make it easy for users to join the fray.

4. They have a user-friendly, intuitive interfaces that are accessible. Services that feature this kind of interface make it easy to people to quickly climb on board. Once people start using the service, they tend not to leave. In other words, the “bounce rate” is pretty low.

5. They tell great stories. There’s so much competition that success can often hinge on how well their stories are crafted and delivered. The ability to tell a good story can make a huge difference compared with other services that may be as good but don’t tell their stories as well.

Any other things that help make online services successful?