Real Example of the Power of Social Media

The above ad for Motrin went up on their website late yesterday afternoon. After only 20 hours and a huge blogger and twitter outcry, motrin.com was taken down. Here's a link to one of the bloggers who spoke out. David Armano has provided a more complete analysis of the entire event along with some advice for brands.

Times are indeed changing for companies. Social media's reach and influence is broad and word spreads quickly over loosely knit networks of passionate people.

In addition to David's advice I would say

1. Get to know the social media community. Find the bloggers in your target market.
   Reach out to them. Ask them what they think of your campaign messaging.
2. Baseline the community talking about your products and services with social media measurement applications.
   
3. Monitor increases in discussion volume and sentiment. Live monitoring will provide an early warning system if an adverse reaction to the campaign forms.
4. And most importantly, reach out to the community when warranted. Motrin must be commended for their genuine outreach once they determined the ad wasn't being well received.
   

11+ tips to help survive the downturn from John Doer

Came across this blog entry from Christine.net recording the 11 things John Doer says entrepreneurs should do to survive in an economic downturn. I've copied below and you can get to the full post here. Thanks for blogging this Christine.

1. Don't take a meat cleaver to the core of your business; use a scalpel when making changes.
2. Cut once, and cut deeper than you need to.
3. Keep 18 months of cash flow, being conservative on cash flow from revenue.
4. Defer facilities expansion – don’t spend money on tech or physical expansions.
5. Reevaluate R&D priorities.
6. Renegotiate all contracts that you have, even leases.
7. Remember that everyone in the company needs to be selling the value proposition.
8. Offer people equity instead of cash – e.g., equity bonuses.
9. Secure the cash with things like government-backed securities.
10. Figure out what the leading indicators are for your business so that you can react quickly when things don’t turn out.
11. Communicate honestly with everyone, including all employees, and don’t sugarcoat things.

I really like 11 and think it builds respect and trust. We're all in the boat together after all.

I would say two additions are:

• Truncate deals that are not core to your value proposition. Unless you are still firmly in experimental mode with plenty of cash and small burn SELL WHAT YOU HAVE! Also goes back to the tenets of Focus, Focus, Focus
  
• Pay attention to cost of sales - do you need to travel or can more be squeezed out of inside selling efforts?

Obama leading in the blog wars

Collective Intellect posted our take on the election from a quantitative evaluation of social media perspective. We compared Colorado blogs to blogs across the nation to determine both the buzz around the candidates and net sentiment towards each candidate. The result was a Barack Obama lead by nearly 10 percentage points. Read the full blog post here.

Hallogorgeous

Sent from my iPhone- Just finished up an interesting breakfast with the head of
research for SAP -thanks Vista Ventures!- and walking to work caught
this shot of boulder creek. Has been a beautiful fall here and puts
the financial climate in perspective. Have a great Halloween everyone!

Obama - Palin

Sent from my iPhone- Saw this sign in an optical shop window in NYC. Too funny.

Techno trash

Sent from my iPhone- note the Enterprise Java Beans book in the lower left of the
picture. Just below it are a stack of Encyclopedia Britannicas from
the 70s. Apropos.

Hotel Lobby, Redeye Daze

Sent from my iPhoneHanging out in the lobby of the west side central park Woogo. Caught
the redeye into NYC this morning for a quick two days of meetings. Am
thinking through a blog entry on search but feeling a little fuzzy ;)

focus, focus, focus

I'm sure all of you have seen the "RIP goodtimes" slide deck from Sequoia a couple of weeks ago. Well here's another deck that someone presented last week at the Web 2.0 Expo in Europe. It underscores some of the recommendations in the Sequoia deck but also gives a positive spin on why this is the best time to make advances in the market. Stay Lean, Stay Strong, Deliver Value. These are tough times but the worse the situation, the greater the opportunity.

Thoughts on European Start Ups

From: cape, 4 days ago

Thoughts on European Start Ups

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: startups vc)

SlideShare Link

Banner Ad Protest

I noticed this morning that my blog is now almost exclusively running a banner advertisement for Freedomswatch.org. These guys are a well funded interest group to promote conservative values and while I share the fiscal responsibility portion (i.e. libertarian) of the conservative agenda, the kind of pro-war fear mongering this promotes is sickening. Check your blog ads. Until google allows me to edit which ads appear in the banner I'm taking 'em down...

Of note, as reported by the Politico, the Democratic Chairman of the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen, has taken notice of Freedoms Watch:

According to Van Hollen, one of several factors that helped Republicans in Ohio was the third-party money spent by Freedom's Watch, a conservative organization headed by former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. The group spent in the six-figures on an anti-Weirauch attack ad accusing her of supporting "free healthcare for illegal aliens."

"As we saw again in OH-05, our main competition is likely to be Republican 527s, not the NRCC. This cycle Republican 527s have pledged more than a quarter billion dollars toward beating Democrats," Van Hollen wrote in the memo.

The chairman predicted that Freedom's Watch is prepared to spend "an additional $200 million" against Democrats this election cycle.

Further proof that Chris Van Hollen still doesn't really know what he's talking about, Freedoms Watch is actually a 501(C)4 and not a 527.

But seriously: $200 million to help defeat Democrats, folks. That's going to change the landscape for 2008.

The mission of Freedoms Watch:

Freedom's Watch was formed to promote the common good and general welfare of the American people by supporting mainstream conservative public policies. We engage in grassroots lobbying, education and information campaigns, and issue advocacy to further our goals and objectives. We also seek to create coalitions and collaborate with like-minded groups and individuals to further our common goals. Freedom's Watch provides a credible conservative voice and strong leadership on pressing domestic and international issues to keep America strong, safe, and prosperous.

Signs you are no longer in a startup

You wake up one day and the company you started is no longer in it's infancy. This didn't really happen overnight but somehow it feels like it. I sat down with another local entrepreneur for a cup of coffee the other day and created this list of signs that you're no longer in startup mode. That doesn't mean you don't still have a sense of urgency or passion, just that you've passed into another phase of company building and all that comes with it.

• You have meetings about meetings
• You have revenues and are less worried about eyeballs or page views than revenue growth
  
• There are people working at the company you haven't yet met
  
• The whiteboards are better than the mylar sheet you can buy at home depot for $20
• More than one conference room
• The board is made up of more investors than entrepreneurs
  
• Sales people
• A second office somewhere else on the planet
• COO
• A formalized vacation policy
• Not sure what other people at the company are doing over the weekend
• Rotten food in the fridge. (also a sign that people are beginning to think that others will take care of things)
  
• Printer is almost always out of paper when I go to print something (see previous point)
  
• Someone you randomly meet at a conference has heard of your company
• Other companies are calling your company seeking partnership
• Expense checks are doled out on schedule
• More than one floor in your office space
• Company events have become more generalized to meet the interests of the larger group
• You've become self conscious of saying "fuck" in the office

I'm certain there are at least 100 others I've left off...