Can Podcasting Help Your Brand?

Ever since my chat with Soundcloud founder, Alex Ljung, I've been thinking again about the value of podcasts as a way of marketing. You can get marketing value from podcasts in two ways:

1. By sponsoring a podcast that targets a similar audience to yours, and/or 
2. By hosting your own podcast. 

Many podcasts can be sponsored quite inexpensively. The big challenge, typically, is getting verified audience demographics. There are a few companies that specialize in this, such as Podtrack and Blubrry. I'm just starting to explore what they have to offer for you, and will report back soon. 

The benefit, of course, is that podcast audiences are typically quite engaged with what they are listening to, so if the audience demographic matches yours, this can be a very effective place to advertise. 

As to option 2, hosting your own podcast, that's a lot of work. For most small businesses and non-profits you are better off tapping in to someone else's podcast, as a guest and/or as a sponsor. 

What can retailers learn from the holiday season just past?

The sales leading up to Christmas are now long gone, but there are still some valuable lessons that can be learned from them. Software Advice, in this article, Five Strategies to Increase Holiday Retail Sales, by Michael Koploy, makes several good points which can be used at all times of year.

I was particularly intrigued by a campaign he mentioned by Uniform Advantage. They offered to give discounts on holiday shopping based on how many Facebook Likes they got, at a rate of 1% per thousand. If you wanted to buy their type of product, this would give you good incentive to Like them and to encourage your contacts to do so as well.

I just checked their page, and they are up to 8,830 likes. I don't know where they were at the beginning, but if they had just set up their site, that's pretty good.

Startup Interview Series: Soundcloud

I discovered SoundCloud when trying to find a good place to upload the interviews I'd done with people during LeWeb'll. Turned out that my teenage kids were already quite familiar with it, and my music-buff son was pretty impressed that I've now met and interviewed its founder, Alex Ljung.

Alex is a really interesting guy. Unlike so many web-preneurs these days who are obsessed with video and music-sharing, he's convinced that "the record button will by the next QWERTY" and that audio will be bigger than video.

His well-structured argument notes that, because we can consume audio while doing other things (such as driving), we can consume about four times as much of it each day than we can of video or written text.

"To send a tweet you have to click 140 keys; to send an audio clip you just have to press the REC button," he notes.

As an avid podcast listener, I was delighted by his thesis, particularly his complaint that we are "missing the sound forest by staring just at the music trees."

I think you'll find this interview interesting. Here it is. (Be patient; sometimes it takes a few seconds for the audio bar to appear. I'll have to discuss that with Alex!)
  Interview with SoundCloud founder, Alex Ljong by Tema Frank

Startup Interview Series: Beetmobile -- saving money on wifi

I interviewed several start-ups while I was at LeWeb'll in Paris last week. I'll link to them here as I get a chance to.

Cool idea: Beetmobile aims to save you on the costs of accessing wifi away from home, but letting you share your wifi connection with others nearby.

Fatal Flaw (unless they figure out how to overcome it): No way to ensure your privacy while sharing.

Interim Solution: Legal agreement when you sign up (I doubt that will do much to reassure people) and letting you meet the folks with whom you are sharing so there will be a social bond.

eMarketing Mama's Verdict:They've got to figure out the security if they want to have a hope.  I don't see this as a situation where people are  interested in being social. They are likely to be busy people on the go; they've got enough friends already.

Here's  my Beetmobile interview (It might take a couple of seconds to load). Beetmobile by Tema Frank

Evolving Web Trends & Groupthink -- LeWeb'11

It was impossible to attend all the things I wanted; there was so much! Here are notes on some of the sessions I attended. I'm also posting some of the interviews I did at http://soundcloud.com/temafrank. There will be more to come over the next few days.

The Freemium
In the "old days" everyone planned to fund their offerings through advertising. The current version of that is called the "freemium" model: give the basic functionality away free and charge for an upgraded version. This can work (e.g. Evernote, Dropbox), but I suspect far too many of these entrepreneurs are counting on it but won't get nearly the volumes required for it to work. Even the biggies find that it is a fairly small proportion of users who convert to the premium model. Think this through in your financial projections, folks! What is the minimum uptake you'd need to make a profit?

Apps, Apps and More Apps
Despite research that shows that people actually prefer to do most things (except for games) via their browsers (even on mobile phones), everyone is developing apps. I see the value of apps for things you will use regularly, but how many screens of apps do you want to scroll through?  someone needs to develop an app to help you get to the relevant apps quickly! Appsfire at least helps you find apps to download in the first place, but I think someone needs to develop an app to help you get to the relevant apps on your phone quickly!  

Everybody's Doin' It
The theme of the conference was social-local-mobile, so I should not be surprised that there was a skew, but I still can't help thinking that the whole world is evolving towards groupthink. There were dozens of apps presented that are all about discovering and doing what your friends are discovering and doing. Are we all becoming junior-high school students again? Will original thought be able to surface? Or will the social media stars simply replace the traditional media stars?