A few years ago, Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics, produced a popular video highlighting the impressive facts and figures about the growing popularity of social media.
Erik updated that video in 2010 and has just released a third update (below) which shows the impressive dominance of social media across the world.
Some examples mentioned in the video:
Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old
Facebook would be the third largest country in the world (by population)
eReaders have surpassed traditional book sales
Social gamers will buy $6 billion of virtual goods by 2013
If Wikipedia were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long.
Here’s the video with many more fascinating facts and figures:
Buying books might be one of the guiltiest pleasures, ever. The smell of the ink, the feel of the paper and, of course, the question of what to do when you’re done reading it. Some are worth keeping and showing off on your book shelf. But most do not make the cut. There’s few option to get rid of excess novels, too, either hauling them to a used book store and hope to score some decent dough or selling them for $.10 apiece in your mother’s best friend’s cousin’s garage sale.
Jamie Beckland founded BookTurtle to provide a third option: selling your books online for a fair price. Tired of only getting a few dollars back for expensive text books in college, he tapped into the entrepreneurial spirit and started an online platform that pays top dollars for books people don’t want. While it started out with just textbooks, BookTurtle has expanded to include all used books. The average family could potentially make over $300 using BookTurtle. It’s as simple as typing in the ISBN number and clicking “Shell Out The Cash.”
Book buying extraordinaire, Jamie, answered some questions:
How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?
We pay top dollar for books from people who are done with their books – college students at the end of semester, families cleaning out their closets, or people who used to sell books at yard sales.
What are some industry specific challenges you faced?
When people think of books online, most people think of buying books at an online bookstore. We had to build an awareness of the idea of selling your books online. People used to give their books to Goodwill or sell them for $0.10 at a yard sale. So, we have been working hard to change that behavior. The average household could make over $300 with BookTurtle right now. People don’t see the stuff that is cluttering up their lives as a potential way for them to make money.
That’s why the logo and design of the BookTurtle website had to communicate the experience of BookTurtle right away. The designer came up with the idea of a turtle carting his books off, and thinking about all the money he was going to make. That is the entire business in one single image. Communicating that message was the essential first step in helping people understand the value proposition.
Christian decided that after six years, his needs changed and Basecamp was no longer the best solution for him.
Christian’s post prompted a spirited discussion on Hacker News – the discussion is worth a read. I was most intrigued by a comment posted by Jason Fried of 37signals:
Today Basecamp is 7 years old. Signups are stronger than ever.
Whenever we survey customers asking them what they love most about Basecamp, the top response by a mile is: it’s simple, easy, and their co-workers and clients actually use it. It’s not multiple choice either – the words “simple” “easy” “intuitive” show up more than any others in the open ended textarea.
We’ve made Basecamp a lot better over the years. Some people still ask for more. Others say it’s too complicated and they wish it was even simpler.
Software development is a challenge. Everyone wants something different. So you do what you can to thread the needle and make as many of the right customers as happy as possible. Not everyone is the right customer.
It sucks to lose a customer because we did something wrong, but it’s OK to lose a customer if we just aren’t the right fit anymore. People move on from all sorts of things. Clothes, houses, cars, jobs, relationships… Why not software? As circumstances change, one product may not fit someone forever. That’s OK as long as it fits plenty of other people at the same time.
Some customers stick with you forever. Others come and go. Many who go come back after trying other tools that promise them more but that no one actually used. In the end, the tool that actually gets used is the one that’s the right fit for someone. It’s really really hard to get people to actually use things.
We’ve found that the simplest stuff is what actually gets used. It’s why email is still the world’s most popular project management tool.
The temptation to accept any and all business, especially when a company is young, can be blinding. Many young companies have failed because they tried too hard to cater to the whims of a few customers.
There are two types of people in the world: those who use LaunchBar and those who haven’t tried it yet. Yes, there are other similar apps out there but I like this one the best. Seriously, try it.
In a post last week, Ross discussed the need to find a balance between driving traffic and conversion for web-based businesses. It’s a great video and a very valuable discussion of one critical issue of strategic emphasis that many web-based businesses grapple with. Ross’s overriding point was that a business should not choose between a focus on driving traffic or on converting that traffic, but rather to approach both as a cohesive strategy. But Ross did not discuss a third crucial strategic factor – how to make the most of that new customer once they have converted from a new visitor to a paying customer.
This is where the subjects of revenue enhancement and customer lifetime value arise. As Ross discussed, many online businesses choose to focus only on driving traffic, and lose focus on the need to successfully convert new visitors into those paying customers. The first steps are simple: website traffic is easy to analyze and many tools are available to help managers accomplish that; conversion data can also be tracked using analytical tools such as Google Analytics and others. But once you have been successful at converting healthy percentages of your traffic , it is essential that you turn your focus to supplementing revenue, increasing shopping cart value, and maximizing the lifetime value of your new customers.
The missing factor? Enrich. Businesses need to constantly analyze their pricing, service offerings, products, bundles, add-ons, fees, discounts, promotions, etc in order to maximize the revenue they earn and make certain that they have not left money on the table. If a customer is happy to pay $19.99 for the value you deliver to them, why would you charge $14.99? This can be a complicated process and volumes have been written on this complex science, but a good place for small business to start is testing different price points, offering different bundles to ascertain the customer’s price sensitivity, surveying users to determine their priorities and value perception, and adjusting your business’s value proposition to maximize revenues.
The fact is is that your newly converted customer will open their wallet to you, so you want to help them to do two things: first, convince them to spend as much of their money with you as possible, and second, get them to come back to your business over and over again. These are the two components of Customer Lifetime Value. This can be calculated with a simple mathematical formula: LTV=(APV*n)-CPA, where APV is the average shopping cart value, n is the number of repeat purchases by the customer, and CPA is cost per acquisition. Understanding LTV is imperative; without this knowledge, you can not possibly determine if any given marketing value is worthwhile. For instance if it costs a company called YourCo.com an average of $100 to acquire a new conversion through online advertising or other marketing tactics, that customer spends on average $200 when they visit your site, and the typical customer makes 5 purchase over time, the formula would be ($200*5)-$100 = $900 LTV. In this example, YourCo.com could spend as much as $899 to acquire a customer and still see a positive return on that marketing investment. Obviously the goal for them is to keep their CPAs as low as possible and their LTVs as high as possible, but you can see that YourCo.com has some good wiggle room as they design their marketing tactics and budget their marketing spend.
So be sure that you can drive the visitors to your site and then convert them to paying customers. But just as important, consider carefully your product mix, value offerings, customer sensitivity to price and pull every lever to maximize that LTV!
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
The video above is one of the top 10 funniest television commercials of all time, according to AdWeek. More funny commercials in the Random Fun section below.
Lean Marketing 101: Giving good interview, or how to get a reporter to eat from your hand – http://bit.ly/iL6V98
When I turned 21, I made a huge mistake. Drunk (pun definitely intended) with my new I.D. wielding power, I felt my days of Keystone, Old Style and PBR were over and I began to dive into the world of craft beer. As with most things in life, once you begin to drink quality beer, it’s basically impossible to go back to cheap, watery alternatives.
Mark, co-founder of Antithesis Brewing Company, defines craft beer as “gourmet” beer that is local and hand-crafted, often resulting in more interesting flavors than mass produced beers (see Miller and Budweiser). He and his wife, Nina, are incredibly passionate about beer, spending their vacations touring breweries in an RV.
So passionate, they decided to embark on their own brewery. Their aim is to make a craft beer that tastes great, but also has the cool factor to draw in those not as in tune with micro brews. They hope to be up and running by Spring 2012.
Mark and Nina also own another business, Manor Works, and took some time to dispense some start-up advice:
1. How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?
We make extreme beer for extreme people. Trust me, you probably won’t like it.
2. What made you use crowdSPRING?
With my past companies, I worked with one designer to create the corporate image we desired. While his work was always high quality, we were stuck with only HIS point of view. With our new business, we knew we wanted to see a variety of ideas and “looks”. crowdSPRING was a natural fit. For a set price, I got to see over 250 ideas from a variety of different designers.
3. How is brewing a fine beer like starting a fine company?
Making beer is basically taking high quality ingredients and mixing them together in such a way that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Starting a business is no different. Hire for talent. Then create a structured environment where those people can thrive, and the whole organization will become greater than the individuals.
Most companies, especially small business and startups, obsess about the amount of traffic to their online sites. Site traffic is important – it brings attention, a certain degree of validation, and the opportunity to convert visitors into users or paying customers.
But traffic alone isn’t enough and more importantly, we tend to overestimate its impact. A number of good posts over the past few years have shared statistics on the amount of traffic sent by blogs such as TechCrunch, including this post by Niall Harbison and this one by Todd Sharp.
Increased traffic can be “rich” with potential customers or simply pass-through traffic that never returns.
While obsessing over site traffic, many entrepreneurs short-change their conversions strategy. This is a huge mistake. Unless your site is ultimately monetized solely based on traffic and nothing else – you must understand how you can convert visitors into users or paying customers.
In the following video, I offer three reasons why you should spend as much time focusing on your conversion efforts as you do focusing on your marketing and other traffic-generating efforts.
What do you think? Are conversions as important as traffic-generating efforts?
I know there are 647,259 file sharing apps out there but the elegance and simplicity of CloudApp is second to none. Screen shots automatically upload, links to your files are automatically placed on your clipboard. Try it and you’ll never go back.
In the world of startups and small business there are two basic kinds of company: those the media pays attention to, and all the rest. If your company has a compelling story, a unique product , or an interesting personality behind it you may be fortunate to leverage that advantage and convince a reporter to write about your offering, your customers, your employees, your industry, your background, your childhood, your pets… (you get the idea).
Most importantly, if the media does come knocking and asking questions, it is critical that you be prepared. Put together a media kit with appropriate background information; have persuasive pitches and story ideas at the ready; be facile with your facts and figures; and learn to make reporters comfortable that you are a credible and reliable source of information.
We often write about ways a company can create word-of-mouth and leverage buzz as inexpensive marketing techniques, and there is no better way to do this than to get your story placed or get yourself interviewed, People do read this stuff; they do remember what they read and they will spread the word if you give them the opportunity to do so. Here are 10 great tips shared with us by various PR and Media folks that I hope you find useful!
1. Prepare well.
Before the interview make a short list of three or four points you want to make during the interview. Keep these simple and clear and keep the list in front of you so you can refer to it and keep the interview focused.
2. Stay focused.
Concentrate on the interview and don’t let anything distract you. If you are doing the interview on the phone, stay away from email and other potential interruptions.
3. Be in control.
Make sure that the interviewer talks about the things you want to talk about. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t answer their questions, just that you should always find a way to move to your own message and your own agenda.
4. K.I.S.S.
Pay close attention to the interviewer and their own interest in what you are saying; follow their lead on how technical and detailed to get in your answers but always err to simplicity and clarity. Short and memorable is way better than rambling and complicated, but keep the audience in mind as you creaft your answers.
5. Be a credible source.
Be yourself in these interviews and always remember that you have credibility or the journalist wouldn’t be taking the time with you in the first place. Always be truthful and never misrepresent yourself or your company – it is your credibility on the line and even a minor fib can serve to destroy it.
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 110,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 27,000 happy clients around the world.
In a post last week, Ross discussed the need to find a balance between driving 
In the world of startups and small business there are two basic kinds of company: those the media pays attention to, and all the rest. If your company has a compelling story, a unique product , or an interesting personality behind it you may be fortunate to leverage that advantage and convince a reporter to write about your offering, your customers, your employees, your industry, your background, your childhood, your pets… (you get the idea).
