I'm giving a talk for the South Glos Branch of the Federation of Small Businesses tomorrow night, 26th August, (non-members are welcome to attend as well). It's at the Aztec Hotel, just off the M4/M5 interchange in Bristol, networking at 7pm, talk starts at 7.30pm & promises a gallop through social media marketing & how it can help your business. (flyer with more info here)
Hope to see you there.
Christina
Tuesday 25 August 2009
Monday 17 August 2009
Social Media Tames The Dragons
Lat week's Dragon's Den episode featured Carol Savage & her recipe sharing website www.mydish.co.uk. For the first time ever in the history of Dragon's Den, she was offered twice the investment she came in for, in the end settling for a £100k investment in return for 15% of the business.
What was interesting for me was seeing how the 5 different dragons reacted to the pitch. Some clearly just didn't get the concept & couldn't see the scalability of social media. Others couldn't see clear revenue streams. Deborah Meaden however was quick to latch on to the potential of the idea. Unusually for a web start-up, Carol had a number of clear potential revenue streams from the site, some of which were already up & running. When she mentioned the functionality within the site to shop fror the recipe ingredients from within the site, via Ocado & Asda, I was very very impressed. It's logical, makes a change from relying on advertising revenue & has the potential to be very lucrative for Carol & her investors. Great idea!
What was interesting for me was seeing how the 5 different dragons reacted to the pitch. Some clearly just didn't get the concept & couldn't see the scalability of social media. Others couldn't see clear revenue streams. Deborah Meaden however was quick to latch on to the potential of the idea. Unusually for a web start-up, Carol had a number of clear potential revenue streams from the site, some of which were already up & running. When she mentioned the functionality within the site to shop fror the recipe ingredients from within the site, via Ocado & Asda, I was very very impressed. It's logical, makes a change from relying on advertising revenue & has the potential to be very lucrative for Carol & her investors. Great idea!
Thursday 6 August 2009
where did it all go wrong for friends reunited?
ITV have announced the sale of friends reunited at a price of £25 million, taking a £145 million hit from the price the paid of £170 million in 2005.
Undoubtedly facebook took a big slice of their market when it opened to the general public but friends reunited was very slow to fight back. It took them a long time to drop their subscription model, which restricted you from contacting old friends through the site unless you paid up. They were also very slow to embrace social networking functionality. Apart from your profile, there was little user generated content & certainly nothing that could be updated on a frequent basis by users. Add to that a clunky site design & it's no wonder the site began to lose ground.
I do think it's a wasted opportunity & perhaps something the new owners are going to try & rectify. The one big advantage that friends reunited has is that it anchors you geographically, to your old schools and workplaces. As a result, for the less tech-savvy, it's much easier to find people on friends reunited than it is on facebook.
Undoubtedly facebook took a big slice of their market when it opened to the general public but friends reunited was very slow to fight back. It took them a long time to drop their subscription model, which restricted you from contacting old friends through the site unless you paid up. They were also very slow to embrace social networking functionality. Apart from your profile, there was little user generated content & certainly nothing that could be updated on a frequent basis by users. Add to that a clunky site design & it's no wonder the site began to lose ground.
I do think it's a wasted opportunity & perhaps something the new owners are going to try & rectify. The one big advantage that friends reunited has is that it anchors you geographically, to your old schools and workplaces. As a result, for the less tech-savvy, it's much easier to find people on friends reunited than it is on facebook.
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