Swine Flu: The Official CDC Social Media Toolkit.

Social media goes beyond marketing and business. Check out this blogpost to learn more about how the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is using social media tools to spread awareness about the recent Swine Flu

Social TV: Watch Hulu with Your Facebook and MySpace Friends.

Interesting. But can this beat being able to watch a game with your buddies in the comfort of your living room? I doubt!

This question came to my mind when I read this article on CircleID. While the article deals with privacy issues, it got me thinking about websites and how they could be customized to reach your scattered target audience on the globe.

It is a fundamental yet challenging question that an entrepreneur, a start-up or any established company needs to ask before building their website.

“Where is my target audience and how can I build a website customized to their specific needs?”

Even if your website is right there on the ‘WWW’, you want it to cater to specific needs of its users which differ geographically, lingually and across different time-zones.

For example, do you have a .US domain name for your company which has specific services for your audience in the United States? In the long run, country-specific domain names could help you make the most of your different websites:

• Manage your sales promotions better as per different time-zones
• Have multilingual websites for different regions
• Branding that appeals to that specific geography

In this way, you can start thinking ‘glocally’, thus optimizing the user experience and getting more sales. To get you started, here are the different things you could do with your website to make it more ‘glocal’:

Get those country-specific Domain names:

Getting a .CO.IN, a .US or a .UK may not sound a useful investment but in the long run this will only work to your advantage. If you scout around looking for these names after having established a business and looking to expand to different countries, the chances are that some domainer (people who invest in domain names for a living) already bought that domain name and is going to extract some moolah from you because you desperately need it. You may argue that you have copyrights and trademarks over that name and legally can own that domain name but think again - do you really want to go down the litigation path and book those extra expenses on your income statement? Rather, as most other businesses who fall into this trap, you will end up with a bitter taste in your mouth and pay up the domainer.

On the other hand, if you have them registered already, the overall expenses to your company would be minimal but when you grow it will give you the marketing versatility that it deserves which I’ve described further below…

Multilingual Content is King:

“Most of my customers understand and speak English, why should I bother making a Spanish/Hindi/Arabic website?” Because as someone has wisely said

“Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they’ll say, ‘God, he said exactly what I was thinking.’ And when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to the death.” - Lee Iacocca (the reason why I’m in business and management is him! :-) )

With multi-lingual websites, you are creating a local brand image for your product. There is no price-tag attached to such an effort which makes your customer feel like home. What’s more, it’s more likely that your competition doesn’t already do this; raise the bar and set a benchmark!

Register a .CN domain name - Hire a content-writer from China and let him work on the content for your website which is appealing to the Chinese population.

Google.com is not the only major search engine:

There is Google.co.in, Google.cn, Google.co.uk. If you are going to optimize your website for various search engines or run a Google Adwords campaign, you might as well do it well! Optimization results and the Google Ad campaigns vary from one domain name to another. For example, below are results from Google.com and Google.co.in for the keyword ‘Paintball’.

So, if you are going to build a different website on a .CN, you might as well pitch this website on Google.CN with a specific ad campaign for your chinese customers.

‘Dollar’ is not a universal language

This is an important element for any e-commerce website. Although, you may be able to accept payment in US dollars through payment gateways, you would like your Chinese customers to know how many Yuan it takes to buy your designer shoes. This is a fairly simple task which can also be automated with some quick programming to replicate your pricing from your .COM website.You can also compare and compete with local websites better by listing your prices in the local currency

Geotargeting your customers

Geotargeting your customers is a great way to divert your traffic from your .COM website to your country-specific website. Geotargeting will identify the client’s IP address and compare it with a database to determine where he is trying to access your website from, depending on his or her location, a relevant regional website is served. For example, when you type in Google.com from India, the browser automatically takes you to Google.com.

A website which is closer to your customer - literally

Technically, this is known as geography-specific hosting where your servers are located closer to your customer. This means that your Asian users are served by a server which is based anywhere in Asia. Such a hosting architecture is quite complex and may be used by companies who have an equally stronger market outside their home country. If your customers are complaining about your website not loading fast and most of them are from outside your home country, it’s likely that you need a server which is closer to their region. Keep in mind though that this is only necessary if your website is media rich and your customer spends a lot of his time on it - such as using a application on your website or simply watching videos.

Getting it all together and going to the next level

It might seem like a lot of work, but getting a head-start is fairly easy -

1. Review your web analytics data or review your market data to find out the second-most important country for your business
2. Get your web-infrastructure services for that in place
3. Build the website

You can repeat the process as you go along before you capture the global market!!  ;-)

If all this seems relevant to your business at this point in time, you can set long-term objectives for country-specific websites too, somewhat like below:

• Multilingual support in the form of multilingual knowledge-bases, customer support and live chat
• Build Strategic partnerships with drop-shippers, merchants and affiliates in different countries for your electronic storefront
• Enable time-zone specific sales promotions for your different websites and display them in the local currency
• Most of all, get more sales through heavy online ad campaigns that actually work and set yourself apart in various regional marketplaces on local search engines and portals

{Domains Mafia offers a variety of country-specific domain names and are often available at great prices, to start, sign up here or simply mail me}

In an attempt to make this blog more lively and engaging, I would be adding some interesting video interviews. This video interview is one of the first in a series to come. Douglas Howe has broad experience with technology start-ups and has been my professor for entrepreneurship start-up strategies. Currently, he is working with an incubation center in the Santa Clarita region. Please read the entire bio below the video. The highlights of the video are available in text below the video as well.

The objective of this interview would be to address some critical issues with tech-startups which Douglas Howe would elucidate upon. Some areas that we would get a better understanding of by the end of the interview would be: starting up, incubators and marketing

About Douglas Howe:

Douglas Howe, Founder and Principal of Emerson Management Solutions, has specialized in marketing, business development and general management, including turnarounds and restructurings of established companies and launches of high growth pre-revenue start-up operations. His successes include projects across a variety of industries and applications and include companies such as Crown Zellerbach Corporation, General Electric Company, Nikon Inc., Van Camp Sea Food Company, Olympus America Inc., Rockwell Scientific Company and Vivitar Corporation. He is a former jet attack pilot in the U.S. Navy where he accumulated 185 combat missions and over 300 carrier landings. Mr. Howe is also a member of the Practitioner Faculty at Pepperdine University’s George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management. In this position, he teaches courses on global marketing, entrepreneurial start-up strategies and business-plan writing to candidates for Master of Business Administration degrees.

Highlights of the Interview:

Three most common mistakes entrepreneurs make

1) Having insufficient startup and operating funds. Often underestimating amount of time and money required.

Solution: 2 to 3X rule. You will take two to three times as long and two to three times as much to reach your next milestone. Make sure you have enough cash for the next milestone. Spend Cash wisely.

2) Failure by the entrepreneur to segment his market.

Solution: Attack, grow and dominate one niche market. Would you rather have 90% of a grape or 10% of a watermelon?

3) Often entrepreneurs focus on the upside. Don’t neglect the downside and the evidence which shows that.

Solution: Do scenario planning . Monitor actual performance against assumptions and projections. Have a contingency plan. It’s important to be able to identify when something is going wrong and to be courageous to adopt a new strategy.

It’s important to be patient - you get the chicken by hatching the egg and not by smashing it. Do your research and make sure that your idea is really feasible.

About Incubators:

• Subsidised Costs for tech-startups: Office-space, Network infrastructure, etc.
• Mentorship and Advice
• Additional Questions about incubators answered below:

• What is the percentage of incubators that often spin off and end up outside the community it was nurtured in?

  U.S. Small Business Administration states that only 40% of new businesses are still in business after 6 years, but this number more than doubles (to 87%) for companies that graduate from an incubator.  And of that 87%, 84% decide to reside in the community where they were incubated.  Therefore, in answer to your question, on 16% of companies decide to move elsewhere.

I attended Twiistup 5 yesterday at a private hangar at Santa Monica Hangar. You could call it a 21st century form of expo which was held from 7 PM - midnight. Twiistup has been around for quite some time and apparently this has been the biggest till date with over 600 visitors. The best part about this event is that it’s unlike a conventional tradeshow which are mostly held in daylight and are formal in nature. Grab a beer, a cigar and if you are hungry get a cupcake; roam about in a lounge-like atmosphere and stop by one of the start-up company’s booths to play around with their product/service. I will not say that this is a geeky conference as there are  a lot of ideas that any manager/entrepreneur could use after attending it. But yes, you will find a ton of geeks :-D

Upon speaking to many start-ups I realized that there were many who were backed by VCs and angels; while on the other hand there were also those funded by the founders themselves - so Twiistup presented a platform for them to show off their company and connect with some investors. For me, it was merely a networking event but I found a lot of interesting business models as well.

“Ad revenues is not always the only source of revenue for a web start-up. There’s premium subscription, pay-per use and many more.”

Myself, Daniel and Scott - the Pepperdine MBA students at Twiistup!

The most common feature of all these start-ups (mostly web 2.0 services) was “convergence”. They let you show your updates from across different platforms such as twitter, Facebook, wordpress blogs, Linkedin on one website (such as chi.mp). “Convergence” in terms of being able to connect with various non-profit organizations from one website was enabled by causecast.com. Another example of convergence was the scour search engine which can fetch search results from Google, Y! and MSN and use its own algorithm to put the best one at the top of the query results. 

So where were their revenue streams? I did ask this question to many of the startups (which were mostly only looking to build audience at this point and did not seem to have a revenue model). Surprisingly to me, not all of them said ‘advertisements’ (while many others had no clue how they were going to make money). Some companies already had deals with partners who enabled their service which could sustain them as the company grows. For example, if you are a website that brings together all the shoe manufacturing companies together on an electronic marketplace you would charge the suppliers to pay you a fee to be displayed on the website. Although, initially you would not expect them to pay as you are still building an audience. How else could you make money with your Web 2.0 startup? There was also another way to generate revenue. Say you came up with this excellent tool for your iPhone that lets users access and connect with specific businesses such as hotels or car-rental companies. You would need their company information, their IT resources and create a custom design to be shown on your website, your mobile tool, etc. If you are dealing with brick-and-mortar businesses it’s likely that they don’t have the expertise and even if they do, they don’t know how your tool could help them grow their business. If you are enriching their business, you might as well consult them with their online/mobile marketing strategy. If your tool is useful and can enrich their business, they would be more than willing to pay you for your knowledge.

“Another observation I made was that so many start-ups which provided a one-stop shop web 2.0 startups such as Twitter had them because of the audience that Twitter or such other services have. But what if they go kaput because of no revenue model? I don’t mean to be cynical, but it’s just a thought. Especially, when so many start-ups are based on a service like that. Apparently, Twitter would get one soon, but no solid ideas as of now.”

Taking a step back, let me talk a little about who I met at the event. Investors, entrepreneurs, techies, geeks, head-hunters, prospective employers and MBA students :-). I could go on about the interesting people from various fields that you could meet at Twiistup. But, if you fall under any of the following categories, it’s totally worth attending Twiistup!

• Someone who likes to read different blogs on the interenet and loves Google and wants to party on a Thursday night
   
• Someone who thought he knew so much about social media and thinks that it’s just crazy and a lot of fun
   
• Job-seekers
   
• A budding entrepreneur
   
• Someone who has extra money, loves to criticize, analyse and make money from an idea - investors
   
• Someone who’s really ignorant about internet startups and thinks its a bubble 
   
• Most of all - headhunters - who are looking for new talent (I’m looking for a summer internship :) )

What else is there about Twiistup that you should know?:

• If you liked a startup gives the participating companies a pebble, those startups with the maximum number of pebbles win. No idea what they win though!

Causecast.com lets you broadcast your cause! They got my pebble! :)That's Nate from CauseCast.com. They bring together non-profits so that you can connect with them from a single interface. You can also create your own communities for any cause close to your heart.

• Loads of freebies - t-shirts, coasters, stickers, glow sticks, t-shirts, food, drinks, pens, mouse-pads, t-shirts and more :) 
  

  Check out the $1 note - that's scour.com's incentive to use their search engine!

• Drinks, drinks, drinks
   
• Free Business ideas
   
• Guitar Hero, Beanbags and free cigars! :)
   
• It costs $75 in case you didn’t win that FREE ticket (they have contests and give-aways!) or don’t have a friend who can sneak you in
   
• No idea when Twiistup 6 is going to be held but I hear in the next 3-4 months. Keep checking their website or connect with them on twitter! and remember to watch-out for the give-aways. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about it but I might know someone to sneak me in for the next event :D