Like hundreds of entrepreneurs around Europe, we spent 2011 building, pitching and growing our own tech start-up: CubeSocial. 

Towards the end of the year we decided we’d like to share what we had learned with other aspiring entrepreneurs. 

What you see here is the result of that work… a ground-up initiative by a group of around 40 passionate start-ups that all took part in Seedcamp during 2011 and have come together to share their experiences and learnings.  You can download the ebook here for free. Our gift to you. There’s also an easily embeddable version here.

Please pass this book on to anyone you think might find it useful. Tweet it. Blog about it. Share the information as widely as possible.

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

CubeSocial has been listed as one of “25 companies that reflect the future” in The Ones to Watch report compiled by analyst firm Index B.

The report identifies “The companies that genuinely represent the future of business… a shortlist of companies that either reflect or embody many of the longer-term trends at work in major economies.”

Other companies on the list range from recent start-ups such as PeerIndex, GroupSpaces and CrowdCube to more established businesses such as MindCandy, Evernote and DropBox.

Here at CubeSocial, we are honoured to be listed in such amazing company.

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

We finished 2011 being named as Top 20 Startup of 2011, and we are delighted to announce that we are starting 2012 in the same vein!

Today we can reveal that we have been selected as a regional winner in the Local Business Accelerators competition and will be progressing through to the national finals.

The Local Business Accelerators competition is backed by TV Dragon Deborah Meaden.

Wish us luck in the finals!

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

If you work in a professional services or consulting organisation, what you are essentially selling is your knowledge. The good news is that social media provides the perfect platform for you to promote your expertise and showcase that knowledge.

Two companies that are doing a great job of this are Avanade and HP.

Avanade have integrated Twitter and YouTube. Just tweet your question with the hashtag #AskAvanade and Avanade respond via their YouTube channel.

HP have a similar concept. They have created the HP Business Answers blog, along with the @HPBizAnswers Twitter account and a LinkedIn group.

There are two great things about this kind of approach. Firstly, each of those people asking questions are leads that your sales team can follow-up with. Secondly, by answering real questions that people have you are providing a great deal of search engine optimized content for your website. In other words, other people with similar questions will be able to find you too.

Now these are two global corporations, but there is nothing particularly sophisticated about what they are doing. In fact, there is nothing here that couldn’t be replicated by lawyers, accountants, consultants etc. (regardless of their size) at a very low cost.

If you’re a CubeSocial user, we can help too… we make it super-easy to capture questions from Twitter and respond to them later. Just set up a Social Search to record all the Twitter activity for the hashtag or @name you want to monitor. When you are ready, log into CubeSocial and we’ll have all the information stored that you need to respond to the queries or write your blog posts.

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

We are delighted to share the news that CubeSocial has been chosen as a Top 20 Start-up of 2011 by entrepreneur magazine Startups. The list was announced on 20 December and includes leading British start-ups across all sectors.

It’s a fantastic way to end 2011 and we are honoured to be listed alongside some very impressive company. For full details you can check out our press release.

And if for any reason you haven’t yet created your own CubeSocial account, you can find out what you have been missing out on at http://cubesocial.com

ps. Happy New Year to you all!

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

If you happen to be both a CubeSocial user, and an IE7 user we recommend you start the year by upgrading: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/downloads/ie

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

At this time of year it’s traditional to look back

1. Twitter Clinic: A Hashtag Case study – Wow, it seems like there are plenty of people curious to know how Twitter hashtags work.  If that’s you… read on!
2. “All opinions are my own” – disclaimers, risk warnings and social media – Will social media ever take off in highly regulated industries like banking and pharmaceuticals?
3. Leave your phones on – How social media is changing business etiquette – You know those people glued to their smartphones and iPads during your presentation… they are probably paying more attention than you think!
4. Twitter Clinic: #FF, DM and RT explained – Another in our series of Twitter Clinics. The title says it all.
5. Ambush Marketing: The Accidental Twitter Ambush – How we accidentally pulled off an ambush marketing event at a conference we had been barred from.
6. Klout… and how it can be manipulated – The story of what happened when we spent a month specifically trying to increase our Klout score.
7. Twitter Clinic: 5 must-dos to get started with Twitter – If you are totally new to to Twitter, start here.
8. Twitter Clinic: Who sees what you’re tweeting – Those @messages – are you sure you know who can view them?
9. Four Reasons Your Company Doesn’t Need a Social Media Policy – Lawyers are running around telling everyone that will listen that they must have a social media policy… but do you really need one?
10. GeeknRolla: Rock star or one-hit wonder? – Just how awesome is the self-proclaimed “awesome annual conference for tech startups in Europe”

If you like the stuff we write, remember you can sign-up for updates in your RSS reader, or subscribe for email updates.

And with that we’d like to wish you a happy new year, and we’ll see you all again in 2011.

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

We’ve found that we can massively improve the ROI of events by integrating social media with our real world activities… in fact in some cases you don’t even need to be there in person!

Here are our top tips for using social media at conferences and shows.

Before the event

1. Help the organizer promote the event
   Find the hashtag and official Twitter account for the event and use social media to let everyone know that you’re going. Retweet announcements from the official event account. Include a status update in your LinkedIn account, with a link to the official event details. Send @messages to your online contacts suggesting the conference might be a good place to catch-up face to face. Remember to include the hashtag in all your Tweets. This will get your face and company name recognized by the show organizers and demonstrate real value to them. Smart organizers will want to encourage this behaviour. As a result of our efforts we’ve been offered massive discounts on show pricing, free upgrades and the chance to speak at future events.
2. Build relationships
   Look at the speaker and attendee list. Speakers will often have Twitter accounts listed. Make note of anyone you want to meet in person. If you use CubeSocial, create a contact card for each person and tag them appropriately. Tweet about the speakers you’re looking forward to hearing and the people you’re meeting up with. Make sure to use the speaker/attendee Twitter usernames so that conversation can grow. Cast yourself in the role of the jovial party host. Do not sell!
3. Schedule meetings
   Those speakers you’ve just been chatting to… the online contacts you invited to the show… now’s the time to casually arrange a coffee at the event itself.
4. Arrange a side event
   If you can’t afford the entrance fee, or the show organizers say you don’t match their criteria for entrance, arrange your own side event. Professional marketers call this ambush marketing, and we (initially unintentionally) pulled this off earlier this year when we were told we couldn’t attend a show. We arranged a Tweetup to coincide with the conference that grew to the point that the conference organizers asked us asked how they could get involved in our event!

During the event

1. Live Tweet conference sessions
   If you are in a conference session, live Tweet it. There are always plenty of people who for whatever reason are unable to attend. Followers who are interested in the event will appreciate the real-time insights and may add to the conversation, widen your perspective of the event, and the reach of your tweets. Their retweets will provide an interesting insight into what resonates. Remember to always use the conference hashtag. Journalists often follow the hashtags during conferences on the lookout for interesting stories. In our case, our very first piece of media coverage came from a journalist quoting Tweets we had sent during a live Tweeting session.
2. Make use of otherwise dead time
   During the show you’ll likely be busy with all the meetings you set up beforehand, but be sure to make use of otherwise dead time: The journey to and from the event and during breaks for example. Follow the conference hashtag to discover the important news and themes of the show, and contribute to the conversation.
3. Tag team it
   Ask your colleagues back at the office to engage in conversation with you and selectively retweet your posts. Your goal should be to put yourself at the centre of online activity, expanding your influence and awareness of your brand.

After the event

1. Follow up on the leads you missed
   Review the hashtag stream for the conference. Regular Twitter search just goes back a couple of days, so you’ll need to be quick. If you use CubeSocial you can set up a Social Search to record the entire stream for the duration of the show. You can then review the stream at your leisure and reach out to people who might be new contacts, leads or opportunities.
2. Share photos
   It doesn’t matter whether it is on Twitter, Flickr or Facebook. Share your photos of the event, especially of people you met there. People love photos, especially if they give an insight into something they may have missed out on. Photos are some of the most frequently shared material on the web, and will help broaden the reach of your brand.
3. Write a review of the event
   Use your blog to write a review of the event. Write about the interesting people you met there, including photos and links to websites and Twitter accounts of people you mention. When you’re done, tell everyone you’ve mentioned that they are featured in your blog. Your aim is to make it easy for people to join the dots, make new connections, find the interesting content and build on their experience. When we took part in Seedcamp earlier this year, our Seedcamp write-up proved so popular that the event organizers mistakenly thought we were spamming them. We had to react quickly on that one and explained that no, it was simply the community at large picking up on it and sharing it.

The best thing about all this is that in many cases you don’t even need to be there in person to benefit from the buzz a conference or show generates. If you find yourself in that situation, try curating the Twitter stream instead, as we did here for a recent event.

What techniques have you found successful for maximising the value of real-world events with social media?

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles

Last week I was followed on Twitter by someone whose bio said they owned a digital marketing agency and a recruitment consultancy.

As usual I said Hi to my new follower (I never use tools that send auto-DMs each to each new follower – they are so obviously automated and impersonal) and asked what caused them to follow me.

In reply I received an odd response that didn’t answer my question: “@markbower Are you on LinkedIn?”

Curious about where this was leading though I replied “Yes, wouldn’t be without it.”

A couple of hours later though I received a LinkedIn invite from the self-same person. Rather than ignore the invite I declined explaining that I only accept LinkedIn invites from people who I have met in person.

The following day I got a spam DM advertising a job opening that was in no way relevant to me. Needless to say I unfollowed and blocked the offending account.

What Went Wrong

Social media accelerates the know – like – trust –buy – advocate cycle of purchasing. That’s one reason social media is so great.

But it only accelerates that cycle – it doesn’t go away entirely!

What this person did wrong was to jump straight from “Hello” to trust, without working through the know and like stages first.

The Lesson

Don’t be in too much of a rush to close the deal. Just as you wouldn’t immediately (ever?)ask for the address book of a person you had just been introduced to at a cocktail party, you shouldn’t try to do the same in the virtual world.

Instead, use a tool like CubeSocial to help you get to know your new contacts better.

CubeSocial takes a Twitter ID or email address and automatically discovers all the other social media profiles for that person. It only takes a couple of seconds to scan a contact’s profiles to find something you can chat to them about. Within minutes you can move through the know and like stages without fear of coming across as spammy.

CubeSocial: Easily Convert Email Addresses into Social Media Profiles