Making Money with Social Media
Do blogs and tweets help a company's bottom line? An Austin-based startup thinks it has the answer.
By Erika Jonietz http://newscri.be/link/976105
In retrospect, 2009 may be viewed as the year "social media" came of age: Facebook passed 350 million active users, Oprah made Twitter mainstream, and LinkedIn introduced a service to help recruiting agencies search the site for job candidates. But using microblogs, photoblogs, user-generated content, and even traditional blogs to interact with customers takes time and money, and some companies still question whether all that effort is doing them any good. So how does a company not only measure the results of its social media efforts but also effectively manage them?
Early in December, Social Agency, a five-person startup based in Austin, TX, launched a Web-based software package called Spredfast that helps companies manage their social media campaigns. The software not only measures audience size and engagement but also allows coordinated planning and automated posting across multiple social media platforms.
Specifically, the Web-based software counts how many people view a company's Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr updates, as well as posts managed by several popular blogging platforms, such as Moveable Type, WordPress, Blogger, Lotus Live, and Drupal. It also measures how the audience is interacting with all this content--for instance, how much they are commenting on posts, clicking on links, or retweeting updates.
The goal, says Social Agency cofounder Scott McCaskill, is to let companies see "whether all the time put into doing those things is really helping build brand or product awareness, which kinds of content are most successful, what days and even times of day result in the most traffic or new followers/friends."
A free version allows a company to manage a single identity or "voice" across each platform. Paid versions let companies coordinate multiple users and voices, and provide a longer data history. McCaskill says the software has had the most success with units of large companies and marketing agencies.
Spredfast gives companies a way to plan and manage content deployment. For instance, users can write blog entries, tweets, or Facebook updates ahead of time and then schedule when they will be posted. A store that might offer an online coupon code or one-day sale could, with Spredfast, have Twitter push that code out several times a day to increase the number of site visitors. The software's metrics, McCaskill says, let marketers figure out the best times to post updates. Spredfast also makes it easy for them to test different strategies.
The company launched a year ago as a maker of custom Facebook applications. When Facebook redesigned its home page, says McCaskill, Social Agency's business model was effectively torpedoed. As part of its sales strategy, the company had spent a lot of time helping clients plan their social media strategies. So the founders retooled and used their expertise to start building Spredfast about nine months ago. The software launched in private beta in September, public beta in October, and had its "official" launch on December 2.
Social Agency plans to introduce a feature by the end of January that will help users design a social media campaign based on their objectives. McCaskill says that Spredfast will most likely present users with a list of common marketing goals that they can check off. The software will suggest a template for a campaign based on what's worked best for clients with similar goals.
Monday, 28 December 2009
The Decade of Big Zero
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 27, 2009
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.
It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.
It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.
Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.
So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.
For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America’s business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.
Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”
So here’s what Mr. Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policy-making position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.
What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.
What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.
Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks’ claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn’t understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.
Then there are the politicians. Even now, it’s hard to get Democrats, President Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we’re in. And as for the Republicans: now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.
So let’s bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 27, 2009
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.
It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.
It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.
Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.
So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.
For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America’s business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.
Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”
So here’s what Mr. Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policy-making position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.
What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.
What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.
Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks’ claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn’t understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.
Then there are the politicians. Even now, it’s hard to get Democrats, President Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we’re in. And as for the Republicans: now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.
So let’s bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.
China Charts Its Own Path
China Charts Its Own Path
Keith R. McCullough, 12.28.09, 09:30 AM EST
While America dithers, the Chinese set up a currency reserve fund against -- U.S. crashes.
"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."--Leroy "Satchel" Paige
Satchel Paige was an American baseball legend who played ball from 1926–66. He was the first player from the Negro Leagues to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was one of America's great winners.
Article Controls
The saddest part about Paige's success is probably that it took America too long to realize it. The man didn't play his first game in Major League Baseball until he was 42 years old. American Groupthink isn't new. It's always been a part of our culture. We are human. So are the Chinese.
This morning the Chinese are reminding us that: 1) they are still wearing the pants in this relationship; and 2) they aren't leaving this new game of global financial risk anytime soon. China is heading into 2010 with a full head of political and economic steam. If America and Europe don't let her into the major league of global finance, China may very well just start up her own.
This morning, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus China, Japan and South Korea, have announced that they are moving forward with the Chiang Mai Initiative and forming a $120 billion foreign-currency reserve pool. In a joint statement, the countries said the move was intended to "strengthen the region's capacity to safeguard against increased risks and challenges in the global economy." In Mandarin, that means protect against American crashes.
Chiang Mai is a city in northern Thailand that sits strategically on the Ping River. This is where plenty of Asian trading has been done over the last few centuries. This is where Asia's new economic powers decided to lock arms and play some red rover with Western leaders of Perceived Financial Wisdom.
China and the U.S. are in two totally different situations,China is developing and growing trying to stabilize and manage that growth, so far successfully. We on the other hand have had the large
Like MLB ignoring Satchel Paige, Westerners ignoring the new reality of Asian economic power doesn't mean it ceases to exist. The Asians have been working on forming their own economic safety nets since the Japanese tried to form the Asian Monetary Fund in 1997. The Chiang Mai Initiative was formed in May 2006. Today is simply a recognition that the proactively prepared have a plan--and they are executing on it.
An analyst at Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) is revealing to his squadrons of consensus callers this morning that China could see her property bubble "pop." Hello, McFly--the Chinese property stocks peaked in July of this year and have been popping for three months! Understand that many sell-siders on this side of the pond really don't know what they don’t know.
China's premier, Wen Jiabao, is very aware of his liabilities. Unlike Bush and Obama, he seems to actually know what he doesn't know. He and his financial leadership team have been explicitly targeting the property and loan markets for the last 3 months. They are not behaving as willfully blind as we were.
This morning, here's what Wen told Xinhua, the Chinese News Agency: "Property prices have risen too quickly in some areas and we should use taxes and loan interest rates to stabilize them."
Dugg on Forbes.com
Unlike the U.S., which keeps interest rates at zero to fuel debt-fueled asset-price speculation, at least China has a plan to both generate savings amongst her citizenry (with a savings rate of return greater than zero) and, at the same time, show some respect for the cost of capital.
On the currency front, Wen said that China will "absolutely not yield" to the Western calls for currency appreciation. He explained that the plan will remain the plan, and that China will move both her currency and interest rate policies whenever she darn well pleases. Sound familiar? It should. That's what we do.
2010 will be here by the end of this week, and so will China overtaking Japan as the world's second-largest economy. For a long time Americans and Europeans could see this economic and political juggernaut coming. For a long time some of us chose to ignore the power of their self-directedness.
As America moves the YouTube dials to another populist debate (whether or not we should reinstitute Glass-Steagall-like regulation in her financial markets in 2010), be certain that the Chinese are going to be moving forward at their already decided pace.
After closing up 1.5% overnight, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,188. Despite the S&P 500 closing at a higher YTD high on Christmas Eve, it’s only up 24.7% for the year. Relative to China's 75.1% gain, that's puny. Kind of like how Satchel Paige made 20-year-old men look with a curveball coming from his 45-year old arm.
My immediate term lines of support and resistance for the S&P 500 are now 1,112 and 1,129, respectively.
Keith R. McCullough is CEO of Researchedge.
Keith R. McCullough, 12.28.09, 09:30 AM EST
While America dithers, the Chinese set up a currency reserve fund against -- U.S. crashes.
"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."--Leroy "Satchel" Paige
Satchel Paige was an American baseball legend who played ball from 1926–66. He was the first player from the Negro Leagues to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was one of America's great winners.
Article Controls
The saddest part about Paige's success is probably that it took America too long to realize it. The man didn't play his first game in Major League Baseball until he was 42 years old. American Groupthink isn't new. It's always been a part of our culture. We are human. So are the Chinese.
This morning the Chinese are reminding us that: 1) they are still wearing the pants in this relationship; and 2) they aren't leaving this new game of global financial risk anytime soon. China is heading into 2010 with a full head of political and economic steam. If America and Europe don't let her into the major league of global finance, China may very well just start up her own.
This morning, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus China, Japan and South Korea, have announced that they are moving forward with the Chiang Mai Initiative and forming a $120 billion foreign-currency reserve pool. In a joint statement, the countries said the move was intended to "strengthen the region's capacity to safeguard against increased risks and challenges in the global economy." In Mandarin, that means protect against American crashes.
Chiang Mai is a city in northern Thailand that sits strategically on the Ping River. This is where plenty of Asian trading has been done over the last few centuries. This is where Asia's new economic powers decided to lock arms and play some red rover with Western leaders of Perceived Financial Wisdom.
China and the U.S. are in two totally different situations,China is developing and growing trying to stabilize and manage that growth, so far successfully. We on the other hand have had the large
Like MLB ignoring Satchel Paige, Westerners ignoring the new reality of Asian economic power doesn't mean it ceases to exist. The Asians have been working on forming their own economic safety nets since the Japanese tried to form the Asian Monetary Fund in 1997. The Chiang Mai Initiative was formed in May 2006. Today is simply a recognition that the proactively prepared have a plan--and they are executing on it.
An analyst at Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) is revealing to his squadrons of consensus callers this morning that China could see her property bubble "pop." Hello, McFly--the Chinese property stocks peaked in July of this year and have been popping for three months! Understand that many sell-siders on this side of the pond really don't know what they don’t know.
China's premier, Wen Jiabao, is very aware of his liabilities. Unlike Bush and Obama, he seems to actually know what he doesn't know. He and his financial leadership team have been explicitly targeting the property and loan markets for the last 3 months. They are not behaving as willfully blind as we were.
This morning, here's what Wen told Xinhua, the Chinese News Agency: "Property prices have risen too quickly in some areas and we should use taxes and loan interest rates to stabilize them."
Dugg on Forbes.com
Unlike the U.S., which keeps interest rates at zero to fuel debt-fueled asset-price speculation, at least China has a plan to both generate savings amongst her citizenry (with a savings rate of return greater than zero) and, at the same time, show some respect for the cost of capital.
On the currency front, Wen said that China will "absolutely not yield" to the Western calls for currency appreciation. He explained that the plan will remain the plan, and that China will move both her currency and interest rate policies whenever she darn well pleases. Sound familiar? It should. That's what we do.
2010 will be here by the end of this week, and so will China overtaking Japan as the world's second-largest economy. For a long time Americans and Europeans could see this economic and political juggernaut coming. For a long time some of us chose to ignore the power of their self-directedness.
As America moves the YouTube dials to another populist debate (whether or not we should reinstitute Glass-Steagall-like regulation in her financial markets in 2010), be certain that the Chinese are going to be moving forward at their already decided pace.
After closing up 1.5% overnight, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,188. Despite the S&P 500 closing at a higher YTD high on Christmas Eve, it’s only up 24.7% for the year. Relative to China's 75.1% gain, that's puny. Kind of like how Satchel Paige made 20-year-old men look with a curveball coming from his 45-year old arm.
My immediate term lines of support and resistance for the S&P 500 are now 1,112 and 1,129, respectively.
Keith R. McCullough is CEO of Researchedge.
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