Buddy Media

Value of Engineering to the Entrepreneur

This post originally appeared on Badger Engineers.

My company Spinback was recently acquired by Buddy Media, the largest Facebook Management Company in the world. It’s clear that my four years studying in the Wisconsin College of Engineering has played a role in that acquisition.

At the core, I’d argue that an engineering, math, or science related degree is the single best degree or use of four years in an undergraduate program, especially a program at UW – Madison. In my years in the COE, I obtained a certain skill set that has helped me succeed during and after school, and in the various businesses I was involved with including Spinback. I’m not talking about skills like designing a circuit or solving for a system of equations. I’m talking about the cliché skills we always hear about but disregard as obvious and too abstract for our own benefit.

The skills I’m talking about are teamwork, problem solving, hard work and creativity. In every single class and project that I worked on while at school, each one of these skills was required.  I remember spending many hours with my friends like Steve Weisman (ECE ’08) and David Nosbusch (ECE ’08) poring over class notes and textbooks (and also starting two businesses together while at school). No matter what the content and material, the routine was the same. We studied together, relentlessly discussed the problems together, and used creativity to help solve a solution when we couldn’t find one. In the COE, this is what we were all taught to do. In the real world, these are the skills that have helped me succeed and they are also the same skills that have given me confidence to venture out as an entrepreneur.

Before we were acquired, we were the typical startup. We had raised very little money and had a billion and one things to do. We had to build a product, sell the product to clients, create marketing materials, manage finances, create processes and business workflows, deal with attorneys, and on and on. The reality is I never learned about any one particular topic in school that was applicable to our business. Its not like I took a class called “how to prioritize features” or “how to get a terms sheet from a VC.” I did however learn how to think in a certain way. An analytical thought process that allowed me to break down each component of our business and understand how each component affected the other.  And this is what engineering is all about. It’s about understanding how things work, in order to identify a problem and ultimately solve for that problem.

At Spinback, the problem we were solving was how to help online retailers leverage social media to drive and track new sales. In a short period of time, our solutions called EasyShare and EasyTrack helped us secure over 15 clients in less than two months. We were able to sign up some of the largest online retailers in the world, convince investors to give us money to scale our business, and secure our position as a thought leader in the social commerce space. As a result, we were lucky and fortunate enough to be acquired by one of the fastest growing technology companies of all time.

Looking back, I can recall one very late night in our Union Square office. As we were trying to solidify a sales and marketing strategy one of my partners said, “this is one giant equation that we are solving.”  In that moment I thought about the four years at UW-Engineering and said, “Yes, yes it is.”

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My Company Spinback Is Being Acquired

As the news says, today my partners and I over at Spinback are pleased to announce that we’ve been acquired by Buddy Media, the Facebook management system of choice for eight out of the ten top global advertisers.

When we started Spinback the goal was to build the most cutting edge technology that would facilitate conversations and sharing of products. More importantly, we wanted this technology to also track how word of mouth marketing affects new sales and new customer acquisition.

Now as a part of Buddy Media, we will have  all the tools and infrastructure necessary to accelerate our collective mission which is ultimately about leveraging this new social web in new and interesting ways for leading companies around the world.

We are really excited to begin the next chapter and I’ll leave the rest of the details to Buddy Media.

On to the next one…

UPDATE – Here are a few press releases:

UPDATE – June 14, 2012 – Buddy Media was acquired by Salesforce

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Spend Smart Money with the Smartest Companies in Social Media

(Disclaimer: I currently work for Lotame Solutions).

Let’s face it, the “Social Media” buzz word has been used a bit much these days doing two things:

  1. Validating its importance and relevance in an evolving communications landscape. As the usage statistics for these social sites and platforms continue to grow, the constant referencing of the term “social media” or “social web” will only continue to rise (Warning: The web is becoming social).
  2. Making it extremely difficult for marketers to navigate through the hundreds of “Social Media” marketing solutions. It’s not that there are not too many “social media sites/platforms”, but too many social media marketing solutions. For example, Facebook is a social media site with, as of now, a relatively weak marketing solution given their decision to remain extremely focused on increasing the overall user experience. Lotame and the other companies mentioned in this list do not have social media sites (most mentioned), they have social media marketing solutions. Until the Facebooks and Twitters of the world figure out a coherent marketing solution for advertisers, marketers will continue to need help.

After being immersed in the “Social Media” industry for over a year now and speaking to a wide variety of industry professionals, I’d like to present my list of who I think are the Kings of Social Media marketing (not to be confused with social media sites or platforms). These are companies that have established a necessary product or service capable of delivering cost effective and successful marketing campaigns within “Social Media”, regardless of company size, revenue, public visibility or public relations, funding and support.

(In no particular order…after 1)

1.

Lotame‘s technology called Crowd Control gives marketers, agencies and advertisers the ability to not only reach users that fit their target profile, but also arms marketers with the ability to reach the Influencers. These are the users that are most engaged with the social media platform or website. Additionally, Crowd Control allows agencies to build their own custom audience around specific brands or products, and expose those users to a campaign based on a set amount of time (think 30 second tv commercial) instead of traditional ad serving impressions.

2.buddymedialogo

Buddy Media builds custom branded applications that can be integrated within social media platforms. Instead of trying to monetize the space around a social media site, buddy media creates an environment where users engage with the brand itself. Using their technology called BuddyBrain, Buddy Media can track usage statistics for their clients demonstrating how valuable it is to integrate a brand with a social media application.

3.

AdNectar takes the viral approach to a new level by building light, integrated social campaigns. AdNectar enables marketers with the ability to create their own e-gifts that can be inserted directly into the conversation. Once the brand becomes a part of the conversation, brand awareness increases exponentially as users spread the word by sharing the gifts among their friends.

4.

BzzAgent takes on the word-of-mouth marketing approach. Users voluntarily sign up as BzzAgents in their Frogpond and get first access to new products they demonstrate an interest in.  Since the product is meaningful and relevant to the individual, they are inclined to spread the word amongst their friends. In exchange for getting a first look at new products, the marketers get completed surveys around the product or brand.

5.

LinkedIn POLLS:  LinkedIn has a feature called LinkedIn Polls. This feature is powerful as it enables marketers to ask, in real time, survey questions to a very specific type of audience either based on occupation or their social graph. Since users very specifically declare attributes about their professional life, marketers looking to reach decision makers or executives can do so in an easy interface.

6.

Spongecell takes the traditional IAB ad unit and turns it into a social asset. By integrating social components such as “add to calendar”, “email to friend”, “add to Facebook”, Spongecell helps marketers take a standard creative asset and turn it into a potentially viral element.

7.

OggifFinogi makes User Generated Content available within standard, but flashy and engaging ad units. By dynamically inserting videos into the ad unit, marketers can easily and cost effectively build rich media creatives that can be served as standard IAB ad units. Furthermore, these ad units can open up whereas the user is exposed to a marketer’s micro site or video commercial without having to leave the publishing site.

8.

Clearspring enables marketers to build and virally spread their lightweight widgets across the internet. Marketers can build their widgets through their program called WidgetMedia, and additionally spread and track distribution with their program/product called LaunchPad.

9.

Amplify provides a way for marketers to track the buzz and conversation between users across social media. Although there are many solutions out there that look at keywords and context, Amplify takes it a step further offering sentiment around a particular product or brand.

There are many other great social media marketing solutions out there. What kind of experiences have you had with social media marketing in general?

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