AndaPR

Crowdfunding your startup is about to change

2012-01-12T19:25:35Z

Crowdfunding your startup is about to change

Crowdfunding has become the life blood for many startups, entrepreneurs and creative types. It not only serves to fund a project, it’s an amazing venue for validation, marketing and customer development.

When submitting an idea to sites like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or 33needs, you open your idea up to feedback and criticism, but also create a channel for early message development and customer acquisition.

But you already knew that, right?

Did you know crowdfunding is likely to become regulated under securities law?

There are two different bills being floated in the House and Senate. But, each will broaden the permissible funding activity allowed through crowdfunders!

For now, as long as you’re just giving away products and not equity in exchange for donor investments, you are fine. But, you’ll want to keep an eye out for changes that will likely be coming around the corner soon.

From VentureBeat
H.R. 2930 Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

On November 3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2930 (the “Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act”), a crowdfunding bill that will allow startups to offer and sell securities via crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, as well as social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

S. 1791 Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011

On November 2nd Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts introduced S.1791 (the “Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011”), which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. A hearing was held by such committee on December 1 with respect to a number of pieces of capital formation legislation, including crowdfunding.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Occupy Oakland General Occupation – It’s About Real People

2011-11-02T22:11:52Z

Occupy Oakland General Occupation – It’s About Real People

People from Oakland, the Bay Area and throughout California turned out to support the movement of Occupy Oakland through the General Occupation.

Here is a link to coverage from Yahoo! of the Occupy Oakland General Occupation

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Can Yahoo! Change it’s Image with the New Social-Oriented Facebook Facebar?

2011-09-23T18:33:20Z

Can Yahoo! Change it’s Image with the New Social-Oriented Facebook Facebar?

Yahoo! announces it is teaming up with Facebook to essentially recapture Yahoo news that’s shared by users within the Facebook community… with the new Facebar.

Consumers of Yahoo News have been sharing information and links via Facebook for years. So the integration just formalizes activity that has been happening organically. The difference is the addition of a feedback loop, where Yahoo! users will then see the Yahoo news and related activity — that has been shared by their friends in Facebook — on their Yahoo! pages.

The good news… unlike Facebook changes, which are imposed, the Yahoo! Facebar will be optional and require linking to your Facebook page.

Will the advent of the Yahoo! Facebar finally lead to success in the king of content’s determination to become more social?

The announcement was made at the F8 Developer Conference hosted by Facebook, where Facebook announce significant and as always controversial changes to the their platform, turning it into what looks and feels like Storify on steroids.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

PR and Marketing: Don’t forget the basics while chasing the social media train

2011-09-16T16:36:15Z

PR and Marketing: Don’t forget the basics while chasing the social media train

PR and Marketing are often used interchangeably. While they are related and overlap, they are two different disciplines.

So… this post was inspired by a party I went to last night to celebrate an author / friend’s third publishing deal. Congratulations to Andrew Lam! You can check him out at www.redroom.com/author/andrew-q-lam

I had the opportunity to chat with a very creative artist / musician / accountant who posed the question, “What is the difference between PR and marketing?”

I have to admit, I found it quite refreshing! With all the fuss around social media, I just don’t get that question any more. So here’s is a quick refresher for those of you who’ve wondered the same.

The basics of PR and Marketing

On PR…

From a strategic standpoint, the focus of PR, aka public relations, is on creating sentiment, awareness, and understanding about a product, service or issue. It is generally used, in part, to influence what an audience knows or understands.

More concretely, PR tactics include activities which:

Generate news
Create ‘buzz’
Position
Reinforce the brand

A few key benefits of PR are:

1. PR can be used to raise brand awareness

2. PR is supportive of marketing and sales efforts

3. PR can be used to reach new and existing audiences

On Marketing…

Marketing is more directly focused on selling — determining how to get people to buy, and all the strategies and activities around meeting that end goal.

While there are many ways of going about marketing, there are two general areas of focus:

1. Market research: Identifying and understanding the buying audience(s), figuring out how to reach people who will buy and determining how best to ‘lead’ them to buy

2. Marketing collateral / Sales tools: The creation of those fancy, eye catching materials that ‘help’ buyers / potential buyers understand the products and services being sold (websites, brochures, whitepapers…)

There have long been arguments around whether PR is a part of marketing or whether it is an adjust discipline. The answer depends on who you talk to, but I like to look at the two as parts of a process.

PR, Marketing and the confusion around social media

PR, Marketing and the Internet are the forebearers of social media, yet the lack of awareness about the former has led to a great deal of confusion for those wanting to ‘go social’ professionally.

I’ve found there are three main reasons for the confusion around using social media channels, social marketing principles and social networking outlets in the business mix…

1. An intense focus on the social is leaving folks with a myopic view of what their actions and end goals should be

2. Social media strategy and tactics are not being properly integrated into the overall PR and marketing strategies

3. Folks are bypassing the basics of PR and marketing

LESSON: Sparkly, new things are always fun. But as old school as it may seem, if you to get back to the basics of your PR and marketing strategy, with an eye for the social, your social media efforts will fall into place.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Twitter: A Journalist’s “Best Friend” When Used Wisely

2011-09-16T16:34:22Z

Twitter: A Journalist’s “Best Friend” When Used Wisely

Are you on Twitter? As a journalist, freelance writer or editor, Twitter is the place to be. It has become like a toll-free, express lane for news. That said,it can also be a time suck if used without a strategy and purpose.

For those needing a refresher: The ‘microblogging’ tool allows users to communicate in 140 characters. It’s like texting, but instead of connecting with people in your phone book, users have access to the millions of people around the Internet. It has been one of the most widely used news and social media tools, in the world!

Whether you have been using Twitter for some time, or are preparing to send out your first tweet, there are a few things you want think about, which are just as basic and important as the Who, What, When, Where and Why of traditional journalism.

Following are a few slides from a presentation I conducted this Spring in Chicago to give you something to think about when using Twitter (and related management tools like TweetDeck, Twitterrific and HootSuite) more efficiently and with a purpose.

Twitter: A Journalist’s Best Tool

View more presentations from Sherbeam Wright.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog or YouTube?

2011-06-28T22:07:10Z

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog or YouTube?

If you had to give up one, what would you choose?

Take Our Poll

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Oakland Plans to Bridge Digital Divide Through GetConnected Initiative

2011-06-23T21:45:36Z

Oakland Plans to Bridge Digital Divide Through GetConnected Initiative

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

CBS EcoAds – When a great branding concept goes wrong

2011-06-23T21:47:02Z

CBS EcoAds – When a great branding concept goes wrong

I first learned of the CBS EcoAds when talking to a friend who works for CBS. I admit, I hadn’t seen or investigated any of the ads, but the concept sounded awesome. Revenue generated from the ads would be used to fund public environmental projects. It sounds like a win-win scenario at a time when the funding of parks and public energy-efficiency projects is much needed.

This initiative is the result of CBS’ partnership, and subsequent acquisition of EcoMedia, a ‘green’ ad buys company, last May.

So, how could it go so wrong?

RP Siegel over at TriplePundit.com spoke to Jennifer Kaplan of Ecopreneurist, one of the parties in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint, who says:

the CBS EcoAd ‘digital green leaf’ is an eco-label that can be easily misinterpreted by consumers. We are concerned that CBS has failed to establish meaningful and verifiable criteria for the label and has a clear conflict of interest regarding who is eligible for the program.

The concern is completely valid and understandable. So, what does CBS need to do next to handle this issue? Do they need to abandon the program? No. My first thoughts, before this gets any further out of control:

1. Say a mea culpa, AND

2. Hire someone who can help them develop ‘certifiable’ criteria for which companies must qualify to wear the beautiful eco ad label, AND

3. Create a Ad program for those companies that don’t qualify to wear the label, but can still find it in their pockets to participate. They can always get a few points for their contributions in their Corporate Social Responsibility reports.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Slideshow: Web2.0 Expo Faves: from SpeakerText to Room77

2011-03-30T21:13:01Z

Slideshow: Web2.0 Expo Faves: from SpeakerText to Room77

In case you missed day 1 of the Web2.0 Expo

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media

Judge says no to Google digital book domination

2011-06-23T19:12:06Z

Judge says no to Google digital book domination

Judge Chin says no to Google

U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin put the kibosh on Google’s quest to become the publishing world’s ‘daddy’.

In case you had not heard… Google set out to digitize and essentially archive all of the world’s books, creating the world’s biggest digital book library, and all for $125 million.

Digital rights groups and authors are among those celebrating. Their concern… had the judge agreed to the settlement, Google would have been allowed to own and control all of the world’s works in the form of digital books, while violating authors’ copyrights. Authors would have to opt-out of the program.

According to Jack Korba of the Intellectual Property Brief,

The opt-out system that the settlement created exempted Google from future infringements that some authors may not be aware of as of now. Such protection would definitely contribute to Google’s monopoly over the digitization of books and would potentially affect authors that were not adequately represented by the class representatives.

Some have argued… What’s innovation without breaking a few laws? I bet if Google, or some other entity, hit them in just the right place… they might think otherwise.

Anyway…

Want the backstory? Check out Publisher’s Weekly article providing their perspective on what the decision means for the stakeholders: authors, publishers, libraries and Google.

AndaPR - The blog of AndaCommunications: Sustainable Communication & Media