Leveraging social media

*As a disclaimer, I’m only speaking of companies with an explicit focus on college markets. Similar principles surely apply to all companies, but there are particular differences here including a) college students’ high usage rates of social media tools and b) the small, localized communities if you’re focused on a campus level

To leverage social media well, college-focused startups should:

1) Have a presence on the major social networking sites, eg Facebook, Myspace, etc. Usage patterns differ greatly by campus, but for most large public and private universities, Facebook is typically the most popular place. Setup a group or a page for your company, post only what is necessary, and begin inviting everyone you know (even if they don’t go to that particular school or aren’t a college student at all) – this will give the appearance of activity/popularity

2) Most social media sites are only valuable for reaching specific people, not communities – so don’t spend too much time on secondary sites/tools (eg, Twitter, YouNoodle, etc). Quickly establish a presence if you have a specific purpose – such as making contacts in a small community (eg, programmers) or beginning a conversation with select individuals

3) Better the “short, frequent” updates vs the “long, content-heavy” ones. Students have short attention spans but frequent social media sites often, so adjust your communications accordingly

4) Don’t split your community (this only applies if you’re focused on a campus-by-campus level). For instance, I only use Facebook for Yap’d at Berkeley. Most students have profiles on multiple social networks but having separate MySpace and Facebook pages would only double my work and halve student attention.

At the end of the day…social media’s impact can be large, but its not helpful unless you’ve got more important things under control – namely, paying customers, a growing user base, and real user engagement with your product/service. Avoid spending too much time on it as a startup – there are 15 other areas that could directly benefit your bottom line.

Why moving fast is crucial in college markets

Why?

1) It allows you to control your brand/reputation before word-of-mouth and consumer experiences begin to control it for you in an unfair/unpredictable way. When you first launch a product, scale quickly at your target markets – spend big money now to establish a good foothold rather then spend bigger money later addressing negative mispercpetions

2) College markets are all about saturation. Students are distracted/busy enough thru the day that if they see one of your flyers or marketing materials, they won’t notice. If they see two, they may think twice. If they see 5, they’ll notice stop and wonder who the heck did that.

3) You’re limited in your LARGE DISTRIBUTION POINTS – ways to reach large swathes of the campus population at one event, thru one distribution channel, etc. Thus if these are available, take them as your product/service launching point and take advantage of them early and often. It’s worth what may be perceived as the extra $/customer acquired for that type of access…

…which leads me to next question, How?

1) Hit up LARGE DISTRIBUTION POINTS. Typically these are only a few things – and to get the best intel, talk to as many students as you can and read the student newspaper on a regular basis.

• conferences and events that involve a large portion of the student population
• “the School Newspaper” – for Stanford, that’s the Stanford Daily. at Berkeley, it’s the Daily Cal.
• concerts and performing arts events
• major career fairs
• secondary publications – humor magazines were big at my campus. some schools have large readerships for both partisan and non-partisan political publications
• FOOTBALL GAMES – these are huge if you can figure out a way to have a solid presence. One plan of mine is to table outside the student entrance – great branding as you know thousands of students will be passing those gates.

2) FLYER RELIGIOUSLY AROUND CAMPUS. But better to use the higher quantity/fewer cycles “saturation model” than the lower quantity/more cycles model. The few campuses that I’ve actively been involved with always have a few high-visibility flyering points. It’s critical for you to flyer these spots heavily AND frequently since your flyers will be covered immediately by those of some preceding student group/conference. It’s worth it though.

3) ENGAGE FANS. For people close enough to the market to have personal relationships, have them spread the word for you as a favor, give them stuff like free tshirts and branded tchotchkes. Create a fan group where you send them free stuff, give them public recognition on your website, and encourage them to spread the word thru friends and friends-of-friends. The right people really can make a difference – providing all sorts of useful access down the line to different student groups, admin, innovative ideas, student feedback, etc

The difficulties of entrepreneurship

Having been at the helm of Yap’d for the last 3 months, I can say without hesitation that’s it been the biggest professional challenge I’ve faced. 

I wanted to share my reflections on what have been the biggest obstacles, and a few pearls of wisdom that I’ve collected thru this time.

1) Uncertainty – you have very limited visibility in a startup. I often have no idea what’s to come when I wake up that morning, to say the least of planning weeks and months at a time. The so-what? Set a few (emphasis on few) sensible weekly and monthly goals, and track your performance closely! For Yap’d – my most important goal is increasing our student user base, which is reflected in how many rewards cards I distribute and the number of visitors that each of our businesses receive on a daily/weekly basis. I look at these numbers closely to see how I’m stacking up against my plans.

2) Motivation - as the only fulltime person (with a team of 8 part-time student-employees), only I can really hold myself accountable. This becomes tricky because if I feel sluggish and decide to take it easy that day, there’s no one there to yell at me for not producing. The so-what? Do your best to get a fulltime partner to hold each other mutually accountable. Establish frequent meetings and check-points with the broader team (but keep them short and on-task) – these are harder to cancel if you don’t feel up to the task and will force you to be productive. Give family and friends frequent updates so they can help keep you honest.

3) Resource limitations – having relied largely on bootstrapping with a few small investments from friends/family, I pay very close attention to the bottom line and really try to stretch resources. This can make growth difficult because your most scalable means of attracting attention are typically the most expensive -as a consequence, I have fewer advertising dollars, lower employee salaries and fewer hours worked, etc. The so-what? Rely on relationships to push word-of-mouth, free help on tasks. Rely on data to figure out which areas for spending money are the most effective/crucial, and don’t hesitate to spend money where it matters! For me, Facebook advertising (although with low CTRs and limited success at direct customer acquisition) has been great in passive/sub-conscious branding – getting people to see/recognize our name and brand to make follow-up marketing efforts more receptive and effective

4) Credibility – one of the biggest problems I’ve faced is the lack of trust/comfort from new customers. Students often don’t know if they can trust us, which makes product adoption and building a fan base difficult. The so-what? Again, focus on relationships! By spreading word thru friends-of-friends, utilizing social media outlets like FB, and constantly communicating with your users thru newsletters, updates, etc – you show users that you’re around to stay, have consistently new/fresh content, and enhance your appeal by going thru trusted sources.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

Successful college-focused startup #1: Mobile Campus

So I first started following this company a year ago, when I became increasingly interested in mobile advertising and the opportunity to create such businesses catering to college students.

Mobile Campus has already started, and has been doing well from what I can gather – recently hiring a former AT&T exec, expanding to multiple campuses in Southwestern states, and steadily developing their website. Although I know that for a period – they were searching for VC money – and haven’t gotten it (at least from what I can tell).

What do they do? Basically, they send text message coupons/information updates to college students. At some campuses, they partner with student government/administration. They sign-up college students for their free service, and monetize by selling access to local businesses and university admin.

Why are they successful?

1) IT’S FREE. Students love free stuff – although surprisingly, just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’ll get big. Mobile Campus makes it attractive because its a free service that keeps giving – popular local businesses routinely give away free food and steep discounts to students that redeem the text at their business

2) THEY PARTNER with powerful university groups – at UT-Austin, they rely on student government to help sign-up students. They partner with university administration to send school-related updates and emergency texts to students. This gives MC credibility, powerful distribution channels, and key relationships to expand fast and maintain their presence.

3) INHERENTLY VIRAL and MC doesn’t discourage that. When students receive texts to redeem free food, they naturally want to share with friends. MC does not limit coupon redemption and makes it easy to send the texts to friends. Even if the restaurants limit this at point-of-sale, the texts (and MC’s name recognition) have already spread by then.

What could they do better?

1) INCORPORATE EMAIL. Plenty of students are still resistant to text message advertising because they have to pay for texts. Students also check email frequently – and increasingly, they have smartphones/PDAs that give instant email access. By sending deals thru email, you expand your distribution base and also attract a segment that would otherwise have not participated. Giving students CHOICE really matters (although not getting out of control)

2) FOCUS ON FANS. I’m a passionate believer in the 80/20 rule (perhaps ingrained from my McKinsey days). Even with Yap’d – I’ve started to notice that if you build a great service, even in the early days you’ll have a vocal set of hardcore users/fans. Really engage them. In MC’s case, it’s particularly easy to give them free stuff, encourage them to text offers to friends, wear MC tshirts around campus, be an extension of the brand. I’m kinda iffy about Gladwell’s idea that there are a small % of incredibly influential/well-connected people, but I do know that there are passionate fans that you should engage as much as possible, particularly in an enclosed, word-of-mouth-reliant environment with energetic, spare-time-rich college students.

That’s it for now.

Why market your products on college campuses

The title is very specific – companies large and small understand the need to recruit on college campuses. But very few companies focus extensive resources to market their products to students.

I can come up with many reasons why – students are a fickle consumer set; you often need boots-on-the-ground; its tricky to work with administrators.

But let’s look at the benefits of doing it…

1) You hit very vocal early adopters. Students have a loud and strong presence in social media and are often looked to as sources of advice on what to buy/use (particularly on technology) by older generations. Analysts and interns at my consulting firm were always the ones that showed the rest of their teams how to use specific software features, cool online tools, etc. 

2) The costs can be surprisingly low. Will touch upon this more in my next post.

3) You get insightful feedback from those that you build relationships with. Student innovation is a given – and they are the ones to most often not accept things as they are, but as they could be. This feedback if utilized properly can be very powerful for startups, mom-and-pops, and big suits alike.

4) You accelerate local adoption. Many towns are called “college towns” for a reason. Students dominate. And if you can generate great buzz on campus, you can push adoption faster on a local/regional basis. As an example – look at the success of Mobile Campus’s text-message advertising at UT-Austin. Students receive text-message coupons to local businesses and redeem by showing their phones at time of purchase. If MC decided to broaden their focus outside the campus community, it would be easier to get press (hell, half of downtown Austin reads the main campus newspaper already), push viral and word-of-mouth marketing, and tie-up advertisers given their already prominent student user base. It would be much harder to accomplish in reverse.

Getting all disclaimers out of the way

1) I will often make vague, unsupported generalizations. Please rest assured that I am aware that they are vague, unsupported generalizations. I will add ie’s and eg’s where I can.

2) I am not an expert in all things college-related. I went to a private, West Coast university, which will undoubtedly inform my views. Even those views may not be expert. For example, I don’t even know my alma mater’s founding date.

3) Sometimes, I like feedback. So please comment on my posts and discuss areas where you agree/disagree. I can guarantee a response – believe it or not, mastering keyboard shortcuts and fast typing can get you through all unread and unanswered emails. It’s not lack of skill, it’s lack of interest in doing so.

4) Each school has its unique idiosyncrasies. Student populations can be very different at two private universities that look similar on paper. Even the same school changes over time. With Yap’d, I work heavily with local businesses. Some had close to zero customers 3 years ago. Lines run out the door now for lunch. Some businesses didn’t even exist at that time.

Just plenty of hedging on my part for the posts to come. Thanks for reading.

My first post – what/who/why

What: a blog that will cover everything I (and hopefully some guest contributors) know about college campuses today, particularly from a business and technology perspective

Who: for everyone who’s interested in understanding today’s college communities. Particularly those involved in entrepreneurship, marketing, digital media, the 18-24 demo, etc.

Why: because I’m jumping on the blogging bandwagon. And because for the last 5 months, I’ve been working on various student-focused startups (current focus: www.getyapd.com) and I’d like to share that experience. And because I think college students today are the most innovative, early-adopting, entrepreneurial people I know, and I love innovation, early-adoption, and entrepreneurship

Future topics that I plan to cover:

• How small companies can build a brand on campus
• Breaking down “college campuses” into groups that make sense (eg public vs private, large vs small)
• Cool startups today focused on college students (mine will obviously make an appearance)
• Interviews with student-entrepreneurs

Finally, I’ll occasionally post random stuff of interest – I particularly like coming up with new startup ideas. By doing this, I’m hoping two things will happen: 1) a rich investor will give me a large bundle of money (even in this economy) and 2) some super smart techies will offer their services for equity only

Good luck to all.