Sure, a friends and family round is the financial fuel of many startups. But, pay careful attention to what gramps and gram are doing with their checkbook as they may also soon be able to fund your competition. Crowdfunding, the ability of everyday people – not just accredited investors – to invest in startups, is getting ever closer to reality. Part of the JOBS Act passed in 2012, the Security and Exchange Commission has been taking its time coming up with the rules.

Recently, they just issued their first draft for 90 days of public comment and there certainly will be some, because they are screwing the intent of the JOBS Act all up. Here is what GCAi basketball buddy then Senator Brown, a leading supporter of the act, said at that time. “Crowdfunding is a game changer for startups and entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country. These small businesses now have a powerful new tool to grow and create jobs. And now every American, regardless of income level, is able to invest and get in on the ground floor of a great business idea. This bill has great potential for our economy and job growth.” (MassLive)  While repeatedly draining shots from a static position just off the key, Brown told us that he was very concerned that the SEC was going to “fudge things up!” (okay, we cleaned the comment up a bit).

So let’s assume that there is an outcry and the SEC gets it right and grandma can invest in the near future. How does she do that? Through platforms like Wefunder. Thanks to an introduction by Scott Kirsner, the GCAi crew (and one guy from Valley Venture Mentors) were able to sit down in front of an enormous tower of pumpkin beer at Cambridge Brewing Company with Wefunder co-founder Mike Norman to both examine the past and look into the future of crowdfunding. Mike and his team are pretty amazing. They were very early advocates of crowdfunding and led the charge for the bill in Washington. In fact, they were so effective that they were invited to the White House for the bill signing. As a result, Time Magazine, PBS, Silicon Valley Business Journal, INC., Forbes and a whole lot more have quoted them and covered their startup.

The road from Y Combinator (Application Video) to bi-coastal startup has not been an easy one, but their intent has stayed the same: “We believe that when all Americans can invest in innovation, the world will be a better place.” (more).

So, congratulations to Wefunder on a successful launch (of your business and the JOBS Act) and GCAi looks forward to sharing another enormous tower of pumpkin beer with you again in the future!

At GCAi, much of our work consists of developing content for social media and observing trends and data associated with those platforms. It’s hard to imagine living on #GCAiPlanet without access to Facebook and Twitter. However, that is not the case for many other companies. In fact, according to the Huffington Post, 89% of the nearly 1,500 companies they interviewed in the U.S. impose limits on employee access to social networking sites. They argue that giving access to Facebook will tempt employees to procrastinate, get distracted, and post comments or opinions which reflect poorly on the company, all while on the clock and getting paid.

In our opinion, statistics like this overshadow the fact that there are potential benefits to accessing social networks while at work. When using these platforms appropriately, employees can become great brand advocates, stay up to date on news and trending issues, and find creative inspiration. Companies that ban Facebook, Twitter and other sites maybe be missing out on the opportunity to educate employees on the proper use of these sites to supplement their work, for purposes ranging from research to becoming brand ambassadors.

We asked our subscribers and followers to share their opinions on the issue through a short survey we developed. While only 25% of respondents work at a company where social media is banned, a whopping 87.5% do use social media during work hours. When asked if social media should be banned in the workplace, and if it reduces productivity by being overly distracting, 75% of respondents said no. Most people suggested that even when social networks are banned on company computers it’s not hard to find loopholes. “If a company bans social media on computers people will just access it on their phones,” answered one participant. Another stated, “The block is only on the corporate channel – which employees can work around.”

The reality is that use of social networks during work hours may be acceptable for some businesses and not for others. While it can certainly lead to decreased productivity when misused, we suggest that companies should educate their employees, outlining acceptable use in the workplace. Social media guidelines should be developed, especially in regards to the content that is posted, frequency of use and what accounts should be accessible to each employee during work hours. Those companies and individuals who use social media properly stand to reap many benefits that would otherwise be unavailable.

 

Does your company allow the use of social media during work hours? Email me and let me know- John

Storytelling has long been the best way to get an audience to understand an important message. While a well-constructed tale can be impactful on its own, since the days of cave-drawings it has been known that visuals enhance any story. With digital media allowing for worldwide distribution of images and video, the possibilities of using visuals to create an enhanced experience for an audience are endless.

The GCAi team was excited to explore some of these possibilities at the Employing Visual Content for Compelling Storytelling event hosted by PR Newswire at the Boston Public Library. As long-time fans of visually compelling content, we were anxious to find out how others were using it to connect with the digital masses. Here are some useful ideas and key takeaways we got from the event.

The presentations began with Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships. His 3 simple steps to creating moments of inspiration included building suspense, driving empathy and fostering aspiration. A great example of a company that did all these steps right is Breville, an appliance manufacturer. According to Andrew, they commissioned a documentary about a man whose conditioned inspired the title, “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead”. The story focused on the man’s journey as he regained his health and happiness through an all juice diet, with suspense, empathy and aspiration building along the way. Despite not directly marketing their line of juicers, Breville saw a huge increase in juicer sales following the release of the documentary.

He also shared this cool video from Vooray when he spoke about fostering aspiration, which we loved:

Kirby Wadsworth, CMO of Limelight Networks, further emphasized the importance of visuals in storytelling with his StoryShowing presentation. He argued that to engage in successful digital storytelling, the 8 C’s must be applied: Connected, Committed, Customer, Character, Crescendo, aCountable, Consistent and Conversion.

These 8 steps work together to create an authentic, consistent, measurable and impactful message that the audience can relate to. Kirby then showed a terrific example of the perfect digital storytelling campaign, created by the New Zealand lottery, which nails the 8 C’s. Make sure you have some tissues handy, it’s about to get emotional.

Next up, Rue La La Vice President of User Experience Tom Weisend wrapped things up by discussing challenges the online clothing retailer has faced. For example, when Rue La La partnered with the popular television show American Horror Story, the dark imagery associated with Salem witchcraft and New Orleans voodoo in the show clashed with the fashion and high quality visuals that Rue La La has become known for. However, using a little creativity and the high standards and professionalism involved in their photo-shoots, they came up with some impressive results.

Every presentation introduced great ideas for engaging an audience with visual elements of storytelling. The GCAi team was excited to get back to mission control and start putting all the tips and theories we heard to use. It was clear to us that the key to connecting with an audience was to provide them with relatable content and visuals to supplement and strengthen that connection. When an audience can see themselves as part of the narrative, whether they think of their dog when they see the New Zealand lottery commercial, or imagine themselves riding the Human Slingshot in the Vooray video, the storyteller can leverage that relationship to build loyalty, visibility and even increase sales. We’ve been on-board the visual bandwagon when it comes to digital for some time, but this event reinforced our love for great imagery, video and above all excellent storytelling.

“Hashtag” may seem like just another term in an era of ever-expanding tech jargon. Seeming to have come out of nowhere, the surprising history behind those four intersecting lines might make you take to Twitter and say #OMG. The hashtag traces its roots back to the days when only birds tweeted and the only tablets were ones made of stone.

Before social media came along, the hashtag (#) was being used all around us. It could be found on telephone keypads, sheet music to represent a sharp note, and foam fingers to signify being #1. Although it was widely referred to as the pound sign, few know that it originated from the symbol for an actual pound, as in the measurement of weight. The original pound sign was “lb” with a line across the middle, an abbreviation for “libra” which was the Roman equivalent of a pound. This New Yorker article argues that sloppy penmanship gave birth to the tic-tac-toe symbol we use today. 

A few short centuries later, Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey. This new platform created a way to disseminate information in real time. Eventually users began experimenting with ways to quickly gather and access popular topics and breaking news. Former Google programmer Chris Messina proposed using the pound sign (or “hash mark”) to serve this purpose. As people started tagging key words and phrases with the pound sign, Twitter formally adopted the practice and hyperlinked words with hashtags in front of them.

By now, hashtags are almost ubiquitous. They’re on our computers screens, phones and even television screens. The simple reason for this is that the hashtag gives people the power to be part of a conversation. Users are one click away from seeing every tweet appended with #superbowl or any other subject, and can join conversations that millions of others are also taking part in.

#superbowl bound? The last two times the @Patriots were 3-0 they went to the Super Bowl.

— 7News (@7News) September 22, 2013

 While Twitter was an early-adopter of the hashtag, other social networks like Facebook and Instagram are incorporating hashtags for the same reasons. LinkedIn remains one of the few networks where hashtags can’t be found in abundance, but that may change in the future.

Naturally there are some guidelines to follow when using hashtags. For starters, if you want a phrase to be part of the hashtag, don’t use any space between words (i.e. #throwbackthursday). Don’t forget, you only have 140 characters to work with on Twitter, so the shorter the better (i.e. #MLB vs. #majorleaguebaseball). Using too many hashtags in a tweet can look like spam, so try not to use more than two per tweet. You also want to make sure you use tools like hashtags.org or tagboard.com to make sure that the hashtag you want to use to represent your company or campaign is not being used for an unrelated topic. Finally, letting people be part of a conversation can have some unintended consequences, as McDonalds found out when they encouraged people to use the hashtag #McDStories, or the controversy Kenneth Cole stirred up joining in on the #Cairo conversation.

Ate a McFish and vomited 1 hour later….The last time I got McDonalds was seriously 18 years ago in college….. #McDstories

— RSYP (@stilettochemist) January 24, 2012

The history of hashtags dates back to before the days when #newworldproblems would’ve been a Trending Topic, and they don’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Traditional media, celebrities and huge brands have adopted them in order to encourage and engage in conversations. The hashtag has taken a new role in serving to connect and inform us, and that’s why we love it. Let us know what you think about hashtags with #GCAideas!

If you have suggestions for future Digital Marketing News posts, please feel free to email me. – John