#smashnyc

A few weeks ago I attended Smash Summit in NYC held at Microsoft and produced by 500 startups, with .CO as one of the main sponsors. The one-day conference featured top startups with speakers discussing platform strategies, tactics, and tips on attracting customers. Although I missed the morning sessions featuring executives from Youtube, Foursquare, Facebook and others, I came across other companies and took home some great advice:   Billy Chasen, Founder and CEO of Turntable.fm noted that the best way to acquire users is through the product itself. As the first truly social music network with over 625,000 users in over three months, the CEO admit that it was all due to word of mouth publicity, not your typical press release pitch. Turntable wanted to first target the community that loves music before anyone else; Chasen advised that you need to find the right crowd for your product at the right time. If you treat your core product as always evolving, there’s no such thing as the product “getting old.” Keep it fresh, add some features if you need and stay true to making a better user experience. Stew Langille, CEO of Visual.ly expressed that in social media, people look for the stuff they want to share with friends, and infographics are a great way to do that. Publishers have grown 12% using visualizations compared to 1% of those who have not. You can use infographics for company presentations, to drive page views on your personal blog, impress clients and educate people, and of course don’t forget to give credit where it’s due! Dan Porter, CEO of OMGPOP, talked about customer acquisition through gamification. Gamification is a huge trend, from the foursquare badges to the various leaderboards on Facebook and smart phones. A few key takeaways:

Guide the user- having an instruction that says “Click the tile” vs. “Click the tile (with picture of an arrow pointing to the tile)” showed that users were more engaged with the latter. EX) Turbotax deconstructs and walks you through filling out your taxes quickly and efficiently.

Think in loops- sites like Autocorrect, Twitter and Formspring are examples of sites that loop information back.

Create friendly competition- Linkedin, for example, shows users how many connections they have made (similar to how many Facebook friends one has), but rather than having it be a popularity contest, the site makes it so that users who rack up over 500 connections are all equally classified as “500+” so that everyone is happy.

Make things fun- post interesting and relevant content on your company’s Facebook page, make your product appealing and competitive in some form so that users will be more included to engage.

Overall there were some great tips to take away for one’s own company and product. The night ended with an inspiring speech from .CO’s very own Vice President, Lori Anne Wardi, who discussed .CO’s emerging influence in the domain world in spite of ICANN’s recent announcement to release all domains to the public. The night ended on a fun note with an after party hosted by .CO at INC lounge; one lucky person won an iPod shuffle and 50% off a .co name.

Shira Palka

Curated Takeaways from Smash Summit

I've curated the biggest takeaways from Smash Summit, a marketing conference in New York City organized by Dave McClure and 500 Startups. The summit focused on marketing strategies for various platforms to acquire customers and retain them.

Here's a full summary of the notable individuals and content presented.

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures (@fredwilson)

Prioritize attention in this order: Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr

"Not much inherently different between +1, Like and Retweet."

Tumblr is underrated at the moment and should be in the conversation with Facebook and Twitter

"Create great content that people care about."

"Every feature you add is another feature you should take out."

"Most powerful platforms focused on getting users at the beginning, not money."

Dave McClure, 500 Startups (@davemcclure)

Twitter is important platform for connecting and dialogue with consumers

Twitter is a broadcast experience

Robert Scoble, Rackspace (@Scobleizer)

Google+ wins

Shiva Rajaraman, YouTube (@shivar)

YouTube plays 3 billion+ videos daily, of which more than 500 million are offsite

The second most searched site. Google now owns #1 and #2

Best marketing tips: pick a title always including company name; first 15 seconds are most important; make it unique; entertain or educate; play on existing trends; encourage feedback and reward your audience

Billy Chasen, turntable.fm (@billychasen)

turntable.fm gained 600,000 active users in first 3 months from word of mouth. Actually told media to fuck off

TechCrunch story doesn't matter if it's not the right community for your product

"Spam, misuse and scaling aren't issues until they become issues."

Friends of friends greatly helps virality; create a better incentive

Influencers are helpful, but not necessary

Make incentives for both referrer and recipient

Laura Fitton, HubSpot (@pistachio)

Be useful—influence is about providing attention and value to others

42% of companies acquire a consumer through Twitter

All businesses should register: http://business.twitter.com/

Jon Steinback, Foursquare (@itsmejon)

Foursquare presents huge opportunity for startups to create incentives and dialogue with consumers

Badging drives foot traffic

Helps via distribution channel 

Ankur Pansari, Facebook

Leaked: Facebook has a quarter billion mobile users.

Facebook doesn't see itself owning brand pages. Brands own relationship with consumers

Facebook timelines will curate a deeper identity through visuals 

Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth.com (@amandasteinberg)

Press is good but doesn't grow email subscriber list

Must have kickass content with personality

Pay someone to write subject email lines

Email at 2pm local — best time

Make email newsletters easy to forward

Roshanna Sabaratnam, Gilt Groupe

Paid memberships are the death of any company

Find a way to operate company through free membership, even if exclusive