Smash Summit 2012- Startup Marketing Advice Summaries (Part 1)

I had the pleasure of attending Smash Summit 2012 today, a co-production of  500 Startups Partner Dave McClure and Next Customer founder, and my friend Jay Weintraub. I probably took more away from this event than any other marketing education and experiences I ever encountered. Brilliant Speakers, Rapid Fire Presentations, Crash Courses and Case Studies,all worth millions of dollars in the right hands.

Here are My Key Takeaways from Each Presenter:

BirchBox– A startup that sells a subscription that sends you customized beauty supplies and accessory samples once a month, Yes, they actually get people to pay for samples.My Key Takeaway: “Give Users a Topic to discuss each month.” This worked so well that they saw offices get infested with their monthly shipments, where one month one person ordered BirchBox, and the next month, everyone in the office ordered. GIVE YOUR USERS SOMETHING NEW TO TALK ABOUT EACH MONTH, if you want to spread virally!”

Youtube– No Description needed. I learned a bunch of new things from this presentation that I never new existed.

1. Every Single Minute There are over 700 Youtube Videos Shared on Twitter, and Youtube is an audience of 800 Million users. Youtube will eventually be on EVERY SINGLE DEVICE…How Can ANYONE ignore this Channel? Still not sold, check out these awesome features they shared with us…
   
2. Journalists embed videos from youtube and consume video easier than reading blog posts, etc… So make your videos with Journalists and bloggers sharing them in mind.
3. Youtube Trends lets your research your audience and core demographic to see what they are watching, so you can develop a video plan around their youtube behaviors.
4. You can now place Video Annotations and links in videos that take people to your website, that carries through to embedded players.
5. Crowdfunding projects are raising twice the amount of money when they include a video.
6. My Favorite Takeaway – Youtube Analytics even shows you where in a video users drop off. That is awesome.
   
7. Don’t have budgets for video? You can crowdsource your video to your community several different ways… A) You can do a Hangout and save the video on your channel. B) You can curate other videos with your products into your channel. C) You can ask your community to create videos and upload them to your channel. D) Use a company like Grumo, WDYSD, Epitheo and others…
8. Youtube has great video editing tools that can even make a shaky handmade video look awesome.

All in All, Youtube is cheap enough and easy enough to use, and is too big of an audience to ignore, but remember, Users are there to be entertained, not watch a commercial, and another video is just a click away, so make sure to keep your audience entertained. Finally, if you need inspiration, and cant get any from youtube trends, research, etc… Look to the Cats.

TO BE CONTINUED….