Marketing_me

On the 2012 list of The FORBES 400 Richest Americans, there are a total of 45 women, accounting for 11% of the list. They span the country, residing in states from Texas to Wisconsin and California, and hold most of their wealth in companies they built or inherited. The top 20 richest women alone control an estimated $160 billion—more than the entire GDP ofNew Zealand.

I'm using Lyst to discover the latest fashion. Join me: http://buff.ly/18vbVMm

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Lyst

Quick Pitch: Follow brands, magazines and style icons to get a personalized stream of new clothing items and sales.

Genius Idea: Lyst is a Twitter-like newsfeed for shopping.

Like Twitter, you can opt to subscribe to, save and share the updates of different brands, stores, trendsetters and friends, which are organized in a reverse-chronological newsfeed, or "lyst." You can also create your own curated feed of products, which can likewise function as a cross-platform shopping cart, or universal wishlist.

The site delivers, essentially, a visual, personalized news stream that delivers updates only about products you're likely to be interested in. If you shop upscale, there's no need to visit several different retailers to cross-check inventories or prices, given that many of the major ones, including Bloomingdale's, Barney's and Net-a-Porter, are already indexed on the site.

You also have the freedom to use Lyst as a multi-retailer shopping site, a la ShopStyle. You can browse new additions from many well-known designers and stores, and filter even further by category (say, dresses or bags), color and price. Even better, there's a section entirely for sales.

Co-founder CEO Chris Morton, whom I interviewed on a #fashion140 panel this spring, cites music discovery startups last.fm and Pandora as inspirations for the service.

"Through [those] sites we were discovering great new songs and bands, so we wanted to build a tool that let people discover amazing fashion products and designers," Morton says of Lyst's conception. "We didn't believe that discovery process could be done purely algorithmically, because fashion is a personal expression — it can't be distilled into a sequence of numbers and letters."

I'm using Lyst to discover the latest fashion. Join me: http://buff.ly/18vbVMm

Thus the team turned to Twitter, looking to the microblogging service "to recreate that sort of personalized experience, but centered around visually rich products, just for fashion," he explains.

"In effect, [users'] stylefeeds become the place they are most likely to discover items they love," he adds.

Lyst launched in open beta three months ago and is already attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and driving millions of dollars in sales for the site's partners each month, Morton claims.

Morton himself is a former venture capital investor, having focused on early-stage consumer Internet companies both at Balderton Capital and Benchmark Capital before founding Lyst. He oversees the business from its London headquarters with frequent trips to its satellite office in New York.

The startup, which raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Accel and a handful of investors in the luxury space, is set to announce partnerships with a number of actors and musicians in the coming months, as well as (we expect) a slew of product updates.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible byMicrosoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

There once was a champion of all things social media, who built an enormous following on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and others. 

She practiced what she preached, so each day she took time to start conversations, respond to those who tweeted, and practice simple manners.  Saying things like thank you.  Things that weren't exactly about social media return on investment, but things she did nonetheless.

So one day, she started her day doing what she always did. She spent time searching out those who had found her message valuable and had shared it, and she responded to their generosity of spirit.

On this particular day, she did the same.  Just like always, social media return on investment was the farthest thing from her mind.  And on this day, one of those thanked included a boutique owner new to social media but determined to learn from the best how to build her business using this technology. 

After looking at this particular boutique owner's profile to learn more about her, the social media champion sent back a kind of message she always did.  "Thanks for the RT – how's your day going?"

The boutique owner was surprised that someone with tens of thousands of followers (not to mention a sizeable social media business) might take the time to respond personally respond to someone with so few followers.  She wondered why someone so savvy would engage her, without any obvious social media return on investment at that very moment.  And as a result, she began listening, subscribing, and purchasing everything that came from her newfound mentor about building engagement and business on social media.

Her new teacher announced a conference about the very subject of return on investment in social media.  She bought the first ticket, along with assorted other items.

At the conference, the boutique owner sat at a table with a variety of other business owners.  Her table mates included a woman with her own social media consulting and management business, not to mention a sweet Southern accent that she'd paid to try to lose in the name of sounding more "professional" and "less Southern belle." She'd failed at losing it completely.  She also had a passion for teaching other women, moms, to use the tools of social media. "Return on investment" in her mind was creating enough business for herself and other moms to allow them to stay home and raise their children without always having to worry about money. 

The boutique owner happened to love all things Southern, and was utterly charmed by this woman with a gentle drawl who lived her passion of empowering moms in business. 

And, for the first time being totally herself, Southern accent, values and all, the boutique owner and the new social media consultant talked on and on.  And very naturally, they came to the point in their conversation where they both realized she'd be more effective in her business by outsourcing her social media.  Return on investment would just be higher, outsourcing to a professional social media consulting firm, rather than trying to do it all herself.

From a Tweet of thanks, to a conversation infused with simple honesty and integrity, to a sizeable social media contract.  This is the power of engagement and social media done right.  This is the real potential of social media return on investment.

If I could give you just one takeaway from my story (hard to make it just one!), it would be this:  Be yourself. 

It's so tempting to try to be an impersonal professional and leave the real you out of the picture.  But time and time again I see this in my own business:  People want to interact with real people, not cardboard shells.  And while some people might not like the real you, other people – your ideal client – absolutely will, and seek you out to do business, if you just let them!!!

Now that the bold new frontier of content marketing is in full swing, business to business marketers certainly have their work cut out for them. Between blogging, social media channels, email marketing and the multitude of other outlets for content that fall in between, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the tasks of actually using content to drive business. Yet the fact remains, content is a highly effective means for guiding prospects through the marketing funnel.

The good news is there are numerous resources available that can help with the creation and automation of your content. In addition, by thinking outside the “content box” you can quickly and easily develop content that engages, educates and motivates your target audience. Here are ten tips to get your creative juices flowing:

1. Mix Things Up

If your content is limited to blogging, social media or email marketing it is time to mix things up and add some additional content distribution channels. There are literally hundreds of social media channels, and one of them may be a gold mine for your target audience.

2. Decide: Quantity or Quality?

You may have heard that high quality content that is relevant and useful to your audience is more valuable than a lot of irrelevant content. This is true. However, phenomenal content can be difficult and time consuming to create. There is proven value in good content delivered in small bites via blogging, social media and other channels. So, you can occasionally deliver mind blowing content or consistently provide your targets with good, useful information.

3. Go Beyond the Share

When it comes to content, sharing is caring. Sharing good and useful content is a great way to score points with your prospects. Even better than simply sharing is to provide a commentary or explanation that adds to the share. Improve on a great idea to increase your value to your audience.

4. Share a Content Collection

Instead of sharing just one piece of content, create an entire collection of relevant links. Use tip number 3 to increase the value even more.

5. Give an Unrelated Digital Gift

If you find something cool in one of your feeds that makes a positive impression – share it, even if it is unrelated to your business.

6. Make Content for Your Content

This is especially true for B2B marketers using blogging, social media and email marketing as their main content distribution channels. Making content for your content simply means that you build supporting pieces to support your content. For example, add a slideshow to your email, blogging, social media and other posts.

7. Invite Your Best Customers to Create Content…

Your best customers are your best resource for creating compelling and useful content, after all they are successfully using your products and services. Encourage them to share how, and make it easy for them by doing all the hard work.

8. … and Reward Them for It

Reward your best customers for sharing valuable content and information, make sure that you use blogging, social media and other channels to promote these activities.

9. Reward Shares Too

What have you done for your fans and followers lately? If your content is good enough to be shared you should encourage the maximum number of shares by providing incentives and rewards.

10. Try Something New Every Month

The possibilities are limitless when it comes to creating and distributing content. Blogging, social media and email marketing are great, but don’t forget to explore other avenues such as video, slideshows, Prezis and infographics are other tools that perform well for B2B content marketing.