William Mougayar shared the story of the founding and development of Engagio with the participants of Third Tuesday Toronto. I’ve storify-ed the highlights of the twitter stream during the event. (This was the second of two presentations William made this week. I also storify-ed the previous night’s presentation at Third Tuesday Ottawa.)
I think you’ll find many quotable nuggets here in both of these streams.
William Mougayar is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of two social media startups, eqentia and engag.io. William appeared at Third Tuesday Ottawa #3 TYOW last night to share what he has learned in the process of developing these services.
I’ve known William for a couple years. And I’ve always been struck by his focus, optimism and perseverance – essential qualities for any entrepreneur. So, it was a truly nice experience to hear him talk about Engag.io – which I think is the right idea at the right time – a universal inbox for our social media conversations.
I Story-fied the highlights of the Twitter stream during the event. Enjoy.
On this week’s Inside PR podcast, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about new social management tool Jugnoo, tablet computers, Facebook timelines for pages and a new feature in social media measurement tool Sysomos.
Jugnoo – and the importance of courting before marriange
Last week we reported that Jugnoo, a new social media management console service had launched in open beta. Martin and I both were impressed with its feature set. (Disclosure: Gini Dietrich is an adviser to Jugnoo. However, Martin and I weren’t aware of this when we raised it as a topic of discussion for the podcast. Discreet Gini.) I was so impressed that I requested access to the beta so that I could test it. And then I hit a hard stop. As one of the first steps in using the service, Jugnoo asked me to install some code on my website so that Jugnoo could access data from my site. For me, this is a show stopper. Installing code and sharing data is a big step, one that I am willing to take only with services that I trust and that I have some degree of comfort I’ll use for some time. Gini thinks that I’m being overcautious. She believes that most small businesses won’t hesitate to provide access to their data because they will perceive that in return the service will “hold their hands,” providing them with insight into what they should be doing and whether it is working. Do you have the same reaction to being asked for access to the backend of your Website as a first step in testing a service.
Tablets and the content creation challenge
We also talk about the rapid adoption of tablets in the workplace. Two years ago, we considered our notebook computers to be the go-to mobile devices. Today, we each use a tablet computer. Initially, tablets were billed as media consumption devices. However, all three of us now use our tablets to create content – blog posts, documents, etc. Gini and I have found that this has driven us to switch from Microsoft Office to other applications that exist in the cloud – Evernote, DropBox, Google Docs. We use these apps to have access to our data and content across devices. This enables us to move smoothly between our desktop computers, notebooks (yes, we still use them), tablets and cellphones. And we see this trend accelerating with the newest generation of tablets. We wonder how long it will be before we will be able to reduce the number of devices. The limiting factor on this is the evolution of tablets to include both the hardware and software to support all the content creation we want to do.
Timelines – too much commitment for small businesses?
Timelines for pages is being rolled out to all users at the end of the month. Gini is keen on timelines. She’s watched as content that she had long ago posted to the Arment Dietrich page has resurfaced. Old content becomes more accessible. I’m skeptical of the value of timelines for small businesses. Many small businesses have limited resources to devote to social media. And it seems to me that corporate page owners will have to devote considerable energy and resources to keep their content fresh. And this may not be a priority for may businesses.
Sysomos Heartbeat integrates Google Analytics
Finally, we talk about the integration of Google Analytics into Sysomos’ Heartbeat social media monitoring service. A nice addition that makes a good service better.
What do you think?
Listen to the podcast and tell us what you think. Are we on the right track? Missing something? Do you have a different view?
In this week’s Inside PR, Martin Waxman and I shared our takeaways from last week’s appearance of Canada’s Treasury Board President, Tony Clement at Third Tuesday Ottawa and Third Tuesday Toronto.
Social Media in Government: Treat them like we would want to be treated
I came away with a sense of respect for a politician who is making a sincere attempt to introduce social media to government in a manner consistent with his conservative principles. Martin was struck by the vulnerable position a politician like Tony Clement puts himself in by engaging in the social media flow. His takeaway: If we want to encourage our government leaders to engage with us in social media, we must be prepared to allow for the fact that they make mistakes and refrain from “piling on” every time a politician makes a mistake on social media.
The discussion about social media in government starts at 1 minute 25 seconds into the show.
Gini Dietrich LOVES Pinterest (You have to listen to this week’s Inside PR to hear her enthusiasm.)
Gini has been testing the reach and impact of Pinterest. She pinned some pictures of items from a friend’s ecommerce store on her pinboard. Then, she and her friend watched her Google Analytics. Pinterest generated lots of traffic to her friend’s ecommerce site- it was the number three traffic source for the four hours after Gini pinned the pictures. That’s pretty impressive, especially given the ease with which content can be posted to Pinterest. But it goes beyond that. The conversion rate for people who arrived at the site via Pinterest was higher than the conversion rate from any other source of referrals. Pinterest drives traffic and the traffic it drives is engaged.
Martin Waxman has been experimenting with Pinterest as well. He’s found that the tags he attaches to Pins are important. Clearly, in his view, people are following tags that reflect their interests and they will look at new content that is tagged into one of those categories. (This raises a whole other question about “tag SPAM” on Pinterest.)
I’m interested in Pinterest’s impact on other existing services. I’ve moved my photo-taking from Instagram to Pinterest because I like the ease with which I can tag, organize and then browse my photos on Pinterest. I’m also drawn to move some of my social bookmarking – at least for the highly visual items – away from the two services I have been uising, Diigo and Delicious.
I find the simplicity of Pinterest makes it a tool with many possibilities – much like Twitter was at its outset. A basic concept that appeals to a common urge – to express ourselves – and because of its simplicity allows people to use it in the way that makes sense to them.
Pinterest may not work for all companies and products. It may be best for highly visual products. But if you sell items that you can showcase visually, you should explore whether Pinterest is for you.
Our discussion about Pinterest starts at 7 minutes 15 seconds into this week’s episode of Inside PR.
We are: Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley on Pinterest.
Social media has changed the way that we connect with our friends, with news and with organizations. It has opened up possibilities that we hadn’t even dreamed of 10 years ago.
Social media has also proven fertile ground for entrepreneurs with ideas. Canada has spawned some great social media companies – Radian6, HootSuite, PostRank,StumbleUpon, Tungle, and more.
Behind every one of these success stories is an entrepreneur who had an idea and the persistence, energy and sheer determination to make it happen.
William Mougayar is the entrepreneur behind not just one, but two social media startups:Eqentia and Engagio. The first of these two startups, Eqentia, is billed as a “vertical news environment.” It enables you to curate the content you care about from a variety of sources across the social Web. The newer company, Engagio, enables you to draw together all of your conversations from different social media into one place.
Less than two months after launch, Engagio has earned positive word of mouth and prominent backers such as Fred Wilson thanks to its simple but compelling proposition.
Developing a successful startup isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be heading up successful companies. It takes a lot of luck and some smart decisions. But in the era of social, we see more and more of the people around us pursuing their dream, trying their hand at starting up a new business, at making their idea become reality.
So how did William Mougayar do it? You can find out at the next Third Tuesday Toronto #3TYYZ and Third Tuesday Ottawa #3TYOW meetups. William will share his personal journey from idea to beta to seed funding. He’ll tell us about the dark nights of doubt, the highs of the Eureka moments and the grinding work that goes into that success.
This Third Tuesday will be for you whether you are a budding entrepreneur yourself, know some people involved in startups or just wonder as you use your favourite social app, “How did they do that?”
I hope you be able to join us that evening to hear from one of Canada’s true social media entrepreneurs, William Mougayar.
You can register to attend either on the Third Tuesday Toronto #3TYYZ or Third Tuesday Ottawa #3TYOW websites
Thank you to our sponsors
As you know, Third Tuesday is a community-oriented, volunteer-driven event. And we wouldn’t be able to bring great speakers like William Mougayar to Third Tuesdays across the country without the support of some like-minded sponsors. We’ve been lucky to have some great companies step up over the past several years to help us make Third Tuesday happen. Big thanks are due to CNW Group, Rogers Communications, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, Radian6 and Cision Canada for making the 2011/12 Third Tuesday season possible.
Want to know more about William Mougayar and Engagio?
Engagio is the 1 Inbox to rule them all, ReadWriteWeb
Engagio goes from the Comment Section to $540K seed investment, Venture Beat
Engagio wants to be your one stop social inbox, Mathew Ingram in GigaOm
Toronto’s Engagio raises $540K and heads to New York, TechVibes
