Bernaisesource

Entrepreneurialism is alive and well in Atlanta. Along with Startup Lounge, Startup Riot, Start Atlanta, add Atlanta Startup Weekend (ASW), which I attended the past weekend. Like Startup Weekends held in other cities, ASW, now in its second year, was an intense 54 hour event that brought together tech minds (developers, designers, marketers, etc) to create companies from concept to launch.

I was only able to stop by on Sunday night but I was interested in checking out Atlanta’s commitment to building a high-tech community. More than 70 people were on hand for the final presentations — 50 more than last year. All in all, 130 people registered, 102 showed up the first day, 41 initial ideas were proposed, 7 companies were formed – all over one weekend.

Asked how Atlanta’s Startup Weekend differs from those in other cities, George Junginger, a Start Up Weekend facilitator, was “amazed by the amount of tech talent in attendance.” In other cities, he said there tended to be many more marketing professionals.

As a social media advocate, I am pleased to discover that all the companies that launched were essentially social networking applications. Perhaps it’s the nature of the event, but they all took advantage of Web 2.0 technology.

Some of the companies that launched include:

Twitpay.me, which let’s you send payments via Twitter.

Closebuy.me, a location-based inventory search engine. Want a specific camera? CloseBuy.me will tell you who has it in stock and how close they are to you.

GivingTi.me, which enables entrepreneurs to help each other one hour at a time.

Jumbis.com, which generates single product sales websites that turn buyers into evangelists. Automatically.

Reepli.com, which is a targeted social marketing effort focused on twitter and blog integration to allow companies to engage conversations.

The level of participation reflects “incredible progress from last year,” according to Lance Weatherby, a technology entrepreneur and currently a Venture Catalyst at Georgia Tech. He helped facilitate this year’s Atlanta Startup Weekend.

“The members of the media that covered the event and the number of attendees that stayed through the final hours of this Weekend demonstrate that the Atlanta high tech community is getting stronger…And it is not because of the current economy…Most attendees have day jobs,” said Weatherby.

That’s also the belief held by Stephen Fleming, chief commercialization officer at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. “Forget complaints about the lack of money or support. The high-tech community is a lot healthier than people give us credit for.”

Over the months to come, it will be interesting to see which companies get to the next level in their development. Skribit, which was the only company that launched last year, was on hand. It continues to evolve and attract outside interest.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: Atlanta Startup Weeke; Twitpay.me; Atlanta; Closebuy.me; GivingTi.me; Jumbis.com; Reepli.com; New South Media Buzz; Bernaise Source Buzz;

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Wednesday night, approximately 150 attendees were on hand at the monthly meeting of AiMA (Atlanta interactive Marketing Association). The topic was Search Marketing: Finding the Value Beyond the Online Click to Conversion. According to AiMA’s current vice president and president-elect Joe Koufman, AiMA is one of the most active marketing associations of its kind in the country.

The event was listed in this week’s Bernaise Source Buzz — my ongoing calendar of keys events in Atlanta (with a nod to the South and national conferences) to build awareness and adoption of social media. I felt there was a need for a centralized site to track social media events around the city.

Moderated by John Cattarulla, Director, Strategic Accounts, Yahoo, the panel included:

Ron Belanger - VP of Agency Development, Yahoo!
Roku Coryne - East Coast Manager, Search & Analytics, Google
Jason Fisher - Group Director, 360i

During the 90-minute discussion, I was struck most by what Ron Belanger had to say. He confirmed what PR professionals are now realizing: the boundaries between marketing, PR and advertising are collapsing. Social media is clearly an opportunity for PR to play a broader role in marketing decisions.

A recent SEMPO survey indicated that direct sales and branding are the top objectives of paid placement programs. There is value even if users don’t click through and buy. Sounds like PR to me.

Belanger also reminded the audience of the importance of search in the post purchase experience. Customers often go to the Web when they have questions or problems with a purchase. Those searches are great opportunities to strengthen the brand experience and deflect expensive calls away from support centers.

With hundreds of consumers participating in the campaign, Belanger stressed how the ad campaign and search effort highlighted the importance of engagement.

As important as brand building is, measurement is never too far away from any marketer’s heart, and conversion is still very important.

With heaps of praise for Avinash Kaushik, Roku Koryne talked about some of the fine points of web analysis including “Bounce Rate.” That’s the percentage of traffic that enters and leaves on same page. It’s a powerful metric and directly tied to conversion. Obviously a high bounce rate means the site generated very little interest. It’s an indication of how much scent (“consumers are like bloodhounds looking for their prey”) or stickiness. The higher the bounce rate, the greater the likelihood that consumers are using the wrong key words.

Koryne cited two numbers of note: 4 and 25. Four is the average number of key words in a phrase that consumers use when search and 25 represents the percentage of new terms that appear on Google Search each day.

She also talked about “conversion funnels” as a way to examine how, when, and why consumers leave a site. What caused them to abandon a site is as important as what caused them to stay.

In addition, she showed how data can drive marketing decisions rather than preconceived notions or HIPPO (the highest paid person’s opinion). She cited how Skype designed three landing pages to test customer response. They chose the page with the highest conversion rate.

Finally as many of us know, measurement is fragmented across the brand and the company – with different stakeholders focusing on different metrics and priorities. Koryne stressed the importance of seeing the big picture and how offline marketing can have a big online impact.

Technorati Tags: AiMA; Search Marketing; Atlanta; Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise; Ron Belanger; Roku Koryne; New South Media Buzz; Bernaise Source Buzz;

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