Last night’s Technori Pitch featured keynote speaker, Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios and five teams who aim to solve problems, whether it be finding volunteers or adopting a child.
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Rain’s a bitch so I’m @Technori pitch. @Orbitunes @InfoActive @desktimeapp@gMaarifa @rosenboy @Adoptt #technori pic.twitter.com/0AQENmAQ3k -
Hackers and HustlersHackers and Hustlers — every great company has them. “If the hacker makes the business, the hustler makes the business grow,” Crestodina says.He says if you don’t hustle, your business could slowly run out of money. This is why every successful business needs a hustler.“I really wanna make sure people are paying as much attention to the hustle as the hack,” Crestodina says.
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Crestodina gives his hustle for SEO, email and social media:SEO Hustle
Keywords – What phrase are you trying to rank for? Make sure your keywords are subjects that people are looking for that not everyone is trying to rank for. Also, make sure your keywords are relevant to your company.Relevance – Use keywords in the title, header and body of your post and use keywords in the links. The title is the single most important thing. “The worst all-time title tag for a webpage is “Home.” It says nothing. If Google was a library, would you name your book, “book,” and go put in in the library? No,” Crestodina says. “Every time someone puts ‘Home’ as their homepage title tag, a unicorn cries.”Links – look up your domain authority to see how many and what sites are linking to your site.Social HustleSchedule tweets – After publishing a post, use Hootsuite to schedule a re-post for a few months later to gain more traffic to your site.Search social media – Look for people (with lots of followers) that have simular interests to the subject of your post, then tweet a link to them. If you’re lucky they will retweet you.Ask yourself what if you went live today? – While you think getting a Mashable writeup or being tweeted about by Justin Beiber will get you a lot of traffic, it will always die down in days. Try building an audience before they even buy from you. This includes curating content and offering valuable advice to your audience first.Email HustleSubscribe box – Make sure your subscribe box (your call to action) is prominent, making people more likely to click on it.Show proof – How many people are signed up on your email list? Show how many subscribers you have.Show authority – Listing awards or customer reviews add to your authority and show people why they should subscribe.Keep it short – No one wants to fill out a 22-question greeting form.Promise frequency – Promise a bi-weekly or weekly email. -
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And now on to the pitches of the night…
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Trina Chiasson, CEO and co-founder of InfoActive, presented on her interactive graphics site. InfoActive takes boring static graphs and turns them into interactive graphics that can be easily viewed on a desktop or mobile device. So far there are 1,200 people on the waiting list for InfoActive, which is targeted to content marketers.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIlhu67Q-F4?wmode=transparent&showinfo=0?autoplay=1]
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Beth Bond started ForGoods based on her family’s mantra “to whom much is given, much is required.” With this in mind, she started ForGoods, a site that allows non profits to post volunteer opportunities and volunteers to donate time in exchange for reward points. Reward points are then used to redeem services or items from potential corporate sponsors, but can also be donated.
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In developing countries, buying books or going to job training sessions can be expensive or too sparse, especially when the average person makes the equivalent of only $2 a day. CEO and co-founder Evanna Hu says gMaarifa offers some of the same training that books and sessions provide for a fraction of the price. How do they do this? gMaarifa uses SMS messages to send educational data and track a person’s progress.
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With an increasing number of people working out of the traditional office space, Sam Rosen saw an opportunity. He says people often work out of coffee shops or hotel lobbies because their homes can be distracting. But your conference call could be disrupted by the humming of an espresso machine, so that may not work either. Rosen started DeskTime as a way for businesses to rent out its empty spaces, or workers to find a place to work. From a spacious loft like Industrious to practice spaces like The Music Garage, there’s a seat for you.
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Great job Sam Rosen @rosenboy @Technori Pitch. @desktimeapp very cool solution for finding spaces to work #collcons
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtPpIDOkKaM?wmode=transparent&showinfo=0?autoplay=1]
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After being raised in a family that fostered several children and seeing many couples struggle to come up with adoption fees, Hank Fortener started AdoptTogether, a crowd funding site for adoptions. Fortener says often times a single adoption could cost as much as $30,000. Fortner developed the site to help families who have already been approved for adoption and has helped more than 300 families since starting.
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@HankFortener @adoptt “We’re 500 days old and we’ve helped 300 families. We’ve raised $1mi” #technori
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#KidStarter or #AdoptTogether… Whatever the name, @Adoptt is doing great things. @HankFortener @Technori #technoripitch#dogood
