What’s the most unusual tech tool you’ve ever used to help build your brand? How did it work?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Workflow email software
“Incorporate an effective workflow email software product into your brand building and marketing strategy. One to consider is Workflows by HubSpot. It allows you to efficiently build your brand by interacting with your customers via both email and social media, and it helps with lead conversion as well.”
Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
2. Thunderclap
“I recently used Thunderclap to promote an Indiegogo campaign I was running for StartupBus Africa. Thunderclap is a crowdsourcing tool to gather pledges from people who are willing to authorize their social media feeds to post your chosen message at a specific time. This has resulted in more than 125 people posting our message simultaneously and has led to us closing the last 15 percent funding gap.”
Christopher Pruijsen, Sterio.me
3. Craigslist
“Funny enough, I built my team with craigslist arbitrage. I found my first employees and even my first clients on craigslist. It’s a simple catch-all site that more than 60 million people use each month in the U.S. alone.There’s definite power in craigslist.”
Rameet Chawla, Fueled
4. Boomerang
“As an entrepreneur, you’ve got to put in long hours. Many times you find yourself getting to emails at night, but that’s not when everybody else opens their emails. The higher open rates are during the early afternoon while people are at their desk.”
Andy Karuza, Brandbuddee
5. Meetup
“Never underestimate the power of the community, especially in your local area if you are in one of the larger startup hubs. For example, we are fortunate to be in Seattle where there’s a strong startup community, and we’ve utilized Meetup to organize, attend and speak at various events to build awareness of our brand. Think global, but start local.”
Brandon Wu, AdCrafted
6. Google Alerts
“I like setting up alerts for my brand as well as my competitors. As soon as something pops up from a competitor, I can see what their company is up to or get a few ideas of my own. Most companies will announce anything major with a press release, which you’ll see automatically with a Google Alert.”
Russ Oja, Seattle Windows and Construction, LLC
