Social Media Marketing, explained by someone that is actually doing it. Well, at least I tend to think I am; however, the term is VERY broad. In this blog I will outline SOME of the key tools, as well as tracking/analytics utilities. It is very important to know where your users are coming from, what makes them visit, what trends are radiating, and how many click-thrus you are actually getting. You also need to know the importance of building a personal brand online and the public relations aspect that comes along with that. A social media marketer is not your publicist, but it doesn’t mean they don’t need to act like one! They are creating profiles for you across the web where you may voice your opinions as well as helping to syndicate your press releases.

The whole idea of incubators is to offer start-ups the recourses they lack. By providing key pieces to the puzzle, a start-up develops from a concept into a full-fledged wealth generating machine. Or at least you hope.

ycombinator.com and launchboxdigital.com are two great examples of successful ones. The whole idea is to identify promising startups, give them seed money, mentor them, and set them up to pitch VCs. If you bring in several start-ups every year and one of them hits, you make bank. The advantage to putting them through a program is that you have control of their direction and you can make sure they don't screw up.  Not to be harsh on start-up founders, but they are just more prone to making mistakes.

Going to college and getting a business degree is great, but for the average start-up founder; it’s inevitable that you will still be completely lost in the real world. Understanding general business practices, statements of cash-flow, how to crank out sexy looking projection charts in excel, etc. Is all good; However, you don’t learn to sit in a board room across from a high powered exec and deal with the stress, nerve, and fast paced interrogation. Nobody coming out of college is ready for that!