Finding a Void and Filling It | Business 2 Community

For brands today, the competition is fierce. Unemployment rates are up, and businesses are struggling to survive. To succeed in this world, your personal or small business brand needs to be invaluable. You need to offer the world something unique, something that makes you stand out. Basically, to be successful today, you need to find a void and fill it.

Taking a look at Curalate

Let?s take the story of Curalate as an example. Curalate recently launched, and it?s basically a monitoring and analytics platform that specifically caters to socially curated sites such as Pinterest. It?s an excellent example of how a company found a void in the current market today and set about filling it.

You see, though there are already many social monitoring and analytics platforms available in the market, most of them cater toward social networking sites that involve written content such as Facebook and Twitter. These platforms help you make sense of how your Facebook and Twitter campaign is doing: if you?re getting the results you want or not, and so on.

But Pinterest is no ordinary social networking site. It?s become highly popular due to the fact that connecting within the site involves visuals, not words. People enjoy creating the most fabulous virtual pinboards showcasing the things they love, as well as visiting, liking, and commenting on other pinboards.

Since Pinterest has become so popular, it?s no surprise that brands, both personal and business ones, have started adding it to their marketing mix. They want to know the best way to connect and engage with the users of Pinterest, in order to promote their brand, increase brand awareness and engagement, and increase their sales.

Finally the ability to measure Pinterest

And so Curalate arrived just at the right time, finding and filling a void. Brands wanted to know how to track their content on Pinterest, whether or not it?s driving traffic to their site, who their top responders and repinners are, how they measure up to other brands, and if this platform will drive revenue. Curalate gives you all that and more.

As the brainchild of Apu Gupta, Curalate?s CEO and co-founder, Curalate already has a seed funding of around $750,000 from NEA, First Round Capital, and MentorTech. It?s also recently signed up more than 150 brands and agencies that are ready to take their Pinterest campaign to the next level.

Why exactly has Curalate quickly become an invaluable tool in the market? It?s because there was a void before ? the lack of a social monitoring and analytics platform that specially caters to socially curated sites ? and it has materialized to fill it. There was a current lack in the market, and Curalate?s founders decided to address the problem, turning their product into an invaluable tool for those who aim to monitor and track the success of their campaign on socially curated sites such as Pinterest.

What can a personal brand learn from this?

There are valuable lessons to be learned here. As a personal brand, it?s essential that you don?t blend in with the crowd. Don?t offer just the same old thing that hundreds of other people offer. Stand out. Be different. Look for a void in the market and fill that void. Be the solution to a problem that is begging to be solved.

Don?t be a statistic. Don?t be a random face in a sea of strangers. After all, every person is unique in their own way, so it?s important that you really understand yourself and what unique traits and skills you have so that you can be an invaluable brand.

Take a lesson from Curalate. The company saw that there was a lack of tools that specifically catered to socially curated sites, and so they created the perfect tool to meet this need. Finally, brands no longer have to rack their brains trying to understand if their Pinterest campaign is working or not. They only have to use Curalate, so that all the information they need is laid out in its easy to use interface.

They can see how their Pinterest campaign is driving traffic to other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They can see who their top repinners and commenters are, and can even respond within the platform. They can see how they measure up to other brands that offer similar products or services. Basically, they can easily monitor and track their brand?s progress, so they can adjust and make changes if their campaign needs improvement.

Find a void in the market and work your behind off to fill it, so that you can ensure that you will always be an invaluable brand who will never run out of clients or customers.

Author:

Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com ? a word of mouth marketing firm. She helps create conversation, connection, credibility, community and commerce around your brand. Maria Duron is co-founder and moderator of #brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding that is recognized by Mashable as one the 15 Essential Twitter Chats for Social Media Marketers.

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