Mike Lazerow co-founder and CEO of Buddy Media was hooked on Facebook immediately after logging onto Zuckerburg’s social media site during Facebook’s early days.
In this episode of Founder Stories with host Chris Dixon, Lazerow discusses Buddy Media’s growth and how it coincided with Facebook launching fan pages for companies and brands. Lazerow’s team thought “companies [were] going to have to control content and need analytics behind that content … so we launched … the Facebook Page Management System.” Their idea turned out to be a goldmine.
In March of 2009 Facebook Fan pages went live. A month later, Buddy Media launched its technology, and by the end of 2010 Buddy Media “just exploded” says Lazerow.
Continuing on the topic of Facebook in the video below Dixon notes Facebook allows others to build on its platform while Google develops products internally. Dixon wonders if Facebook will follow Google’s playbook and if so, does this concern Lazerow?
Lazerow tells Dixon that Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn all offer growth opportunities for Buddy Media so “we are beyond Facebook, we are Facebook plus.” In addition, Lazerow doesn’t think Facebook will devote its resources to creating a brand management system. It’s just not in Facebook’s DNA, he argues. “Facebook is in the business of delivering audiences and selling ads, we really take care of how do you set up a presence on Facebook and manage a community on Facebook” explains Lazerow.
Before wrapping the interview, Lazerow concludes by saying that Facebook’s brilliance lies in “knowing who they were very early on.” That is something all startups should strive for from the very beginning.
Part III of Dixon’s interview with Lazerow is coming up, but until then make sure to watch Part I and past episodes of Founder Stories here.
Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-driven customer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. Buddy Media is headquartered in New York City, with additional offices located in Asia, London, and San...
Michael is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four successful internet-based media companies. He has a passion for creating, managing and growing companies from the ground up. Michael’s first foray into entrepreneurship came with the founding of University Wire, an Associated Press-like network of more than 700 student-run newspapers that is now owned by CBS Corp. In 1997, Michael sold U-Wire to Student Advantage, the nation’s leading student membership organization linking 1.5 million students through one affinity card program. As...
Chris Dixon is a Partner at and co-founder of Founder Collective. He is also a contributing writer for TechCrunch. He previously was the CEO and Co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, and Hunch, which was acquired by eBay. In addition to his work with Founder’s Collective, Chris is a personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including Skype, TrialPay, DocVerse, Invite Media, Gerson Lehrman Group, ScanScout, OMGPOP, BillShrink, Oddcast, Panjiva, Knewton, and a handful of other startups that...
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