For companies in any industry, it's adapt or die when it comes to social media.
"The world is reorganizing around people, and companies need to reorganize around people," says Michael Lazerow, the founder and CEO of New York-based Buddy Media, which helps companies develop, manage, and measure the effectiveness of their Facebook Pages and other social-media strategies. "You now have a billion people who are on two or three social networking sites, Facebook being the largest. Companies can no longer just shout--they have to listen, and act on that listening. Buddy Media provides the technology to really let companies connect with people and power up those connections."
The company, which raised $54 million in series D funding in August, has more than 250 employees with offices in New York, London, San Francisco, and Singapore. It doubled revenue in the past year by adding 200 new customers; it currently has more than 500 clients, including eight of the world's top 10 global advertisers (including heavy hitters like Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Zappos, P&G, the NFL, Hearst, Subway, Dreamworks, and BBDO).
Lazerow, who previously founded University Wire, the AP of collegiate press, and GOLF.com, was named this year's Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, New York. He founded Buddy Media in 2007, and says its meteoric success is not simply the result of a great idea and good timing.
"It's not hard to start a business, it's hard to make it succeed," says Lazerow. "The difference between the one that makes it out of every 10, and the nine that fail...is you just have to work your face off, until literally your face falls off."
Click play below to hear more from the hard-working (but thankfully not faceless) Lazerow on how Buddy Media makes it happen, and keeps its employees excited about its mission.
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Read more from Michael Lazerow: Top Strategies For Meaningful Social Media Connections