Everyone knows that businesses have to be social now. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+…wherever your customers are, there you should be, too.
But, social media marketing can be very time consuming, and it’s hard to prove the ROI on it. It’s always been more of a warm fuzzy attached to your brand than something that’s easily measurable.
But, with a recent $800k seed round in the bank, Israel’s Oktopost is looking to change that. Check out our Q&A with Oktopost below:
What is your startup called?
Oktopost
What’s the story behind your idea?
Prior to launching the company, Co-Founder Daniel Kushner was Head of World Wide Marketing at Nolio ( Purchase by Computer Associates for $40 Million in 2013). During his time at Nolio, he realized that social media marketing for a B2B was time-consuming and its effectiveness could not be proven. He reached out to fellow Co-Founder to work on a solution that has become what we now know as Oktopost.
Oktopost is a social media marketing platform, designed for the unique needs of B2B. The platform allows for the distribution of social content on a large scale, particularly capitalizing on LinkedIn discussion groups. Oktopost also lets marketers see the actual ROI of their social media activities.
Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?
Daniel Kushner Co-founder and CEO
Daniel Kushner is a marketing expert and social media guru. As the former VP of Marketing at innovative high-tech company Nolio, Daniel doubled sales growth year over year. Daniel has been in the field for more than a decade and has successfully led the online marketing departments of various global organizations.
Liad Guez Co-founder and VP Product
Liad is a talented web professional who led his own web agency for seven years, in which he has provided interface design, social marketing and web development services for high profile companies on dozens of successful projects.
Where are you based?
Yokneam, Israel
What’s the startup scene like where you are based?
Israel is known as the “Startup Nation” – There is really nowhere in the world that has as exciting of a startup scene as we do. Israeli founders have a healthy dose of what we call “Hutzpah” and are willing to take risks in order to pursue technologies they believe in.
What problem do you solve?
B2B marketers face 2 main problems when it comes to social media:
- Being able to distribute content on a very large-scale across the social web
- Being able to prove the actual ROI of social media
Why now?
There is no one that does what we do. There are large social media marketing platforms, but most focus exclusively on B2C. No other solution has the capabilities with LinkedIn posting that we have, and no other platform can let you see the actual ROI of social media in the detail that we do.
The real question is: Why NOT now?
What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?
- We have recently raised our seed round of $800,000
- After less than 9 months out of beta, we have hundreds of paid customers
- Our customer base includes several publicly traded companies
- We recently launched a campaign where we are offering access to our platform for free to early stage startups. Click here for more info
What are your next milestones?
Building our customer base so that every B2B company, everywhere, can finally take full advantage of social media.
We are putting extra focus on providing our solution for B2B marketing agencies, as we believe we can provide them with the best possible tool for running their clients’ social media marketing.
Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?
People can check out our website – we offer a 14-day free trial of our platform.
Our blog is a great place to read valuable information on content marketing, social media and all things B2B marketing.
Our social channels: