Capital Markets online!
I am going to use this blog as a means to learn more about trends in the capital markets and their use of social media and online communities. My gut reaction in thinking about this is that this world is based on personal relationships and connections and online marketing can’t really play a major role. But my head tells me there is a fit in there somewhere and I hope to find some innovators who have been successful thus far.
I am particularly interested in VC and private equity firms that are actively engaged online and are leveraging their online presence to generate offline deal flow or even fundraising. Its hard for me to imagine an LP making an investment in a fund based primarily based on the fund’s online presence. However my hypothesis would be that capital providers who are top of mind for potential LPs have more success raising capital for their funds than others and therefore an effective online campaign would be focused on building/maintaining “brand” awareness.
Another question is that these firms typically want people talking about their portfolio investments – not necessarily the fund itself – so are there funds out there that use SM to drive traffic to their investee companies?
Time to do some research…