Have a Burning Business Question? Ask the Expert: Jon Elvekrog. For our Ask the Expert series, social guru Jon Elvekrog is looking to answer your questions about social media, social data, mobile marketing and online advertising. Plus, as a founder himself, he is open to inquiries pertaining to entrepreneurship.
By Andrea Huspeni •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Social is a hot word. And so is data. But what about social data? You better believe it.
Social data, or the aggregration of social information on various platforms, allows companies to determine where to spend their marketing dollars, how a product is received in the online world and how to best communicate with customers. All this helps brands better understand and target customers. If you want to edge out your competitors, you better get familiar with the next wave in the world of social -- and quickly.
"Social is permeating everything. Accessing public social data gives you a wealth of information about your customers, your partners and your constituents," says Jon Elvekrog, the co-founder and CEO of social-ad platform company 140 Proof. "At a minimum, it's free market research. At a maximum, you can build your entire business on it."
Related: Most Essential Social Media Tools
As the co-founder of 140 Proof, Elvekrog has successfully indexed and analyzed more than 600 million social profiles across various social platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Wow. By being so ambitious in the social-data game, 140 Proof has landed big-name brands like HBO, Disney, Levi's and Naked Juice. Plus, the company has scooped up a few awards along the way including the Red Herring and the AlwaysOn Global 250.
Related: Get Comfortable With Big Data in 3 Steps
Before Elvekrog co-founded 140 Proof, he began his internet adventure in the late '90s working at LinkExchange, an advertising company co-founded by Tony Hsieh. (It sold to Microsoft for more than $250 million). After this experience, Elvekrog continued to be involved in the technology world, working at various startups and big-name corporations like Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft in engineering, marketing and sales positions. With all this experience under his belt, Elvekrog is looking to give startups and newly-minted entrepreneurs a helping hand.
"Now that I'm older, I can say the advantage of age is experience and pattern matching, and I hope to pay it forward by offering advice to smart, energetic entrepreneurs," says Elvekrog. "If I can help a couple of people avoid common mistakes and pitfalls by recognizing factors they may be blind to, then I've done my part as a seasoned entrepreneur."
For this month of June, we are excited to have Elvekrog as our expert. He is eager to answer your burning questions each week. Besides inquiring about social media topics like social data, mobile advertising and social media in general, he also has built a successful company and knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Elvegrog is also open to founder topics such as building a team, implementing a "hacker" mentality, scaling, pivoting and resource allocation.
Submit your questions in the comments section below or tweet us, using the hashtag #ENTexpert. One topic will be selected by the editors of Entrepreneur and addressed by Elvekrog in a weekly write up here.
Related: 4 Ways to Turn Social-Media Fans Into Raving, Loyal Customers
