New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

There are many Buzzwords in the Social Media industry today and each day one evangelist is harping on a new one. Much clutter gets created due to the same and hence the diluton of your Brand Equity, as each Brand is pitched these high flying Buzzwords by the marketing agencies.

Corporate Blogging though not a Buzz word, but has been so messed up that many a corporate have lost value rather than generating it. There have been instances of big corporate entities using fake blogs and many other tactics to boost up terming them as “so called social media campaigns”.

I have been LIVE blogging some of the most major corporate conferences in India since over an year now and have been approached by Corporate to support their initiatives. Am I averse to it? NO! But would I go ahead and support just about anything? NO!

Through this post, I intend to cut through the clutter which has been created and make the Corporate present to how they can successfully integrate Corporate Blogging in seamlessly in their marketing effort and with much ease!

First the numbers:

According to JupiterResearch (via Search Engine Watch), 34% of large companies and 15% of Fortune 500 companies blog.

Though these may not be the absolute latest numbers, but with respect to the industry growth, this surely is a number to reckon with, stand up and make a note of, I believe. In the current times corporations large and small are increasingly taking the “being different” and “with the times” route. Blogging has suddenly taken the mainstream route and is one of the factors in the Corporate overall marketing mix and budget.

There may be many people giving much gyan, but what I present here is the on the field reality and of my experience, hence there may still be better ideas, which I would be glad to listen to and incorporate.

What should you do before you decide on that oh! so blog!! ??

• Put in black and white, your marketing objectives both in the short and the long term
  • Determine if blogging is a good fit for your company

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, is almost true for all, but why are you generalizing the apple with a blog in the social media space? Blog for one company may work wonders for them, for the other it may not work!

Just being cool using blogs, is already a passe! Social Media space is changing and growing at a much faster pace and is much complex. Just having a corporate blog may not be of any tangible return.

• Are you ready to invest on a blog?
  • The last time I was sitting in this major corporate HQ, I asked them a question, are you ready to invest on a blog and well they were a bit off the track. Blogging they said is easy, we will leverage a free platform like wordpress or blogger. Well, yes, I agree, but you need to invest much focused time and energy on customizing the design of the blog as it represents your Corporate sentiment. Today blogs are as much a part of the entire corporate image as were websites sometime back!

• Don’t be afraid, Create a solid strategy
  • Strategy for a blog? Well, YES!! For a Blog! As a corporate you may have a single blog for all your functions/ verticals or you may choose to go ahead with multiple blogs representing each of them. Now this is the first stage of your blogging strategy.
  • Positioning: You need to be clear in a properly documented form on the positioning that you would like to create with your blogging effort. Who are you positioning the blog to? What is your target group?
    • you may just create a blog to attract the best talent in the industry
    • you may have a focused blog on thought leadership to position yourself accordingly int he industry
  • Branding: the branding strategy that you intend to establish with the emerging of the blog should be clear. What campaigns (if any) would you intend to run on the blog. Would the CEO/ CFO/ Senior management participate on the blog? Are you trying to make a point?
    • Are you open to external content on the blog other than your own? And are you willing to be open to comments from the external environment?

• Are you selling/ marketing? STOP…..Start ENGAGING!
  • Since Corporate blogs are generally an effort of the PR department of a company, they have a restricted vision, and hence it reflects on the way they PUSH content on the blog. PUSHing is not the key, ENGAGING is! Your content will speak for itself. If you have smartly invested into content creation, in terms of videos, pictures, etc. you will break the ice much faster with the prospective target audience.
    • its fairly simple, you get unsolicited calls on your cell phone. Would you refer such a company to your circle? Probably NOT, but a genuine follow up and feedback conversation at a preferred time, well yes you would and WOMM is bound to happen

• Provide Value
  • This is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful blogging effort. VALUE creation.
    • why do you think would I (either your prospective employee or client) spend 5 minutes in going through things which are not adding any value to me in terms of knowing more about you or the industry? Even if I land up and stick to your blog for a couple of minutes the first time, with no VALUE I will not bookmark it for my future reference, leave aside following you on my Google reader.

• Take Feedback, Build Relationships
  • This is one aspect of Corporate blogging which many a Corporate think of and include in their agenda, but their focus shifts from this objective to the exclusivity of presenting and design. Looks do matter, no doubts, but you need to understand that each feature of the blog would essentially be leveraged towards achieving a particular business objective!

• Remember YOU are a HUMAN and the person reading yoru blog is a HUMAN too!
  • Many a times, the Corporate get so consumed in their vision of presenting their best foot forward and trying to arrive the best way in their client’s perception, that they lose the basic essence of the fact that WE ARE STILL HUMAN. And business is all about relationships.
  • Write the blog as if you are expressing yourself to your target market/ group!

• Select Bloggers
  • Yes! I know everyone can write and that you hire the best of class human resources in your company, still blogging is an art and hence I suggest my clients to select a team of bloggers who are honed in their skills and trained further by the company. This team should essentially consist of the following people:
    • PR professional from the company
    • Group of employees trained on company’s social media./ external communication guidelines
    • Social Media agencies

• NO, your “Corporate Blog” DOES NOT need a SINGLE VOICE
  • Dont be afraid and get only one person to be writing/ punching the keys for you. He/ she will have a certain perception of the company and may as well be limited in the scope. Go ahead involve people. Give them a platform to express what you want to. More hands on deck make the experience for the client all that worth it!!

This is one of the many posts that I would be doing on the correct measures and tips and tricks of the trade of blogging, not out of what people say, but what I have experienced in real time on the field. And I would not be a common voice, but I would say, it works for me!!

To devise a Corporate Blogging Strategy for your company, CONTACT ME

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Here I am LIVE Blogging, Ankur Lal one of a closely related NASSCOM EMERGE community fellow and Sanjiv Mital from Saarthi Enterprises and Alok Mittal from Cannan Partners. this is surely going to be an interesting session.

Ankur Lal, CEO Infozech Software leads the session with Alok Mittal – Partner, Canaan Partners, Sanjiv Mital – CEO, Saarthi Enterprise.

Ankur starts by giving the example of a company which has grown from a 10 employee to a 400+ employee company with a revenue over 100 crores.

We have Ankur sharing abotu how the mobile industry is attempting the SaaS based model. Telecom procurement is what Ankur is talking about. What was it like 10 years back, Ankur takes the delegates back in time.

there was lot of outsourcing in procurement, but there was not much in management

SaaS kind of came in and changed all that and something of the similar sort happened in the mobile world. People started sourcing managed services rather that procurement and hence the story of someone like Airtel in India happened. when CAPEX combines with delivery capability it becomes better.

Last year Airtel went out to outsource customer care. It surely was a BIG step as when outsourcing started in the mobile world it was just the back end which was getting outsourced. Interestingly Ankur now talks about the VAS outsourcing space.

If you are selling into a telco, the picture in front of you is that you cant say I have equipment or software

We are now getting a good insight into where this all is heading by Ankur. A very major point that Alok has touched is the platform now. What it delivers, what value does it create etc. Alok says it all int erms of the evolving developer context. And well, there is the entire ppt which shows everything from the 80′s to 90′s and now the 2000 and what has happened, in terms of the technology.

Discussing technology how could have iPhone not have gotten mentioned, we have Alok talking about the iPhone and how the technology has leveraged Open Source. I am particularly interested in knowing more about this space.

With his closing remarks, Alok closes the session. I have been listening to Alok since a good time now and this was surely an interesting piece of gyan.

We now have Sanjiv Mital – CEO, Saarthi Enterprise, talking about The emerging business model. Interesting to know that Sanjiv invested into Bharti telesoft when it was going through a tought phase in 2001 and went ahead with a management buyout. What did he do which gave it the major push?

1. Migrated the software services to VAS products

Sanjiv is talking about the traditional software business model which is followed generally. This is soemthign that I call a cost Plus model. When you do the same in a software as a service model, what you do is value based pricing.

You are not just worried about developing the product, installing and its over. You not only get revenue but you get high revenue. In bharti Telsoft we hence started a new revenue enhancemenet department. Sanjiv is essentially talking about hwo the entire businessm odel changes with SaaS, which is less to do with cost ad more to do with what value you deliver to the customer.

Interestingly, in my personal opinion, the cash Flow implications that Sanjiv is showing is surely an eye opener. Each bit is supported by the phases of the various steps yoru product goes through in the SaaS model.

As the consumers keep on using your service, your revnue goes up and in a small time your revenue could be a good part of your client’s earning

SaaS, is much easier to sell. What you are sayign is, I’ll make money only when you do. But the risk that you are taking is much more. It could be years when you start generating good profits. It could take fair amount of time when significant revenues start coming in.

Sanjiv is now talking about RBT, and how the moel got up. Interestingly Sanjiv is talking all surprises…how a large number of the consumers in the country subscribe to this concept. I can no less agree to Sanjiv as I am closely realted to a major telecom company which used RBT as a major concept.

Sanjiv says surely in the longer run SaaS pays off. All the companies we have talked about grew very significanlty in the longer run.

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India market and the SaaS/Cloud Computing landscape – Session three of the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave

Speakers: Kishore Madhyam – CEO, ImpelCRM, Sharad Sanghi – CEO & Founder NetMagic Solutions, Chandra Prabhakar – Global Head, OnDemand Solutions, Ramco Systems

Moderator: Ibrahim Ahmed – Chief Editor, Dataquest, Cyber Media group

Now we have Mr. Ahmed moderating the session, adding a quick point, I think one of the earliest propagators of cloud computing was an Indian professors in the US. The entire mindset about cloud computing and on demand computing is rising and therefore I am very very positive about the same.

We are glad to see the rising interest and concepts like this are going to be very very powerful. Ibrahim is now introducing the speakers on stage.

Interesting to understand from Mr. Sharad Sanghi from netmagic solutions on how netmagic understands cloud computing. I am particularly interested in knowing how easy it is to scale up and scale down applications using cloud. Making things simpler for the delegate to understand, we have Sharad simplifying the cloud and showing us the silver lining with it, along with some very interesting numbers.

Driving factors in india:

• Low cost
• High operational efficiency
• Elasticity
• Scalability

Sharad is creating the picture of how start-ups and emerging businesses are adopting the technology and what factors really are pushing the same out.

As long as you do your capacity planning well, cloud computing surely works

Energy efficiency is a crucial point Sharad has taken up, with cost of power going up every-time, Cloud is surely a solution. Sharad now ends his session with an introduction to the architecture.

And now we have Kishore from PK4 software. Kishore is a friend and I surely have seen him EMERGEOUT connected through the NASSCOM EMERGE community. Kishore starts sharing some very interesting numbers showing the delegate the Indian market. There are phenomenal names to follow in the saas space.

I personally like Narasimhan’s way of sharing his own learning’s saying that he may not be an expert but he has learnt

And we’re still not talking of the bottom of the pyramid says Narasimhan. Its amazing what people can do with software out in the field.

Narasimhan is now talking about how they as a company operates. We have got one of the largest optical brands in the world. Interestingly Narasimhan is now sharing his companies sales model.

• Adwords
• Website
• Eva
• Purchase
• Renewal

Being a Social Media evangelist myself, I can surely agree and connect to what Narasimhan is talking about. Sharing an example how the bounce rate to his site drastically reduced with a redesign of his website.

We dont have the freemium model, but yes you can have a free eval fo 15 days

Pricing is always an issue says Narasimhan. the biggest issue in this model is that companies don’t pay periodical. systems don’t exist in these companies. Training is a big issue, its critical but its expensive. There are always engineering choices to be made.

Narasimhan is actually creating the real picture for the delegates. I am particularly likeing the way he has simplistically made sense of the challenges and the headroom both which is available in the space.

What we don’t know:

• Decisions happen very quickly here
• Web – 2.5 % EVAL – 2.5 % purchase
  • us or the market?
• Feet on street
  • traditional model is beguiling
• Partners
  • “pull” more important than “push”
• Mobile client software
  • Not enough uptake

Now we have someone from Ramco Systems sharing theri experience as how did they deploy the technology. We have been focusing predominantly in the ERP space since its inception. We have been in the business with the SaaS model since the last 2 years making it available to the SME segment specifically.

Sharing his learning’s, he speaks of the challenges SME’s go through.

• Business challenge
• IT challenge

There is a lot of SME segment who are looking for such applications to counter these challenges

We are now seeing what the Ramco OnDemand ERP has for the enterprise scale operations. Talking about numbers, we are now understanding how Ramco has expanded with over 1500 customers who are satisfied with the deliverable(s). We have our own data center in Chennai.

The inability of the SME segment in deploying solutions in their own premise, creates a reference for us

We are now looking at the industry wise break up and how ramco is present across the various business verticals. Talking about the benefits in the various verticals, its interesting to know how technology is spanning across the business arena and how value is getting created far across.

This particular product will always be evergreen

We are now in the Q&A mode after a very comprehensive session. I am glad to be blogging the session and create value for many followers who are reading this blog.

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Here I am once again LIVE blogging the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave at Le Meridien in Delhi. And as always I am glad to bringing to you one of the largest Corporate conference in the IT industry LIVE from where the action is.

A warm welcome to all at the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave, we bring you EMERGEOUT LIVE. We have Mr. Som Mittal and Mr. KrishnaKumar Natrajan from MindTree on stage.

We have Mr. Som Mittal welcoming the delegates and the hall is filling up to its brim. Talkign about the period of uncertainty, Mr. Mittal is referring to growth and how entrepreneurship is taking a leap in India. There are positive changes that are taking place says Mr. Mittal.

We are focusing on things that we have never done before

From an EMERGING companies point of view, its interesting to seehtat over the last couple of years our focus on emergign companies has increased. Mr. Mittal is sharing some very interesting numbers.

We have had almost 150 best practices sessions in the last year. We have had more than 25 companies which have gotten mentored.

People joining us in the delegations in the past year have majorly been from the emerging companies. Mr. Mittal is giving some very interesting examples of how emerging companies are truly EMERGING OUT! When we had our Innovation awards, no surprise 40 % of the companies were from this strata.

Mr. Mittal is talking about the recent trends that NASSCOM studied along with a major research firm, and they have identified some really interesting opportunities. And 80% of the opportunities have come out from the market that exists in areas that we still haven’t explored.

The business done in IT outside fortune 500 is more than what gets done in the fortune 500

I think there is a huge opportunity ahead in the domestic market as it grows from t10 billion dollars to 50 billion dollars. The charter for us in the next 10 years is laid out and we have a road ahead.

Mr. Mittal announces the summit open by thanking the member companies and talks abotu competing and collaborating fiercely to bring out opportunities. Inviting KK on the podium, Mr. Mittal takes his seat.

And now we have KK from MindTree talking about how small and medium companies are the stars of tomorrow. I always love listening to KK, as I was a previous MindTree Mind. Talking about how the entire EMERGE community has grown up with the increasing extent of participation.

EMERGEOUT Conclave is a result of all the deliberations that have happened with all of you contributing

Collaboration is a very integral part of how all of us become successful. For the Indian IT industry to be successful its not just the largest companies to be acknowledged at the Global scale. If we see tens and humdreds of you be successful, that is when the real power would come out.

KK is really inviting participation from the delegates in the local events and pushing the sharing of knowledge.

A key focus of the EMERGE forum has been, how do we enhance the visibility of the EMERGING companies. I personally am of the view that the entire EMERGE forum has definitely enhanced the standing of the EMERGING companies. KK talks about the EMERGE awards and congratulates th group which has made this all happen.

A lot of our own success depends on how can we as a community decide how we collaborate. The industry needs a tremendous number of people amongst you on a global scale.

Now we have the EMERGE 50 AWARDS being handed over. I am sure we are going to have more of such companies and more EMERGING entrepreneurs along. I congratulate all the winners and look forward to be on the receiving end myself soon.

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Its 5:40 in the morning and I have just woken up…have to reach work little early today as I am working on a BIG pitch for obviously a BIG client, which can end all the so called recession woes for a startups like us..

This is a quickie and what I have in mind to introduce a concept which has been there for ages. You shop and you buy anything today, on the big flashy banners/ posters/ ads, you get for example big discounts but at the bottom end, there comes a small, almost unreadable line which says Terms and Conditions apply.

Okay, so since I am a Social Media Evangelist, while looking at my industry and the marketing industry overall, what struck me was T and C in our case really is Time and Content!! (c) myself

Now you would feel why does the post title contain a name called Saarthak HIT 95FM? Well, let me create a context. There is this FM channel called HIT 95 FM in Delhi, which is one of the best channels there is on air. And then there obviously have to be the RJ’s there…..and wallah you have someone called Saarthak (I dont know if Im spelling it right, or I have added an extra ‘a’).

Now is this an advertisement for the channel? NO!!

But I am making a point here. Saarthak comes on air pretty early in the morning and goes upto some 12pm in the afternoon giving you amazing dollops of music. But what I have been seeing over time in his journey of 6-7 hours on air, that he manages his time juggling in between the LIVE talks, contests, music and other stuff that keeps people like me hooked, pretty intelligently.

He manages the content he has and the time he works for in such a neat manner, that you never feel a hitch. For a client these are short term wins and keeping him on a high all throughout!

Looking through the Social Media glasses, I felt this is it, in our industry, content is the king as it is for Saarthak and the team, time for them is as crucial and what they sell and who they sell it to is again an important consideration as they have a niche concentrated target audience, which is the office goer in his/her vehicle. (Now being an entrepreneur, I have multiple business ideas running in my mind for HIT 95 guys to increase their revenue with) anyway… going ahead this is the ultimate gyan!

What does a Solid placed Social Media Company need in the times evolving?

The times of seeding content on the internet are so over and the offering has now become a commodity. Its time to get campaigns flowing in with creative juices flowing and help the client processesize the entire Online Marketing gig for their business. This is the time for establishing your stand on what’s NEXT really!

Build a high team of creatives who are executioners as well and you have what you would call the NEXT WAVE in Social Media. Deliver to the client and have flawless execution and you are set for a long innings with a clientele which would include the best of the class in the industry, as flawless and responsible execution and project management is what these biggies are looking for and you will have the revenues flowing in and if you are not in deep S**t, then you can always get cash positive pretty quickly.

**and now for the self promotion part, well, I will be LIVE on air at Saarthak’s morning show between 8:20 and 8:30 today called the battle of the sexes. I hope I win, otherwise, I am telling Saarthak to at least give me a hamper…(LOL) coz I have been almost awake for 3 days and nights now and am almost like a dead man walking, so something other than coffee and vodka, needs to get inside to get me waking up and having my senses.

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Sometimes I ponder over life and who things are moving. Its a Sunday and I am in deep thought about my company, where are we moving and how are we placed.

The question(s) which I want to get answered is: as a services company, are you defining productivity the right way as your clients deliverable(s) require? Do your employees really understand your business?

Thanks for Calling Yellow, Have a Nice Day

Case Study: Yellow Corp, a Fortune 500 company in the trucking business was going in a deep nose dive, which was found by Bill Zollars, who became the CEO of Yellow Corp at that time.

Problem Statement:

1. What he found was that the company had no account-abilities and statistics for customer satisfaction.
2. Employees did not understand the value and were just acting on the given orders

Current State of YRC:

This is the link to the amazing turn of events that have turned the fortunes of YRC

How did it happen?

Bill, understood one thing clearly, that the company is nosediving and competition was building up. People used to ask him, if the company will be around another couple of years? Bill had a strong look at the business and finally came out with the solution which had him telling the employees that they are no more competing with the competition in the trucking business, they are not a LTL/ trucking company.

We are a services company and need to strive to create systems to reach to what Starbucks does for its customers

Confused?

Well, Yes, Bill changed the entire positioning of the company for the employees, for them they had become a services company and hence the entire conversation with the customer changed. The entire focus shifted to the customer. People started listening to the customer and hence the products evolved there from.

Eg: On one of the occasions Bill went to a customer care centre of the company to hear the calls and he heard one of the agents answer a customer who wanted to truck his shipment from place A to B in 2 days. And the agent answered “We can do it in three days”. The customer again said but I want it to be done in two days. The agent had the same answer again. The customer finally remarked, I’ll call up someone else to which the agent said: Okay, thanks for calling yellow and letting us serve you. Have a nice day”

Well, if this is what you call serving, sure you are nose diving!

Being part of the Internet industry (read: social media) in India today and connecting with the leading players, I think, the flood of small companies which are creating ruckus in the market by introducing cheap services and setting wrong expectations with the client, will consume such companies itself.

The leading companies which have already set the Social Media ball rolling with the creme de la creme of the clientle would create an entry barrier for the smaller companies, strong enough which would take a good time to surpass and in such a time if these smaller companies dont scale up, with the right HR mix, I see them failing.

Thus the Social Media companies need to position themselves right in the market and itnernally with their employees aligned towards achieving the same goal seeing the same BIG picture!

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Well, Yes I have a problem.

I discuss Social Media with some of the established brains in the domain in India and have had discussions with Social Media thinkers sitting thousands of miles across the seven seas.

And now I do have a problem!

Before I put my problem down, let me put some questions for you to ponder upon:

• Almost every business today needs to reach out and the Internet becomes one of the best mediums. But does every business have the same objective in terms of (Branding, Outreach, Lead generation) etc.?
• Is it necessary that a solution which has worked for an IT company (as an example) would fit great for a BPO?
• Is it necessary that YOU as an Online marketing company would be able to understand everything from a product business to an IT to a BPO to a Chocolate product company?
• Is marketing universal and do the same rules apply for all on Social Media?

Well, now let me put forth my problem!

One of the biggest lacking points that I see with online marketing/ social media companies today is lack of good human resources. In my experience, you need three core and basic qualities to be even thinking of creating social media strategies for a business (client). These are:

1. Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
2. Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
3. Solid understanding of marketing

My experience of the industry says that majority of Social Media companies, talk about all the major tools and all the great jargons, but what they dont understand is how to customize a solution for the client. Each business (may be from the similar domain) will have a different set of problem statements to answer. Each business will have different objectives to achieve.

When so much is different, how can you just go along with jargons and pitch the same solution to each client?

I have interacted with many a Social Media people who if spoken to, would not have the required level of knowledge/ understanding of the product/ industry/ consumer behavior they are pitching to, but will keep circling around their choice of words which are: branding, positioning and lead generation (amongst the many others)

To scale up as a Social Media company – My way would be

The human resources that I recruit would surely have these three above mentioned qualities. Also, since time is an essential factor in the Internet business, I as a small company cannot afford to keep training my employees and wait for them to grasp business and start delivering. Hence what I need to focus on is getting the right people on board who take the ownership of work and understand the criticality of client delivery and execution.

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A lot can happen over coffee!! Yes I agree to it as would thousands of others who flock to these cafe shops each day and spend a chilled out time with their friends and folks.

Most of my informal business meetings and many a times, startups that I consult have just one thing to say: hey lets catch up at CCD (whatever place) and we will talk.

Though this post is not to promote this coffee chain in either way. What I am talking about is how the positioning of a particular franchisee of the coffee house affects sales for the franchisee.

Positioning, yes I already know it, this post is much late in todays time!

Yes, I know it is, but hold your horses.

Can a good dentist be responsible for the Cafe store’s business booming?

Good thought? Well, I am undergoing a treatment at a well known Dental Surgeon in south Delhi. Now after each sitting, I am instructed to not have anything solid or warm for at least 1-1.5 hours and have only liquids during this time. Moreover since I am numbed with anesthesia, thus for the next 3-4 hours at least I am not supposed to be eating anything.

Let me describe you how the dentist is positioned. The dentist’s clinic is on the 1st floor, facing the market entry and there is a Cafe Coffee Day at the ground floor, and with the human eye if you are standing 7-10 feet away at the ground floor, in a single vision you can both of them.

OK, GOOD, but how does that affect CCD’s business?

Well, I said hold your horses’. After every sitting when I am told to just consume cold liquids, the first thing I do is to go to the CCD and order a cold coffee. And not just me, almost each time I am at the coffee house, which is as small in size as you could think of, I see at least 5-6 people who were sharing space with me at the dentists’ a few minutes back!

In the world of Online Media

In this world of online media, proper positioning for your brand is a an ultimate necessity. Brand positioning is affected with the message that you devise for your client’s client. You need to get out of the advertising clutter and make sure that your brand has exclusive access and a good eyeball time by the intended target audience.

Positioning matters for your brand.

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I am a Social Media Marketing evangelist and started my Internet career as a blogger almost 2 years back.

Since this time, I have connected with many people, from some of the best in the Internet domain to some real sharp entrepreneurs, who have given their comments on the various business models which startups and the established Internet/ Online companies are following.

Scale up or Shut Shop

Out of my interaction a couple of days back with a highly placed and successful Internet entrepreneur, a revelation jumped out, which in a way took me by surprise, as I was always present to it, but not really in the real sense of the action.

Over a cup of coffee, we discussed the following:

1. Is working with SME’s in India really that easy into Social Media?
   • Are they good paying customers?
   • Are they easy to grab?
   • Do they really have the time and resources?
2. How, many huge clients (some of the top companies in India and Abroad) are looking for all kinds of services into Social Media and are ready to pay for innovative and rewarding work

Now, I had this idea about how social media campaigns are made for these big fat clients, but never had someone who is doing it in real time, telling me, how much of it is true!

Thus came the BIG realization!

There are these big companies who are asking for partners in the online world, who could do some really innovative stuff. When I talk of innovation and results, I am in a way referring to the likes of Sunsilk Gang of Girls and TATA TEA Jaago Re.

But what I was not aware of was, trivial and almost commoditized offerings in Social Media as creation and seeding of content on the various Social Media channels, these BIG companies are asking for such services as well as an integral part of the offering and are paying good sums for the same.

Many small online marketing companies are offering the same set of services to their clients which represent the SME/ Startup space.

But would the business model sustain?

I am not saying NO, but surely I think its going to be very very difficult. Even if as an online marketing company your differentiation is the market that you are serving, you still have to consider that your market should be sustainable enough and you should have enough resources to crack the market. Some questions that you should answer:

1. How long is your sales cycle?
2. Do you have enough resources to hang onto your tables?
3. Is a low paying and yet more demanding market, the best way for you as a startup?

Moral of the story?

Am I saying that small online marketing companies would not sustain? Well, not really! But surely such companies would find it really hard to sustain. The model over a longer run is surely not sustainable. Moving up the chain and crossing over to the clientle, which is sustainable for your business, is an absolute essential.

Price war?

Not really, in my personal opinion, price is surely not a differentiating factor which smaller companies can establish and fight over. Otherwise the shark will surely eat away the smaller fish.

Finally

There is enough business around, all you need to do is create the right set of expectations with the client and deliver innovations which would help the client get a high over, through short term wins, and will also help you establish long term relationships with your high net worth client!

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There already is so much of Brand Clutter out there, that reaching out to the relevant market and getting the right eyeballs for the sufficient time is becoming increasingly difficult.

In the race to make easy money, advertising platforms are becoming more and more cash unfriendly and provide not much of an option to the advertiser to really showcase the BRAND DIFFERENTIATION and ENGAGE his target audience.

ParitoshSharma.com cuts through the clutter

paritoshsharma.com announces exclusive Brand Showcase opportunities for Brands to showcase their entirety and engage and start a meaningful dialogue with their audience.

• How?
  • Limited Advertising Space – Only TWO (2) brands at any given time
    
    • ParitoshSharma.com limits the advertising space to only two advertisers at any given time on the Home Page of the blog
  • No Google Ads – Only targeted and specific advertising
    • We dont do Google Ad’s just to earn a few bucks. We believe in creating value for the customer and help our advertisers engage their customers

• How can you advertise?

Ohh, so what’s the big deal? Ad’s are given by everyone?

That’s right and that’s why ParitoshSharma.com provides you access to eyeballs as there is no Ad clutter. Only limited space with unlimited access and focused eyeballs.

Do you provide something else other than this?

Yes! We have 3 advertising packages, which can be further customized:

1. HORN (package 1)
   • Advertising Space (Banner Advertising) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand pormotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 24,999
2. OK (package 2)
   • Advertising Space (Left Sidebar Advertising) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand pormotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 16,999
3. PLEASE (package 3)
   • Advertising Space on (HORN – OK – PLEASE – The Digital Foreplay (The Freshest Dope from the Digital Advertising and Marketing Industry)) + 2 Blog posts about your brand/ PR/ Announcements a month + Brand promotion on facebook and twitter by Paritosh Sharma
     • INR 7,999

Since this is exclusive access and focused advertising, the brands advertising, shall be entertained only post strong brand check on social media.

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