New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Its a Sunday morning and after quite sometime, Iv sat around looking at what is happening across the Digital Media/ Marketing industry in India. Overtime the interactions Iv had with people across ages and businesses, today I share a perspective with everyone who is interested in exploring the New Media!

I must confess, this post is not going to be the sweetest in the line.

Recently I read an article at Alootechie a famed site which Iv been following since sometime and have admired their content, on, “are social media training companies helping”? Hold…hold your thought…lets revise it again!

Social Media Marketing/ Digital Media marketing companies, training people/ corporate/ employees in using the New Media??

Learn Social Media in 2 days!! I must confess, Iv been working in the New Media domain since quite sometime now and I still learn new things each day, evolving with people around! Networking with people who have done one thing or the other which has proven successful. And I still wont say that I know enough!

Before we go ahead, a question to these trainers?!

Give me 5 successful case studies of clients you have served and when I say successful, I dont mean, raising pageviews or traffic. Also give me 5 super failures that you had while you were associated with the New Media?!

I recently got a mail from one leading company’s past clients’ saying that we just could not understand what happened, for us it was a waste of an activity as we still dont know after so many months, what went right or what went wrong!

– this is one such training company quoted in the Alootechie article

We recently fired our PR agency who was also doing the social media for our events, they did deliver but they were trying the social media on us, there were no results they could show – a leading events company

– this is one of the leading PR agencies of which almost everyone would know

Okay, these are just two of the interactions which Im putting here! I meet so many people daily and interact with several of them and many of them have the same response.

The entire New Media industry is going in a way which many call in the corporate lingo, you scratch my back and I scratch yours, and this keeps on till something like: one tight slap comes like an MTV does!

I recently saw a presentation from one of these social media training companies, which uses the “video” content of a foreign company, without any credits to them! This is what you teach to your people guys?!! Take others content and use it commercially, without even letting the owner know?!!

- I actually went and connected with the owner of the content and notified him about it, to which strangely his response was, we can’t help it as Indian laws dont protect content!

And now for these self confessed Social Media Marketing/ Digital Media Marketing companies

No doubts, some of these guys have done real good work, I know personally some of them. But the rest, and again I know personally these “rest” are making hay while the sun shines! And why do I say that?

Well, in a previous post, I showed how these companies are employing graduates/ freshers, people from varied backgrounds, to create the marketing communications online, for your brand?!

My honest advice for Clients, who are investing money to explore the new Media: Please go to Linkedin and do a strong check of the people who will be executing your brand on the social media, as many of them dont even have the word brand remotely connected to their profiles!!!

And now for the employees

Last night I was looking at some employees of these social media marketing companies, of which I could personally think of and found their “core social media team” was missing from twitter

These companies have no search results on twitter, isnt’ that strange?!

Why did I write such a damning post?

Well, coz all such efforts are actually harming the Industry, rather than improving it. The Indian consumer reacts to logical use of the New Media like a commodity like fruits and vegetables, negotiating at each stage. A client who has burnt his. her hands (not just fingers) before, becomes much averse to the New Media and hence goes very cautious the next time.

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We have overtime seen many initiatives go high on the fuel of thoughts and vision but not really seeing the light of the day, when it comes to affecting positively, not just a group of people, but an entire ecosystem, which involves you and me.

Especially, its amazing to see how the Indian Corporate and Industry Associations like NASSCOM have come together towards creation of an interesting ecosystem, which is improving not only the lifestyle for many but also is a big and a bold investment in India’s future.

Recently we came across this campaign called the CyberCity Welfare Society, which is been driven by NASSCOM and major corporate members based out of Gurgaon (the Cyber City) which aims at making life easier, smooth and greener on the roads of Gurgaon.

What caught our eye was the fact that not only the corporate, but this time around, the Police and the Municipal Associations have been actively involved in the campaign,  hence making sure that the voices are heard at the highest levels. Such an initiative has not been head of before and we are sure, such steps will go a long way in the future towards creating effective change.

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Before I start this post, I must confess, that since childhood, like many others, @billgates has been a hero. I always dreamt of seeing him and had my brush with him, when I LIVE blogged a session which he chaired, while being felicitated by NASSCOM, in New Delhi.

When I was pursuing my bachelors, Microsoft was a name which resounded like a dream coming true and a company to work with.

A couple of days back when @billgates joined twitter, I was looking at what comments have people to make and it was interesting to see how someone who may not stand even an inch to where @billgates does (whatever it may be, I respect the man, a self made achiever). There were all sorts of comments starting from welcoming him, to people talking about their Apple iPODs and the downfall of the Microsoft era.

At a recent conference which I blogged, one of the highly placed speakers, Founder of a Cloud based business application services company from India, had a bold statement to make, that MS is going to be history soon. At that time, I may not have had the understanding of the real dynamics of his statement, but today as I get to know more about the deep mess, I realize how things have shaped up and being a person I am, I still think, MS has all the chances in the world to fight back.

While reading an interesting post by a previous MS employee at the New York Times as to how MS lead to creative destruction, I was not much shocked at the story, as it was something, I knew from my interaction with many similar others.

In multiple minds, while writing this post, I am an entrepreneur and run a startup and I understand how the leadership of a company truly affects the entire structure and hierarchy. The mindset, the culture. Almost each one of us today has grown up, seeing the Office, Windows OS, though today the quality has gone down, there is no innovation and we have stopped expecting the days when Microsoft was supposed to be telling the future.

Though being an optimist, I again want the company to bounce back, fight the clutter. There is nothing really impossible. Its a shift required at a large scale, but that is what is required, otherwise this would make for the saddest story in business.

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