In my endeavor of establishing transparency and clarity in the, Ohh so amazing and new world of Social Media and Online Marketing, I am sure the series of posts I am doing now, will surely be an eye opener for clients.
Just sometime back, my strategy team did a search on the keywords, Social Media and India, and what we got were people who have sometime or the other in their professional lifetime, related to the Social Media industry. And since Social Media is not an age old concept, thus we started looking at the profiles of people who are currently into the profession.
To my UTTER AMAZE, the profiles, I was given were an absolute NO, if they were to handle my brand strategy not just on the internet but everywhere else. Interestingly, these people are recruited by not just the small Social Media ‘shops’ but the biggies in the business as well. Positioned highly, these guys are given fancy terms and well, the customer is sold!
Let me bring more clarity by looking at certain aspects of what my strategy team gave me, post the data analysis:
Education
Majority of these people have not done management (which I am not suggesting is necessary)
80% of them, do not have the words, Branding Consultant, Marketing, Positioning, Product life cycle, etc in their summary/ profiles
Current
The current profiles are all Social Media Strategist, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Executive
Past
There are people from BPO, from Technology, Adventure Tourism, Operations who are handling your So called Social Media Branding and Online Branding and Brand Creation and what not
Experience
Most of these people are fresh (1-3 years) of experience and are running the show
In my personal view, I completely agree that innovative thinking, creativity are needed, but is it that you will hand over your brand in the hands of someone who does NOT even understand what Brand stands for?!
This revelation by the team, surely opened my eyes towards how is the New Media industry being structured and shaping up. We are playing on chances and one of running successes.
Pepsico has shocked the entire advertising fraternity by deciding that they would put to use their almost 1.3 billion dollar advertising budget NOT for Advertising anymore!
The CEO, Indira Nooyi, in her statement to the press remarked “We know it’s good, and everyone’s pretty happy with the overall taste, so why spend all our time worrying about what other people think?”
“Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don’t like it, then they don’t like it.”
The TOP Pepsico team has been on for this since sometime and have finally decided to shift the funds into PepsiCo’s savings accounts and utilize them for much constructive things, as people anyway dont drink or feel the advertisement. The funds would now be divided amongst various charitable organizations and for bonuses to the employees.
Interesting to note, Nooyi asked the pressmen to go back to their families, hug them and play…really play and spend good time with them, before life passes by.
I support this move and its an amazingly intelligent step by a company of the size of Pepsico.
Walk the Walk… Talk the Talk… Times have now arrived for the corporate to consider Blogging the Blog!!
Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!
Your consumers are already on the Internet
With the usage of Internet spilling over to almost all parts of the country, the corporate has a valid and an entirely new and ever increasing scope to interact in real time with its consumers, take feedback and hence constantly evolve as a ‘People’s Brand‘.
Your clients are already talking about you, are you listening?
We are licing in change, which essentially is the only contant thing in life. And so is a brand. A brand needs to evolve with the times, reaching out to the relevant set of people who are talking about you or would want to talk about you!
Blog and Get Blogged about
I suggest many of my clients that they should themselves participate in corporate blogging and not leave the entire communication to be handled by the PR team or any third party agency or marketing company handling your online communications.
Should you tie up with an external agency – Case Study?
Hmmm… I am sure with the strategy that Nokia used before launching N97 in India and Samsung while launching the Jet. What did they do? Call a select group of bloggers and wallah they have arrived at a much lesser cost as compared to doing a TV ad or big hoarding out there, which they will do for sure, but they have captured one strata of the market.
Trends In Indian Corporate Blogging – My View
The trends purely show, that there is a BIG opportunity and according to me it exists due to the fact that agencies have not been able to show the GAP and the OPPORTUNITY to the Corporate.
Say ‘hi’ to your sutomer each day, reach out and extend your hand! Get connected and retain your loyal customers!!
A focused Corporate blog will EMPOWER your customer to know more and get connected with the brand.
To leverage the power of Corporate Blogging and create a successful strategy of saying ‘hi’ to your customer each day, CONNECT WITH ME at
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.
I am Social Media Marketing Evangelist and over time a crucial aspect of the entire Social Media Marketing process has come into the picture which if inferred in simple terms makes you ponder over the most basic question:
Do Your Clients Really Understand Your Service/ What You Are Trying to Do?
As with the new buzz word and with a huge outreach new brands are coming onto the social media scene and products and services are trying to connect to the relevant audience, but somewhere I personally feel, many Online Marketing companies, are just trying to experiment with the customer, in the process, not really being one with the customer’s business objectives.
And there goes the entire effort down the drain, with the client dissatisfied and disillusioned at the end.
Listen to your customer!
I strongly suggest all marketers, expecially those in the online domain to listen to their customers. its highly crucial that you understand the customer’s business objectives and are on the same page as the client. Its necessary that you have a solid graps of business understanding of your customer, to be able to create solid and successful campaigns and create success stories in the online world.
I know, there aer going to be many a people who are going to rip this post off! After all for so many years banner advertising has been a proven model. People see it – People click it – and You sell!
Well, I am not here to contest or challenge. All that I want is to take your vision to a whole new space of marketing, which the marketers should look at.
During a discussion with one of my friends, this is what struck me and I call it – The WaterPond Marketing
In todays connected world, there are consumers all around you? And they are connected! Dont you forget that! Hence its possible that the person you just interacted with knows the others you are going to interact with, so you always need to project your “RIGHT SIDE”!
Now in this far and wide connected world, you cannot go to every other person and tell someone one thing and someone other the other story and want them to believe you. Other way round, they all would know what you spoke to about, to the first person as they are connected!
So you cannot go about running the same Banner Ads on all the sites, with a thought that the visitors on the site are prospects. Well, they might be and I certainly dont contest that, but you are trying to tell everyone who is already connected that this is ME and look at running these Ads for all the people on the site, which includes both the unique visitors and the Returning ones.
Its no longer smart to burn the note and push your way into the lead to reach to your customer
Your customer is anyway knowing about you from somewhere or the other and creating perceptions and taking decisions based upon the recommendations of his influential friends and known contacts.
So, essentially you are in a Pond of Water, which is filled with similar need mongers and this is the place you need to market.
So just burning your money, I dont think would make a lot of sense. Instead my advice would be, go connect and bring out the Zappos model, which simply is that every interaction is the best opportunity to delight the consumer and serve him right.
This makes the game easier and much focused and brings out the best in you each time and you dont wander around! Relating the same to the online world, I think Banner Ads and popups are making lesser of a sense today as the market dynamics and reaction levels are changing.
Nikhil Sarup from Solutions Digitas – shares on Web 2.0 means business, and he shares a concrete iron clad framework for implementing web 2.0 in your company, as Nikhil puts it for the audience.
I particulary like Nikhil’s initiation to the session. Its interesting to see a real guy out of the crowd! Sharing his point of view on how social trends are happening in B2b space! Generally when I have interacted with people, the implementation of Social Media in the B2b space has always been a greater concern as compared to the B2c space.
Nikhil has come as a breath of fresh air for the audience here. After listening to some very interesting thoughts by Kiruba and others on Social Media’s impact and how can we classify consumers and look at their behavior, having Nikhil open the session with some very thought provoking 1.5 joke(s) makes an impact which I can sense and see in the audience. The ease with which Nikhil puts across his point and clarifies the clutter around Social Media for a business is worth your and your businesses’ while
Showing the audience the need for being there where your consumers are, Nikhil not only is forcing out of people the urge to know, how they can best leverage Social Media for their business and how can they really create a successful strategy around it, but he is also sharing some real practical insights, which can be modeled and shaped to suit your business requirements and create a successful Social Media presence.
Since much emphasis has already been given to the traditional methods of Social Media and how and why’s of its importance to business, giving a practical outlook to the entire game makes the entire talk a much intriguing affair. Now we have Nikhil giving a practical display of a dummy site and how his company makes Social Media, accessible to their cleints on their web sites, and hence the clients’ client does not have to really go anywhere else on the internet to talk his heart out.
The first engagement touchpoint happens on the web site itself
I am personally much interested to know, how Nikhil and his team decide upon the information flow and how dealing with different business verticals, they decide upon the site design? Is there a standard template, which proves that the visitor to your site would interact in this manner, if the content is made accessible right at the web site?
Proving his point to the audience, who is listening with much interest, Nikhil’s demonstration of the site is surely giving many a ideas to the audience present. I am sure we are going to see some really interactive sites coming up in the near future! Talking about Web 2.0, I am quite amazed with the way Nikhil has made content accessible to the client where he lands up on your web site. With all what I want present to me in different sorts of content, white papers, Videos etc, I would surely be able to hold onto my visitor onto the right section of my web site, for a good time, hence the probability of conversion increases!
I personally am very much on the similar page as Nikhil, and surely appraise of the ideas that he has shared, in the manner that he has! Way to go Nikhil!
The session is now wrapped up, within time and we are open to QandA offline.
"We thought we understood social media marketing and seo optimization fairly ok but after our one on one session realized many of the fundamental mistakes we were making plus learnt many new tools. Overall an investment I would recommend every entreprenuer to make"
- Nidhi, Founder CEO, Pinnacle Works
Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!
anyway… going ahead this is the ultimate gyan!