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
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!
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
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.
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:
What he found was that the company had no account-abilities and statistics for customer satisfaction.
Employees did not understand the value and were just acting on the given orders
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!
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:
Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
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.
I am impressed with the fact that the 23 year old kid who turned down $1 Billion from Yahoo and is almost a 4 year old company, who says that my age is a little bit of both an asset and a liability.
A kid who sits on the same desk as his 400 other employees writing codes, who has 240 million dollars from Microsoft for a 1.6 %stake, well, I am surely interested in listening to this guy who says no he is not looking to make facebook public and yes they are working on revenue streams.
Here I bring you the exclusive tid bits from Mark’s interview!
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.
Have you ever thought of the fact that why things become unpopular?
While searching on this topic on the internet, I stumbled across this recent study which shows trends which define consumer behavior towards brands. The study reveals how brands become unpopular.
What triggered this thought in my mind?
Interestingly enough, what triggered this thought is a telecast I was watching on Fox History on how the concept of SuperMarkets emerged and how it has revolutionized the way people looked at buying and hence emerged brands which connected with the consumer.
“But at the same time there were brands which lost in the race, they were there, but somehow became invisible to the consumer”
While studying these trends, what I found out was that in todays fast paced times, the consumer is being hit with so many messages across each second that its normal for a human to remain with some and the rest are given the slip.
Fast and the Furious
Shopping in a retail supermarket where you have multiple choices of any given item is surely the best way to get lost.
So how do brands in these times keep up?
Well, you need to create a differentiation (No, I am not talking about a differentiation in your product) that is surely a crucial part for your product anyway, what I am reffering to is the differntiation in terms of catching hold of your consumer who has lesser time than he ever had. You need to make your brand be there with your consumer not aiming to be holding onto them, but simply make sure that you emply factors enough which give you the right place and the right time!
“Don’t try and buy the loyalty of the consumer in such a short time, get their attention“
All of this may sound pretty obvious and familiar, but I wonder why marketers have not been concentrating on just this one factor?! I fail to understand that why are brands after me in buying my loyalty. I shall become loyal to you if I get you at the right time and in time! Coz, what I am is short of time!
Paritosh Sharma speaks on Social Media and Mobile 2.0 at OMCAR 2009
I take pride in presenting my talk at OMCAR 2009, a hugely successful event which was held by OM Careers in association with TiE, Delhi at Amity University, Noida.
I am humbled by the response received by the delegates and some amazing insights from the fellow speakers.
Sharing my talk which I delivered at OMCAR 2009 – The Online Marketing Summit, New Delhi. I am glad to get the feedback that the talk was well received and thanks to all the people who shared their feedback!
This session was blogged LIVE by: Deepanwita Chatterjee, from team OMShare.
Post tea, peppered with some avid networking, we gather for the next session, ‘Making SEO, PPC, SMM & Mobile Work Together’, presented by Mahesh Murthy, CEO Pinstorm and Paritosh Sharma, (SMM Evangelist, OMLogic). I am LIVE Blogging the session and I can’t help notice the excitement that has been generated in the room at the announcement of the session
Paritosh starts the session by explaining that he will be discussing his views about SMM and how business can benefit from SMM.
He starts by displaying a slide with a picture of a colorful grocery store with blue and red boxes.
I specially like the story telling method by which he makes his point. He says that once he went to buy a product of his favorite brand and that brand was not available so he had to settle down for his second favorite brand. So inspite of being a brand loyalist he had to settle with his second choice.
SMM can be explained in two words – message and media.
Paritosh makes the session very lively by citing an example of advertising for a bicycle manufacturer. He quotes 3 example campaigns
A description of the specifics of the bicycle
A picture of the bicycle
A video of a woman riding a cycle showing how easy to ride
No need to mention the third method clicked. What really worked is the content, the message, and the media.
He cites another example of the inventor of sliced bread. The person patented it, advertised it still it didn’t catch up for 15 years. Another bread manufacturer came along and packaged the sliced bread in the right manner and it appealed to the user.
He rightly makes a point that there is no single rule for marketing. Advertising on SlideShare may work for a business and YouTube for another. It is important to understand the needs of the client and the client’s client.
He is explaining that the way to go about it is to create a message and target it to the right set of consumers.
He goes on to cite another example which triggers a lot of laughter – TataSky did an adult site, the moment anybody clicks on the site the questions like age and gender comes up which create the impression of the contents within. But the moment you click it it says ‘dude a paap hai’. The campaign sure has been done in a very witty manner which creates a huge recall value.
He also cites the example of jaagore.com and the ‘pappu pass ho gaya’ campaigns about which we all are well aware of. Both the campaigns and the were huge successes and the radio campaign ‘dot is hot’ was a runaway success as well. Jagore.com was a purely online site, and the message ‘chai peke jaago’ was very intelligently done. Kudos to the tata guys!
Television is a passe. There was a time people bought advertising space. But now people are spending more time on the internet on Orkuts and FaceBooks.
The audience silently agrees to that.
Paritosh says that SMM is more about customizing, customizing according to the needs of the customers.
He goes on to elaborate the four steps of creating a campaign.
The first step is to listen and learn. Even the customer is not clear about what he wants from SMM.
The second step is to audit and analyze the customer’s business model, whether SMM will be good or PPC.
The third step is to develop and test.
The fourth step is to execute and monitor. Metrics are difficult in SMM. But it is not that difficult if you understand the business perspective of the client. And till the time there is no metrics, one can always customize metrics for the clients.
He adds
Position your brand right. Do it with the right medium and to the relevant section of the audience online. And that’s where the PPC and SEO’s come into action.
He is now telling us about Skittles where every page is a social media, on one page there is twitter, on another YouTube and FaceBook on yet another. There is nothing good or bad it is about.
He then shares about Webchutney.com. On the home page, there are two tabs saying ‘I have 5 mins’ , and ‘I have plenty of time’, clicking on either takes the user to separate pages. He cites an example that if one sees a YouTube video of a bicycle gear that she likes and on clicking on it she is taken to the home page of the bicycle website, then one wouldn’t be too happy about it. The concept of separate landing works. I can’t help thinking that yes, that has happened to me many times!
He makes a point by reiterating that markets have evolved overtime and its time that one starts marketing to the innovators and early adopters. They are the ones which will take to your product and will do a much better viral campaign on the internet rather than the late adopters.
You have a great product…. You have identified the target market…
and people are talking about u….. and before the fizz goes out, market it…
Paritosh wraps up the session saying
The riskiest thing that you can do for your brand is to be safe.
Even if anybody writes anything bad about your brand, one can be alerted by a google alert and can pacify them.
Thanks for the useful insights Paritosh, it was great listening to you.
One of the most interesting sessions I have blogged. Thanks Paritosh
"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!