January 31st, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink
As announced earlier, www.paritoshsharma.com is a dedicated content partner with Social Bakers. We are publishing India specific statistics which can give you insights into what are various social networks doing in India. Here’s an update on facebook and YouTube this time!!
Keep plugged into this space for more interesting numbers!!
November 25th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink
I am excited to announce a partnership with SocialBakers, one of world’s biggest social media statistics portal. Sometime back, while SocialBakers was looking to partner with leading bloggers and publishers in various parts of the world, www.paritoshsharma.com was quick to partner with them, under the category New Media and Marketing. The blog is officially listed under the blogger partner section of SocialBakers.
As part of the partnership, www.paritoshsharma.com will be presenting interesting social media statistics from India as a geography. The first in the series is the graphic below which gives some pretty interesting figures on facebook users in India and the brands which are making waves.
Its interesting to note that Reliance Mutual Fund has been the highest on Response Rate. Being a fund house in such volatile market conditions, talking to their customers on fb is sure an interesting deal.
www.paritoshsharma.com and SocialBakers will keep coming up with more exciting statistics which will sure give you exciting insights into what’s happening in the social media domain in India. Keep plugged!!
November 16th, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink
All right. So the word is out and I have to start this post with a clear thought that if you are proud of being an “Active on Social Media” business, then you are being plain simple dumb!
Don’t make any assumptions about what’s next in this post after reading those words above. I have been hearing so much of the word “social” lately, that I feel the buzzword is nearing its exhaustion in the usage of the context. Businesses are just lining up to be social. I have seen so many companies who are “wanting to be social” int he recent times, that I strongly feel, they don’t even have their basic customer understanding and service right.
What I want to clearly deliver to businesses is, that being social is not about something drastically different! Its just another extension of being there. The ultimate goal of the business is to serve the customer is the best possible manner and being social won’t replace this.
Set it In Your Culture!
Being social is not simply a marketing function. Its the mindset, I strongly believe. Its one thing having a great facebook fan page, a great looking YouTube channel with many hundreds of views, but its a whole different game to have “engaged audience”, for the same. In my view its a simple black is black and white is white proposition. If you understand your customer bloody well and are serving them in the manner they expect from you, well, then, being social will automatically fetch you engaged and active fans. You will not have to pump in those many hundreds of marketing dollars and then start a cycle of engaging your fans to make them from mere listeners to active contributors.
Are You Sure You Understand and Know Your Customer Bloody Well?
Most of the companies that I work with, while creating their social media strategies, my first thought simply is to understand the audience. And NO, I DON’T look at the audience from the mindset of a salesman. I clearly and simply look at understanding, who is the influencer, who is the decision maker, who is the ultimate consumer and what all do they expect from the business!
To me its simple, if you have not been able to create a satisfied and engaged customer, someone who listens to when you communicate, well, you will always keep fighting for engaged fans on social media as well.
So many businesses today are leveraging the digital medium to present a proposition, what they are missing is a very critical and powerful point. Everyone online today has the power and freedom to express by creating content and hence if you promise something and don’t stand upto the experience, well, you will one day be written about and that day aint too far!
Connect With the Core Human Motivation to Do Things!
My personal view is that social is no different from the usual way of connecting with your customer. For a while just think of a world which was a few decades back. When businesses used to communicate and reach out to customers in a ‘now rudimentary’ format of physical letters etc. the call to action was simply based on exploring the customer motivation and delivering the same as an incentive.
Going social though has made companies lose out on the understanding the customer’s basic motivation bit. Most businesses outsource the social part to agencies who again are working with limited manpower, with more constrained knowledge of the still nascent digital media. And these agencies well, many customers can share their personal experiences!
For God’s Sake Campaigns Won’t Fetch You Actively Engaged Fans!
I must speak it out loud, marketing folks please understand, if your objective is to create a buzz, great campaigns work. Yes they do. If its about creating actively engaged fans, well, a short-lived, time constrained campaign might not be the right approach. You might be successful in acquiring a fan through a campaign, but will that fan be actively engaging in future. I have serious doubts and have examples to share from my own experience.
Understand Your Customer, Do the Basic Right and You Will Win!
All you need to do to win the social world as well is to do the basic right. Ensure that you are reaching out to your customers and creating active touch-points with him/ her, which enable you to collect critical data about the customer. His/ Her preferences, Likes/ Dislikes/ Motivations etc. Once you have this existing, you will be able to develop a far stronger strategy to reach out to the set of people online who would have the highest probability of converting for you as an actively engaged fan.
Remember, A Real Smile is Anyday Better Than a Smiley!!
As I always say, a real smiley is always far more effective than a digital one. Create powerfully engaging and NOT SELLING touch-points with your customers in the ‘real’ offline world. Once your customer comes in your communication and listening range, then create the motivational pulls online!
October 7th, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink
Social networking has been around since sometime now. There’s much content around. There’s a lot of sharing, caring, love and what not. What was missing still, as I said it before, was the real understanding of the ‘Human Behavior’ by the social network. I am not referring to the real Artificial Intelligence, that might also happen one day, but social networking has a real face to it. Its more human really than technology.
Interestingly facebook, recently did couple of interesting changes in the UI and especially how they are evolving their brand pages. The entire concept of brand pages is essentially to provide an online space for brands to reach out and engage its target audience OR as I believe, targeting is the second level, first its about attracting just the available audience.
Look below your fan page likes
Recently facebook added something interesting below your fan page likes ‘number’. They added something called the People Talking About! This number essentially represents the number of people who are talking about your brand (mentioning you in comments, liking updates) etc. in a week. As an obviously logical extension to the thought, the more the number of people talking, the more is your brand reaching out to the relevant target audience.
Word of mouth
Now don’t feel as if I am traversing to a whole new topic. Interestingly what I feel is, there is a lot that facebook is doing to model the real world online. I find this very interesting. For me, since I have known social networks, I have always said, a successful social network is the one, which can understand the human behavior well and model it. And facebook is doing just that.
The number of people discussing your brand on facebook, is now visible to you, which is pretty much like the word of mouth which is one of the strongest ways of brand marketing in the real ‘offline’ world.
Social Network and the Human Behavior
I strongly believe, the future of social networking and hence the success of a global super social network really will revolve around the fact as to how well would the network understand the basic human nature and behavior and then model the various products and services around the same.
Make the platform effortless to engage with.
Statistics will always matter to businesses and Insights always help
One of the strongest advances which facebook has made in the last few days are to strengthen their “page” insights. Any brand which can intelligently gather data points and make worthwhile inferences from them, can leverage the free insights to better their understanding of the customer they are engaging with, online.
These are interesting times and such small yet powerful productized services from social networking platforms will surely change the game for everyone around.
February 21st, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink
There has been much talk about Social Media. Though at nascent stages and just like many other posts, this one may also be looked upon as another future teller, trying to make a guess work and predict something, like the magician gets the rabbit out of the hat put on fire!!
The Context
I recently attended a high profile conference of some of the best known brains in the Media and Entertainment industry led by Shri. Kapil Sibal, Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource Development, Communications & Information Technology. The conference really was focused towards creating a solid framework for talent development for the Media and Entertainment industry in India, aptly titled: “National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework for Media and Entertainment Industry”.
Coming from the thought, interacting with many established media people across the table and taking their insights, I realized the following:
Businesses are Increasingly looking at a Smart Future: Digital Ready managers
My interaction with various industry experts revealed that large businesses are actually looking at creating a strong and smart marketing team. While the entire Digital Media space is evolving as I am writing this post, we are talking of businesses leveraging the medium as they are growing and getting a hang of the same. Marketers today are expected to come equipped with the knowledge of Digital Media at least at a basic level, which enables them to be powerful contributors in the process of creating a solid Digital Media strategy for their organizations.
Lack of skilled professionals: the current situation
As discussed with key people from the industry who have seen the Digital Media space grow right in front of their eyes in India and have experience of how things are moving internationally as well, the sense is, there is a lack of skilled manpower currently and various businesses are doing their bit, though in an un-organized fashion to train employees and so are the educational institutions, by collaborating with leading entrepreneurs/ digital media companies to produce future ready managers.
What does it mean?
In my view, in a couple of years time (3-5) Digital Media will essentially become an integral part of the marketing function within organizations and agencies will essentially play a supporting role, while working very closely with these organizations. Also, only a handful of “specialized” agencies will be leading from the front.
This will further create a major demand for trained and skilled manpower, future ready managers, who are well versed with the Digital Media.
This emerging business need will surely fuel many entrepreneurial fires. This is sure a golden opportunity to step into the education part of the Digital Media business and especially makes all the more sense for established digital agencies, as it helps them churn and place more professionals in the market, at the client’s end, who then become prospective business generators!
December 8th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink
YES!! YOU GOT IT RIGHT. The title of the post says: Warning: The Air You Breathe Here is Charged Up With Entrepreneurial Particles!!
I am talking about nothing other than The TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2010, undoubtedly one of the largest extravaganza, year 2010 witnesses. A perfect setting for the end of a decade.
TES marks the Enterprising India’s largest gathering of some of the most exciting souls on earth, a class, a breed called: entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is not just a word, its a way of living, its a common passion which binds enterprising minds together who come on board with a common aim of creating and delivering value. People who dream of a future not just for themselves but create opportunities for many others, who become a part of success stories.
And without a doubt, India as a country is blessed with great minds. We have had some of the best enterprising ideas right from the bottom of the pyramid, from the rural parts of the country of over a billion people to the well networked metros. Starting from a global success story of a man who did not have food for 5 days and traveled on a goods train after being left by the security saying that he is from a friendly country India, this man decided to build an institution we know as Infosys today. There are many such inspiring stories of grit, determination, hard-work, hanging on and creating dreams.
At TES we are going to bring forth such stories while creating an opportunity and a strong ecosystem for many more to flourish. December is going to bring with it a whole new wave of energy which is going to create many new directions for many more achievers to come.
Be a proud part of the largest entrepreneurial extravaganza while the decade ends.
October 2nd, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink
Social Media Marketing – are your kidding me?
Yes Sir, I am asking this question. Being the CEO of a fast emerging Social Media for Enterprise company, I am asking you this question, are you kidding me, when you say, Social Media Marketing?
Social Media – When Did it Become All About Marketing?
Well, its been a little over 3 years and Iv been hearing a buzzzzzzz word (yes the buzz has been longer than I expected it to be) called: Social Media Marketing. I know of so many small and large companies who are making hay while the sun shines by doing something called: Social Media Marketing.
But Marketing – That’s it?
Is it all about just marketing? Is it? I have seen this media grow and its effects and the various ways which companies have leveraged this media in. From plain simple blogging to Viral campaigns, all’s been said and done.
There have been some pretty major campaigns which found their place under the sun and in the hearts of people. There were funny videos of Ghazal Singers Selling Microsoft Software to Online gangs of the fair sex selling beauty products.
Time to Learn!
Social Network: a social network is nothing other than a network group of people who may have multiple objectives to join the same.
When did it Become All about Marketing?
Well, when did Social Networks become all about marketing? Where did the whole aspect of a knowledge economy go? When did real knowledge collaboration take a back seat?
The Dynamics of Marketing and How Online Media has Affected Them?
There are major theories being written and shared all across the world. I agree no less, there’s definitely a fundamental shift which has taken place overtime, since people have started connecting globally with each other. Its really about empowerment. People today feel empowered with the sudden freedom of speech, sudden freedom of connecting globally, sudden expansion of vision and opportunities.
And since these people play various roles in their normal course of life: parents, students, employees, bosses, employers, buyers, sellers etc. hence each one of them see these social networks as a way to connect with like minded people globally, they feel empowered.
Are You Mar-Kidding?
I ask the marketers now, are you Mar-Kidding? Yes!
There is a whole new set of aware, jazzy, savvy customers online, so obviously they have to be tapped into. Lets become a Social Media Marketing company and help our customers connect with their prospects online. Great thought! And no doubts, businesses are investing into this media.
But let me share in my experience of why many businesses do:
Businesses are yet to really see the powerful nature of this media. And why do I say that? Because let me go and ask how many of them can really quantify the results and how many of them really had clarity on their business objectives before even stepping into this mode and exploring the New Media as a marketing option!
Let me put it straight and I actually put it the same way for my customers as well. If DELL made couple of million dollars in revenue by executing a solid strategic thought on the Social Media, leveraging channels like twitter and the concept of community building, well, yes it did. But that ends right there. There is no point creating a parallel.
If I am not online, I am lagging behind as a business. If nothing else, at least I would get more interesting insights about my business online.
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ALL THIS
My problem is: many businesses, and when I say businesses, I come from experience across the board from Small and Medium enterprises to Large Enterprises, which operate globally. Many of these businesses are really not fully decided upon what their business objectives are for leveraging the Social Media.
And before I go ahead, my disclaimer is, just like in every domain there are good and bad both, hence I am not generalizing every company, but many run of the mill Social Media Marketing companies (who have normal Bcom pass graduates who may have never read what a brand really is, taking about branding) as their resources to save cost and increase margins, go to these businesses and tell them its about Marketing boss.
Your customers are here! They are already talking, you are missing the bus!
And even before the customer can actually sit and deliberate, he says, what the heck, let me just start with a small amount and rope this company as my vendor and test waters.
THIS IS RUINING THE MARKET
Today, I personally know of business owners (who are good friends), who invested quite some money into the Social Media and after 6 months said: okay I am here there everywhere, but I dont really get how my business got affected?
When you have inexperienced lots working with enterprises, you are actually delivering a cake which is half baked and which will eventually burn out. Its as simple as a Chinese Specialist trying an Italian Cuisine while writing on his LinkedIn profile, I am an Expert in Global Cuisines.
Why Are Majorly All Social Media Marketing Companies Saying: The Indian Customer is Not Able to Appreciate our Services
Well, this one is a common sentence and though many people may shy away from saying this in public, but Iv heard it from the horses’ mouth, owners of Social Media Agencies saying: Indian Customers are not paying us as much, they don’t appreciate these services as much.
I agree to Disagree.
Show the customer value and he will pay
– this has been my thought process since the very beginning and even today as I am running an emerging company, I know how far have we come and how fast have we actually evolved, all thanks to some fantastic mentors we have on board who come with a global perspective and insight.
A Practical Example
Since I like taking examples to effectively communicate with people, let me put across the story of Until ROI in few lines. We started as a run of the mill Social Media Marketing company but soon realized that being just another one would be NON-SENSICAL.
There is no point being a fish between sharks already there and more fishes mushrooming at every nook and corner.
That is when we decided to take help of mentors who come on board with over 100 + years of cumulative global experience. And well, we changed and changed for the good.
But what did we do?
What’s been the result?
As a simple answer, we are a: Social Media for Enterprise company today 
with happy enterprise clients.
Final Word!
I would like all Social Media Marketers to actually help businesses help create strong processes, both Internal and External and help them bridge the gap with not only their customers externally (who pay) but also the customers internally (employees, management).
We must help businesses understand the dynamics of being Social and how and why must a business actually go towards going public and not let it become a small paying experiment.
February 21st, 2010 § 4 comments § permalink
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.
November 1st, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
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:
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.
August 30th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
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!! ??
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.
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
