This is one of the best wins of my social media/ Internet career and I am feeling amazingly excited today. So here’s the story. The last blog I wrote on MakeMyTrip.com’s customers posting negative comments on their official fb page, got some interesting feedback.
And Here’s the Experiment
So, what I did was simple. I reached out to 3 people who had left negative comments on the MMT facebook fan page. When I say I reached out, I simply went to there fb profiles and sent them a message. A message which clearly said that I am not a MMT employee/ representative but someone who is amazingly passionate about customer service and obviously about creating a great organisational structure, which is driven by the customer WOWness.
After sending the message, I waited for them to reply and so the reply came, of 2 gentlemen, who had faced genuine problems in their respective cases while transacting with MMT.
And so came the reply
When I received the reply it was all about sharing by these gentlemen about how they faced problems and what solution would suffice them and what suggestions they have for MMT.
The reply was forwarded to relevant people at MMT and they Swung into ACTION
I forwarded the reply to the relevant people at MMT and wallah, they swung into action. Interestingly I was not even aware what was happening, till I got this ping on fb by this gentleman who said, Paritosh thanks, my issue has been sorted out and I have my refund from MMT. The issue was taken care of within hours of you reaching out to me.
I had and still have no Interest whatsoever in this story
Why did I do all this? Well, I have no personal interests. Neither am I being paid by anyone here, just that MMT is one company I have always respected, especially for the leadership it has in the form of Deep Kalra, someone I deeply respect. I personally could not see it going down like this and hence took the step of trying to get it right.
Social Media and Brand Reputation
People talk about social media and brand reputation (ORM), well, here’s a simple example of how a customer who was utterly negative about MMT, finally wrote a wonderful, thanking comment on the official MMT fb page
There’s no magic here, just pure passion for customer service and to see MMT from great to Greatness! I am happy that it all worked out well and that this experiment created an actual POC and a roadmap of what one needs to do. You don’t need to invest shit loads of money into your social media, you have to be passionate about your customer and the service.
Lets see if I do get a recommendation by MMT now he he..
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!!
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!!
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.
Come find the soulmate for your daughter or the dream woman for your son on a website which says in its facebook ad:
Single available women and Get Sexy Babes on Your Desktop for Free and Looking for a girlfriend??! SHOCKING?? Well, yes, it is. I know of many a parents who are in the search for the suitable matches for their children and this is what the social networking site facebook says about this famous matrimonial site.
Let me put things in perspective now. While going through the facebook Ads, and randomly clicking on an Ad which said Single Available Women, was not my thing, but when it said, find your soulmate today at Shaadi free, I was hooked.
Is this a DATING site, I am going to? This is how my profile will be shown on an Ad tomorrow? Is this where I wish to find the best match for my son/daughter who are my future?
Is Shaadi.com not even clear about who they want to target the site to?
I today question the working of these so called matrimonial sites. I remember one of my research team members doing a research on matrimonial sites, sometime back, while I was consulting a new free matrimonial website in India, though I never knew this is what they will resort to, for generating traffic to their site.
Would you ever want your daughter’s picture on one of these Ads, saying Single Available Women!
I understand and agree that “Single available women” simply says that we have single women who are available for marriage on our site, but I protest by saying that there are better ways of putting across the message.
I have my own personal profile on Shaadi.com, though I dont use it and neither I would ever, but today I have a major doubt on their ethics. I dont know if my personal details are being shared across with some other site?
Just to earn clicks if this is what a site can resort to, to earn money they can resort to sharing personal data as well?!
The above captured URL’s (which have been sent to me, by a great friend, who is the founder of one of the best Design companies, and hence could capture the fast changing and re-directing URL’s) are PROOF how Shaadi.com guys are using indirect re-directs through third party hosts, to make you land up to their “Sexy Babes on Your Desktop” register page.
I call upon followers to show concern, as this is a matter of high priority where a single mis-representation of someone’s identity could harm an entire families reputation.
Well, I am back from a very good trip to Bangalore. Met some old entrepreneur friends, some interesting people. Connected with some very established people and re-fueled my engine for my entrepreneurial journey ahead!
Though while on the way I connected with some online marketers on the flight back and here I am writing a piece which I have wanted to since sometime now!
Let me start by saying: Branding and Obscenity are Pretty Much the Same
Why do I say this? Well, the guy sitting right next to me looked at a book I was reading, which was about Branding and how radical concepts have changed consumer perception overtime. I was reading a few case studies and making notes, for a couple of Offline Branding Campaigns I am working on. Now suddenly this guy shoots, about how he is an Online Marketer and does handles campaigns online and how his firm has been doing lots of work.
Without an introduction, I heard him as a client, and asked queries, and he started telling me about how Google helps, SEO, PPC and SMM works. Especially SMM, which we also know by Social Media Marketing. Since I was in the Case Study mode, I posed a question:
Give me 4 solid case studies with the ROI that you have generated for the client or where you have actually gone back to the client telling him that he needed offline/ other marketing techniques as well, and how did you execute it!
And this gentleman starts discussing the best works he has done. A viral campaign, which had x number of hits…Helped a company generate these many leads online (which he had no ideas, of how much was the conversion).
Anyway, being a good listener, I patiently heard him, and then asked another question:
What is the difference between Branding and Marketing and why did some of his campaigns did not survive and what he then suggested to those clients?
I am NOT generalizing this, but I have been interacting with Online Marketers, majority of them in their late 20′s and early 30′s who have had no experience of raising a brand. Who have not seen the entire cycle, boasting about serving the Indian SME in scaling up.
I have been into the Social Media scene, since sometime now, and have struggled with the statistics, which I could really go back with, to a client and suggest him, this is where you should increase/ decrease your marketing spend and this is what you should look at diversifying.
I have NEVER heard from an Online Marketer that they have ever gone back to the client telling them, that look you product needs this, as this is what you customer is looking for on the internet
Majority of Online Marketing companies optimize campaigns according to what the clients are searching a product/ service with. Well, I challenge this thought. How do you that it was the right consumer who was searching this term which you just took from suggestions which Google Adwords provide you.
Branding – YES, Social Media helps You do Just That
Okay, so now I have my Branding lessons on. I get to know how Branding is established, online:
a page/ profile on facebook
an account on twitter
targeted Ads on blogs/ sites
ghost writing on discussion forums etc.
videos on YouTube
ppts on Slideshare
photos on flickr
And if you still cannot achieve traffic numbers, well, go and post this content on various multiple platforms which are identical, so your content will be looked upon by more and more people an chances by simple probability to achieve are higher.
Okay, so I understand probability, but I am still not convinced with this number generation method, I remarked.
I am a Social Media guy and I have a problem with how things are going in India today
Okay, so for all those, who feel I have a personal bias, I have explored the online media to a good extent and hence I write my thoughts here. Majority of bloggers, social media experts/ evangelists/ marketers, strategists, have not had any Branding experience and talk Brand all the time. I have a particular issue with this, as many a times, what they dont realize is they can grow only if their client(S) grow.
Online is the new thing – you have to get on Social Media coz DELL made 3 million dollars from twitter
This is what I have heard from every religious online marketer, I have interacted with, who is pitching to any business from technology to holiday to whatever. Coz DELL did it, hence the opportunity exists and as in India, a small company thinks, even if I can achieve 30% of this, at a low cost, well I will make decent numbers.
And what happens month on month when you go ahead with Online Marketing for your business
MONTH 1
Both the online marketing agency and the client are excited, many things happening around, online training, blogs building up, google ads, higher listing on search engines WOW
The marketer goes back and shares the numbers:
number of blogs, number of blog posts, google ads numbers, how they got the company(s) site(S) listed high on search engines on specific keywords
Month2
Create content | POST it – HOST it – Virality!
Lets do it! Pictures, PPTs, Blog posts, Videos and what not
We will post it here – there – everywhere and wallah this will happen and this
Conversations are not happening – says the client!
Lets do ghost writing
Lets do ghost profiles
Lets do ghost comments
Month3
Houston We’v got a PROBLEM
Firefighting mode
What did you till now, after a quarter?
Well, Sir, look at your brand, look at how many people came to this landing page, look at all of this. Sales will start happening soon.
Lets See – the client now is thinking of how to convert the contract into a pay for performance?
Well, and this is where problems start. Retainership goes down and performance kicks in, knowing well, you dont even know what GAP EXISTS (if any) between the following parties:
Senior management
Existing (employees and clients)
Prospective (employees and clients)
The majority of online marketers, go ahead with no such GAP analysis, and without knowing what exists in the market and what needs to be addressed, just go ahead because they have a medium to connect people with, because out of the 300 million plus people on facebook, there will always be some who will be looking for your product/ service.
Well, I have no inherent bias against anyone, but if I strongly feel, if you are not clear of something, well, dont fluke and sell, coz what you don’t realize is anyway, after 3 years, there are only the better ones, who will be having the repetitive business, because you will be out of market to which you have been marketing.
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!
Shama Hyder, one of the most powerful women on the Internet, shares exclusive insights into the Web and shares her experience through Shama.TV!!
For the fans around the world and in India, I take the privilige of bringing to you, all access to Shama and her amazing innovations into the world of web. Shama is an entrepreneur based out of Dallas Texas, and is the Owner and Principal, ClicktoClient
If you have any questions for Shama, leave them as comments and I’ll forward them to Shama!
You also stand to win a chance to get an exclusive copy of “The Zen of Social Media Marketing” – A book by Shama Hyder.
I am a LIVE blogger and I get invited to many a conferences and events in the industry across India to LIVE blog the entire events.
And since quite sometime I have been hearing from many an Event organizers that due to recession, Business Travel has been restricted, thus expecting huge turnout at any conference is a challenege today!
I am sure this is one concern many a Conference organizers would agree to!
Well, so what is the solution to this problem?
Let me say I cannot monetarily give you an alternative that you should not attend any conferences, as these are some of the best grounds to network and reach out to existing and potential business partnerships. You can get new talent for your company, you get a platform to share your expertise on various agendas relevant to the community.
If there are so many benefits and still you have to see how much can you spend on your travel to attend these conferences?! What do you do then?
Social Media comes to Rescue
To the rescue is Social Media! Yes!
Now that you cannot afford to lose the chance of being in these conferences, well you can definitely work towards making sure that you can make the most of your business trip.
There are several tools on the internet which can help you arrange your travel and connect with people in the city you are visiting and also with the people who are attending the conference, so you can connect with the relevant people and break ice much before you actually meet them at the conference.
Social Media Tools to Get the most of your Business Travel
Explore your professional network on Linkedin to know who all in your network are attending a conference that you are and who all are there in the city at that particular moment of time and day.
Before reaching the designated city, you can connect with these people and pre-schedule meetings, to make the most of your travel. All you needd to do is add the Application (Tripit) on your Linkedin profile.
Twitter is a tool where you can subtly announce that you are going to attend a conference and people who are there in your network who may be visiting the same would tweet back and there you go, you connect with the relevant community of people, thereby increasing your chances of creating more possibilities for yourself in your travel schedule.
Google Reader, well yes I know you would say Google Reader? Yes, its pretty simple! subscribe to the blog feeds of all the companies/people you are expected to meet at the conference/event you are going to. You would hence be updated with all the action points that you need to discuss and take your discussions forward in a more constructive manner.
Follow/Subscribe Events/conferences updates on dedicated Blogs like – OMShare
I confess, there is a self promotional aspect in the following note, but it would be of a higher value to you than anything else! I along with one of the people I work with, created The First from India, Online Platform for Taking Events and Conferences Global (OMShare). Its a platform where I LIVE Blog some of the best conferences and events around uptill now only in India (though open to invites Internationally as well).
We would soon be integrating RSS Feeds letting our followers know at no cost and at not much time, which events are happening where and if they would be of value to you and your business. Also we are extending the platform to include event representatives and organizers who can further help you network with the who’s who attending the event.
Based upon this information you can take an informed decision of whether to attend the event or be negative!
If you wish to connect with me, I would be attending (LIVE Blogging) the following events in the coming future:
The Web Usability and Design Workshop at India Habitat Center by TiE New Delhi on 7th March 9am-6pm
The JFPS CORPORATE COMMUNICATORS’ CONCLAVE in Mumbai on 16th and 17th April
Okay, It’s the Holi day!!! So before I review action for you on the Social Media front, here’s wishing all the readers of my blog a very Holi, full of colors of happiness and love!
There is a lot of action in the Social Media front, whcih I really don’t see calming down any way (I’m a Social Media Evangelist) so I can’t see it calming down
Well, but more Social Networks?
In the league there already are enough, there is a good community size which is still grappling with the facebooks’ – twitters’ – Myspace’s of the world, and to add onto this collection, well you have a new Social Network coming, itimes, by the Times Group in India.
Advertising happens offline
Times Group does know its marketing good, thus they would be covering the Holi bash happening at the Group’s MD Vineet Jain’s place in New Delhi at the site. Well, a good way to start with the launch and make a splash, but well as in the morning I registered onto the community, I thus present you my review of the community site.
So much for the launch and making a splash, but what’s the value that the community site brings to the already evolving Social Networkers?
itimes brings to you the following features:
blogs
networking
there are groups you can join
chat
email
you can upload your photos
Videos from YouTube
Using Open Social you can develop your own Applications
Fan clubs for stars
So much so, and the site is in Beta right now.
Design and UI
My take on the design and Layout of the site is, well its neat, but they have tied in too many things at the same go. The profile page can be made simpler and much easy to navigate through. The celeb profiles on the right hand column is a disastrous effort in attracting people. I hated the feature.
If someone needs to join a fan club, well, please let him do it by creating a group, the photographs of random celebrities on the page takes away the focus from the basic content of the page and creates a disturbing effect which beats the entire purpose of the profile page.
Linkedin, SiliconIndia and Facebook
Well, if I mention these three Social Networks, I find itimes coming up with nothing new.
I think there is enough clutter in the social network space and how much the market demands another one in the league, well I would not give in. Social Networks now have to evolve as specialized niche offerings to the target markets. Otherwise starting a blog, integrating your photographs, videos, your friends commenting upon it and subscribers following your updates from across the world, how is a vague Social Network, better than your own blog?!
"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
he he..
Shama Hyder, one of the most powerful women on the Internet, shares exclusive insights into the Web and shares her experience through Shama.TV!!
