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?!
“It is not about who you know or what you know, but who knows what you know”
Remarked Mr. Ajay Jain, a man who firmly kept the foundation for the discussion on the 38th Friday’s 2.0 session on “Using online professional networking to get ahead at work” at New delhi.Mr. Ajay Jain, the author of “Let’s Connect, (using LinkedIn to get ahead at work)” shared his learnings, his passion for writing and how NOT overlooking intricate things can make your day!
“Indians Build Relationships”
The concept of offline networking and relationship building, remarked Mr. Jain, is still a preferred mode of establishing new relationships in India. Citing the success of the various offline networking chapters across India, Mr. Jain provided an insight as to how the Indian business scene is still the traditional way.The same gave direction to further discussion, which Mr. Jain generated quite an interest with, by introducing LinkedIn as a highly efficient and properly guarded tool for professional networking.
“LinkedIn is like a Business Conference” How to use LinkedIn to your advantage?
Like the Ten commandments, Mr, Jain established 10 effective steps!
Your ever expanding Rolodex:Social contact building
All that comes your way….well no! LinkedIn gives an account only 3000 invites throughout the lifetime of your account, which makes sure that the professional ethic remains. - Have a LinkedIn-Thon @ office, if you have created a new account and are thinking as to how to grow your network! The idea that Mr. Jain shared with the community.
LinkedIN Answers: A global focus group
Mr. Jain highly recommended the feature of LinkedIn answers which has multiple benefits, both for the community as well as the person answering the question.The answers get rated and the same puts the answering person profile in the limelight, and after a certain top rated answers in a certain domain, the person is profiled as an expert in the domain.
Networking Plus: Meet people
Mr. Jain, shared an idea yet again, being a travel writer himself, he travels and meets a multitude of people all across. LinkedIN he said, could be highly instrumental in meeting people while you travel. You can send a message across to someone where you are traveling, to catch up at a certain place for a coffee!
Branding and Marketing: Yourself
The topic generated enough interest in the room, to get ahead professionally or to a platform, Mr. Jain, presented to the members, unique ways of leveraging the power of online networking to get ahead at work.
“Dress up your profile, like you do in real life”
Keep your profile updated and leave no chances for networking within the groups that you may have been linked to professionally in the past.In the summary section, be crisp and to the point!
Hiring People: Its not a job site
Though LinkedIN is not a Job Site, still said Mr. Jain, the feature of posting and searching for jobs is a high revenue generator. As a recruiter as well as a prospect, LinkedIn could serve your purpose in an efficient and better manner, as the feature of writing an endorsement, provides a good background to be searching for the right candidate.
Finding a job: You Love!
A job you love! Well, LinkedIN could help you interact with your prospective future employer, the employees and may be your reporting manager. You could use it to your advantage in settling down pretty, with the Job you Love!
Vendors and Service Providers
Mr. Jain shared an interesting thought which could spell business opportunity for many a participants in the session. LinkedIN could help you find suitable vendors and service providers for your business needs.
Running Background checks: A boon for the recuiters
LinkedIN could be a great source of information about prospective employees for the recruiters. the process of background checks could not be fudged on the online platform, as the endorsements for a person come in true, by people whom they have worked together with. Such features make it easier for the future employer to check for the identity of the prospect and also take the authenticity of the employees, relative to the people who have endorsed them.
Entrepreneurs: Get investors and opinions
For Entrepreneurs, which Mr. Jain, himself is, LinkedIn can prove to be a great source of doing market research and netowrk with prospective partners and investors. He again stressed on the Q&A feature, which could be used to one’s advantage and can prove to be a low cost and effective market research tool.
Selling and Brand Building: For your company
As an employee, you can be highly instrumental in selling your companies brand value to attract more clients and generate higher revenues. Also the same may act towards making the organization a “preferred employer”.
“The world of business is a small one, LinkedIn made it even smaller”
A few key points that Mr. Jain re-iterated were of Etiquette. He stressed that though online, LinkedIn, still becomes your professional identity. Thus its reflects you online and keeping the rules of the game as in the real world, would help you in gaining traction with the people you wish to network with!The session drew to a close, with the floor open to questions and quite an interesting and knowledge driven debate ensued. With member audience pitching in with answers and solutions.
Have you ever tried googling “yes we can” and the TOP two results that appear are related to none other than Barack Obama, the US President-elect.
Though Obama may not have remembered to invite our Mr. Prime minister at a meeting of leaders held (as in the news channels), this post is more about tracking the Obama winning trail!!
So is Barack Obama the first US “social media” President elect?
Watching Obama’s victory address, I could feel here in India, what a connect he makes with his words with people. I read sometime back somewhere “people move when their emotions are moved” and wow Mr. President elect, you’re on the move already! So many people in tears, believing in real change, it was as if people could feel a change in the air! Oprah (the famous star show host) in tears and then cheering for Obama clearly showed what an effect he leaves! Well, So much for Brand Obama.
What motivates me to discuss about Obama on this paltform? SOCIAL MEDIA!!
Yes!
Web sites have termed Obama as the first “social media” President in the US history. He’s the first one to understand and harness the power of the sharing and collaboration platforms available on the web, to reach out effectively to even the remotest and the passive voters. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the power of this media to its righteous advantage! not just blogs, pictures, videos, wiki’s, Tweets and talk about all of these tools on the net!
So here’s a glimpse into Obama’s social media world:
So now you know where those 600 million dollars came from? Every American pitched in those 10, 20, 25 dollars they had and became part and witness to history!
So much for Obama, well the power behind the most successful campaign in the political history of the US has been the social media. Today we’re discussing the biggest financial crisis since the great depression, corporate cutting down on the advertising budgets and the rest. I personally would suggest people (both individuals and coroporate) to look at innovative methods of exploring new potential markets and reaching out to the relevant traffic and communities on the internet.
So you’re a part of Orkut, LinkedIn etc. and you may well boast of a 500+ links, but how many of them could truly be converted into potential relevance to your work, that is still a question.
So how do you go about building that elusive brand? Position your product right to the relevant market?
Go connect! Get linked! Create SIG’s (social media platforms, common interest groups). Let people find you and it’s been proven they do! A simple example in this case could be, the links I’v provided above, there would be a multitude of the EMERGE community members who would click and be directed to these pages, and ahy would you click? May be to know more about Obama or be interested into the right Social Media Market.
Innovation is the name of the game now and businesses understanding it right at the right time would EMERGE out winning!
"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
Shama Hyder, one of the most powerful women on the Internet, shares exclusive insights into the Web and shares her experience through Shama.TV!!
