Social Media saving lives

In the 20th century, people couldn’t imagine the Internet phenomena. Today, few things are done without it. It is hard to think where Information Technology will take the human race in the coming years. Some people argue that we humans are becoming too dependent on virtual computer networks. So much so, that a few minutes down time can cause a loss of billions. However true this argument maybe, Internet is also helpful in many ways, and one of them is its benefit to social causes especially in crisis situations. The power of the Internet comes to the forefront when time and instant global connectivity is of the essence. The most apt situation is during the aftermath of a natural disaster. The best example of this is the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Till vey recently, people who wanted to donate had to either go to an aid organization’s local office and make the donation or mail it to them. Both methods took a long time to reach the rescue organization, preventing non-profits from accessing necessary funds. Today, those who want to help the people in Japan barely have to lift a finger. Through the internet and its most popular social network, Facebook, anyone around the world can donate funds with just one click. Donating for a good cause is no more a hassle and in some scenarios, people don’t even have to spend their own funds to help an aid organization. All you have to do is log on to Facebook or twitter and “like” a page or “follow” a trend and you are already helping the people waiting to be rescued.

Explore.org founder Charlie Annenberg Weingarten, challenged his peers in the tech industry saying Explore.org will donate up to $100,000 to the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. For every “Like” of the “Dog Bless You” Facebook page (#dogblessyou, #dogs4japan), Explore will donate a dollar up to $100,000. The foundation’s dog rescue team is on its way to Japan to help with earthquake search and rescue operations.”…Plenty of people across America…want to help Japan in some way but don’t have the resources; we’re giving those people a chance to support with a simple social action, ” said Weingarten. Stories such as the one above demonstrate how far information technology has penetrated our society. Gone are the days when technology was considered to be a calculator or a home PC. Today, our online worlds have become as social and real as the ones we live in.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/03/12/quake-rescue/

How is Social Media different than the rest of the marketing mix?

 

 

Marketing, for as long as we know, has always been focused towards providing one- sided messages to the consumers. This was usually done through channels such as media advertisements, ad campaigns, hoardings etc.  Today, however, with new marketing concepts like social media emerging, concepts such as the marketing mix are taking a back seat.

Social media platforms can provide valuable info on how a product or service is perceived in the market by harnessing a network of people. They can be utilized to build and sustain relationships with consumers in real time. Accomplishing near real-time listening and interaction with customers was impossible with older methods of marketing communications but in an age of social media, this ability is almost taken for granted. As with any form of marketing communications, there are positive and negative aspects of social media which determine its usefulness as a marketing tool.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms make it possible for companies to really understand how consumers perceive, buy and use their product or service across the globe. Assessing consumer perception through social media has two main advantages. It helps the company to categorize their consumer market after listening to what they want in real time. The company can then act immediately to customize its product or service as per the categorized consumer market based on what they need.

Social media significantly reduces the time and resources which companies usually have to spare when getting feedback from customers.  Moreover, with the constantly increasing use of mobile and internet devices, consumers have constant access to social media platforms, allowing them to describe their experience with a product or service immediately after they experience it. This kind of real time information is crucial not only for companies to understand their consumer base but also for other consumers to learn about the product or service.

This brings up another major advantage of social media when compared to other marketing methods. It not only enables companies to build relationships with customers but also allows customers to build relationships among themselves.

For example, shoe retailer Nike aims to build its customer relationships by creating online communities through Facebook pages, YouTube video communities and Twitter. While Nike monitors for conversations about its products in these communities, potential customers do the same in hopes of gaining feedback from like minded customers on what shoes would suit their lifestyle and needs the best.

From Nike’s example it is clear that social media is unique in that it allows companies to engage customers throughout the product lifecycle from planning to development to final sale and beyond.

However, adoption of social media has been slow because companies are wary of its negative impacts to their corporate image. The biggest disadvantage with constant conversation and online transparency is that companies cannot control the conversations surrounding their brand and products. Therefore one negative customer experience or one misstep on the part of the company can cause a small problem to escalate into a public relations nightmare. Before social media, companies had much more time to strategize how to deal with a negative issue. Today, however, companies are expected to respond immediately to good and bad customer interactions alike.

When I was hired by a B2B IT consulting firm in India to implement social media marketing, I had the opportunity to experience the pros and cons of using social media platforms firsthand. I was given the task of integrating the company’s strengths in the traditional marketing methods into social media and build an online brand image for the company.

My team’s strategy was to first listen to our consumer base by mapping conversations of people from various sectors like healthcare and education to track down businesses that might need our technology and also identify if they used competitor technology.  Then we created a company blog, which served as a platform for online discussions. This blog consisted of technology discussions as well as press releases and events hosted by our partners and us. By highlighting our thought leadership in the industry, we were able to gain the interest of our consumers. This reflected in the increased traffic to the site, an increase in our Google site ranking and lead generations through our blog.

In a period of one year our company was not only known among our network through traditional marketing but also built a strong brand following online. My experiences made me realize that Social Media marketing is not an alternative to the traditional marketing mix but a compliment to it.

 

 

Being Smart…what is it?

I thought of writing this blog because I come across so many people these days who look at how much a person can grasp by studying a certain book and score well in tests to pass a judgement that he/she is not smart

From the age of 4 when I was in 1st std, I was crazy about scoring the highest in class and getting first rank. It was embedded in my head since then that the first degree of judgement of you being smart is your intellectual capacity. I did believe in this theory very religiously till I came to high school and chose Math, Physics and Chemistry as my subjects. Even though I tried really hard, studied religiously; never scored more than just passing marks. So was I smart after all? my parents began to wonder. All the first ranks that I got from childhood went in vain. They wanted me to do engineering. Soon I realized that it was not happening..had to change my subject. The funny thing is I didn’t even score high in my under graduation which was a Commerce major.

I know now that it was just my lack of interest in the rotten education system and stale books used by the colleges. There are many out there like me who are fed up of studying the same old at one point or the other. So is judging them as “not smart” fair? Studying is important for everyone but no one says that studying can be done in so many different ways. Give one what he likes and he will be an over achiever.

The richest man on earth is a school drop out! that says it all. Yea I agree when you say that some people figure out their talents better than the others. but still they have a brain and they can’t not be smart in any way.

This blog is random but the purpose is to communicate that intellectual capacity of a person cannot be the base to judge a persons degree of smartness.

Cheers

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How a non-techie can turn into a hardcore tech freak!

It was just a year ago when I had to make a video for my presentation in a training seminar. I look back and can’t believe how mind boggled I was. Though I had the ideas in my head, I didn’t know how to put in the video. I never believed in being tech savvy and was proud of it. I was happy doing sales meetings, talking with important people and being in touch with emails. When I had to take sessions, I would just dictate my ideas to a more technologically able person and he would do it all for me.

How did it change? I always was pretty active on all the social networking sites and used the internet quite extensively, but just to waste time and not be productive(except when I had to send important mails). Then I happened to travel to UK for work. My work was part time so I got a lot of free time. As always I sat on the internet and did a lot of unproductive things. Eventually, one day, got bored and started getting frustrated. I thought internet is called the resource for everything, so why don’t I look for something interesting. I had always heard about the concept of blogging but never cared to see what it is, so this was my day. While reading random blogs, I came across a blog on Social Media Marketing.

This blog got that spark in me to read more. I started asking around people about companies who do it. Then one very good friend of mine introduced me to this book called the Social Media Bible and that was it. I got hooked. Not because it was some new technology that interested me. It just spoke about how to use my internet surfing skills more productively! I started following people’s blogs, then started writing my own. I got to know what the importance of social networking sites is, where I used to waste most of my time. Then I checked how video communities are built on youtube and got myself to learn to make videos just for that. I started making my flash website to create an online profile.Then I started tweeting and following people on various internet marketing trends vigorously. Now, I am giving SEO tips to my colleagues in my office..:)

It all started with one spark that occurred to me while passing my time getting bored in a room in England. So my advice to people who think being technologically handicapped is cool, start being aware. How to change your mind like me? go to that room in England..its highly depressing and hopefully can generate that spark in you too..:)

Businesses adopting to social media (personal experience)

After a lot lot of reading and a little bit of practical experience, I finally managed to work for a corporate as a marketing executive. I majorly work for online branding of the company. This experience is really interesting and shocking at the same time. Its only after joining this company I realized, businesses are not just skeptical about social media marketing, but some of them are ignorant.

Its really strange because no one thinks of it while being active in the social media themselves. Okay, looks like i am complaining..:). I am not. I just am sharing this experience because even though so many company’s are busy building their brand presence and influencing people on web 2.0, there are tons of companies that aren’t even exposed to it at the basic level. Web 2.0 is alien to them. Now my question is how much is it affecting their revenue generation? Is it affecting them at all? I ask this because I am confused thinking why these businesses don’t still feel the need for it. With more and more companies adopting to the internet marketing phenomena, the ignorant lot should have felt the breeze of competition. How are they reaching out to the world?

You know what? They do..:). I am in this company to catapult the company’s presence online. They finally feel the need for it and its not too late. Today, it is not possible for companies to survive and increase revenue by ignoring the huge platform of internet branding. Its funny that I work with people who are experts in providing IT solutions and still have skeptical minds when it comes to web 2.0. All they tell me is “oh social media, that Facebook and twitter?” in a very sarcastic tone. I smile and say nothing, but am sure will change everyone’s mind in the near future when they see what it can do.

Cheers

How much does it matter, if at all, that texting and twittering treat spelling convention with little respect?

I read this question while filling an application the other day and felt it was worth sharing my thoughts on.

If you ask a layman today, “what is the fastest way to tell the world what you are up to?” They will either say texting on the phone or twittering, the two mediums have become the fastest and one of the most reliable sources of knowing the status of people around the world. Not only are they reliable but are very influential.

Now when we talk about these mediums treating the spelling convention with little respect, we need to think what’s more important to us, content or spelling.  Yes, I do agree that the language needs to be treated with respect, but where does that respect come from? What do you think is more important to respect a language? The spellings, or its ability to help you express your thoughts in the best possible way? English in fact, is respected as a global language. I think it’s more important to respect a language as a medium that helps us understand each other better rather than being stuck in the traditions of spelling each word right.

A language is meant to evolve.  It’s true that if enough people use words like “Grrrl” or “Muggle”, enough number of times, they end up in the dictionary. But who is complaining? As long as these words help Gen X communicate better, the respect has nowhere to go!

 

Entrepreneur at 18!

I want to be an Entrepreneur! Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Better said than done they say. So how does one plan to become an entrepreneur? Rather how can one be an entrepreneur? There are many definitions people give for this term. On one extreme entrepreneur is a person of very high aptitude who pioneers change, possessing characteristics found in very small fraction of population. On the other extreme of definitions, anyone who wants to work for himself/herself is considered to be an entrepreneur.

I think it is very individualistic. To some people their normal routine is not enough, no matter what age they are or what place they live in. There was one such boy who lived in the city of Hyderabad, also known as the city of The Nawabs in India. It was summer and vacation was on. Usually, its a time to relax, go on a holiday or chill out with friends for most people in college. But well, this guy was a little different. He was looking for something more productive and challenging to do. He wanted to earn, but no one was gonna give him a job at 18. If you are wondering why he didn’t want to work for an MNC as a sales executive? (that’s what all the call center employees are called there), he wasn’t interested. He wanted to start a business, but as per his idea then, starting a business required money(investment) which he didn’t have neither did he know what business he wanted to do. Tough times they were. His mind never rested. Then one day, while he was walking on an empty street of the area he lived in, he saw many cars parked, covered with dust. He said to himself, “why do people keep cars if they don’t know how to maintain them?”

This one question was the solution to his restless mind! He got an idea for a business without any investment. It was not only an idea but also the breaking of a lifelong mindset that a business requires investment to start.

There are three major steps for a person to become a successful entrepreneur.( This is my personal experience and not to do with anyone’s theory)

1. Occuring of an idea (doesn’t have to be anything unique).

2. Research on everything related to it.

3. Following up without giving up.

Ideas don’t just come when u sit and think, they really don’t. Why? Because you are not looking around. You need to be aware of whats going on to get ideas. It can happen anytime, anywhere, probably even when you are in the rest room! So yeah, I was constantly on a look out, for an idea that could help me not be restless and do something worth while.

Now after getting the idea, I was confused like any other young boy without any experience would be. Where do I get started? How do I know its not something someone is doing already? What do I do to get to these people and convince them that i will help them keep their cars clean and ready to go everyday? How do I even get people to know about my idea?

Questions swarmed like bees towards me, stinging and irritating. I had to be calm and relaxed in order for me to get started. Then I read up a few books on entrepreneurship and how to get started with a business written by great entrepreneurs themselves. They didn’t help me much on the technical aspects but definitely motivated me to go ahead and take the plunge.

Whatever you want to do u need to have a plan. So I made a plan. It can be divided into a few categories:

~ Getting started

~ A SWOT analysis

~ Investment( negligible)

~ Marketing strategy( building the brand)

~ Management (man power, budget, work schedule etc.)

Getting started was the biggest achievement of all. What ever you want to do getting started is a point where you are the most confused and lost. First i procrastinated,  then I just sat and day dreamed about what I would do with all the money I would earn from the business, then finally I realized I needed to work on it. This took me to the next step of doing a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis always helps before taking up a new challenge. Its helps you know what resources you have, and what you don’t. What are the opportunities u can look out for and if there are any competitors or external factors threatening your idea. It was really enlightening as I realized I had more strengths than weaknesses, like negligible investment, unique nature of the business, lots of potential clients, and ability to expand in the long term.

Now how did I spread the word? There are some common marketing strategies I thought of which would be both rewarding and cost effective at the same time. First was meeting the local news paper supplier and making sure our brochures went to every house in my locality with every newspaper. It was effective as my plan was to start with the area I lived in. Then I thought of other ways which were even more rewarding and cost effective. I was lucky to be using internet a lot during those days as well. So I just put up status on my Orkut and Facebook profile, sent people messages, and also put up a logo of my company as a profile picture. This made my friends curious and slowly the word spread. Unfortunately I was not too much into online publishing or video making then and Twitter didn’t exist either, or it would be a mind blowing start..:). better known now as Internet marketing or social media marketing, many more things can be done on the internet today to make your business grow and gain more customers. There are tools to manage your company’s brand online.

I then started getting calls and went to peoples houses to explain the concept of my business as I had planned and they were very impressed, first by the business plan and second by the fact that all this was being explained to them by an 18 year old, very professionally. I remember wearing a tie and formals for the first time in my life and feeling like a gentleman. So, it took a bit of convincing but I did it and then i took a friends help in managing man power. I needed a few people to do the job and had to train them on how to do it. Always remember first impression is the best impression. It can make or break the company. So I made sure everything went as expected by the customers.

Impressing my first few customers is all I had to do to let my business expand. They did the rest of the marketing for me. It just spread by word of mouth. By the end of ten months, whatever investment I had I got 50% return and things started flowing smooth.

Since there was not much challenge anymore, I started becoming restless again. I wanted something more. So then I started thinking about expansion on a large scale.

Well I will end it there. All I wanted to say via this blog is that, entrepreneur is one who has a restless mind to do something more than usual. There are different kinds of entrepreneurship. You can be a business or a social entrepreneur. Most people start off but stop due to the difficulties they face or fierce competition. Trust me guys your idea need not be unique but the way you manage to present it or market it needs to be unique. I will talk about building a brand in another post, for its a vast area in itself.

No one thought of using internet as a medium for marketing their business four years ago. Today, every individual is trying to learn more about social media marketing and web 2.0 and 3.0 . Its one of the most important mediums for businesses to present their brand. As someone rightly said, “You don’t need to do different things, just do things differently.”

Thats entrepreneurship to me.

Cheers!

Will power- It can make or break

This post is for people who think that life is treating them bad or think they are too weak to handle the pressure they are going through and live life like losers. What I am writing might seem a little harsh or a little over said, but it is true. This is not for those who are innocent and unaware, but for those who are aware yet pretend to be innocent and helpless. Why is any able person helpless?? Why are they in a position to not be able to do anything about the situation that is causing that helpless behavior. There is one major reason for it, Laziness.

We are often too lazy or procrastinate and say we tried but its not happening. its a very common example. Trust me, if you really try nothing can not happen. If not successful you will at least get so much understanding to know that you gave it the best shot. You will be self satisfied. But what you need to have the most ladies ad gentlemen, is Will Power. Whatever you want to do will have a lot of strings attached to it and nothing is a cake walk. If you plan to do something be it big or small, everyday stuff or something unique, all you need is will power.

The will power i am talking about here is not for you to become a genius or someone out of the norm. Its just about the will that will make you the best at what you do, doesn’t matter if you are a hair stylist or a plumber.

Now how can it break you, its very simple, you don’t have it…you don’t have the will to do something, but you still try because of other external factors. Its very important for us to try and find what we are really Willing to do for us to be actually good or best at something.

There is no able person in this world who can’t do anything. There are just too lazy to do anything. This is what i think when I see people who are all fine begging on the streets in India. They are not helpless, they are too lazy to work or even think that they can.

Think about it and act now or it will just become a habit to not think you can and you are helpless, from getting up and start earning to bringing a change in the society…especially like India…are you willing to??

Cheers

Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset

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