Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

You did well in your exams. That makes for a case of hardwork. You helped your friend in his difficult times - That makes a case of good friendship. You did not take a lucrative risk-less bribe - That makes a case of good upbringing. Google as an organization is no different. Its decision to not censor search results in China despite legal and political restrictions, and keeping Google China at stake is case of good upbringing. The sixth point in its 10 point philosophy says - "You can make money without doing evil". It has stuck to its philosophy and the implications are loosing a lot of money. This makes a case for the new generation entrepreneurs - Give your organization a good upbringing. Loss of Business This move has huge implications for Google's business in China including the roll out of Android with the help of China Mobile . Similarly China Unicom, the second largest telecom operator in China is no longer partnering with Google for search. Communist vs...

What adds spice to your normally boring conversations, project meetings or small tea breaks - Gossip. It adds flavour to an otherwise boring day. Something you can laugh about, somebody to talk about - The talk of the town. What would be life if this gossip was removed. Either too good (yup the good guys and girls) , too bad (the bad guys. Girls are rarely bad) or plain (Just going on types). Having Gossip, mixes these three kinds of life states and the end result is "Fun". Now that you've had a good time talking about your colleague's extra marital affair, or the secretary's link up, think about you being in the thick of action. What if people make fun of you too? (That is once in a while).You end up being the ' talk of the town '. If you've feasted on others, its simply your day today. Have your share of fun and thats it. Public memory is too short and moreover, Gossip dies down as soon as another one emerges. You can reduce your gossip quotient b...

Music is a big inspiration for me. 'Look into my eyes, can't you see they're open wide, would I lie to you baby?' are lines from a popular song by Charles and Eddie. This is one of my pet dialogues when I am honest and the other person I know wouldn't believe me. Eyes are an index of the heart. A popular quote by Sigmund Freud says, 'He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.' I said this once to my girlfriend who thought I was going around with another female when I was actually not (and that's true. Although right now I'm single ;-). My eyes clearly conveyed the message and I knew that. My friend guilty of going around with two females at once tried this and failed. He ended up calling her a "mentally senile pretentious b^$@h". I felt she was the perfect female for him to stay on for li...

In the past six months how many times has your boyfriend/girlfriend made you laugh or been a reason to smile ? I'm sure you can count it on your fingertips. We all have busy schedules, targets and projects. But listening to the ones whose main objective is living with us makes more sense. The important stakeholders are the ones who look up to us and not those to whom we look up to. Do you give sufficient time to them? Are you good at relationship building ? Today with CRM softwares businesses are out to build mutually beneficial long term relationships with their customers. Good relationships need key ingredients of equity and delight . Equity: Does the consumer derive enough value by paying you 10 bucks for the icecream you sold ? If no, equity does not hold true and a smart customer would turn away. Similarly in a relationship, if you aren't getting back what you ought to get from your partner, better leave him/her. Delight: The second concept is that of delight. Some c...

How often have you taken a dig at your boss, senior or supervisor ? How often have you gone for a date just before the exam ? How often have you left your girlfriend/boyfriend for another one ? or How often have you not committed yourself for a marriage ? Pessimists will try to rebuke me by saying that I am falling into the "Grass is greener on the other side trap". My answer lies in a  simple question. "How green is your grass ? Can it feed your needs for life ?" Keep the answers of these questions to yourself. The problem with us is that we are shy and we like to lead a risk free life. Had you taken a dig at your senior, you would have thought that he may feel bad and you may fair badly in the appraisal process. But you forgot that appraisal has nothing to do with human equality. He is your senior in terms of work but if he can take a dig, you are no less a mortal. The reason is we like to live comfortably, which is often misused by the supervisor. A date ...

Send an unexpected "Good Morning SMS" to your old friend with whom you haven't interacted for long. I'm sure it'll bring a smile on his/her face. That is what I call Relationship delight :-) You are marketing yourself as a caring person (obviously not always, you have your own limitations). The same goes for businesses. A smile on your customers face can at times do more good than a lucrative sales promotion offer. PS: But for that you need to be a little bit crazy ;-)

Its not always the buyer's need that needs to be addressed. Sometimes we as buyers need to motivate the sellers for receiving a better customer experience. This is more so when the product we receive is not standard and depends on the person giving  it (i.e. service sector). Today I was coming on a cycle rickshaw in the afternoon heat.The rickshaw puller sadly had a faulty chain which came out often. Just to keep up his pace and spirit I told him to stop and have water. It raised his spirit and commitment to make me reach on time. We as buyers need to recognize that the service provider is also a human and is bound to make mistakes. To get a better experience it is important to be a better buyer first.

An easy way to loose business is to "scare" a customer. Its far worse when the user is on a popular social network. Check the Facebook comments below for a big telecom operator in India(Just to not hurt the telecom operator too much, I have erased its name). Social media for business can be a good way to target wider audience. but if the feedback is not good, it is easy to mess things up (as in this case).

There are people who are loyal to you and you generally confide to them all your personal matters. In businesses there is a talk, study and research of customer loyalty. Now here is a market leader , which has manged to create an unreliable image by selling personal and confidential data without permission. It has also created an unhappy customer and triggered a chain reaction of “unreliability”. Now it does not involve the company, but the mindset of a particular employee, but that dents the repute of the company. In the cut throat market, this trend of unreliability also gives a sorry figure of businesses, but also shows a door for many more. Imagine you selling reliability, when customers have no option but to choose unreliability. What if a existing company or a start up   advertises “Buy our connection, Buy our Trust” PS: The experience has been been written by Maneel on his blog .

Are you afraid to speak in public or to a person about small trivial issues ? Are you hesitant to share your problems ? Do you find it tough to strike conversations with strangers ? Do you find yourself out of words many times ? Start using twitter . I was a chatter since childhood. But thats not always the case with people. What I have found is that twitter can be helpful in giving you words and ideas. You are behind the screen. The introversion will slowly go (atleast online) once you start tweeting. You then can build up a repository of ideas, news and opinions you come across through your twitter rendezveous. Follow these 5 steps to get rid of your introversion through twitter:- Once you've opened an account, follow the right people (opinion makers) Use "@" tag to talk to people. Don't hesitate, they won't eat you for a stupid idea Share your thoughts on trending topics using "#tags", even if they are bane Do reply your re-tweets. Also retwee...

Instant tweeting means faster transfer of information. This in turn leads to efficiency in markets, news etc. Now think about another scenario. A country with high internet usage. On a fine sunny day an office holder is is caught because of corrupt practices. The law (esp in India) will take its own long course. But the innovative tweeters have started tweeting. This has led to further tweets and re-tweets and trending topics comes in. Then comes the influential tweeter who writes "Meeting at cross roads - 1200 hours - Monday to raise our voice". Boom! The revolution has begun. This chain to a successful twittelution needs the following 5 things :- Voice of twitter (Trending Topics) Influential Tweeters on Trending topics Location tracing on twitter (Which has started) Higher internet usage (in countries like India) And finally The spark! Twitter can instantly connect and transfer public messages that can in no time evolve into a revolution. PS: Twittelution = Tw...

These days I find it hard to convince my friends to do things they like. They just don't find time. From my discussions I came up with three things that affected the time part. Deadlines of the current boring job they were doing. Relationship problems. Thinking that the above two problems are big. Hey dude! you forgot what are these three demons trying to do? They are eating your time. They are doing it because they know that the day you thought and worked on "Things you like", you would get ahead of them. Put the demons to rest because its time we got ahead :-) (with a smile)