Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

#1  To not offend others I'll start with my own example. My more orthodox relatives have a pooja on the morning of 1st January, whereas the younger breed goes camping at a sunrise party. I prefer to avoid both on a New Year nig since I am quite tired of the year that is about to end. (Although I'd anyday chose a sunrise party over a pooja.) All this results in a pretty messed up situation. Imagine sloshed people having to go through the agony of sitting in a two hour long havan.  #2  Then there are people who want to message everyone on this planet "Happy New Year". The new and various forms of media like sms, email, Facebook, Twitter and abandoned orkut accounts are used to send a New Year Greeting and its really bugging. Seeing the same copied new year greeting from a search engine optimized site and deleting the message from one person three times is a big pain. Curse your stars if they end up calling you also (Although I prefer this over messages).  #3 ...

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is a subsidiary of the Indian Railways that handles the catering, tourism and online ticketing operations of the railways. Economist is now using this huge database of IRCTC to promote their magazine. In the huge clutter that is present on the internet, millions of sites, Facebook pages, ads (which people don't even look at), this is a smart move by IRCTC and the Economist. IRCTC gets additional revenues for the database and Economist finds a subscription. Or lets rewind a bit. Do you remember signing up for additional promotional offers? We already pay a service charge for using the website and now IRCTC is sending up promotional offers through my email. It is a blatant violation of privacy . There is a lesson to learn here. To get quick and easy money it is better to not resort to such cheap gimmicks. Startups face this dilemma when the cash flows aren't strong. But its better to not cheat your customer. Some stupids mi...

As I keep writing about 2010 is Social Media , in this post I'd like to mention another important medium for businesses: The Mobile. As Indians keep breaking mobile subscription records with the total number of subscribers added in March'10 close to 20 million and a total subscriber count close of 600 million, there are still many (mostly archaic)  who refuse to take this into account. One such organization is Hindustan Times, owned by HT Media Ltd. To put it simply, they don't have a mobile site. Is it a blunder, sheer arrogance to refuse the fact that people read news on mobile or a tryst of their ex-editor with the 2G scam, it is hard to decode. Its even more pitiful since they are in the publishing business with a readership base of close to 35 lakh (India's second most widely read English newspaper), and have others (TOI) who are present on mobile. There are companies who generally go first, there are those who learn and closely follow and then there is Hindust...

In my last post on Toyota's crisis and Social Media I said, Social Network is a highway of Information. Information of any sort, whether right or wrong, travels very quickly; and this calls for organizations to be there soon otherwise they risk having the information take control of them rather than controlling the sentiment themselves. Nestle's tryst with Greenpeace and the role of social media needs a dedicated blog or probably a book on how the people at Nestle completely got it wrong but I'll try to brief the entire episode in this short blog entry. It all started with Green Peace uploading a video that became viral. The video described how Nestle's sourcing of palm oil, a key ingredient destroyed rain forests and endangered species such as Orang-Utan. Nestle responded by asking YouTube to take the video down. But the damage was done. The video was removed but multiple copies and versions of the video were uploaded on multiple sharing sites. Green Peace responded b...

The beginning of the recall : In the August of 2009 the car with Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, 45, his wife, their daughter and Saylor's brother-in-law sped to over 120 mph. They were killed as their Lexus struck a sport utility vehicle and subsequently burst into flames after launching off an embankment. Investigation determined that a wrong-size floor mat trapped the accelerator and caused the crash. Toyota recalled millions of cars to replace the faulty floor mats, which caused the accelerator to jam. On 20th Dec, Toyota agreed to pay a record fine in the US of $32.4m (£20.8m) over its handling of millions of car recalls. This after they agreed to pay $16.4m penalty in April. Toyota has also paid $10m (£6.5m) to the family of Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor. There is heightened awareness among people about Toyota cars. This heightened awareness means that any negative publicity can do a lot of damage. Although known for its supreme operational capabilitie...

Now big companies are putting all muscle behind social media and P&G is leading the race.P&G used to promote soaps and detergents to day time television viewers using Soap Operas, the day time television that had kept users engaged for over 70 years. Moreover, P&G also produced soap operas. Arguably Procter and Gamble is the world's most sophisticated brand marketing company with net annual sales in its 2010 fiscal year close to $80 billion. But why is this behemoth turning towards Social Media ? Matt Prichard, the Marketing Chief at P&G says Digital media has “become very integrated with how we operate, it’s become part of the way we do marketing,”  “It’s kind of the oldest form of marketing — word of mouth — with the newest form of technology.” But P&G did have its doubts about Social Media. Barry says that it took a while for P&G to admit and embrace social media. But, once they were on board with Facebook, they realized its huge potential. They also ...

Chef worked at the "Corporate Bite" for 15 years. He is bored and will be leaving the guys at corporate bite to join the super adventure club. His colleagues, some with a white French beard, some with droopy shoulders and others with a paunch are crying, because he is leaving. Are they crying because they'll miss him? Probably not.

Business Plan is not an idea alone. It is a process of continuous feedback. Life should be like a profitable B-Plan and for that effective listening is important. The unsuccessful B-plan is the one that gives up. Although a B-Plan contains a lot more, the pic above is the black box of a B-Plan.

Size does matter. Size of advertising expenditure, size of air time, size of budget, size of the newspaper ad, size of the celeb endorsing your product and the size of stupidity. Size does matter. But fortunately a small business does not suffer from the stupidity this big. They can do it by being small, by being smart.“ It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. ”

This day had haunted Peter for a long time. It was like he was gearing up for the final battle against Achilles. Christmas was 2 days away and the thought of this battle ruining Christmas made Peter very scared. He was finally visiting the dentist.

Is advertising clubbed with a philanthropic tone justified ? It has been proven that a consumer responds better to a philanthropic advertisement as compared to a direct sales pitch. But isn't it somewhere misguiding the consumer ?Ultimately a company wants a sale, so it dresses as a sage and comes to you with its product. Its like Baba Ramdev endorsing a pharma company. Although I have my doubts in the Baba himself. Sadly this form of communication is being endorsed by Adage. Peter Daboll is CEO of Ace Metrix wrote in AdAge  Philanthropic ads for major brands continue to show strong advertising value. Consumers respond better to a message about what companies are doing for them, instead of a straight sales pitch. 

Who says women can't do it ? But here is how. Continuing with the series of Women in Marketing, this post is an extension of how women can make it to the top.

Wouldn't a Gay business travel be similar to a non-gay business travel? May be not. Quite strangely or co-incidentally, gays and lesbians are over-represented in many professions. Technology, financial services and travel industry have an over-representation.

Why not men? For Men: Shopping is quick. Men seem like loose cannons in a shopping store. They move faster through a store’s aisles and spend less time looking at things around. They usually don’t like asking where things are.

Stupidity Def n  :" A bunch of guys --developers, architects, contractors, engineers, bankers--sitting around designing shopping centers. And the ‘end users’ will be overwhelmingly women! " ~ Tom Peters

We normally celebrate festivals with family and friends and that makes these occasions engaging. Mint reports   “ I think what we’ve found is that when you can use products with your friends and your family and the people you care about they tend to be more engaging ,” ~Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder)

A marketer's biggest dilemma is a client who misunderstands his service. " A writer who is in a hurry to be understood today or tomorrow runs the danger of being misunderstood the day after tomorrow ." ~ Johann G. Hamann Most of the times marketers face the challenge of being misunderstood. During the days when I was part of a startup, I felt that even if I'd break my head, the client will not really understand what my firm was offering and the benefits it gave.

I was having a casual chat with a friend and talking about living with uncertainty . His instant reaction : I hate to live in uncertainty . (Now let me tell you he is impulsive) And yes we all like to live a comfortable, peaceful and certain life. In short we want a risk free life.

Padded bra's, playboy pencils and porn star T-shirts targeted at pre-teens could be banned in UK. UK prime minister David Cameron has expressed concern over children being subjected to sexualisation a a very young age.

In consumer behavior we normally talk about attitudes. Attitudes are predispositions of a consumer to evaluate a product or a set of products in a favorable or an unfavorable way. But its not attitudes that always determine our choice of product.

Seth Godin  wrote " Entrepreneurship is largely about living with doubt, as is creating just about any sort of art. " I am extending his thought about living with doubt and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs need to take risks and that is why only risk takers give up a comfortable life to start out on their own.

Are your the problem solver ? Your value as an individual depends on how well do you solve problems. 3M stands tall today because of its unique ability to confront problems. The confrontation leads to thinking about it and if you are luck you may even solve it. 3M sets a good example on how to be successful on a consistent basis. Here is how it does.

The world is strange and so is twitter. Adage reports that Justin Bieber accounts for 3% traffic on twitter at any given time. Moreover 10% of Justin Bieber's reply tweets contain the phrase "I love you".

Bad advertising ain't that bad actually. Advertising is about building a positive attitude towards your brand. Bad ads did affect in the a bygone era [Remember Burger King ad - " Where's the Herb ? "  (1986)]. Now the scene is quite different. Even if you spend millions on an advertising campaign you'd still find people saying, "Do you really have an ad on TV". Thats clutter.