Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

Competition is healthy, but then when one competitor is down and shows lack of character or courage and looses faith in its own men (like laying them off) competition can take an ugly or stupid turn.  Nokia has been loosing market share to many of its competitors and most prominently Apple. The brand cult around Apple has shown the world that "the power of people" can overthrow regimes, big businesses and big money.

This post is inspired by a very interesting status message that a dear friend updated on Facebook. It read " Truth and lie might be poles apart but they have one thing in common. They both prove a person's worth. " And well it made me think about the politicians who have lied about their black money, made unfulfilled promises, assured lower strata of the society of a better life and etc etc... It made me think of my mobile service provider's promise of connecting me to my family and friends, which it failed to fulfill a thousand times. It made me think of a thousand other companies who had broken my trust and yet done nothing about it. Surprisingly in all these cases I changed my vote, telephone number or the company. I just went to a more trustworthy person (I rest my case with politicians). The switch took place since a head existed for the tail. And when it did not, like politicians for instance I had to stick to the tail. The reason these heads exists is becaus...

You will slip up every once in a while, people ask what’s wrong, so you give them that fake smile, and they just move along.   Fake it until you make it.~ Steven Tyler What does Gaming Emotions mean ? If I choose to strategically hide or display my emotions like the way a poker player hides his or her emotions to not reveal his hand, I am indulging in the practice of "Gaming Emotions". To put it more succinctly, I am playing the game of emotions to win. Over the years I was told that women were more emotional than men, and when it came down to display of emotions like crying or hugging, as I sit back and introspect the rational part of my brain suggests that they were clever strategic moves. But does that mean men don't do the same? Yes! they also do but the only inhibiting factor is the social norm about men. They can laugh, mock, appreciate, but expressing inner feelings may still be a pseudo-macho thing. Lets take the case of buying a house. To make the deal go my w...

After a phenomenal success and an unprecedented valuation, Groupon is all set to see a competitor in the form of Google. Google offers, quite similar to Groupon has tied up with Adility, a company that is amassing its own sales force. Google recently issued this statement about Offers: " Today we launched a marketing campaign inviting Portlanders to sign up for a test of Google Offers — to get great deals delivered right to their inboxes. Offers is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new services that give consumers great deals while helping connect businesses with customers in new ways ". Personally I am quite disappointed with Google offering a "me-too" kind of service, although it makes business sense to get into a growing market. Google had its own tryst with Groupon after its founder Andrew Mason turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer by Google (Google's highest offer, almost double of its highest acquisition in history) in Dec, 2010 ( read mor...

While communicating with supervisors we sometimes are unable to express ourselves completely. The sheer dominance of the supervisor or the person in authority leads the conversation to a direction favorable to him/her. Quite a few times it is unfavorable since the supervisor does not really understand our circumstances and is not empathetic. The sheer lack of empathy can leave us frustrated. This is the time to effectively use email before making a telephonic or a face to face conversation. Email is characterized by limited visual and verbal cues. It can help us completely explain the situation and fix the agenda before the face to face interaction. It is a good way of creating an anchor before the discussion. This anchor can keep the context of discussion to "our side" and help us in putting forth our perspective on the issue. Thus emailing clearly about what you want to discuss can help create an anchor before the supervisor hijacks the entire discussion. But, a word of cau...

Although there has been a lot of contemplation that Anna Hazare's popularity ( India's first social media revolution ) will reduce once IPL begins, the results have been quite mixed. Looking at the world wide search trends, Anna Hazare's presence has been approximately 40% more than the search volume of IPL 4 till now. But as expected IPL's popularity increased and Anna Hazare's search popularity reduced since IPL began. The adage that "public memory is too short" has been proven again. The masses have given their vote to IPL 4 but interestingly the news reference volume of Anna Hazare has been much more as compared to IPL 4, which is encouraging. It is quite against the general opinion that journalists have sold the news out to corporates or politicians (especially more after the Nira Radia, Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi scandal). To go deeper into "why" the news reference volume of Anna Hazare hsa been high and are they showing him in a positive ...

When a consumer believes that an advertisement is a sales tool rather than information dissemination medium, the consumer feels threatened. He turns for a solution to hos problem and the answer comes in the form of "Word-of-Mouth" Suresh is single and is unsure on How to impress a girl. His friend Ravi is dating priya, but is unsure on "How to" kiss. Kritika and Yogesh are married for 4 years and are having troubles with pregnancy. Raj just bought a new Nikon camera and is seeking advice on how to use it. His wife, Deepti is also keen on knowing "How to" use this latest facial cream that she brought from a lucrative sales promotion offer. Deepti's mom Neha is interested in knowing "How to write a blog" where she can talk about her cooking insights that she has gained in the last 20 years. She hopes her daughter Deepti will read her blog and prepare a delicious meal for her husband. The concept of "How to..." has become very popula...

Marketers have failed to look at the impact of "advocates" on Social Media. Viral Campaigns are "NOT" the only revolutionary part of social media. We need to look again into the traditional funnel approach and its difference from the new funnel. Social Media has impacted the consumer purchase process in a big way. The traditional consumer buying process included information search, consideration of brands (many brands), evaluation of brands (Few brands) and final choice. It is also popularly called as the "funnel" model, where the consumer searches for a variety of brands and makes a consideration set depending on his or her needs. These lead to the final choice of brand after evaluation of alternatives. The problem with the funnel approach is that it no longer holds good, especially with majority of consumers of a brand spending time on social media. Marketers have failed to realize this. Moreover since Social Media is the buzz word today, many marketers...

The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.~ Plato . Service industry is characterized by an intangible experience and the lack of standardization sometimes leaves many of us unsatisfied. The airline industry is an example of "pure service". There is nothing tangible about the whole journey from searching for an airline, to buying a ticket, getting a boarding pass to getting your luggage back. As Plato says, man's service in intolerable. We are critical, judgmental and impatient while seeking the services of another man. So as a service provider, if a customer vents out a poor experience to a third party, it would end up in poor word-of-mouth and result in lost customers. The low-cost airline industry especially is plagued by this problem since "the low cost" is managed through a "rough" experience given to the customer. Since "low cost" means "high volumes", the sheer volume of "word-of-mouth" is quite hig...

Word of Mouth is capturing the mental space of many marketers especially the ones who have been open enough to embrace new media. Social Media has taken on the word like a storm thanks to some creative thinking by the Geeks in silicon valley. These nerds have given the "Non-Ners" a platform to socialize. Without wasting time on elaborating on the importance of Social Media (we all know about it), I'd like to talk about Word of Mouth that has taken the form of seeding campaigns adopted by marketers to spread awareness and increase adoption of their product. Recent research has studied the patterns in which bloggers write and its effects on the success of a seeding campaign. In one such study researchers analyzed the style of writing of bloggers and suggested effective styles that can be adopted by bloggers and marketers to make an Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) campaign effective. They came out with  two dimensions of a seeding campaign blog entry, one focusing on the dea...

Gmail introduces a way where by making silly body movements you can reply, compose and type your email and all this using your webcam. Woah! Have a look below All you needed to do was to follow the Da Vinci procedures (see below) they show on their page (only if you weren't too curious about trying it and hitting on the "Try Gmail Motion button" before scrolling through the page. Moreover, if you went further down, you would've pictured yourself doing Yoga and all sorts monkey movements at work. Turns out that this was an April Fools prank and this year it was Gmail taking the lead.  I must admit, it was a good one. The tradition of taking the lead on April Fool's day in a fun way is something that sets them apart and shows an innovative and creative culture. Firms should follow suit.