Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

Boom! Killing trust is equal to killing people  and the vice-versa. I may be in a different mood and probably not in a very hopeful mood as I write this piece. The title probably explains it. How many times have you been good without the same sentiment being reciprocated ? How many times have you taken care a  person who was insensitive to your needs ? The answer - Probably once or twice at max. We trust only those who are sensitive to our needs. And once that is broken, it is hard to trust anybody again. But what happens when it is broken ?   Do you get angry and get back, or do you treat it as a bad dream, a nightmare and move on. The latter is the more sensible option, but then comes the head-heart conflict. Heart relates to the emotional side whereas the head to the sensible side. Heart refuses to believe that you've been hurt whereas the head wants to move on. Heart is hurt, while head says, 'carry on'. This phase can be particularly traumatic for indi...

We adopted a new symbol for the Indian rupees on 15 July 2010. A month later as we celebrate our independence day, TVS has come out with the first keyboard to incorporate the Rupee symbol. TVS Electronics claims to be the first company to have incorporated the recently designed rupee symbol into their Gold Bharat keyboard .This may be a simple product tinker, but it has given TVS the first mover advantage, a place in history books and an identity as a company that first introduced the Rupee symbol on the keyboard. That gives them a perfect score! Rupee symbol is something that every Indian would associate himself/herself with. It is something that every person in the typing business would need, esp news and publishing agencies. TVS would have sufficiently dented the market share of its competitors by the time they incorporate the same feature. Now that is what I call beginners benefit.

Marketing and Publicity through Social Media has gained momentum. Every company today is looking for ways to maximize reach and presence through social media. There are two things about Social Media that make it important and useless Social Media Marketing Social Media is a jet stream : It is important to come into social media since this jet stream propels you into the lives of people quickly. Hence if you want to be closest to your customer and figure out his needs (Marketing Concept) it is important to capitalize on this medium. Social Media can not be a source of sustained advantage : The clutter of businesses on social media is quite visible. The day is not far away when every business(even you local general merchant) will have a Facebook page. Everybody has it, so how does it give you the edge ? Hence it is useless from the point of view of sustained competitive advantage. What will make the difference ? Jumping quickly to Social Media is not the trick. Making your cust...

Can I pause this moment ? There are times you wish never got over. The time remaining to the deadlines froze and the playlist could play on without reaching the last track. The rainy season is having its lazy effects on me. My playslist is getting longer, empty cups of coffee are spilling from my dustbin as I battle common cold. The not so uncommon cold has a tendency to make people lazy with the sleep inducing pills and the weather has a tendency to make matters worse. So where does the business figure in this lazy haven ? The answer is "Quick Room Service" (QRS). The ingredients of QRS are simple. A widely distributed number, open lines, a pleasent speaker and a quick delivery system. Distribute pamphlets for creating awareness of the menu and phone number, have a good phone line system depending on traffic, take orders online through your own portal or even Facebook, hire a pleasing person for taking the orders and deliver the orders A...

How often do we read a complete newspaper article ? How often are we attentive 100% of the time in a class ? How often do we give our 100% to a subject ? If the prof manages to seduce us he'd have our 100%. If the subject does the same it would have our 100%. And so if for an unattractive yellow paged newspaper article. There a two elements of seduction. First being the first look. If at the first glance a car does not manage to seduce me, its highly unlikely that through repeated persuasion, the car company will have me buy it. Although in high probability my neighbor might just buy it. Now my neighbor was probably seduced and I was not. Still we have those generic ad campaigns by car companies trying to please us all. I may be pleased, not seduced. Now that takes me to the second element: Cooperation. [ Original idea by Seth Godin] I may be pleased but the success of seduction depends on cooperation. How well do I cooperate? The reason behind Facebook or twitter's...

Bhopal Gas Tragedy- Aftermath. India is developing, GDP is growing rapidly, we have a great PM (on paper atleast), a Gandhi parivar (Huh!), companies targeting bottom of the pyramid, rising incomes and what not. But we also have a pitiful Bhopal Gas Tragedy verdict. Warren Anderson lives a luxurious life in the Hamptons while the victims hopelessly search for a day where sun will shine on justice through the clouds of money that mercilessly blind the souls of the patrons of justice. The 7 former employees of the Union Carbide subsidiary, convicted of causing death by negligence and each sentenced to two years imprisonment were released on bail with a fine of Rs.1 lakh. Wow!  Warren Anderson was escorted on a government plane. What ay country. Huh! When the oil cleaning operations of deepwater horizon spill were going on, reports of ill effects of hydrocarbon fumes caused these operations to be ceased within 24 hours. Moreover safety masks were given to all those involved ...

Is facebook helping us ? Some profound doubts came to my mind while I was discussing about the "power" of facebook and twitter with a colleague. This is specifically with regard to our frequency of status updates, wall posts and group activity on facebook. When I "rationally" look into my facebook activity certain questions come up. Is Facebook taking too much of my time ? Is it diverting my attention from major issues concerning my career ? Is it a place to show off my creativity of status updates ? Is it a place to share good links I found on web ? Is it a place to see what "others" are doing ? Is it a place to display my ego ? Every time I log on to the internet and green-on my name, I must be spending upto 5-10 mins on the light-blue web of facebook per session. Now multiply this by approximately 5 (The no: of times I visit facebook daily). My simple analysis gives me a figure of approximately 6.2 days spent on facebook by a person like me eve...