Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

It started with a simple tweet by Nokia.  Breakfast in New York on a big day for us! Today we dine on Jellybeans: twitter.com/nokia/status/2… — Nokia (@nokia) September 5, 2012 It wasn't going to be that simple considering the unveiling of Nokia Lumia 920 with the next phase of Windows phone comes a day after Apple announced  its next-gen iPhone event on 12th Sept. 2012. It clearly seemed like a big day. Nokia's social media blitz was on. With the campaign slowly building up, the blitz initially seemed to have lost steam with people questioning the lack of announcement dates and price points for the phone. Also rumors  due to a couple of claimed leaks about the phone were flooding the social media space. An interesting take away is the lack of control brands today have on social media. Controlling the brand narrative is important to make sure consumers get to hear brand's version of the story. With this being touted as a "boom or bust" event for Nokia...

Nokia has been subject to huge battering in the last one year. The Finnish company has had a much needed change in leadership with  Stephen Elop taking on the role of president and CEO. Nokia has lost market share , suffered from declining profit margins and scrapped its smartphone operating system for future models, creating significant uncertainty for the firm’s future. There have been five major problems for Nokia.

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.

Bajaj's announcement to stop the production of scooters by the end of this fiscal clearly indicates that the era of scooters has ended. The product category of scooters has reached the decline stage or infact is on the extreme end of decline. While the Bajaj scooter has a long chequered history, it is important to see the transition in culling a product contributing little to revenues. Infact this situation came first in front of Bajaj in the early 90s when Hero Honda had gained significant motorcycle market share. Hero Honda is no:1 in India in the product still in the growth phase. Coming to online social networking, email... this segment has reached the mature phase. Nokia's ovi service is offering nothing new. Just a package of online services bundled together offering nothing new. It also cannot replicate Apple .I expected a lot more from Nokia considering their development standards to be top class. They entered a segment in the mature phase, offered nothing new, ran...

Nokia Maps, a feature of the Nokia GPS phones (Also known as Navigators), have made a blunder by showing Kashmir a part of Pakistan. Nokia is one of the most trusted mobile phone brands of India and has risen in popularity because of its easy interface. I too use a Nokia Navigator phone and it has been essential in navigating me to unknown places in Delhi and Mumbai. Nokia Maps is a software that uses the GPS receiver of your GPS enabled phone and helps you show directions, and virtually guides you through every lane. The designers of Nokia have done a fabulous job as far as the technology is concerned but they have gone wrong with the facts of Kashmir. The reactions to this mistake have also been over the top. BJP protesters raided a NOKIA store in jabalpur and set it on fire. I am pro-BJP person, but I think such violent reactions are just not needed. We live in a civilized society and we should behave accordingly and not like hooligans on the street. Destroying hoardings and burni...