Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

Vodafone is on a roll. They have been the highest gainer in terms of the people who have decided to port out of their existing operator and switch to Vodafone. But as predicted earlier , MNP has not been a game changer. Less than 1% of the total subscribers have decided to switch their operator. But this post is not about MNP, its about the 3G campaign featuring Vodafone India's brand ambassadors "The ZooZoo community" and their hero "Zoo 3G". If the tales of zoozoo weren't enough on television you will still not miss the ZooZoo 3G avatar. If you fare high on the geek meter (a nerd like me), you'll catch him on YouTube, Journal websites, Google ads and news portals. If you toil through the streets like a bus driver or a rickshaw puller, you'll catch him on almost every second billboard. If you are a frequent flier, you'll not miss on the airport. If you happen to be at the Delhi airport around this time, you'll see a Zoozoo city out there. Ev...

A recent study by Nielsen in U.K. found that twitter users violated the Pareto 80/20 principle, which states that 20% of the users account for 80% of the activity. Infact most social networking sites violate the 80/20 rule. Some of them are far above its expectations and some far below. For Twitter, 7% of the users account for 79% of its activity. For Facebook, 52% of its users account for 98% of its activity. That probably explains the returns on these two social networking sites. A Twitter follow on an average generates $2 and a tweet generates $5 whereas a Facebook like is worth $8 and a Facebook share is worth $14. This dichotomy is perhaps the result of the nature of these two sites.The difference can be seen due different levels of control exercised, degree of self presentation and the type of disclosure on both of them. Although twitter's overlapping nature of service makes it neither a complete social networking site nor a blog. Its ideal nature for celebrities (shown in h...

There has been a considerable amount of research done on the motivations to use Social Media and Facebook in particular. People have studied "Why" people use social media. Once they were certain behind the reasons for use of Social Media, they went on to study "What" happens on Social Media. Since I am doing research on Social Media, I'd like to share some of the findings. We connect with our old friends and make new friends on Facebook. Once we meet a new person and find him or her interesting, the social conversation ends with "Ya sure, We'll meet on Facebook". This is followed by knowing the other person through his or her Facebook profile and occasional chats. Chats represent a medium that develop relationships to a more intimate level. While we chat or converse with friends, we disclose about ourselves. In our initial conversations, we disclose about the outer layers of our personality such as work, hobbies, music etc. If the other person fin...

The Sendai earthquake(2011) and the resulting Tsunami in Japan is probably one of the most horrific disasters facing Japan since the atomic bombs that destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marking the end of second world war. It is interesting to see how Japanese built their country from the impact of the atom bombs and devastation caused by the great war to being the world's third largest economy by 2010. This disaster is equally bad. In the words of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, " The world is shocked and saddened by the images coming from Japan this morning ". It is probably one of the worst disasters faced by any single country in the last decade. Although in high probability nature's fury unleashed in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis cannot be escaped or avoided, the recovery is what needs careful examination. For a disaster of this proportion any country would need help, but, by the virtue of their culture and contribution to the field of ma...

Black Swan and Winter's bone are probably two of the finest movies I've seen in the last 12 months. There may be nothing great about their stories, but it is pure finese, the work of a magnanimous and crafty artist that has made these two movies a worth watch. Infact their nominations for the academy awards were not surprising to me. This pure art has obviously sold itself. The same goes for Apple iPad. All Apple needs to do is anounce the date of release. Over time the craftmanship of an artist finds its loyal fans; a cult that derives pleasure in experiencing the art. And, this is not a product that is being brought for social or esteem needs. Its a lower order need, similar to thirst, food or sex, a kind of lust that makes people want more of the artist. Apple has done that successfully by keeping up its tradition of producing masterpieces. You just never get bored and by the day you seem to want it even more. Woman is also a work of art. Look at Natali...

We've collected Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Some have done it and some are still struggling to get the fan count up. In this race, we have reached a threshold of followers. Now is the time to engage the social media user. A very important finding of my research study has been that perceived playfulness of a social media page has the maximum influence on the attitude towards that page. This simply means, engaging the social media fan of your business is the most important thing today. Customer engagement should have an impact on the loyalty towards your Facebook page out of the hundred thousand pages that exists today. A user spend limited time on a social network is limited. So on that lucky day if a user liked your page does not mean that the user really engages with your brand. The objective now is to increase the average time spent on your Facebook page rather than total follower count. 

The creative department at some media agencies needs change. From being creative, they've become re-creative. They re-create a story in the hopes of attracting more people. Like this one. For the first time, malaria 'caught in the act' - ( Link ) Caught in the act? WTF was malaria trying to do? If you read the story and know malaria well, you might understand better. Google shuffle: why Eric Schmidt had to be pushed from the top ( Link ) Ok! I understand the sentiment of many Google fans, but why do you need to push Eric Schmidt from the top when he was peacefully replaced by Larry Page. Without offending anybody, had Schmidt's mom not known about the replacement, she might have suffered a heart attack after reading this. I appreciate the intent of yellow journalism but I certainly question a pink elephant caught in the act while trying to eat a purple tomato. WTF are they trying to do?