Category: Strategy

  • The Facebook age

    Facebook’s redesign continues to make news on a regular basis. With a whole lot of vociferous users making the 237 Ways To Get Free Publicity ir dislike quite clear, with the help of a layout poll, it was interesting to see that a lot of advice was given to Facebook to not just blindly give in to the crowd –Rex Hammock, Michael Arrington, to name a few. While I’m still not a fan of the new design, I agree with that advice, in fact this is exactly what I’d thought brands in social media should do, so no reason why Facebook shouldn’t apply the logic to itself.

    But Facebook did address the concerns of the users, and made modifications without changing the core thoughts of the new design. Meanwhile it was interesting to note that a fair amount of users found their own Greasemonkey way of getting rid of those annoying quizzes. 🙂 (Check this out for more interesting scripts)

    In spite of this excellent thought provoking post on Facebook’s  strategy and execution, and not discounting Twitter-envy, I reckon that Facebook sees at least a few elements of the new design as the fundamental way forward, the one that can contribute to revenue. Real time features, fan pages redesign all seem to be steps towards dollars. This is perhaps why Facebook has played a balancing act and ‘conceded a battle’, since it wants to pacify users as well as be on track for monetisation. (Facebook is also working on a virtual currency system) I actually wonder if this was just a testing of waters before they attempt some massive changes.

    When I’d written about the Facebook redesign earlier, I’d mentioned that the ‘always on’ usage of Twitter was helped by the horde of applications that can be used from the desktop/browser to connect to Twitter. Well, there have been two developments. Seesmic released a dedicated Facebook application a few weeks back, and Tweetdeck, a popular Twitter app, released a new beta version which also integrates Facebook updates, and has already raised questions on the privacy of the Facebook network. You can check out a few more apps here.

    Another interesting thing to note is Facebook pushing private groups for families. You can share things without it going to your public stream (except Events). This is bound to increase the base – a teen audience as well as the over 50 audience. While Facebook’s largest set of users is in the 18-25 age bracket, the maximum growth these days is coming from the >35 crowd. This age skew would have quite some influence in all the changes that Facebook plans to bring about in the future, and it makes me wonder whether there’ll be a much larger balancing act required between the largest segment of the user base and the monetisable user base. Will they be the same? Will the usage patterns on Facebook change a lot because of the influx of a different audience segment? How will that affect monetisation? What would be the levels of accuracy that advertisers would be able to get in such a diverse system? Will changes in design polarise the users? Will this then result in the rise of new networks? What do you think? Maybe the Masters in Social Media can answer that in some time. 😀

    Meanwhile, with shrinking ad revenues and huge growth adding to costs, Facebook is attempting to raise capital this year. Going by this, Google should be interested. Interestingly Google values FB at $2 billion, and thats a far cry from its self worth of $15 billion.  🙂

    until next time, ‘Like’ ? 😉

    237 Ways To Get Free Publicity

  • “Bridging the Social Media Divide”

    There’s this hashtag on Twitter – #bsmd, which stands for “Bridging the Social Media Divide”. The first meeting was hosted by Pinstorm, and discussed (according to the Pinstorm blog) “how marketers and social media enthusiasts can work together and forge ways of advertising via Social Media that are not intrusive while being RoI driven”. Again, quoting from the post

    While the social media enthusiasts believed that the medium required a change of mindset on the part of the marketers, the latter believed the medium needed more metrics and case studies to highlight that it was RoI driven.

    Here’s another post that captured the entire discussion. My earlier post on Maggi and the social media opportunity compelled me to write this.  Let’s start with the disclaimers – the following are IMHO, as a brand manager and a reasonably zealous social media user. I have linked to a few earlier posts because these points have been made before,  no sense detailing them again. 🙂

    • The concept of internet itself wasn’t sold to marketers in a day, how old is social media? Just because social media is real-time now, does not mean the buy in has to be.
    • With the single digit penetration that India has, at a basic internet connectivity level, there’s bound to be skepticism, especially when the concept does not adhere to the principles of RoI which have been followed religiously so far
    • Its only with the kind of penetration that the US has, that it’s been able to provide the kind of social media examples it has – and that’s across multiple services – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
    • As the cliche goes, India is a very different market. Case studies from the US can at best, offer us perspective. What works in that market quite likely will not find acceptance here, unless there is some basic commonality
    • Perhaps the sellers should attempt to show Indian examples of how brands are being talked about in social media, with a context that the marketer can relate to – it may be the same category, same audience demographic, or if its possible, his own brand.
    • The sellers should also realise that the internet is still being sold as a commodity with measurement criteria that the industry has agreed upon. Unfortunately, its difficult to separate social media and internet.
    • Perhaps 0.0/1.0 to 2.0 cannot be a single leap, and has to have at least a 1.5 in the middle, since it might even shifts in organisational culture. (earlier post)
    • Even social media enthusiasts are still grappling with the media. Besides, increasingly, all of social media is becoming a one-to-one, real time conversation mechanism. The contexts differ, and each conversation is unique. So, shouldn’t each marketer should have different metrics, basis his requirements rather than hope for  generic spoon fed criteria.
    • The seller should monitor not just talks about the brand in social media, but what the brand is (and has been) doing across media, and figure out how social media can fit into these plans, then the measurement criteria might emerge more easily.
    • Social media might be a revolution, but the ‘mindset’ that the enthusiasts speak of is an ‘evolution’. How many times has a marketer been encouraged to use/increase his usage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc by the agency? For a ‘full contact sport’ medium whose understanding is usage based, isn’t that a must before a social media sales pitch happens?
    • The social media sellers could try to work with not just the marketer but also the ad agencies, MR firms, PR firms, and any other entity associated with the brand
      • How about ad agencies being able to use social media and the precise demographics it offers to do pre  testing of campaigns, and have consumer feedback while presenting to the client – helps them make a better case
      • How about PR firms adding ‘conversations in social media’ as part of their targets?
      • How about brand tracks having an internet component? Online brand salience and equity? Or separate brand tracks online if the brand’s target demographics warrant it? After all, isn’t everyone claiming to be a youth brand now?
      • This also comes from my view that social media is a strategy, and not a campaign or one that fits into Brand/PR slots. It can fit into all parts of the product life cycle, and be used for various , if not all sub domains of marketing. Where, and to what degree is useful depends on the brand and its internal and external dynamics.
    • Marketers, look closely at the metrics you follow in other media, and you can barely count those where you’re not just basing the entire spend on reach.  (my earlier rant on the subject)
    • Social media might be a good way to test out the long tail of brand communication. (my post, and the  link to the original paper here)
    • Social media works if it is an investment, not a spend. There is a difference, think about it. (an earlier related post) Once the difference is established, the perspective on returns might change
    • While on the subject of spend, we all know how much it ‘costs” to make a FB/Twitter/YouTube account, a WP blog etc, the actual costs are for maintaining a lively interaction. So sellers, please bill accordingly. 🙂
    • Finally, what is the value that a seller brings to the brand manager who handles these accounts perhaps with the help of other evangelists in the organisation?

    until next time, keep the faith

    PS. A good read – Social Media ROI.

  • @having Maggi

    A couple of days back, I happened to see the TVC made as part of Maggi’s 25 years in India celebrations, and the association with the brand was so strong that I had to check it out and write a post on it.

    Right from school, when I used to exchange part of my lunch gladly for a classmate’s Maggi, until a little more than a year back, when Sunfeast Pasta replaced it, Maggi noodles used to rule the category. And even now, it makes its presence felt in the household, in the form of sauces and soups.

    The TVC has been well made and features the Maggi moments in the lives of different consumers – “camping wali maggi”, “first impression maggi”, “hostel ki maggi” etc, and even a “mumbai flood maggi”. I hunted for the TVC on YouTube, couldn’t find it, but thankfully remembered the site url from the ad. So you can take a look at it here – meandmeri.in – unfortunately no permalink, so click on the watch, and then ‘Currently on air’.

    From a consumer’s perspective, Maggi has built its entire equity based on a great product (they actually lost market share when they tried to change the product taste) . From a marketer’s perspective, the positioning has been awesome, they’ve created some memorable campaigns (most of us would still remember the Maggi jingle), and all of this has led to much emotional connect.  There are a million Maggi stories waiting to be told. So, to me, the web provided some great opportunity for the brand to connect with its consumers.

    I wanted to start with this urban legend(?) of a research which I have heard in B school, about how market research had predicted that Maggi would bomb as a product in India. It was often cited as THE example to ridicule the MR loyalists. I couldn’t find it online, but what I did find were some very cool notes. For those interested in Nestle’s brand strategy, positioning etc, here are a few links – Growth Strategy, an interview with the Nestle India MD (2007), and a case analysis.

    So, what are they doing online? I checked out the Nestle India corporate site and couldn’t see any mention there on the campaign or the microsite. Thankfully I remembered the microsite url, though I wonder why Maggi does not figure in it. The microsite is built on the concept of consumers sharing their Maggi stories, pictures, videos, and even recipes. The interface for that is decent. But what I liked best was the Maggi time machine, which shows ads from years back!! I wonder what prevented them from enabling comments on them!! So, in essence, except for a few ‘stories’, I couldn’t find a lot of conversations there.

    Later in the day, I was on Twitter, and lo and behold – Maggi conversations.

    maggi

    (click to enlarge)

    I also got to know from @additiyom that there was a Facebook fan page too. While I did get a couple of Maggi pages with 5 figure fan followings, they were the international versions, and I thought this one (found on page 3 of search) with close to 300 fans was the desi version. There are many Maggi groups on Orkut, one with almost 40000 members, and 4 others with more than 5000 members. In the first group, there are about 160 responses for ‘which maggi flavor do you like most?’

    It made me think once again, of how brands make a website and  forget about the internet strategy. I’d have loved to see a more well thought out web campaign – with the microsite also serving as an aggregator of content from places where the conversation is happening, for starters. By all means use mass media and promote the site, but if the idea is about getting in touch with consumers, it definitely helps to seed and maintain conversations over at the usual suspects – Facebook, Orkut, YouTube and even Twitter. The audience is already there.

    until next time, 2 minutes definitely makes sense in real time 😉

    PS: Remember the old Maggi joke when Sourav Ganguly was out of form? 🙂

  • Just Business?

    A few days back, LinkedIn added a feature that I’d asked for the last time I wrote about the service – the ability to add RSS feeds to groups. Depending on the functionality enabled by your group manager in any group, you could add a site/feed that fits the group profile and all the members could benefit. From the comments on the page, there seem to be a few implementation issues. Vijay, who manages the Digital Marketing India group on LinkedIn (the one I most actively participate in) has added a few feeds, but we’re yet to play with it much 🙂

    He also pointed me to this interview with Allen Blue, a LinkedIn co-founder. Allen mentions in the interview that ‘groups’ is the most exciting thing they’re working on now, though they seem to be doing things to limit the functionality of the groups. He also says that (among others) he’s impressed with Ning and Facebook. Will come back to that in a bit.

    I am wondering if this feeds functionality will also be made available to company webpages. For now the pages are pretty impressive, with a whole lot of data being provided. But there are possibilities – like allowing page managers to create an RSS feed of news about the company, which any user could subscribe to and be updated. (a Google alert approach). They could also allow multimedia uploads (haven’t seen any yet) and more interactivity. In short, become the second interface of the company, right after their corporate site – what brands are doing with Facebook fan pages, only on LinkedIn it will be more of a serious interaction.

    Ning has been making waves and I have been seeing a lot of people utilising it to make networks. As of Sep 08, it had 2955000 users and a YOY growth rate of 251% (LinkedIn was right behind at 193%) (via StartUp meme) But (at least) for now, I don’t see it operating in the same space as LinkedIn, since Ning is more on building groups around common interests, and that’s only one of the things LinkedIn does.

    The real action will happen when Xing, the European business network will start deriving some synergy from its recent acquisition – SocialMedian. Towards the second half of 2008, Xing had 7 million users as against LinkedIn’s 12 million, and was making profits. Though I’ve not come across a lot of Xing users in India, even LinkedIn is not an ancient phenomenon here. So there’s definitely time to catch up. Xing has most of the functionality that LinkedIn has, but more importantly has a brilliant resource in Social Median, and its implementation of Facebook Connect. During its acquisition, the then CEO had said that Social Median, with its news gathering (from 19000 sources) and custom filtering was a perfect fit for Xing. I couldn’t agree more. The value it could add to the individual and the groups he/she is part of is tremendous. This is an area that LinkedIn has not fully tapped.

    Meanwhile, the service that I thought might be a good buy for LinkedIn – Yammer, recently announced that Twitter updates can now be imported into Yammer. When I had written about Yammer first, I had mentioned a ‘bridge’ between Yammer and Twitter. This move has solved part of it, for me the more important part is the (filtered) Yammer updates going into Twitter, and come to think of it, LinkedIn. But of course, this is connected a lot with an organisation’s levels of transparency.

    And if all this wasn’t enough, we now have a new player – Blellow. TC called it a Yammer meets LinkedIn meets Twitter entity. Blellow describes itself as a productivity microblog, that  allows users to collaborate, find jobs and solve problems via a Twitter like interface with ‘followers’ and ‘following’, private messaging, @ replies, (the question here is ‘What are you working on?’) Where it differs from Twitter is that updates can go upto 300 characters, users are organised into groups, and there are threaded discussions. One can create a profile, form groups based on projects or interests, ask questions in groups and give ‘kudos’ for answers that help (a rating mechanism), post jobs (for a price), plan meetups..  From the looks of it, its a great niche package for freelancers and people looking for quick help in specific fields, maybe LinkedIn could acquire and scale up? 🙂

    With the personal-professional lines blurring, the Xing-SocialMedian-Facebook Connect association is something LinkedIn should be looking closely at. It either has to get an equally strong partner or develop features and data portability by itself, and perhaps acquire services that complement its own services.

    until next time, mind your business 😀

  • Sizing up

    Quite sometime back, Chris Brogan had written a small post on ‘Small is a weapon’ with its many advantages like the ability to experiment more and respond faster (than big companies).  Before going further, let me clarify that this is a broad generic view, and I’m sure there might be large companies that manage all this. But perhaps smaller companies have a better chance. The comments on the post reinforced these advantages – internally, a flat structure that makes effective decision making easier, a willingness to change, the importance given to ideas, and externally, faster turnaround for customer issues, a personal touch, and so on. These characteristics struck me as very important ones from the perspective of social media interactions.

    Is social media a better tool in the hands of small companies? In a small organisation, would the qualitative metrics of social media be appreciated much more? Would the community – external and internal be connected because of the passion they share for what they’re building together? An idea, (via dina) which binds the audience?

    As organisations become bigger, ideas become products/services and then become brands?  And as brands grow in stature, does this size dictate everything else? Is that why mass media seems appealing? Because somewhere along the line brands picked up larger audiences and found that one way communication to this audience was easier? Does the focus of the brand move on to marketing communication, monetisation of the audience etc, because the  brand cements itself in terms of its attributes and perceptions in the mind of people and all it wants to do then is reinforce?

    Can larger organisations handle the expectations of social media users – both from an internal perspective (empowerment, for example) as well as from a customer standpoint – (speed, personal touch, conversation). Do they feel limited by  the number of interactions that can be handled? Are they too used to conveying the single brand message irrespective of context, and do they find ‘scalable intimacy‘ difficult to handle? Do they then try to dictate the kind of ‘official’ use that their employees find for social media? After reading Mashable’s post on a similar topic, I had another thought – would an international brand be able to make sure the cultural differences and sensibilities across geographies are handled in the right manner always, in a medium that’s not limited by geography?

    Perhaps the solution is to move back from the narrow confines of the brand’s architecture to the original generic idea space, because there will be the old audience with new experiences who can help the brand connect with a new audience? New ideas would emerge leading to a new lifecycle?

    I guess its not quite easy to answer since the phenomenon of social media has been making its presence felt only recently, and its difficult to figure out organisations that have been using it for a long time and also scaled up at the same time. Meanwhile, McKinsey Quarterly has a great read on 6 ways to make web 2.0 work. (for companies)

    until next time, scale the walls