Tag: social media marketing

  • Web 2.0 and transience

    As I am wont to do at infrequent intervals, I came up with one of  those  quirky connections – this one, for Tata Sky. I mentioned on Twitter that “aamir’s ghajini character could find Tata Sky Plus’ features quite useful-pause, rewind, record 😉 wonder if they’ll make a TVC with that”. In the days that followed, Asin has been extensively used in the Tata Sky campaign, so now I’m hoping thay actually make that TVC, complete with the Tata Sky helpline number tattooed on Aamir. 😉

    It led me to a tangential thought on social media. (the FB, Twitter variety, not business networking like LinkedIn) In what might amount to blasphemy, I wondered whether brands should make desperate efforts to be ‘engaging’ in social media. They need to be there definitely, but perhaps its only to know what’s being talked about them, and why. They perhaps need to be there more for reactions than actions. This also saves them the challenge of generating interesting ‘engagement ideas’ at all times.

    Why did I think all this? Because I realised that the engagement is being created by users themselves, for each other. For non web 2.0 brands, the engagement is most likely a result of something that’s been done offline. A TVC, a billboard, a radio jingle and so on. Must say, this perspective on how to use twitter for Marketing and PR made me think too.

    At one point, web 1.0 used eyeballs as measurement, that’s an idea thats not going anywhere great? Web 1.o gave us many great websites and lessons, but in a few years time, we jumped into web 2.0. The attention span and shelf lives for most things are becoming smaller. Is web 2.o just a transient phase that is needed to get us to another version? The optimist in me (which is usually bullied into submission) says that when a certain version is reached, the engagement and revenue models will manifest itself in an uncomplicated manner. (now you know why it needs to be bullied). Maybe the baby steps of getting connected are meant for simple things. Maybe it is only meant to let businesses know  that a connected world can shake up existing models. Maybe there’s some growing up to do, some discovery to be made, before revenue models and engagement by brands can happen as a regular occurrence.

    Or perhaps I’m going out of whack and being impatient. Center Networks has a good comparison of Web 1.0/ 2.0 revenue models and profitability. As this good post sums up in a different context

    New business models for media require entirely new exchanges of value — it’s not about finding new ways to balance the old equation.

    Perhaps the more meaningful discussions lie in figuring out how the basic pillars of web 2.o – connecting, sharing, collaborating-  can be used to build brands. The ‘How to use Twitter/Facebook for Marketing/PR’ are based on tools, and that would mean that we’ve been confusing tactics for strategy.

    until next time, discover 🙂

    PS: A few things that I thought were good to share

    Discovery Is The New Cocaine – Going Beyond Engagement

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: discovery ux)

    Social Media PR vs Social Media Marketing, and in context,a tool – CoTweet, that’d be a help to teams handling a brand on Twitter.

  • Nick Niche

    Trendwatching has a small preview of the consumer trends of 2009 – half a dozen, to be exact. You can catch all 6 here. The one that interested me most was “nichetributes”, which is defined as

    the power of making products and services relevant by incorporating ‘attributes’ and features that cater to distinct (if not niche) consumer lifestyles and situations.

    While the explanation does say it’s different from the long tail, and is about “additions to existing products”, I am not convinced that its so disconnected. I’d say that its the long tail within the product users. How many times have we wished that this product had just that extra feature we were looking for – from apparel to furniture to electronic goods? But yes, I am in agreement with the fact that it is a hot trend. The explanation of nichetributes ends with the following line

    * NICHETRIBUTES is decidedly not about advertising, i.e. tailoring a mass product’s message to a specific audience; it’s about tailoring the product itself to that specific audience.

    I agree with that too, but why not advertising too, thanks to the web and social media. In fact, I think it would work great if collaborative product building was backed by a communication to let customers know that customised products can be made to happen. This would help engage the ‘minority markets’ that look for these specific features/attributes in their existing product. It could mean more affinity for the brand and may even bring in new users who were waiting for this feature. There are quite a few brands that allow customisation- NikeiD comes immediately to mind.

    In fact, I’d say that this is perhaps a great way for brands to start out on social media. While mass advertising could cater to the consumers that constitute the head of the long tail graph, social media could cater to the thinner portions. It would be great to have product customisation happening side by side, but it could also start with customised advertising to specific ‘minority markets’ – the long tail of brand communication.

    until next time, minority reports

    PS. while on trends, a great read 🙂

  • BoT – Brands on Twitter

    A few days back, there were a couple of very interesting posts on Mashable – on the topic of whether brands belong to Twitter- one post against, and a couple of days later, a rebuttal. The first post first suggests a fee for brands to be part of Twitter, and then says that they should be banned altogether since it would be against the spirit of Twitter. It finally advocates the use of personalities, since people like to talk to people. The second post, while agreeing that spam accounts are generally disliked, states that brands can have personalities too, and gives some great examples, and tips for brands on Twitetiquette.

    I thought these posts and the issue of bloggers being paid to write posts about brands (which surfaces when we are sufficiently bored of doing this guy’s job of finding revenue models for social media) were two sides of the same coin. The issue of trust is being tackled from two sides.

    In the case of brands being on Twitter, the argument is that faceless brands cannot be authentic or transparent like a real person. How can we trust such an entity? In the case of bloggers who are paid to write posts about brands, the argument is that if they are paid for it, how can we trust the veracity of what they’ve written?

    In both the cases, the answer will emerge by itself, in time. If brands use this as a one way communication medium, to just broadcast, without having interesting conversations or adding value for the audience, the crowd will treat it as a broadcaster and move away, unless there is some really awesome content being shared all the while. If bloggers make up stuff about a brand, and transmit it to their readers, the crowd will remember not to trust them the next time.

    A bit more on the topic of brands on Twitter, since its debatable whether the brand should be itself, or have a spokesperson who represents it. Its understood that behind every brand (not including spam accounts) on Twitter, is a human being, even he is one that first configured Twitterfeed to send out ‘auto tweets’. So, I am guessing that what would’ve happened more often than not, is that an individual came on to twitter, discovered how cool it was, and then decided that it was a great place for his organisation/brand to communicate to the outside world, which contains his consumers and potential consumers. A chance for the brand to talk about itself, and hear from consumers what they had to say.

    The individual would already have an equity on Twitter, and would enjoy the trust of those who follow him. Considering how a blogger who writes a paid-for-post (even with disclosure) is almost crucified, it is understandable if he wouldn’t want to mix his own equity with that of the brand’s equity, especially when there is every chance that the organisation may not have a policy on social media, and he wouldn’t be getting paid like the celebrity blogger. Also he doesn’t even know how long he would be with the organisation. Lastly, by mixing a personal account with a brand, the person might be constrained to speak of things in context with what the organisation does.

    Keeping all this in mind, I’d have liked to say that brands belong on Twitter, as brands. After all, we already have people building personal brands. In fact, organisations should perhaps look at multi functional teams which can communicate with consumers on different aspects with authority and domain knowledge, so that over a period of time, they can re-create the credibility they enjoy in the real world, in the digital world too. This post, however, gives some great points on why the logo should be replaced by a public face.

    In summation, though, I’d have to say that as always with any strategy, it’d have to boil down to intent. As this wonderful post correctly says, “The beauty of Twitter is that it is what you make of it, and you can make so many things of it”. What do you think?

    until next time, brands are limitless characters?

    PS. … and in this season of giving, here are 2 good resources I’d like to share with you

    In return, i’d request you to give a few minutes of your time and participate in the Exchange4Media.com & Blogworks.in Blog & Social Media survey.

    Merry Christmas everyone, have a great 2009, and I’ll see you next year . 🙂

  • Figuring Social Media?

    Recently, Jeremiah Owyang wrote about Intel’s community efforts, which also throws light on the join vs create debate that has intrigued me too, for quite sometime. Intel’s marketing manager is of the view that companies should join active communities, rather than trying to create them at corporate websites. The two examples used for Intel’s efforts are those it did at Digg and Slashdot. There’s also the middle path, start the conversation on social networks and then take them outside to you own site, but I’m not a big fan of that either.

    I have a feeling that the reluctance for brands to join (as opposed to create) is because of the lack of control it entails. On their own website, it’d be easy. Besides, a neutral venue (like a social network) means that a brand cannot restrict its conversations to spokespersons it chooses, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic found out to their dismay. There’s probably another reason why companies prefer their own websites – with company websites, it’d be easy to define and track ROI, based on the clicks, time spend etc, but how can ROI on activities on other sites be defined and calculated? Of course, there are ways to track online reputation, like Trackur, for example, but I wonder what metrics should be applied to figure out the effectiveness of an activity. After all, its no longer just a linear (banner – click, though that seems to be working well on social networks too) set of activities that happen on social networks now. But again, ROI entails that its an investment. From some of the activities I see on social media, I doubt whether many brands see it that way. Also, I agree with what’s discussed in this post – that ” The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable”. While the ‘how’ is indeed a debate, we also need to be clear about what we measure. Here’s a great post by Dina on the subject on ROI, in which she also explores the things that should be measured.

    I think its too early for brands to take examples of others’ activities and use them as a template for their own activities. After all, according to this article, a majority of marketing guys are still learning the media,  and apparently, close to 90% of them who are involved in programs are not measuring the ROI of theor efforts. Or maybe ‘too early’ is a wrong phrase, with the dynamic nature of social media, perhaps the time for fixed templates is over. Perhaps, there are only broad indications and inferences that can be derived, but brands would have to evolve their own set of activities, and their own methods of defining and tracking ‘ROI’ on social media, basis their strategic intent. (Nike seems to have done a smart job in that respect) ‘ROI’, because, I can’t think of any other term that would mean ‘results for the efforts made’. In this context, I’d also recommend this post very highly – the 5 critical responsibilities of a social media expert.

    But perhaps, as this article notes, it needs to start way earlier, like companies allowing employees, access to YouTube, facebook etc in office, and understanding that the media consumption habits that digital natives have created are also creating changes in business environments and communication methodologies. Maybe that’s a good place to start a reworking of business strategy.

    until next time, the medium is the message

    PS. A great read on how remarkable companies are creating consumer evangelists (download pdf) (via Himanshu’s blog)

  • Dido and Social Media – Rock On !!

    At the very outset, let me state that Dido doesn’t have to do anything spectacular for her to be special to me. She can just keep crooning her stuff, and I’ll keep going back for more. So why am i trippin’ now? Because, for her latest album, ‘Safe Trip Home‘, she’s got a social media angle.

    The album is interesting for the simple reason that it consists of different songs picturised on different cities of the world, among them Mumbai !! The song is “Lets do the things we normally do”, and is directed by Siddarth Sikand. And who does it star? Our very own Rock On girl Debbie – Shahana Goswani, as a taxi driver.

    Having a Facebook page is good, but is almost a given these days, but this one gets very social on the site itself. Once you hear the song, you can choose a mood from a (color) palette. I felt wise :), and was asked to share my reasons. It then takes you to the map, and tells you where other people who felt similar to you have headed to. It’s a wonderful way of manifesting the theme of the album/site – “Create a journey through film and music” (though the Facebook page mentions ‘a journey through fil, music and feeling’)

    According to marktd, “Over the last month, Londoners might have noticed a number of cryptic posters around tube stations. The posters end by asking the viewer to google terms like ‘Lady Landfill’ or ‘Mother lay-by’ – essentially a range of words linked to the songs on ‘Safe Trip Home’, the album.”I thought it was a wonderful way of using ground level promotions to build curiosity and traction for a web property.

    until next time, I’m trippin on this!!