Digital Media

CRM and Social Media

2010-04-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

CRM is all about managing the customer experience. Everyday a company generates a huge amount of data from various touch points. These data are then stored in the data warehouse and are made available for analysis. These data help in many ways from customer acquisition to retention and interactions. The success of a business-customer relationship is determined by the quality of interactions. Social media is the new approach for customer relationship management. Web 2.0 helps customer to share the brand experience in real time with their network. It also helps the brand to engage in real time with their customer.

Today on Facebook I came across the ‘kingfisher page’ and I was fast to click the ‘like’ button. The page looks attractive with customized tabs like ‘Can Crush’ and ‘Kingfisher’. ‘Can Crush’ is a game in which you need to put the cursor on the beer can and crush it. The other one is the ‘Kingfisher’ tab which has various avatars from Michael Jackson to Pandoo Hawaldar. You can download the Avatar, create an album in your profile and tag your friends. The game is engaging. I spent about five minutes playing the game and it was fun. Engaging fans should not always be necessarily through communications, however, it can be done through a simple yet interesting game. To build the right relationship with the customer through social media you need to know the art of engaging the customer. The more a brand spends time with the customer, the better it gets.

Social Media and Product Positioning

2010-04-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

Social media has become the buzzword of advertising, PR and marketing people. It has changed the nature of product positioning and advertising. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. Be it a car, a computer, a mobile phone, a cola, a candidate or a cosmetic, positioning is needed to get ahead in the game. Today’s marketplace is no longer responsive to the strategies that worked in the past. There are too many products, too many companies and too much marketing noise. We live in an overcommunicated society and need a new approach to position the product in the mind of prospect. Social media marketing is the new approach to advertising and marketing. It helps you to interact with the prospect. There is nothing like it when you are able to interact with the prospect. Social media marketing has led to two way communication and developed a new kind of relationship. This new relationship is direct, interactive, immediate and demanding. Companies such as Coca cola have a strong social media presence. It has more than five million fans and the number continues to grow. The Fan Page helps Coca cola to reposition itself and connect with the fans around the world. Cheers to the wonderful platform called Facebook! It has great potential and harnessing it right can lead to greater heights.

Google Buzz- Is it the next big thing in Social Media

2010-03-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

Google buzz is just hype or is it really the next big thing in Social Media. Will it share the fate of Orkut? Or will it dominate Facebook and Twitter? For the time being we all have to wait and watch.Ever since Google Buzz was launched it has created a lot of buzz in the Social Media space. You can follow people, post messages, comment and like other people’s posts. You can also post links and photos. More or less it has both the features of Facebook and Twitter. I don’t see any reason this won’t work, however, I have to agree the point of privacy issues with Google Buzz. It automatically signs up Gmail Users for Buzz. Orkut faced privacy issues and Google might not want to repeat the same mistake with Buzz. It will be interesting to see how buzz takes over Social Media.

Blogging for Social Media

2010-03-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

Social Media is taking the online marketing industry to the next level! It sure is one of the hotttest domains in the Social Media space. Yet, few companies have tried their hands on it. I never imagined electrical transformers or semiconductors could be promoted through Social Media Marketing! But here I am, promoting a company that manufactures power transformers for various industry verticals. The potential of Social Media is huge! Generation of leads might be a slow and gradual process but it increases the online presence of the company which is a good way to create buzz.

The company has now forayed into different Social Media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, and YouTube making its presence felt among many people. This has led to an increase in the number of fans, followers and connections from the industry. In short, it has gained visibility, thanks to the numerous Social Media channels.

Students in B schools are taking up projects on Social Media Marketing and want to know its many facets in the marketing world. Being an MBA student, I love learning and gathering knowledge about Social Media Marketing. I was on cloud nine having earned a distinction for my final year project on Social Media Marketing for Apple! As more and more companies jump into the Social Media bandwagon, the marketing world is only going to grow creatively!

Facebook Fan Page for Social Media Marketing

2010-01-25T19:13:00.001-08:00

Let me share my thoughts about Fan Page and its uses on Social Media Marketing. Fan Page is like a website. You can update news, events, photos, videos, polls and many more all for free. Yes, Facebook allows anyone to create a ‘Fan Page’ for free. Remember the ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign against the ‘Mutalik’ all started from Facebook. Facebook continues to grow. There is an option to interlink with various other social media marketing channels such as Twitter<>Flickr<>YouTube<>Facebook. Fan Page is used for branding and sometimes engaging the fans with the company and its product. The first thing is getting the member base on the Fan Page. Choosing the target audience and inviting them to join the page will help. However it’s important that the invitation goes out to the right profile. It will not only help to grow the member base but also help you to reach out to the potential customer. Many marketers have now realised the power of Facebook and its viral effect. Big companies are increasingly adopting the new form of digital marketing along with the traditional marketing way. The most important activity on Fan Page is to update the right and interesting material on the wall page. It should be able to generate views, comments and likes. The level of interaction on the wall Page shows the success. Interlinking with other sites can also drive traffic to the Page. FBML tab is a wonderful application, I have used it and it’s great. Any update on the Fan page goes to the wall page of all the members. So update fresh content that is interesting and something that the fans can’t get anywhere else easily. You can also have some sort of contest on the page that will drive traffic and encourage interaction. Fan Page is also used for product promotion. It benefits the company not only in the short run but in the long run as well. Once you have a huge member base, creating buzz about your product becomes easy. So go ahead and create buzz about anything through the Fan Page.

Leveraging Social media to grow a business

2009-09-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

I’m sure many of you must have heard of social media marketing. Well to plan a successful social media campaign and to reach the end goal, it’s extremely important to get the deeper knowledge of it. A lot of people don’t know what twitter is, or facebook is or linked in. Research says that twitter is growing by more than 300 percent per year but people are still really trying to figure out how to use it. The biggest part of social media is listening, and this is when you have the opportunity to hear what people are passionate about you and ultimately that gets back to the question about how you make yourself stand out. You need to find out what the target audience is interested in, what matters to them and how you can deliver that to them to be able to effectively capture them as your client. People use social media for branding, information sharing, public relation and understanding the customer. Ultimately it’s going to move on to lead generation. It’s inexpensive and you can compete with the big boys out there. It takes 3 to 6 months to get results from Search Engine Marketing. Many people do not have time or patience to wait for 6 months. Here social media marketing comes into the picture. The point of marketing is to be able to communicate with your target audience, answer the question that they have and to hear what’s relevant to them, ultimately answer their needs. One important thing is when you get the target audience you have to have relevant, authentic information that people want to hear about so that you are constantly communicating with them, letting them contact you back. Lead generation is the big trend in social media as it is time intensive but cost effective. It actually makes us easier to find the target audience. At a low cost it gives you the niches, if people have graduated, done their 4 years of college etc. You can get down to the nitty gritty with who you want to have your ads popping up in front of and whether it’s relevant or not.

Some of the ways that small businesses are using social media for marketing are by sponsoring interactive content, researching new product ideas, using them for online focus groups, overall interaction, promoting themselves organically through messaging, monitoring trends, etc. These are all perfect for aligning you a glimpse in first hand to what makes the customers click. Planning is equally important as any other activities in social media marketing campaign. What money you are willing to invest, what time equals for your money, how much time you are willing to invest every day, every week and every month, who is your target audience, what channels you gonna use, what you gonna say that is relevant and when you gonna say it, and what is your end goal. These are some of the things which you need to keep in mind while planning a social media campaign. Your product/service may be something that people need now or may be someday and you want to make sure that you are at their finger tips when they are ready to use. Create top of mind awareness. Facebook, twitter, linked in, youtube, forums, photo sharing, Q&A etc are some of the channels for social media marketing. The channel you choose depends on the product or service you have. Choosing the right channel can save you time and also help you to reach the target audience. For instance, lets take wine, obviously when you market this product you not gonna go into a gadget forum or a student forum. Once you decide the right channel and get the target groups, don’t just jump into it with sales and advertising. Become part of the community, get to know what people are talking, take part, and add value to the site by posting relevant and authentic information. Once you sound like a marketer people will start regulating you and closely monitor your post. These are some of the few things which I keep in mind while working on a social media marketing campaign.

Hope to learn more in future and share!

Manipur- A land of uncertainties

2009-07-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

Located in the north eastern part of India it’s the land of an absolute beauty. However the crime rate is forever increasing. It’s really sad to see my native place going backward when the entire world is moving forward. When I was a kid I never wanted to go out from our state but today it’s hard to stay there for even a week. Yes I’m scared to hang out in my birthplace, strange ya? But that’s the bitter truth. It’s a land of small population yet people die everyday of gunshots and fights. Very few people are employed and most of them are in government jobs. The rests are either self employed or jobless. There are very less private companies due to insurgencies problem though a lot of money is circulated in the state. People don’t get salaries for months yet no one complaints. Last year in August I was at home for a week and I happened to go to a bank for my education loan. I was waiting for the bank manager and didn’t realize the ‘switch off your phone’ board .I took out my cell phone and suddenly I was caught by the guards who were armed with AK47. They took my phone which eventually they gave it back after paying them RS 20. A bunch of cops carrying AK 47 weapon and asking RS 20 for taking out the phone, cheap isn’t it? Imagine what they can do for 5k or 10k.

Having said all these, there are also many good things about this place. I miss the ‘’Thabal Chongba’’ especially. It’s a part of celebration of ‘Holi Festival’ in Manipur where girls and boys will come out on the last day of Holi. The celebration starts in evening and ends in the late night. I met my X girl friend at “Thabal Chongba’’ when I was in 10th standard. Hmmm I miss her at times. Festivals are celebrated well in Manipur, really loved it. Women are also given utmost respect and the family members are very protective of daughters and sisters. There are many talented sports players from Manipur who really did well in the global Arena. Sports are really encouraged in the state. Majority of the people are literate but then the scarcity of jobs and insurgencies problem make it worst. Tourism industry can be well developed if the state government gives their support. It’s surrounded by hills and the Capital is at the center in the valley. There are lots of greeneries and the place is least affected by natural calamities.
Hmmm hope to see Manipur a better place to live one day.

A nation of 1 billion people and one sport

2009-05-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

The Brits came, conquered and left one sport in India- cricket. Ever since they left ‘Cricket has become a religion’. Cricket is fun to watch but it enrages me for the fact that it’s overshadowing other sports in our country. Yes we had won one world cup in cricket but we had also won many in hockey world cup. Unfortunately hockey doesn’t come in the limelight as it is not cricket. The government and our people are biased to Indian sports and I feel ashamed of that. We have many talented sportsmen of so called other sports in our country. Despite having a large pool of talents we keep giving mediocre performance in international sport events. This is due to the lack of basic facilities and support. The north eastern states of India have produced many talented footballers in India thus far. None of them are given any hype or recognition.

I’m not against cricket but against the importance this game gets. The success of IPL in 2008 made it even worst for other sports in our country. The ever increasing popularity of cricket makes other sports less popular. Ask any one to name any Indian footballer; I doubt any one knows one or two. Some people do know the names of the so called “players of other sports’’ and they are few in billion. Let’s give other sports a chance.