Social Journalism - An Informal Way to Communicate?

July 27th 2015 was indeed a sad day for India! The day which started with terrorist attacks

in Punjab early morning followed by the demise of Former president and Bharat Ratna, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, left most of us in pain and shock!

With the advent of social media, the way we consume news has evolved over time. While I was constantly checking my Twitter feed around both these events, I stumbled upon a Tweet by ‘PressTrust of India’ (PTI), India’s premier news agency which has been functioning since 1949 and it currently commands 90% of new agency market share in India.

To my surprise, the tone of the Tweet by PTI was really disrespectful. The use of words by one of the biggest news agencies in India definitely made me think if social media is taken seriously by the new/media agencies in the country. Instead of a blunt statement, PTI could have utilized 140 characters to share the message in a proper tone giving some respect to the former president of the country.

Within minutes, there were 695 RT’s, 167 Favorites and over 100 conversations around the tone of the Tweet. It was disheartening to see PTI not responding to any of the Tweets proactively. Although, the following Tweets did address him properly.

Here’s a snapshot of the same news posted on their Facebook page. While one can’t edit a Tweet on Twitter...however, the same could have been edited by PTI on Facebook. But the news agency did not bother to do so.

With social media:

●     News channels/publications/wires are running the rat race to deliver the news “First”

●     Not sure if there is a designated Editor or a process designed through which the news is uploaded on the social platforms of the publication/channel/wire. At least in this case, it doesn’t seem that PTI has an Editor to look at the content going on Twitter on a regular basis

With print media:

●     No matter how big the news is, it gets published the following morning in the papers

●     There is a designated editor for every publication

●     Editorial consent is a must before stories are published in the papers which leaves hardly an room for factual errors or tone of the message

While it is important to be factually correct, it is absolutely necessary to keep in mind how the message has been delivered to the audience.

News is consumed at a lighting speed on social networks and given that every media outlet wants to share the news first, doesn’t qualify for compromising on the tone of the message.

Interestingly, when I observed the Twitter profile of @PTI_news , I also noticed that while they have over 500 K followers, they haven’t taken the time out to follow anyone! According to their website, PTI employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India. In my opinion, if a company understands social media and takes it as one of an important means of communication, it would at least follow it’s own employees who are key to their success and growth. This also shows they understand the medium well and are not sharing news on Twitter just because the competitors will!

What do you think? Should sharing news on social networks by the media outlets be given equal importance as much as it is give to the print stories?

In the time of social journalism, is it enough to be factually correct for the media/ news agencies on social networks and compromise on the way information is shared? Or is it necessary for media/ news agencies to keep in mind the tone of the message on social networks while of course running the race to Tweet/Post “First?” 

Twitter Tips to Turn into a Twitter Pro

It is interesting to note that while for some individuals, social media platforms remain to be a mere tool or a means to connect with friends, for many it is an extension of their personality. Parallels can also be drawn on how enterprises/brands use these social media tools – they imbibe the ethos of customer driven marketing. 

In today's digital age, customers are increasingly interacting with the brands on social media and it is imperative to have a strong social media marketing strategy in place.   

While there are various tools which individuals and brands use to promote their products, I came across a very helpful info graphic bySalesforce on 'Twitter' which highlights the key ways to optimize the Twitter profile (both for individuals and for brands), best practices for tweet structure, and how to increase engagement. 

I'm sure most of you will agree that Twitter is a great tool for marketing and by adopting the tips shared in the below info graphic, it definitely will boost your Twitter presence and perhaps increase your Twitter followers. 

Read on to make a difference in your Twitter marketing strategy.

Click To Enlarge

Via Salesforce

From Press conference to Twitter conference

PR agencies in India have started weaving in digital arm to their overall PR strategy

and campaigns. However, there are many agencies which are still thriving on traditional mediums and don’t feel the need to venture into digital completely. This might be due to various factors including lack of resources or not being prepared for a change.

But for how long?

Since second half of 2013, there has been a downfall in the print industry (papers/magazines discontinued). In fact, many electronic channels have also discontinued few of their shows (for example, ET Now discontinued one of their most popular tech shows - Technohik, NDTV Profit cut back on all non-market-hour programming which meant the channel only needed a handful of anchors and reporters).

This trend is still prevalent and will continue to surprise the industry!

With such alterations in the media industry, the PR agencies get a window to get more creative and embrace newer avenues. It gives an opportunity for both the clients and traditional PR agencies to explore social media platforms more aggressively than before.

It’s imperative that agencies start thinking differently to sustain themselves in the ever evolving digital ecosystem. It’s time to change now and important to integrate offline and online mediums to fetch best results for a campaign/launch.

Xolo makes the move

That said, Xolo - a premium smart devices brand in India, made a very interesting announcement on Twitter!  

The company recently shared a tweet regarding their product launch exclusively on Twitter on December 05th, 2014. While it may seem little bizarre at the first instant, I believe this is the move we would eventually like to see by corporates. Here’s what the media/bloggers are already talking about!

According to industry experts, only people who have registered for the event will be able to participate in the one hour (12-1 PM, IST) event. While this still leaves me confused as to how the live event will be managed ultimately, it will be interesting to evaluate some pros and cons of Xolo’s exclusive Twitter launch:

Pros:

• Saves time (for media and others involved in the launch), money, travel, cost of booking venue/setting up
• Finally we save paper!! - It’s annoying to see agencies still handing over press kits during events. E-mail sends across just the same message which is there in a press kit
• Tracking who all participated in the event is easier online than sitting at the desk asking media to register themselves
• Message/opinion reaches out to a wider audience while interacting with the brand in real-time

 Cons:

• Twitter feed blasted with tweets - in case one is following the brand/ media. This definitely will annoy people who aren’t keen on the announcement
• No face value - while during events, you do see the top management taking time out to brief the media about their new product. However, online medium can trick you with someone else replying on behalf of the senior management

However, I still believe it definitely is a good move by the company and kudos to the FrogIdeas team for bringing in this change! Unless we experiment, we would never be able to up the game.

So do you think Twitter conference will take over the regular/traditional press conferences in India?

Nonetheless, stay tuned for the pre-launch buzz at #TouchOmega and let’s wait and watch how India’s first ever smartphone brand performs at the live mobile launch on Twitter! 

Have You Heard of the #CoolestInterviewEver?

Disclosure: HCL is a client of my agency, Six Degrees PR. However, the campaign partners are ITSA Brand Solutions and FrogIdeas. I thought this was an interesting campaign, and wanted to share my thoughts with my readers.

Have you ever been to an interview where you don’t have to speak at all, yet are expected to answer whatever the interviewer asks?

Image: HCL via Google, CC 4.0

Sounds weird? Think again. Because India has been buzzing over the #CoolestInterviewEver, where one of the country's largest companies wanted you to be "cool" enough to work for them.

Recently HCL Technologies (NSE: HCLTECH), India’s fourth largest software services firm, started a global recruitment campaign on Twitter. Here's how they said it would work:

• Respond to questions on Twitter: Over a two-week period, participants were to respond to various questions posted on Twitter (this round closed on Feb. 21, btw). One hundred would be selected to participate in the next round, which was ...

• A two-day TweetChat: this would be held with with HCL Technologies' HR and Recruitment Office, where participants would be asked (and could also ask) further questions related to their areas of interest.

• For the final round, five candidates from the semifinal round were to be selected to visit their nearest HCL office, and answer the final round of questions on Twitter.

In the third and final week (that's this week), the company will select a winning candidate for one of the “cool” job profiles featured on the site. The winner will also receive a US $75,000 prize and have access to an HCL leadership mentor in his or her particular field.

The buzz that shook the IT industry

• The initial buzz started through videos and banners. As of this writing, the promo video has more than 74,000 views.
• According to Campaign India, as of Feb. 17 the campaign had received more than 110,000 replies, tweets, re-tweets and favorites.
• #CoolestInterviewEver trended in India on February 18th (Tuesday), 21st February (Friday) and 24th February (Monday) for more than 12 hours.  
  

It has been interesting to observe a big brand experimenting with a different recruitment strategy altogether. HCL and its agencies have gained a lot of attention for this campaign, and many Indian online influencers have been talking about it. As a Millennial in the workforce, I’m probably not alone in hoping that many other IT/Non-IT companies will soon follow suit, and start to look for - and hopefully, find - new talent through social media platforms.

But... how authentic is social media recruitment?

When I first heard about this campaign, I felt it was the most innovative recruitment campaign ever. After all, it takes a lot for a big company to invest in a campaign like this. However, I had a few questions about the authenticity of getting to the final round.

If all the preliminary - and even second-round - interviewing was on Twitter, I could get someone to help me with the answers, couldn't I? After all... who would know? So technically at least, I'd be able to make it through at least the first two rounds, right?

I remember the days my parents would tell me how important it was to look smart and confident at a job interview, how important that “first impression” was on the interviewer. But in this situation, it really wouldn't have mattered whether I'd showered or not, or had messy hair, or food stuck in between my teeth. In this instance, if I were "cool" enough, then I'd be able to crack the interview from the pool, or from bed, or the couch... right?

While there's been a lot of buzz around the campaign, it's also been noted that:

• A reliable source mentioned that "more than 80% of the participants for #CoolestInterviewEver were either very irregular Twitter users, or created accounts simply to participate in the campaign" 
  
• The requisite spoof page goes by "Coolestintervieweeever" (it's funny, but not that funny)

Online meeting offline

Perhaps crisp, to the point, and quick communications are now the "first impressions" we should be concerned about. And while it remains to be seen if/how the winner (and even the finalists) lived up to their online "conversation," kudos to HCL for an initiative that will hopefully help job seekers  understand how to communicate well via today's social platforms and stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

Do you think that a 140-character tweet can land you your dream job in the near future? Will digital interviews replace the traditional method of one-on-one interviews? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment below.

With fall of Media and Advertising, will India see a rise in Digital PR?

61! Yes, the rupee is 61 against the dollar (as of September 20, 2013). It looks like the dollar is

on an escalator and the rupee is on a ventilator!

The falling rupee has indeed hit the citizens of the country professionally and it seems to have caught up with the Indian media in the past few months. Apart from the usual layoffs, cost reduction and restructuring, we have observed newspapers and magazines getting thinner, TV channels cutting back on programming and several publications and channels are on the block. Due to tight marketing spend, even advertisers are shortening their commercials while maintaining or increasing the number of times they are aired to ensure maximum spread for their ad spends.

That said, few examples below will help understand the changes that the Indian media industry has been going through in the past few months:

• In May, NDTV Profit cut back on all non-market-hour programming which meant the channel only needed a handful of anchors and reporters.
• In August, the TV 18 group laid off around 500 employees including many people responsible for its features programming.
• In July, Outlook Publishing (India) Pvt. Ltd discontinued the publication of three foreign titles, Marie Claire, Geo, and People—around 130 people were laid off—and also converted its personal finance magazine from a fortnightly into a monthly.
• Business Standard sold its motoring magazine to Delhi Press.
• Bloomberg India TV laid off 30-40 people.
• HT Business  and HT Shine (Supplements of The Hindustan Times) discontinued and became a part of the main paper – The Hindustan Times
• Bengal Post paper in Kolkata discontinued and all employees were laid off
• Business World was sold to exchange4media
• CRN, UBM Channel Unit was sold to Management
• In September, Mint announced that they will be reducing the number of pages, from 28 to 24, four days a week, Tuesdays through Fridays. The Monday and Saturday papers will remain unaffected.

It is rightly said that PR and journalism are interdependent. With the economic slowdown, we are observing slight difficulty in traditional PR activities along with the rate at which newspapers/magazines are shutting down, number of pages getting reduced and broadcast channels cutting back on the hours of programs/news.

With the ever increasing competitive eco-system and never ending client demands, traditional PR is surely set to face challenge in India.

However, I believe that the PR agencies should take this as an opportunity than a challenge. With such alterations in the media industry, the PR agencies get a window to get more creative and embrace newer avenues. It gives an opportunity for both the clients and traditional PR agencies to explore social media platforms more aggressively than before. India now has nearly 74 million Internet users, according to ComScore report and it’s time for the next big leap in the way PR agencies work in India.

Getting Digitally Evolved

The current alterations in the media industry can surely mean a faster move into the digital domain in the Indian marketplace. Sooner than expected, many media houses have started looking at digital as their next step. Kasturi and Sons Ltd, publisher of The Hindu, has, in the last six months, launched iPad and mobile apps for its general and financial newspapers.

In the past one decade, there has been a steep fall in the number of those who prefer thumbing through the newspaper with the sip of morning tea. Now, checking news feeds on smart phones, scrolling through one’s tweeter handle, checking updates on blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and other online networks have become part of the urban lifestyle.

Interesting statistics from Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) states that:

• The size of the digital advertising market in the current fiscal year is estimated at Rs.2,260 crore and is expected to touch Rs.2,938 crore by the end of the next year
• Ad spending on social media has shot up from Rs.94 crore in FY2012 to Rs.300 crore in FY2013

Also, estimates by media buyers states that video advertising on the Internet has been growing at a rapid 40% over the past one year and is expected to speed up further to 60% in the next few months.

Considering all these statistics, we surely are seeing a faster shift to the digital platforms and are expecting digital PR to catch up the trend sooner than expected.

PR evolution in India

Persuading and pitching to journalists via phone calls, e-mails, and SMSes for publishing stories in newspapers are not the only way of building brands anymore. Holding events both online and offline is now part of media management. Debate/Discussions on Hangouts and live chat on Facebook or Twitter have become a new promotional trend.

But what will be interesting to see in the coming months is how many brands are really willing to jump on the digital bandwagon and dedicate proper marketing budgets to it. Today, getting the news release online is of not much value to the clients compared to a good spread of print coverage. However, with the changing media landscape, it will be fascinating to see if the clients start to value the online promotional mediums as much as they value the print medium. What are your thoughts on it?

This post was first published at Vikypedia.in

Elevator Pitch or Twitter Pitch?

PR professionals are usually seen as the facilitators of news and stories. With changing technology and the

advent of social media, the way we  communicate with the media has also changed to some extent.

Image: Rhinowrites via Google, CC 3.0

While I believe most journalists these days are using Twitter, the PR industry, at least in India, is still catching up to that platform. From what I have observed since I started working in this industry, practitioners and agency heads still place more emphasis on traditional methods of communicating and facilitating news and story ideas to the media.

There are some common myths about PR professionals, regardless of where they’re based, that include:

• We love calling journalists after disseminating a press release.
• We love following up with them after pitching an interview/story idea.
• We love doing things the journalist may hate us for, such as call, text, follow-up, and chase them constantly.

How about we stop doing all this, and maybe engage with them differently, keeping both the media and PR professionals happy?

An intense debate

Recently at my workplace (I work at a PR agency in India), I gave a presentation on the importance of social media for our work. This statement led to an intense debate.

I said, “Often PR professionals are heard talking about the ‘elevator pitch’ – a short summary of the story we are trying to sell the media that we can describe in a span of a few seconds.

“Now that we have social media, how about replacing that with a Twitter pitch?”

With the increasing use of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, communications professionals like us can also explore pitching stories to the media on Twitter in 140 characters, right?

No longer a matter of choice

However, PR agencies in India are still not ready to manage an increasing shift towards online influencers aka digital journalists. Most agencies in the country tend to focus heavily on media relations and do not understand how to engage with an online community. And while sharing offline pitches/briefs with the media has been the approach by the PR agencies in India, I believe hybrid briefs will soon start making their way in.

During the presentation, my co-workers pointed out that most of them are still not comfortable with the idea of pitching media on social networks. They are afraid of being exposed online, much more so than offline.

One of said, “A bad pitch can make the journalist slam the phone down on us! However, the equivalent of the same on a social media platform can be much more embarrassing for a PR practitioner.”

We all have seen the good, bad, and the ugly sides of social media. Some of us have seen journalists exposing PR agencies and professionals who have not dealt with them well or have irritated them so much that, ultimately, they have badmouthed them on Twitter, Facebook or other such social platforms.

Therefore, what we say and how we communicate a message to the media is very important – be it online or offline.

Going digital is no longer a matter of choice for PR professionals. Just a few years ago, we did not have all these platforms to communicate on; the only way we could keep in touch was through telephones or personal meetings. However, now that we have various platforms to communicate online, why shouldn’t we capitalize on them?

On the media side of things

A while back, I was scanning a few newspapers at work, and saw that in one such outlet, the journalist’s byline was followed by his/her Twitter handle. It’s not too far of a stretch to assume that for the employees/journalists working at that publication, being active on Twitter might be compulsory.

In my opinion, journalists in India are open to a change in way the PR community reaches out to them. However, the PR industry in India is still undergoing its own digital shift, and will take its own sweet time to accept this change completely.

In my opinion, forward-thinking Indian PR leaders will encourage their peers and protégés to engage with the media as much online as offline. And who knows, after laying the foundation for a firm relationship, we might be able to make those Twitter pitches to them more easily.

What do you think about pitching to journalists via social media? Yay or nay… and why? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Post Publish Optimization SEO Case Study - Tweet After Death

Blog posts are tricky. Sometimes, writing a well-optimized post will land you views for many years down the

road. But occasionally, even a very well thought out blog post can be knocked down the rankings long term.

In June of last year, I wrote a post on how to schedule tweets after death. I was really happy with it. The picture was custom-designed by the honorable Steven Rosenbaum of SR-Graphics. The topic was fresh. 

The post was well-written. Livefyre’s interns shared it in their own feed. Death with Dignity had me as a guest for their live Twitter chat. And best of all, I got to share thoughts with interesting people about an interesting topic: what social media can do to help us communicate and what that means for our mortality and experience.

Out of curiosity, I Googled “tweet after death” last week to see where it came up. Articles from CBC, CNN, ANC, CBS, RT and a wealth of other media with strong sites essentially wrote the same story and knocked my article to page 2. (To be fair, one of them had quoted me).

I was grumpy about it. Here I had this innovative idea months before any major media and I was getting shoved to page two. I wanted to climb back onto the first page and stay there.

So I started sending out tweets with the post. I circulated it again in Google+, Facebook and chat boxes. I sent it on to colleagues, hoping that a little traffic would help push the thing up. And it did.

Exactly two ranks. Yay!

I realized that what I was doing was the last element of SEO for blog posts. While most people optimize their post before publishing, very few people optimize down the road and see if they still have their spot in the search rankings. Everyone PRE Publish Optimizes, but nobody POST Publish Optimizes (PoPO).

Here was an opportunity, and not just for regular monthly SEO campaigns, but for true strong outreach for a new concept. PoPO is a chance for SEO firms to rerun old blog posts in a chance to boost them in the rankings and retake ground in strategic fashion so as to own concepts in the mind of the blogosphere.

And when a post becomes too old to be relevant, the internet will have seen an era when old posts become less relevant and algorithms knock them down a peg or two. Then, PoPO will become even more essential, as the only way to control key SEO ground will be to swim through a sea of content and prove the relevance of your own over others.

From here, the water remains murky. How do traffic bumps and links to previous posts affect the long-term search rankings? This is the first mystery of PoPO. Without any data, it’s hard to know how you can help or hurt your blog and by how much with each action.

And, even more importantly, the Google algorithm is subject to updates that rearrange search rankings. To that end, PoPO’s future is uncertain. On the other hand, what is fairly certain is that reminding people of past posts as a way to keep traffic stored up may be an effective way to boost visibility.

What I like best about the concept is what I like best about most effective, worthwhile business tactics: finding resources others aren't using and capitalizing on them. PoPO is a chance for you to get amazing results while leaving your competitors in the dust. 

About the author: 

Daniel J. Cohen is the Founder and Lead Writer at RedShift Writers, a Houston-based content writing firm. RedShift Writers prides itself on creating content that is friendly for both search engines and customers. They offer a wide variety of message strategies and content writing services and specialize in web writing for product launches and energy companies.

To find out more about PoPO and how you can get the sharpest PoPO tacticians working on your SEO strategy, email RedShift Writers today.

How Indian Politicians are Using Google+ Hangouts

“Would you like to hang out with me this evening?”   

Indeed, all of you may have been asked this question by your friends and family. But Google has completely changed the way we “hang out” with our near and dear ones.

With the advent of Google+ (G+) multi-party video chats or Hangouts, not only can we now hang out with our friends and family, but, if we like, with the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, or the President of the country.

Image: SatishAcharya via Google, CC 3.0

Interesting, isn’t it?

It seems governments and their agencies and organizations have understood how powerful social media can be (Facebook, Twitter, G+) for engaging with citizens, seeking feedback, creating awareness on different initiatives, and creating a participatory model of governance.

Some of the world figures who have used G+ Hangouts include U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and South African President Jacob Zuma.

And Indian politicians aren’t being left behind.

Hanging out with India’s Finance Minister

Making full use of the power of social media and understanding the importance of getting real time feedback from the citizens of the country, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram decided to “Hangout” with the “netizens.”

Every year, when the country’s budget is announced, everyone is glued to the television to follow the FM’s speech. PR professionals like us are usually busy chasing our clients to get quotes to send to the media, and as a result, follow most of the announcements either through Twitter or via the news online.  It is indeed a crazy day for media and communications professionals.

Yet after all the announcements have been made, we all still have questions, and there is no one around to address them. I’m sure there were people who wished they could speak to the FM themselves and get their answers.

And then it happened.

Following the budget announcement, P. Chidambaram responded to citizens’ questions about the budget, and discussed the state of the Indian economy with a panel of thought leaders as well as citizens through G+ Hangout.

Check out the video below to see how the FM addressed the various questions he received via G+ hangout:

Before the Hangout, citizens could submit their questions to Chidambaram either by uploading a video, commenting on the YouTube channel, or through the Google India Page by tagging text or a video with the hashtag #askthefm.

G+ and the Indian Government

According to an article in the Financial Express, there were over 38,200 online views on YouTube for the 62-minute Hangout. The event was covered live by most major English and Hindi news channels, taking the combined reach to over 5 million in real time.

But that’s not all.

Last year, Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was the first Indian public figure to use Hangout to reach out to his audience (August 2012). According to his website, Modi’s one-hour Hangout attracted over four million viewers, including online and television, as it was beamed on many channels, and over 20,000 questions were asked.

Other interesting facts from Modi’s G+ hangout were:

• About 1,66,000 clicks were generated on Narendra Modi’s website on the day of the Hangout
• Over 70,000 tweets poured in from all over while the Hangout was in progress
• #ModiHangout remained the top trending topic on Twitter and all cities Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad
• It was witnessed by people from 116 countries all across the world!

In my opinion, the government of India has been much faster in adopting Google+ Hangouts than many corporations and MNCs, and are doing a pretty good job of reaching out to their audience and engaging with them. Perhaps this is one area in which India’s corporate citizens could take lessons from the government, instead of the other way around.

Considering the power and reach of Google Hangouts, do you think they will become the next best alternative for PR professionals? Would you get your client and the media to hangout on G+ and interact with each other? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Starbucks – It’s Time to Brew Some Tweets

Caffeine. There is no way I can start my day without a cup of coffee. (I’m sure most of you reading this  post have an addiction to either coffee or tea.)

For all the coffee lovers in Delhi, Starbucks comes toIndia! I’m glad that at last I’ll get to drink the “Starbucks” coffee. The sinful coffee that I’ve heard so about from my friends and family, but haven’t had a chance to taste.

Considering how active we all are on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter,  when Starbucks opens its Delhi location, I’m sure I’ll be among the first customers to visit them, and of course check-in at Foursquare/Facebook and tweet about it too!

Will it be unrequited?

While I know I will definitely tweet about my experience at Starbucks, should I be expecting any response from them? Ideally, as a customer, I would love to engage with the brand through social media. However, recent stats show big brands do not bother to engage with their customers on social media.

According to an experiment conducted by Customer ServiceInvestigator (CSI), well-known brands like Starbucks, Visa, Walmart, and Apple do not bother to respond to their customers on Twitter.

The experiment was conducted by sending 280 tweets over a span of 26 days to 14 of the biggest brands in the world. The brands were measured against two parameters:

•        The average time it took for brands to respond to the tweets; and
•        The response rate based on the total number of replies relative to total tweets sent.

It’s ironic that as more and more people are turning to Twitter to engage with each other, the value of engaging people digitally has still not been realized by some of the most popular brands across the world.

To quote some insights from a report by Ethinos DigitalMarketing 2012:

• There are 65 million, 33 million, and 17 million Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn users in India  respective;
• India has more Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn users than the UK;
•  60% of Indians who are social media users are open to being approached by brands; and
•  67% of Indians who are on the web use online reviews to help them make purchases.

Keeping the above statistics in mind, there is a need for brands to tap into online resources and engage consumers more through social media platforms such as Twitter. While there is a need to engage consumers through online platforms, it is equally important for brands to respond to the customers as well in real-time. As you can tell from the CSI experiment, the speed with which one responds is a major factor in the perception people have of the brand.

Global reach means global tweets

Considering that Starbucks is expanding its outlets across the globe and has now ventured into India, it will be interesting to see how well the company manages to engage with Indian consumers online.  It is also fascinating to see that the Starbucks India Facebook page already has more than 14,000 (and counting) likes, and their India-specific Twitter page has more than 800 (and counting) followers.

I’m sure Starbucks will create a huge stir when it enters Delhi  just as it did when it entered the Mumbai market. However, unlike the US, UK, and Australia, where Starbucks is synonymous with the word “coffee,” India is a completely different ball game.

You see, most of the Indian urban population is already used to the coffee culture at places like Café Coffee Day, Café Turtle, CostaCoffee, Barista and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to name just a few! And that’s not even mentioning the non-urban population that has imbibed traditional Indian coffee the old-fashioned way, such as Kerala coffee, or Mysore coffee, for generations.

I believe that after a period of excitement, there will be a lull, and Starbucks might become just another coffee shop in the country. Given the demographics of the Indian market, it won’t hurt if Starbucks tries to engage a bit more with Indian coffee lovers.

In fact, Starbucks should do what it does best; brew not only coffee, but a few tweets as well.

Do you think the key to success for any brand is to constantly engage with the customers through all possible platforms? Or do you feel a popular brand like Starbucks can do away with social media platforms like Twitter?  Is there a need for Starbucks to brew some Tweets? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Measurement In PR - Some Lessons Learnt From #measurePR

Few weeks back I joined a Bi-weekly chat on twitter about measuring PR (#measurePR) and I take this opportunity to thank @Shonali to introduce it to me. I’d also like to thank the few guests who I could connect with through this chat including @alanchumley, @kdpaine and @prtini who brought to the table few very interesting insights on measurement.

#measurePR helped me understand how important it is to measure your campaigns time-to-time. It also taught me the different ways to measure online/offline campaigns, the tools which can help an individual/company measure their activity in much better and quicker way.

While I understood that a sustainable practice to measure PR was the key to success, it was interesting to learn that successful measurement is about measuring the outcomes and not just the outputs. It doesn’t ends there. It is very important to analyze, implement and keep improving in order to achieve goals.

Through this chat I gathered that measurement is not just about collecting stacks of clips and showing it to the client. While the “n” number of clips might sound exciting to share with the client, but if at the end of the day, it doesn’t add value to the client’s business, it is a sheer waste. Hence, I reiterate the fact that measurement is not about stacks of clips.

Digital PR is a next step in the PR eco-system. Having said that, while the number of likes on facebook or followers on twitter is also taken as a means to measurement, at the same time it is also important to engage the target audience through such a platform to achieve better results.

These were few things I learnt through this chat and if you are reading this post, I shall see you at the next #measurePR chat on March 6^th , 2012; 10:30 PM IST!

Till then, stay tuned and share your thoughts below…

#SocialNetwork in the air...

Call it social media, social network or internet; this web is not just restricted to connecting people on earth but now also in the air! Meet & Seat, the new social tool is going to be introduced this year by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines - part of Air France KLM. While this tool definitely sounds interesting but personally, I’m unsure about the success of this tool due to various factors which follow below:

· Will I really bother to find an air-mate for few hours?

· Will I bother to while away time online for searching the one-an-only person who I could talk to in the aircraft?

· Will I be comfortable sharing my personal information with a stranger?

These were some basic questions that were spinning around my head when I read about this latest concept. While I may worry about the questions stated above but somewhere this tool can work wonders for people - may be you can crack a business deal sitting with a person from the same industry….or you can make a friend for lifetime!

It’s interesting to observe that the tool will work with Facebook and Linkedin, but not Twitter. I wonder why they opted out Twitter.

Social media is not just a tool anymore; it has become like a nerve in a human body. If it breaks down, you are so dead!

How Cocoberry got Social Media completely wrong

It’s remarkable to note the pace at which brands, retailers, companies are getting onto the social media bandwagon. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have become a rage for everyone, be it customer or brands.

Social Media’s popularity has grown manifold over the years and small and large size businesses are equally earmarking separate budgets to increase their presence on social communities. But how much do these businesses understand social media? Here’s one excellent example of how cocoberry - India's First Premium Frozen Yogurt Chain got social media completely wrong.

I recently stepped in to a cocoberry store and found a huge poster on the window pane. It read - Tweet and win yourself free movie tickets in a lucky draw. But guess what? Where did they want us to tweet? – On the receipt of the bill!

I froze like a frozen yogurt for a second and I thought to myself, why would I tweet on the bill? Will I write 140 characters on the bill? Will I count if I exceeded 140 characters? (LoL)

This shows the lack of knowledge these businesses have about social media. Why wouldn’t they let the customers do live tweeting? Why can’t they have lucky draws over twitter? Well these were some questions pouncing in my head while having the frozen yogurt. It’s funny to observe how poorly businesses are trying to compete with the peers, coming with some great ideas to engage their customers with the brand but all in vein as they are getting it wrong without realizing it.

It’s even more interesting to see their twitter page (@Cocoberryfroyo) where they have not taken any pain to follow their sweet customers! Knock-knock cocoberry, you got to wake up before you are kicked out of the social media planet…

The full potential of social media as a marketing platform is yet to be realised and brands and retailers need to work their way up to tap the same. Since the medium is cost-effective, marketers are arguably upbeat about its utility. The phenomenon indeed, has just begun and the best is yet to come.

What do you think? Feel free to post below with comments, suggestions, and even criticism!

Social Media Budgeting

During a recent conversation with some industry peers, it struck me that while social media excited one and all, most remained clueless when it comes to the industry’s appetite to spend and allot dedicate spend budgets for social media activities. This fact intrigued me and I set out to find the silver bullet.

So what is Social Media? For some social media means twitter, blogs etc., while for others it might mean facebook, orkut or simply an online presence. According to Sean Carton, social media is the “technologies that facilitate conversations.” The conversation begins when someone /anyone start it online and its popularity is often defined by the involvement of outside influencers. After getting a sense of what social media is in a nutshell, it is now important to understand how much budget should be allocated for the same.

It’s a myth that social media is free. There is no fixed percentage which is allocated for social media budget but it largely depends on the following factors which helps in deciding how much budget an organization allocate for social media.

First and foremost, it is important to know the awareness and maturity of the marketing head in an organization. Social media budget is part of the marketing budget and unless the marketing head is not mature enough to understand the importance of social media in today’s world then it is difficult to allocate a budget for the same.

On similar lines the awareness and maturity of agency has a major role to play in deciding the budget. Not all agencies are open to change. With the way communication is evolving, the agencies need to change the way they communicate their message to the audience. There are a lot of agencies which still believes in traditional methods of communicating. Although this way of communicating won’t die but a more effective way of sending across the message to millions of people would be a social media platform and agencies need to realize this before it’s too late.

So what happens if the agency is open to change and the marketing head is mature enough to understand social media but there is no awareness and maturity in organizations? Thus, unless the organizations are not open to new tools of communicating, the agencies can’t do much. Hence, a big factor of whether one needs a budget for social media depends on the need/want of the organization to use effective means of communicating.

Last but not the least every industry is unique. There are two types of industries – B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to consumer). It will be interesting to explain this concept with the help of an example.

Example: While Dominos will apply pull strategy and would need social media to reach out to the masses in a more efficacious way, the person providing wheat and flour to Dominos, would not find any worth spending money on the same. So why would he need to allocate budget for social media?

But if Dominos apply push strategy and introduces social media platform for the supplier community, then eventually all businesses will have to move to social media platforms to communicate their message to the masses.

In today’s world where technology is changing every second and competition is trying to outdo you at every step, you want to be ahead of the rat race. Come to think of it, if Dominos is using social media then its competition would also use such platforms to stay ahead of the race.

Thus social media has already changed the way we communicate to each other and the organizations need to realize the importance of the same. Once the basics are understood then only one can think of allocating budgets for such platforms. What do you think?

My 2c Worth!