Stop Thinking, Start Acting!

Posted by Nikhil on Apr 28th, 2009 | 3 comments

This was a guest article that appeared in the Financial Express on April 21, 2009.

Social media is the in thing these days. The success of Obama and our very own Pink Chaddi campaign is fresh in our memories and spoken to death in social media conferences and seminars.

On the other side, every other day, witness a new venture or foray into the space. If one adds up all the hype, then social media should have already arrived from a brand communication and marketing perspective. Well, not really. Here is my take on what it will take to get social media, which I agree, is hot and presents profound new ways of touch, communication and engagement, can get there.

Yes, it is the most democratic medium or platform. Yes, the young are more comfortable with the Orkuts, Twitters and Facebooks than the old and yes there is no geographical constraint as internet is universal. But let us not forget that brands or the process of branding (except for a few categories) is not something special or separate for social media. Social media needs new ways of adoption and customization to suit its unique ecosystem and ways. But it is not that the branding process itself, is in for a radical change. This means that successful social media initiatives can be executed consistently over a period of time only with firms or players who have an understanding of how brands and the branding process works and then combine this understanding with social media expertise. While social media is powerful, combined offline and online campaigns will create higher impact.

I am not sure how many know this. Software or tools that are meant for listening in social media are growing in abundance and at last count had 18 such URLs or names in my database. I am talking only of players who are visible and this number by itself seems to be growing at a brisk pace. While it is useful, let us understand that it is only the first step in a formal process a brand needs to undergo in social media.

There is an urgent need to look beyond blogs, though blogs show a lot of promise. I am saying this more from the perspective that there are evolved tools such as Twitter, Maplib, social bookmarking sites, besides Facebook, that truly offer immense potential. For example, a friend of mine had done a campaign for a movie using twitter and Maplib that was both creative and engaging. I also saw a website, which is a wiki with the feeds on YouTube linked. A great idea, simply because these two tools have combined reach that is smartly being used. Heard someone recently tell me that Dell extensively uses Twitter for its global customer support.

Social media is not as techie or geekish or complex as many think or make it out to be. There are couple of thumb rules, which work fairly well for starters. For instance, just focus on starting a blog and then use all the social media tools available to promote it. Also social media is not about just getting in but using it smartly to be heard and be visible.

Let us be clear that all that is happening in social media is experiments and there are bound to be successful and bad experiments. The best is to learn from it and move on, as the space itself is exploding fast and learning is the most precious commodity around in the space. Much like a battle scarred veteran who wears his scars on his sleeve.

Not all brands and companies are suited for social media since it is a different world out there. While it is exciting and great for some, it will be out of bounds for many. A company and its entire organization needs to be ready and be prepared for what social media entails and can assure of a surefire disaster if one is not prepared and goes around thinking it is like advertising that one can control. Even firms who play in the space would be well advised to do the diligence as too many failures or bad starts is bound to speed derailing enthusiasm, to adopt the media.

There are many more need to do lists and hope what I have said and listed makes for a good start and gets us cracking into a cracker of a space called social media.

Xavier Prabhu
Director
PRHUB

The Business Of Blogging

Posted by Nikhil on Apr 20th, 2009 | no comments

Blogs have changed the face of business by making it an online meeting point. Tenders and open offers are a blast from the past, since digital age has been hit by the blogging bug.

What was primarily an ‘online diary’ became a ‘virtual space’ for me to network. I’ve found many a client and business online, including my PR agent (who technically, found me online). Though my blog was a space for my personal rants, it has grown over the years, as have I.

Undoubtedly, it provides an insight into business, and this digital age, I trust blogs more than websites. The platform serves as a platform to update, maintain and display creativity, all at one time, and in fact, very simply, in just one click.

Strategies to market are umpteen, and believe me, I’ve tried them all – from telemarketing to paper adverts, from digital marketing through my earlier website to the current website through word press, you can quiz me on it.

Of all the options, I’ve personally found the blog to be the most powerful, and in fact, at times, superseding social networking sites. A networking site can only get you this far, but your blog can seal the deal.

The blog has provided me a base to connect directly with my customers and clients across the globe. It is implicit of course that, to use the blog effectively, one must also network extensively, but the benefits are certainly visible within a month or so.

How exactly has it helped me?

• Mine is a service oriented business, and my blog gives a basic understanding of our services, which works as a preliminary short listing of customers. On any given day, I get 20 inquiries, of which 5 are relevant to my business; since blogging has happened, I get only relevant inquiries, and thus cutting down on my time & energy spent.
• It is a one stop option for me to display creativity, networks, past experience, tariff rates, what not – again, a time and energy saving benefit.
• It is an easy point of reference, if you do become an accomplished blogger. Any marketing novice will tell you how important ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing is. The blog is just that – a huge ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing device.

Benefits are limitless – it will depend on the business and the business person. Like most other things in life, business is a two way process of demand and supply, service provider and service receiver, in layman terms, between you and me.

Aparna Gonibeed
CEO
Integrated Systems

Build Your Brand The Credible Way

Posted by Nikhil on Apr 14th, 2009 | 3 comments

According to Al Reis, author of The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, PR creates brands.  Advertising defends brands.  The data from leading brands supports this position.

Ask a thousand people on the streets what they think is a bigger name – Google or General Motors. I bet my life almost everyone will say Google. Yet, would you believe it, GM spends close to 3 billion dollars a year on advertising? I choked on my morning coffee when I read this, and I don’t think I see the point. Public Relations has evolved from being a glorified courier service organizing press conferences to a mainstream brand-building tool.

There have been scores of experts talking about how advertising is a must-have for businesses and frankly, that kind of talk is outdated. No one wants to spend a million dollars and put up hoardings all over the city and not get the RoI they want.

Businesses nowadays should take heed, particularly when weighing an ad push versus a targeted PR campaign.  There are three simple reasons why.

1.  Credibility - Advertising, no matter how clever, funny, dramatic, or aesthetically pleasing, is self-serving.  It is a pitch, and, no matter how cleverly disguised, we all recognize advertising as a pitch.  PR, on the other hand, has gone through a filtering process.  That is, an editor or reporter has deemed the information credible and newsworthy.  While we may not love the media, we recognize that they do filter pap from news in most instances.  What PR lacks in control, it gains in credibility.

2.  Clarity – Advertising uses subtleties, claims, and comparisons and borrows from the arts and psychology to try to influence decisions.  PR usually translates into simple messages.  A problem has been solved. New conclusions have been reached.  Someone or something has created a new approach.  The more straightforward and relevant the information, the greater the possibility of it becoming news.  PR is based on information, not seduction.

3.  Cost - There is no company on the planet spending a billion dollars a year on PR.  In advertising, there are more than twenty-five.  There is no comparison in costs.  Or, many would argue, in effectiveness.

PR is better than any marketing tool at your disposal, including advertising – something the stewards of the best brands in the world already know.

At Darkwater Digital, we take the whole concept of PR to a new level and guarantee your brand’s presence online. We build and maintain the brand’s online reputation and try our best to make sure that the most common mistakes that businesses make are not repeated for your brand.

We don’t want you to spend a million dollars. We don’t want your message to be lost in a bottle, out at sea.

Parts of this article have been sourced from the Camino Media website.

SEO Your Website

Posted by Joel on Apr 14th, 2009 | one comment

The key required to reach and maintain top rankings in internet searches and also to ensure to have an enhanced and effective positioning of your website is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In the present days, the online environment is one that is not constant or in other words, it is in a constant change with new techniques and policies emerging out almost every day. And this is why it has become very difficult for a web-business owner to build a successful business of their own. There could be countless number of ways, black and white, to increase your websites potential and traffic but the only best solution an entrepreneur may find is to outsource essential Internet marketing and SEO.

You could probably get in touch with us if you liked our SEO services

The ‘SaaS’y Life!

Posted by Aparna on Apr 10th, 2009 | no comments

Most people hate new technology. So, product development should be totally based on the needs of the customer. Technology has become a necessary evil in most cases. You cannot live without it. Everyone is looking for integrated experiences in whatever they use in life. For example, the iPhone – a phone with music, games, internet – is a device that does everything. Services like Flickr, YouTube, GoogleVideos (Picasa), Twitter are taking over.

There have been numerous articles on how Twitter and the likes have been better at providing news than news channels. No one can deny the convenience of having services like GPS integrated with one’s car.Software developers are one of the few species of people who believe that they can change the world – sometimes they really can!

In this age of the internet time, which is faster than fast – practically instantaneous (considering one is still not on dial-up), companies must adapt quickly. Traditional strategies would fail in these days of internet time no matter what the business is. They must keep up with every whim of the customers they cater to.

So, what does internet enable us to do? Primarily, it helps companies cope with competition by allowing them to manage huge databases of employees, products and customers. Through virtual marketing, the technology helps businesses cut traditional business costs and provides 24×7 communication tools like email and web chat to name a few.

All this said, what would the cost be for getting the best software product out there with all the support required?

The answer to that question is SaaS or Software as a Service model. Herein, the developer licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. The application could be hosted on the developer’s own web servers or could be downloaded to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires.

On-demand licensing and use alleviates the customer’s burden of equipping a device with every conceivable application. It enables software to become a variable expense, rather than a fixed cost at the time of purchase. It also enables licensing only the amount of software needed versus traditional licenses per device. SaaS also enables the buyer to share licenses across their organization and between organizations.

Using SaaS can also conceivably reduce the up-front expense of software purchases, through less costly, on-demand pricing from hosting service providers. SaaS lets software vendors control and limit use, prohibits copies and distribution, and facilitates the control of all derivative versions of their software.

The sharing of end-user licenses and on-demand use may also reduce investment in server hardware. SaaS is generally associated by software professionals and business associates with business software and is typically thought of as a low-cost way for businesses to obtain rights to use software as needed versus licensing all devices with all applications.

Having listed the advantages of SaaS, a mention of certain drawbacks – Data transfers happen at Internet speeds (so advisable to subscribe to better speeds) Widespread implementation of SaaS requires well defined services as well. Availability of open source applications, inexpensive hardware, low-cost bandwidth push customers to operate their own software.

In conclusion, one can say that communication is key between the software developers and the business personnel. The motto must be “We are listening!” and we definitely are.