Social Feedback Cycle

So far we have been seeing how to build conversations, engage people with our brands to build awareness around the brand, product & service.  Most important work starts after the purchase considerations or after a consumer starts using the product, service; this is an area where major damages cause to any brand, service, product, identity etc. Most of the reviews we see is the result of unhealthy experiences of the services, product. Most of the marketers fail to analyze this aspect and hence try to build awareness without knowing what is been written and what is been talked about a brand. The most important thing for any marketer before getting into Social Media Marketi­­­­­ng, is to build internal process to handle queries and marketing promises effectively after the purchase cycle as it reflect in the discussions of the online users. Most important thing is the efforts made behind Social Media Marketing are endless, hence to manage these activities effectively in the long run; one has to be very clear in understanding the willingness of being transparent in their communications.

Coming back to the feedback cycle, most of them in India have also realized the importance of the Social Feedback cycle and they are working backwards the set few things right in order to gain consumer’s trust. And some are still getting carried away with review portals where their product reviews can be posted with an additional cost.

This is still fine in few cases as manier times, it is really difficult to rate a particular product as it might have too many features for a consumer to rate it, this also involves a strong market survey to understand what a best deal would be for a consumer, base on it a balanced review can be generated. The best example I would give in India is mouthshut.com. This is the only portal in India which had been purely into user generated content and currently a leading portal for UGC across India and also influences lot of people in their purchase decisions. I would rate this portal to completely dependant on Social Feedback Cycle.

But yes there are other portals too which handles fake reviews, so beware of it.

I would identify the most important area in Social Media Marketing is the Social Feedback cycle, the feedback cycle shows a clear path to your future Social Media Marketing efforts. Hence I would also say that Social Media Marketing is not for everyone and everybody, but most of them

Building Social Conversations

Conversations are built on the quality of the content used, it could be in the form of Pictures, Videos, text, link, captions or any form of the content. I am not just saying content, but it is all about quality content. “Quality Content!!” this sounds too tricky. Sometimes I would feel what quality content would be. Is it professionally shot pictures, videos, written text… Hey…. No not at all… What I mean about quality content is something which triggers you to express your views, something which tickles you, something which instigates you to raise your voice, opinions. In other words, something which involves you in a conversation, viewing of videos, viewing of photographs and much more. The content associated with every conversation should connect users with their expressions and views. Be it a picture or a video, we always have something to say about it, but sometimes it subsides within ourselves or sometimes the content is so strong that we cannot handle our expressions and the result would in the form of comments, liking etc. Though it might be just a picture or a video there should be something associated with it, as every picture or a video has something to say always. Many of us still feel that if just sharing content would be enough to trigger conversations, YES in simple words. Imagine in our school days, everyone of us would be very excited to share our new fancy looking water bottles, New school Bags, New Book covers, New pencil boxes with our friends. Sometimes you also drive attention of people who are not your friends, just because you have something unique with you to talk about or share about.

It’s the same thing, you do it when you share something unique and creative with the users. These are key elements to drive people’s attention and hence building conversations around the content. Now this content could be company facts, their developments, their expansions in the industry, their achievements, let people know about what we are doing, in this case we are giving them an opportunity to speak to us or about us.

There are some other ways to look at triggering conversations such as using some teaser messages such as “Government goofing up with people’s tax money”, the picture or video associated with it could be very positive such as the video might show the entire tax money getting utilized for the betterment of the country and also showcases important initiatives taken in the progress of the country. These kind of messages will certainly add lot of value and will also gain lot of conversations to its surprise value too. So, the idea behind triggering conversations are not building BIG ideas, but small idea pieces which builds regular conversations around a brand, service or an individual

Search Social Media

Analyzing Search Engine Results keeping  target reach is difficult. There are some many aspects to look at it.

Yesterday my friend Sudhindra was speaking to me about certain targeted and non-targeted areas in the online space. The query which he came up was that how many people do access Article Marketing database and how many access News Release Directories.

Similarly many people might have similar thoughts, but i guess the logic is pretty clear.. Any search gives you Blended search results. When a user searches for anything, he never looks into whether the search is been found on Article directory or a News release directory. He just keys in the query and looks for relevant information to the search query. Hence it does really mean that people only look at Article directories or the news Release directories. In fact, its our lookout to identify what the user is looking for and based upon also identify the most popular platforms to get hooked up. Based on this analysis we should decide what source to be chosen.

I would say Search Engine follows  a centralized information system. Hence it helps any user to find any kind of results from any part of the world. Of course, there are some advance features for a user to enhance the search experience. The point here is we have so many platforms which has opened opportunities for brands and industries to publish and post their content anywhere in the online space. But one should still follow the basics of SEARCH. As the entire exchange of information in the online space is possible only through search engines and their procedures.

In another incident I met a gentleman from a very reputed agency, Infact i was presenting few ideas of distributing content across the internet space, So I mentioned about a news sharing platform DIGG. Immediately I was asked about the target audience available in DIGG from India. I stated very clearly, that our only approach is get into search results because that is how the entire communication begins. Why do we worry about what platforms we are using to publish our information than thinking of positioning ourselves in the search engines. We should certainly look at Authority sites..

So as I said in my earlier posts, that, its the only basics which has evolved in different Facets of Communication.

No one can ignore or outrank the basics of Search Engine methods. Hence Social Media has evolved due to Search Engines & Authority Sites.

ROI | Return on Investment | India Social Media | Overview on Social Media Marketing

Does it really needed in Social Media marketing ? Some say yes and some say no.. and some say don’t know….. I have been to a summit in India where people were discussing only about ROI, before even considering social media as one of additional tool for marketing the brands.

Why do we always think about the benefits first before even planting trees. In my older posts, I had mentioned about the ROI in the internet advertising model, where CPC, CTR are all involved. Those days have gone. Many dot companies have earned a lot and they are still earning. But the entire business model is changing.  It is driving towards more realistic evidences than calculating the number of clicks. I don’t even know who clicked my Ad, whether the user is worth my product or not.

We all know the great internet jobs, “Sit at home and just click the ADs” and the money will be transferred to your respective accounts. I am sure in the near future all these activities will phase out and it will take a very realistic turn in the internet industry, where the marketers will pay for the activities which are really worth.

Many people are still misguiding the marketers, Brand managers by getting ROI (Return on Investment ) into picture for Social Media. Why do we still get into number of clicks, visitor statistics etc..  It is so evident that we are getting real conversations, real comments, and user written reviews on the products. Is that not enough!!!… Let us take the screenshots of the real conversations happening on social platforms and consider it as the real evidences towards our product. Is this logic so difficult to understand by any Internet Marketing  Professional ? I am sure it is a great attempt to misguide the Brands and their associated people.

But things are pretty clear nowadays. As Social Media is evolving, things are drastically changing in India Markets, where more and more people getting inclined towards Social Media Marketing.

As they feel that there is no better platform available. But good things always come with great responsibilities.  We need to be more serious and sincere in our conversations. Be more transparent, be more open minded in sharing information. Try pushing your brand to people directly and then rest assured, if dealt sincerely. Rest people will push your brand across the world. This is the mantra of Social Media.

Its like “Jo Dar Gaya, Samjho Mar Gaya”. So dont fear, just reply….and talk to people…

Building our Basics

This has been a part of me, from a long time.

suddenly,  I  have  started following its concepts more seriously. One of my friend asked me, why i have been inclined to this concept again, when it is considered as outdated. Well.. i don’t think so.. In fact,  SEO has emerged again with the new digital media strategies. We see tagging, we see content here and there,, all that is meant to get visible on search engines. Yes, we no more have to rely on On page optimization factors, as the user interfaces of all social platforms offer these provisions. The only thing we need to look for is the Off page optimization such as where all our blogs, websites are referred in the form of referral links. We should also seriously look at directory submissions, Link Building strategies, Article directory submissions, Search Engine submissions, Ezine directories.. and many more..

Though it  is  a very tedious procedure, Yet it is very very effective. Thanks to the Blended search visibility.

Suddenly I have started concentrating on these areas, as i realized, this is where the roots are. Now I have started realizing the demand of developing a completely optimized websites. I am sure more and more companies will start concentrating on their websites, because even if you build a digital program, one  needs to drive them to the website, and if the site is not up to the mark, then it will a big turn off to the users. Don’t you think it makes sense……

Lets get back to the square one…and build our basics…..first.. That is what it matters now…

Actually it is the same old wine packed in a new bottle. So my dear SEO professionals,,, start getting back to Basics…

Proprietary Presence Vs Social Presence

Recently, I did a close comparison between proprietary tools  and Social Tools available. Now this might sound little confusing. Let me clear this fact. Proprietary tools means having your own site and having your own social features available on your site such as Hindustan Lever having Blogging, Video sharing and community features on their site. In this way they think they can grab the same amount of users to their website, just like all other popular tools available such as Facebook, Orkut, You tube, WordPress, Blogger etc.  The logic behind this is great, but it does not work at all. Many clients featuring all these possibilities on their site anticipate tremendous traffic to their site. But this is not the fact at all. It never works like that.   The clear difference is Proprietor y presence does not have the general identity which other social tools have. Its like knowing a company’s website and knowing yahoo.com. Yahoo is considered to be a landmark, anything published on it has a global reach. So the presence can be considered as a landmark. It also depends what kind of approach Yahoo had towards users and what they offered. Most of the people are glued to this presence.

Recently, I had a chat with one of my client who thinks that they had provided all necessary social platforms on their site and does not feel the need of using other popular social media presence to add more traffic to their site.  Well I don’t see any clear reason to why one should not use other Social Media platforms. In fact, my recommendation would be not spending any money building Social features on an individual company site and use other popular social platforms to drive the traffic to the site. Users want to meet up at a common place. There are 1000’s of places where people discuss and meet online. Yes.. But a website is compulsory….. there cannot be any replacement to it.

A simple example :

Knowing a destination like Gateway of India and knowing an address of a Corporate office, are two different things.  Even if a corporate office has everything as Gateway of India has, people will still go for Gateway of India, because everybody knows about it from ages. It is a Landmark !

Similarly, it is just not advisable to maintain proprietary tools and expect tons of traffic to their site. One must have a clear and a strong presence on general online presence, because they are already established and people have accepted it, because the motive behind is to just connect people and not promote an individual business. Whereas, a proprietary online presence is focused to only promote and talk about specific business. Though a proprietary presence may have tons of traffic, but there is no credibility of the traffic. Most of the traffic is driven through Google Ads, Search Engine techniques and it is been rated on the statistics. Nowadays, statistics is not just everything. One cannot decide the credibility of the information through number of page visits. What about credibility of information, how can statistics define a particular visitor of the site is willing to know about a company’s business or their communications. But all this is possible at the available Social Tools. They are designed and developed only to know about this particular intention of a user.

Online statistics can been a good beginning to rate a website ROI, but in the long run, it fades out and the traffic depends on the quality of information and not just quantity of information

One more example:

A contestant dancing in his room and a contestant dancing on a stage has a clear and logical answer to the above disucssion. No one would go to his room and watch him, until he or she comes on a global platform.

Perception Communications | Social Media Marketing

This is the logic one should use while handling any Social Media activities for any brands. Basically, there are no set of rules, in how to go about it. It all depends on how one perceives and how one reacts to it. Yes, there are some etiquette which one should follow, such as no one can pitch anybody to write about a brand or any other identity. Everywhere one needs to build relationships, remember in one of my old posts i have mentioned that we deal with real people and real people can never be approached abruptly. Rather, one needs to develop customer relationship with them and then try communicating about their wants, in this case they know you well at least.

Why I term Social Media Marketing as individual perception communications because there are no set of rules about how to approach or how to communicate, it all depends on one’s perception analysis, how the opposite person reacts to it. It all matters what kind of wavelength is been shared amongst them.

For eg:

I have been regularly posting and participating in one’s conversations. Sometimes my thoughts and thinking matches to what other person has to to write about. But the same way, others might react to it in a different way. If you are able to connect, then you become an important and sensible identity to the other person. But this all comes through practice and depends on how devoted you are in Social Media. And also depends on how active you are.

I have come across many people in India, where they have failed connecting people and failed in their digital programs, but they never think what mistakes they would have made during the program, rather they would think that it did not work out, but it also depends on how much exposure one has it towards this new media and he or she delivers it to the end users. In this world, nothing can fail just like that.  sometimes I am very optimistic, but that’s the fact. We can easily estimate things which would have gone wrong in any failed activity.

For eg: again……

Today if we fail in any exam, so it does not mean that the questions were not appropriate or that examination is not meant for you…   Just because you did not perform, you made mistakes, you failed. But you do realize your mistakes and then perform again… I think the answer is very simple…..now..

I had come across many people who used Social Media programs just for few months, and see no result in it. But its all about how much you are involved in it and how long you have been into it. Ultimately its all about interacting with people and you cant make them feel as “once in Blue moon effect”. Social Media is a very tricky subject and should be dealt very carefully, after all, its about dealing with people’s emotions. So one needs to be careful about it. How you do it,  is up to you.. No one can teach you how to speak to a girl, No one can teach how to love your girl friend. It is a natural play and should be dealt in a natural way. You can still follow your own norms and policies, but that’s you and we will be dealing with people like you, who has their own set of understanding, own set of taking things the way they want and at their own convenience.

I also see this problem with most of the web companies who fail to understand this logic and totally rely on keywords & key phrases    or they totally rely on Search Engine Optimization techniques, which plays a part of the role but not the entire role.

We are far ahead than Google..

Did we ever realize that we are far far,  far superior than Google.  I realized this, in one of our discussions with my friends & colleagues.  As usual, we were discussing about a brand and how can we leverage multiple platforms in promotion.  Let me start with Google and  its search logic. Whenever we key in any query in the search bar. It gives you many specific results and it also gives you related results. If you click these related results, we can see more related results on it, and this route map continues.

I found this logic very much similar to our brain and the way we think. I also realized that this is the exact logic we should use it for any brand when it comes in implementing any digital program for them as the platforms are endless. So far, i have observed many people fail to think this way when it comes in implementing online marketing tactics, related to social media and the new evolved online technologies.

Ideas on Social media and other digital marketing tactics are endless.  It depends on how far you can connect each idea and come out with a new sub-idea. But, it also depends how far you can implement those ideas. Lot of people call it as Brain mapping. But, yes it is actually brain mapping, which helps you to realize the endless ideas and implementations towards any Digital Marketing Program. A simple illustration is been illustrated on this perception, the image actually depicts a process on a patient, but the logic remains same to our context.

I think nowadays, I am breathing  Search Engine Marketing & Social Media Marketing, as it is connecting me or rather i am getting connected at every step and every moment of my life.  As i was mentioning about a discussion with my colleagues on a brand, we went on connecting every parameter of the brand and further went on connecting platforms to be used to promote the desired brand.

Initially when it came to me, of course, i had lot of things in my mind, but further i went on realizing many more connecting ideas to it, which very much worked as Brain Mapping. Many people say that it might be a brain storming process, but most of the brain storming session involve only debates and arguments.  Good, I attended one of the Brain Mapping workshops in the past. But frankly I literally got bored of it and even thought why would i think that way. But yes now it gave me a great platform to think that way. Thanks to that Brain mapping workshop which I attended.  Google exactly follows this logic. I think the owner of the Google was a Brain Mapping Guru sounds funny right! No not at all. This is a very important aspect to any successful foundation, technology and identity.

Did any one realize how brain mapping works, its exactly resembles our popular concepts of Social Networks and the great influential marketing. Where each of your thought is influenced by another thought. I have even added a picture so that it can be related easily.

Every thought is connected to another. Similarly there is no reason why the logic behind Social Media is not exactly like a thought of a  human.

Network, Network Network – is the only way of Marketing your Product

I sometimes do realize that we are seeing something we have already seen before, but at that time we never liked it as we always felt that it was not made for us.  I am talking about Simple Network marketing. I still remember when my friends use to call me for some interesting seminars and that use to turn out to be Amway or Quantum. I always use to runaway from these schemes of Network marketing such you become a member and then you bring 10 friends in the circle and it goes on like that. Of course,  it was one of the first concepts of Network Marketing.

We are still in the similar circle. We see so many Social Networking Sites evolving day by day getting more and more flexibility and user convenient features to add more value for interactions and conversations.

I have a very bad habit of relating every knowledge related thing to real life examples. I think that’s the way i perceive and understand it best.  As a Digital Marketing Professional i think its very important that one should always start relate these technical platforms with real life examples, because that’s how they are evolved.  All the technologies what we see in our day to day life are evolved from a human’s perspective. We want it to work that way to help in our daily needs.

Everything we see now is all evolved from our thoughts. J Just like Shivsena Shakha (Shivsena branches) having their individual networks across the state, to spread the message easily. Sorry, for Shivsena, as it is one always on our Mumbaikars mind. Just like a company having their chain of Distributors, Retailers and stockists. They do help selling the product at their individual networks.

Similarly every single human will have his own network, like me having my friends and my friends having their own friends and the chain goes on. Such a long influential network.  We have never thought like this before.

All that matters is every individual in the web network. Thanks for all these Networking Platforms which helps an individual to raise his voice, opinion across the web and also out of the web. Many times I end up debating with my friends, clients and my colleagues. We always update new figures of users who are active online. Every year we keep updating it. But we are just not talking about people who are online.

For Eg:

Say out of 100 people only 35 people are online, but one forgets that these 35 people who get influenced on web influence other remaining 75 people who are not present online, so one cannot say that Digital Marketing or online network marketing cannot drive the marketing campaigning completely. Though it might not affect the rest 75 completely but it surely affects at least 40 people out of 75.

Well its difficult sometimes to trace the people outside the internet world to find out the effect of  our marketing campaign but its so simple to understand and there is a clear logic to it.

Its just a paperless platform we are using nothing else.

Website or a Blog

This had always been a debate through out my experience in Online Marketing & Social Media Marketing. Lot of people are still amused in differentiating a Blog and a Website.

I come across  many people who always keep asking me what is a Blog, certainly they know about a website. I keep telling them, it’s just another website which is available on a shareable domain name such as yourname.wordpress.com, myname.blogspot.com.

Well to justify it. There is absolutely no difference in a website and a Blog. Both are web pages built for certain needs. The only difference is that a website can be customized in any form and then can be uploaded. But whereas, a Blog is a predefined template and can use only the defined features in it.

For new entrepreneurs, Authors, celebrities a Blog is the most ideal tool for online communication. Many clients who are authors, Celebrities do ask me for a website. But I always suggest them for a Blog. It gives all features such as uploading content, Images, Video and many more. Blogs can also be hosted on a defined domain, for further customization to make it look like exactly a website. In fact it is an easy way of launching your online Identity within minutes. Online Search Engine Optimization, formatting of the content, renaming of the images, assigning right kind of keywords, linking, interlinking etc, almost everything is possible. You can even add multiple pages to your Blog to make it look like a website. So what else one does want?

In such a competitive online world, everyone feels that an online identity is must, hence small entrepreneurs can really use this concept to spread their business across the digital space in minutes. Because the new upcoming companies will surely not have the kind of content and topics as seen in the website. Many people are still not convinced with the html page driven website or a Blog, they still feel that a flash based website is more interactive and attractive. But this is not the case any more, nowadays people look for unique and informational content. They no more feel the impact. If one observes, most of the popular sites available online are all HTML, CSS driven sites. Certainly it can attract many search engines effectively, hence also gaining a popular ranking in it. Well creating a Blog is certainly very cost effective and can be done in minutes, without worrying about time, creativity, content. This is has been the most popular concept available online.

I always think that we see it the way we perceive it. But sometimes we should see the logical aspect of it. In India, many people do think that a Blog and a website are two different things. But, it is absolutely not. I hope that all our young and upcoming entrepreneurs do realize this aspect and would identify their ready made online presence available for free. Imagine if this happens, we would achieve a breakthrough in internet communication in India, which is still lacking at times. It is certainly a very cost effective and a convenient tool to use.

But when do we start realizing?