Tips for Pitching Bloggers – Social Media PR

Bloggers can yield a great amount of influence with their readers. If you are looking to do Online PR, you have to learn to pitch Bloggers correctly. Just like journalists, they are constantly bombarded by requests. Yours has to stand out – for all the right reasons.

# 1: Select Your Bloggers Carefully & Then Reach Out

Which blogs are actually reaching the audience you want to reach? Don’t look for the biggest blogs. Look for the ones that reach your audience. If you want to reach moms, you probably want to go after mommy Bloggers. If you want to reach early adopters of technology, you want to go after technology Bloggers and also generic Bloggers.

How do you know that a blog has a lot of influence/readership? There are three clearly defined characteristics of an influential blog:

• Check the page rank. Solid blogs generally have a higher Google page rank. Anything 4 and above can be seen as favorable
• Check for comments and responses left by others. An active blog will have regular comments
• Check for how many times they post. Generally, a Blogger who posts three or four times a week is more in touch with their community than someone who posts once a week
• Also check for the tone of the posts, sometimes a positive post can be written with little sarcastic, this might leave many thoughts in the reader’s mind, be careful to look at that aspect
• Research on where all, a particular blog is been referred, most of the times influential Blogs are referred on other Blogs, this will also gain insights of the reliability and genuineness of an influential Blog, not just referred on Social platforms
• Never rely on the number of visits, as it can tweaked. Best thing is to look at the number of posts and number of years a Blogger has been writing
• Have a check on the Blogs if there is an opening of Ad placements on the Blog, those Blogs can be too commercial and cannot be guaranteed of genuine reviews on a particular product
• There are few Blog who just links to other Blogs, should not be considered

Tip # 2: Provide Common Ground- And Be Convincing

How do you convince Bloggers to write about you? You must make an effort to customize your emails to these Bloggers. Capture their interest first, and then work on building a relationship. Remember – they don’t have to care about you or your product. You have an obligation to show them how it can benefit them and their readers.

Tip # 3: Giving Them Control, Make Them Feel Valued as Bloggers

According to a recent survey, it was found that majority of the Bloggers believed that it’s fine to write about products and services, given that they are free to write about it the way they want to. Give Bloggers that freedom. You can also give them something that they can give away to their readers. The easiest way to draw in large ‘crowds’ of readers is by offering a prizes, Goodies to a reader or a bunch of readers who will win in a contest. As for the mechanics of the contest, leave that to the blogger. The blogger probably knows his or her readers better than you. Entrust the prize and let the blogger create the buzz as they see fit.

On a final note, remember that it takes time and patience. When we pitch bloggers for clients, sometimes it takes pitching a 100 bloggers to get 10 positive responses. And, that’s okay. You want to find the ones that your message resonates with in a positive manner.

Cost of Inactivity

I would like to thank to one of my online friend – ISABELLE who has been actively discussing with me on this matter, The Best part of our discussion was coming up with a  new perspective to look at “Cost of Inactivity” rather than analyzing it through ROI, Cost per click etc etc.

Inactivity has been an important concern in the Social Media World especially in the Indian Markets. Social Media has been very successful in other countries. India has still yet to taste the response of Social Media. Yes there are many companies who have started using Social Media as one the mediums to engage people. But they are not completely in it. The current perception of the Indian market is still restricted to contests, Campaigns to engage users and not discussions, brainstorming and other Crowd sourcing activities. Indian brands are still skeptical to act transparent to the actual people and still looking at different ways to control these mediums in either restricting themselves on tools or content.

But Social Media is more than just sharing a company’s information, their operations, their expansion plans, service etc. Social Media is also, giving an opportunity to the people to participate in one’s brand conversations, such as brand enhancements and many more. It need not have to be specific to the brand but a relative activity of the brand. Ultimately what people look for is an opportunity to converse with people on different possible discussions, express their views, frustrations, ideas etc. where they would like make some value additions. The Best example of is the Idea Campaign, it does have an emotional connect as well as involve people in the brand’s Initiatives.

There is one more reason why Brands in India are not very keen in involving real people in their activities, as the fear of conversations going against them. But, its worth taking a risk.

It needs a long term strategy to develop good relationships with the real people. An ideal social media strategy should span across between 3 to 6 months. Social Media strategies are little time consuming, but in this case we are building a communication support to backup our promotional activities. It just like somebody approaching you with a product which has no history and future. Everyone needs some supporting, not just appearing it on Hoardings, Electronic media, but also adding some personalized touch to it.

Brands still look at one big Idea, than looking at simple strategies to support it. And this kind of practice is dangerous for a brand image. Moreover, just being listed on all popular social media services, will not be considered as being active on it. One has to talk to people, ask their reviews, involve them in the brand’s survey processes and also involve them in possible brainstorming processes. This will certainly place any brand to a customer’s expectation and also building brand loyalty. People wants their concern to be considered. So far we have been hiding and running away from their concerns, and naturally that leads a Brand Disaster in the coming future. Moreover, being active is so important as there is immense competition around the brands itself. Lets understand one thing, being inactive is far more expensive than being active. Here are some important aspects to look at it:

1. Misunderstanding towards a Brand
2. Loosing valuable customers without knowing
3. Negative Influence
4. Misinterpretation of the customers  expectation and hence ending up in a loose out
5. Advantage for the competitors
6. Negative conversations going out of control damaging the Brand Reputation
7. Very difficult to convince and provide possible justification on a claim or an incident
8. Loosing out good opportunities to connect with consumers directly and also understanding their expectations
9. Spending lot of money on the research companies, with assumptive survey reports
10. Unwanted Redirection of Valuable Conversations
    

Looking at so many possible disadvantages, Is Being Inactive Worth a try ?

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.

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?

Awareness Drives Sales

Recently I had to speak to one client regarding a digital promotion of a book.
As usual, I was pitching will all kinds of explanations, how digital can help you… what kind of tool we will be using to build awareness across the digital space. After all these conversations, the client says “I want 2 lac copies of my book to be sold” Give me an assurity that you can sell 2 lac copies of my book through digital Communications.

I was pretty much surprised with this reaction from the client.

I even took it positively and asked the client that when he is planning to launch the book, “he said – well roughly in 15 days”. I smiled and I said that Digital Communications needs at least 1 month to do the foundation work. In such as short period there is an expectation of selling 2 lac copies. Well I guess nobody knows about this book and about the Author. So It is going be little difficult but we will surely take it as a challenge. But the client kept on insisting about the sale of 2 lac copies. Now this was one of my conversations with one of my clients, which did not turn out to be my client, as he wants to sell only 2 lac copies of the book and make money out of it.

There is a clear and simple logic towards any marketing activity,

“Awareness Drives Sales” – Every marketer knows that without awareness there cannot be any sale towards any product or any service. Similarly in digital Communications nothing can be sold or nothing be absorbed without giving proper information about it. Consumers who are connected to you online are very curious to know each and everything you communicate, and perceive it accordingly. This is the most difficult phase for any marketer at the same time yet challenging, because consumers will have different thoughts and different approach to anything they absorb, naturally comments, reviews & questions will be asked by them and sometimes it is difficult to answer by any marketer, in such a case one needs to be connected with them from the beginning so that one knows about them and how they interact and what is their thought process accordingly they questions, comments can be answered and justified.

Every single step should be planned so that we don’t miss out any kind of communication with the consumer. Similar to any traditional marketing activity a proper profiling, proper communication needs to be established between the seller and consumer. This is only possible if there is any home work done at the sellers end. One should understand that though the digital communications helps any one to reach their consumers directly, but a consumer would not interact with you directly on what you want to offer. In order to achieve that, one needs to be present in all possible ways and build an awareness program initially. Let people know “who you are”, “What is your passion”, “what is your background”, “what is your objective in reaching the consumers directly”. Let people in the web space know about your thoughts about what you feel and about what you think towards your profession, product, service etc. This way initially you will be known to people and then that identity will help you to interact with your consumers. If one tries to offer a product, service etc directly, then there will be no difference between a seller who sells their products without building relationships with the consumers. In this case he will be able to sell his products only once to the consumers… And this would be a bad business practice.

Lot of people doesn’t think about how awareness can drive sales to their company or product. If one observes carefully, only awareness drives sales and nothing else. In short, no sensible marketer will assure a fixed number of sales to any product. But the awareness program needs to be built strategically so that on every step we communicate right kind of information about a product. and also can maintain a record of what is been communicated, so that in later stages we can even review what is been communicated to avoid misunderstandings. In digital Communications, none can sell or talk about their service, product directly until a strong relationship is been established.

And that’s the beauty of Digital Communications. Infact using Digital Communications means connecting your consumers directly without any mediators between. So that gives the answer to all queries in Digital Marketing

Influential Jounalists of the World Wide Web

Everybody must be surprised who are these New Journalists of World Wide Web (WWW). Well lot of people has assumptions and predictions. But the fact lies is very soon bloggers will be known as the most powerful and sensible journalists online. So fasten your seat belt.

You can be a Blogger, provided if you are focused on what you are writing. Let me give a close comparison with our traditional journalists. Our traditional journalists are focused and they write on their chosen topic. For eg: they write on Entertainment, Aviation, Pharmaceuticals, Lifestyle, Celebrities, Engineering, Finance, Sports, retail, infrastructure etc. In conventional PR, we actually rely on these journalists for our client’s communication. We develop stories in the form of press releases and we get in touch with the respective journalists who write on the relevant industry. The journalists are very selective about their stories and write it based on the news provided to them.

The new journalists of WWW (World Wide Web) seem to be very close to them. A Blogger is focused about what he is writing and the kind of topic he chooses. They own a Blog which is itself a news aggregator and based on the individual Blog’s readership the news travels online. The only difference is 10 to 15 conventional journalists or editors work for one single News publication i.e Times of India, DNA, Indian Express. Yes, But, there are few journalists who do freelancing and they seem to be distributing their stories on multiple publications. A Blogger seems to have ownership of his/her News Publication i.e a Blog and has more than 10 million readerships sometimes. But it all depends on what is he/she is Blogging on. Well, again Blogging is not for everybody. I don’t say that you cannot become a blogger, but it all depends on what is your objective towards Blogging. There are many cases when I come across who say that I am a Blogger and they don’t have focus on what they write and how they write. Blogging also depends on how frequently you Blog and what kind of quality information does your Blog have. Blogging does not end in some time. Many new blogger s who have just thought of starting their Blog and, they sometimes feel that they will publish 50 to 60 articles and would gain good readership… that’s it… But the difficult part of being a genuine Blogger is to regularly post articles till your blog is up. There have been cases, where people have been Blogging for more than 6 years and they are still actively going on. Anyone who has a Blog does not naturally become a Blogger. There should be some focus and some objective towards Blogging. Earlier, Bloggers use to write just because they like writing just as we write our personal diaries. But it got evolved in the earlier years. Now, Blogging seems to an important part of information distribution channel. But this is many people’s assumption. Even though there has been no direct conclusion on it. We still seem to be very fond of bloggers and their writing. Because many a times its their self opinion which matters a lot to drive the influential marketing online. Lot of PR agencies or the Corporate have started relying on their opinions. Because the best part of a Blogger is he/she never writes or adds information as it is. Rather they take their own time to understand, perceive and then write on it in their own version & style. Now that sounds very interesting and very much realistic. But it works both the ways, most of the times positive and at times negative also as it is their personal opinion. But genuine bloggers do understand it well and come out with very logical and sensible opinions which drive lacs and lacs of traffic towards their Blog on daily basis and simultaneously to other destinations where the actual information belongs to

Why I chose to write about Bloggers being the most powerful journalists on WWW is because it very much connects to my old post – THE REAL TIME NEWS. As this particular post adds lot of value to it. After reading this post people might think that most of the information written in this post is towards Blogging. Absolutely NOT.. Sometimes you have to know the characteristics to understand a character.

Genuine Content Drives Marketing – Written Communication works effectively than Verbal Communication – Consumer Content Marketing

Today I am trying to speak out my thoughts on how content or written communication can be effective to marketing communications as well as Consumer Approach  Communications

whatever I write or whatever I think,  I always try to relate with some real life examples…

Okay sounds interesting…

One Real Life example:

We had a great New-year. Me and my wife did’nt go anywhere and didn’t have any fun that night. We thought of celebrating this new-year through quarrelling with each other.. hmmmm..thats the story of every married couple. L I was very excited on 31^st morning and was expecting some last moment plans. Suddenly my cousin called me and asked me to accompany him at some resort where he had passes for. I really got carried away. But unfortunately my wife had to go to office the next morning. So I asked my cousin to tell her that he wants me to come with him. Listening to this I called her. She banged the phone and then I realized the possible danger at home that night. So I wrote her an SMS

Me – “Hey sweetheart I m not going anywhere. I m sorry I got carried away sweety. I am coming early home by 5 & be with you” – 26 words

My wife replied to it - “I hate 2 faced ppl u bluff u dnt hav money m married 2 d mst selfish man dnt use ur cousin 4 ur purposes nw I will make it a pnt nt 2 b wit u plz dnt show me ur face2day n tmrw wnt 2 b alne m serious. Just go to hel nw I no hw much u realy care wl nt be wit u on my b’day also bye…”  – 73 words

Me – “trust me sweety u were always in my mind it just happened that way . this year I want to start happily with u. let us forget all these things, trust me I did’nt any such intentions & my cousin was about to sponser on it and forget it u will still think the same L (a smiley or other emoticons does matter in these cases)”
– 66 words

My wife replied to it – “dats d reasn u initiated dis plan. Hav no reasn 2 trust u on dis. 4get it I still wish 2 b alne bye tak care” – 26 words

Me – “I didn’t reply anything to it. Just kept quite and anticipating a message from her”

My Wife replied to it – Milk has nt cum – 4 words

[In my above interaction with my wife which was written communication and not verbal, really helped saving my day. I could even got her convinced.]

My overall view point on this is to show how effective can written communication be. Same way whatever we write to our consumers or whatever we promote should try to speak their language. I have seen so many other marketing communications; it does have any clarity in the message and does not connect them. Every consumer will like to feel special about whatever is being offered to him. One should develop a customized communication to reach our targeted consumers. Online marketing, rather social media marketing do follow these tactics. We cannot write messages with jargons or technical words. Social Media Marketing does not encourage jargon based communication. It needs to be simple and connect everyone. But I am not saying that it needs to be in casual tone. But whatever communication we develop should be very simple and self explanatory.

I receive lot of emails from Banks, Insurance companies, Clubs & Resort for Membership. I just don’t feeling like reading them at all. Maybe that is the strategy of mass mailing system. But every marketer in similar industry needs to change they way they approach. What if we target 100 Customers and communicate with them the way they want it to be. I am sure 80 people would turn out to be your genuine customers.

Old ways of Marketing such telemarketing, Teaser Marketing etc no more works. How many people would like to receive calls from unknown people who try to pitch for new deals and offers. Yes, but a well explained email, sms or a message would surely provoke a customer to read through it. Especially when an email gives you insight of how can insurance help you in your near future. What if you don’t have insurance, what are the possible problems you might face. These are just examples.

What I am trying to make all the marketers clear is that POPUP marketing and direct marketing does not work anymore. Lets use mediums through which a consumer would like to be contacted. Show him insights of it. Lets not show them a comparative report about how many customers do you have or how many branches do you have or how big your organization is, but what we offer and how we offer is important.

I am very much close to permission based marketing. But I am not talking about it. I am trying to explain that people need time to go through and would like to act upon their convenience. A nicely written email can do miracles to your business. Not an embedded emailer or a telemarketing executive which does not connect to your needs, but interrupts you in every possible way. I have also observed one more aspect of the telemarketing executives. For eg: They offer a deal or a scheme and we say we are not interested, but you know twhat hey ask you “WHY”    

I certainly don’t blame them, because they have enough pressures to meet their targets. But the entire marketing strategy goes wrong this way.

I receive lots of emails with embedded emailer which does not speak anything to me. It just acts like an online banner. Hey guys what am I achieving by looking at it. It does not speak about my needs, It does not even interact. And I also know that it has been sent by an automated system.

What consumers look for is Real thing & not Reel thing. May be a representative interacting from an HSBC corporate office and not from an outsourced call centre would interest me to look into their offerings. The whole point revolves is consumers want a real approach which connects them with the offerings. Same way people can also report their complaints and can be assured of responses.

Social Media Marketing revolves on written communication; people ask me queries on Social Media marketing or digital PR. Sometimes the questions are very difficult but I am able to answer them b’coz I get time to prepare myself and answer them.

Let me give one more example to it.

In Traditional PR, we have Press meets, Press conferences, one-on-one media interaction who are always ready to ask many questions in a typical way  about the organization or some mistakes unintentionally came across . PR agencies do train their client in how to reply journalists or reporters but its very difficult to give a justified answers to spontaneous questions being asked by the media. So why not develop a different medium where those actual things can also be communicated.

Say an angry consumer reacting to the problems faced though a product might be very difficult to handle face to face. But if the same person is online react the same way, especially with bloggers & direct consumers, its easier to handle them through written communication at the same can also convince a customer throughout. My only idea is  to also tap the online medium along with other  mediums. Especially negative articles published online can be converted into positive reviews through proper communication from the organization’s representative. This needs a complete participation, interaction using Social Media. This helps an organization to avoid further damages to their image.

Similar way I tried to convince my wife in not reacting further to the incident

Digital Marketing – You can’t afford to ignore

This is the only thought I always carry whenever I meet a new client for pitch presentations on Digital Marketing. I always choose to meet the actual decision makers because they are the one who needs to understand how digital marketing can help enhance their brand loyalty and values.  Because Digtial  Marketing needs complete transparency in the information or deals provided to them. Hence the actual decision makers has to be present while understanding how digital Media works and reacts. Even though many times I end up meeting other part of the organizations. I don’t blame them, because everyone who is in charge of marketing always follows the proven methods of marketing. But there has to be a clear thought process and one needs to have enough exposure towards all kinds of marketing.

All the smart marketing professionals do understand the importance of digital Marketing and its reach. One thing everyone should be open is for new ideas and news mediums to explore, which drives marketing communications for their respective companies.

I have met many clients in India where they are not even open for discussions on Digital Marketing, because they are scared of being written wrongly. I agree, since web is a open platform and anybody can write anything about anyone. But what have we done to overcome it? If something is written against you or any wrong information is published.

Let me give an example:

In the traditional media there is a control on what’s written on a brand, service or a personality. Despite of all these things there have been so many articles which are been wrongly published or wrongly quoted. Brands do take care of it through their PR agencies… right…, but what is the use of taking care after the first damage is done. If something wrong has to happen or if somebody wants to write wrongly about anything, they would still write. Same is on WEB. Lot of clients say that we don’t want to carry out any marketing programs online, as sometimes it back fires them. But how? I don’t see a reason to it on why one should not use web as a medium to communicate their marketing or awareness initiatives. Why does one think like that? In fact there is a great influence on the brands through web. It may be a Babycare product or it might be techno gadget. Everybody relies on web for detailed information right from the cost to reviews. And it really matters to ones buying decision.

Let me come back to the topic where we were discussing about how one can write negatively about a brand, service or a personality – on the web. For any product & service, there is criticism & applauds. It all depends on how one carries it forward. If there is criticism, one has to come forward & give enough justification and show transparency towards their practices. I am sure it will not take much of time to convert criticism into applauds. But one needs to be proactive to go ahead and work accordingly towards it. After all why do we have programs such as online monitoring, Online Reputation Management etc, presence in Social Media. All these programs do help an organization or a brand to actually overcome all these hurdles. Well Digital Marketing follows a different set of rules on marketing & PR. One needs to really think out of their old ways of marketing and handling customers. I even mentioned in one of my articles that it is no more a sellers market, hence it’s a buyers market. And buyers do expect direct information, direct reach and transparency in ones communication.

Many marketing professionals do ignore this medium, but what are we doing about those suspicious comments made on the brands in the digital medium. If we don’t bother about it, it might bother us in future. In every marketing practice there is something called anticipation which leads the future of any organization.

To share with:

I had come across a brand called Nestle. Surprising there are so many social Groups on “Boycott Nestle”. Which has more 3,000 users each in the group? I am sure Nestle is not doing anything to manage their online presence. With the extension of Internet Bandwidth and more Internet service providers in the market. Very soon we will find every single person in this country having a Personal computer and an internet connection. I am sure Brands, service industries etc will have a tough time to convince users. So, its time that we build our presence and be ready for all kinds of possible hurdles. Lot of marketing professionals do think of competition, but how many competitive promotions are really genuine enough to be worth called as competitive. People do have enough spending affordability. The only thing they look for is genuine deals. Even if it little out of their budgets but they do see how loyal the marketer are. As that affects their relationship with the marketers in the long run. I hate to see Teaser marketing promotions which follow “Conditions Apply”. In the current scenario this is the most attractive marketing practice but yet it is proven to be very wrong marketing practice. Lot of marketing professional might not agree. But where is the trust in the brand, which every organization looks for. Are we are not targeting long term relationships with our customers? Are we going to sell only one product to the customer in all our future marketing practices? Certainly not…

All I have to say about Digital Marketing is an organization needs to be very transparent when you are directly reaching your consumers and hence rather face them than avoiding them. Because they are ones who can bring success to any business in the world. And digital marketing multiplies your business to X10 times to any other main stream media activities. But they are equally important at times.