Social Media and Digital Marketing Blog

How to Write an LinkedIn Professional Headline Effectively?

2010-07-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

How many of you would take a look at profile that is trying to say “CEO of Miniscule Technologies” – Well, I am sure ‘Not Many’ as that restricts the boundary of your ‘Personal Brand’. The best way to go about a ‘Professional Headline’ on LinkedIn is to describe your personal brand in those limited characters assigned to you. Believe me, it is not a difficult task.

Professional Headlines are nothing but shortened version of your profile. A headline helps you sum up your professional identity in a short phrase. Usually when you register your profile on LinkedIn with a little of information, LinkedIn creates a professional headline for you automatically. But, as LinkedIn says and as I believe creating your own headline would be much more effective than the one we select.

Tips to Write a Professional Headline:

1. Ensure you first list down all your personal branding commandments on a paper or a notepad.

2. Choose the top 5 and ensure you summarize them in words, crisp them into 120 characters.

3. Keywords are essential. Incorporating keywords related to services your offer will help you get traced fast on the LinkedIn search option.

4. Do not miss out on your designation as that is essential keyword for many to search and generate a contact behavior (perception) for the person trying to reach you.

Example: (Social Media, PPC, SEO and Email Marketing Expert | 10 years Industry Experience in India| CEO @ Miniscule Tech) – This defines the depth of the experience, services and the position the person holds.

Below are few examples of impressive Professional Headlines on LinkedIn:

1. The person has only one "Personal Branding" statement that could evoke action for contact:

2. The individuals below have neatly crushed their strong personal branding statements in 120 characters involving keywords:

3. Professional Headline that has got no 'Personal Branding' sentence but involves keywords and statement that could raise curiosity resulting in action for contact:

Successful Social Media Day the Social Way Celebrations organized by Echovme Team

2010-06-30T12:27:00.001-07:00

When: 30th June, 6. 30 PM Onwards

Where: Unwind Centre (Gandhi Nagar, Adyar)

Crowd Introduction: Nearly 70 people gathered for the Social Media Day celebrations in Chennai. To surprise, it wasn’t just the city youth part of this fascinating day but there were house wives, CEOs, students, professionals and other individuals who added a lot of value to the conversational session.

About the Setup: Unwind Centre was the place chose for the celebrations. Unwind centre mark the remark of band culture that swings in adrenaline of positivity in an individual. The setup showcased projector, banner, balcony (seating arrangement) and yellowish atmosphere (that you will notice in the picture below).

Session: The show started with my introduction to the Social Media Day concept and how the growth of Social Networking sites is augmenting in India on daily basis. It continued with a note on how the pure social networking is taking shapes of social business and digital activism. The introduction also explained in detail the concept of ‘Social Media Day the Social Way’.

Social Media Day the Social Way: It is a concept to create a social atmosphere by supporting a cause. In today’s meetup we had three causes registered:

- PETA ( People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)
- PUNYA (Helping the deprived ones)
- Sharemycake.org

All the three were introduced. PETA and PUNYA were supported monetarily. Sharemycake.org wanted to create awareness and the concept was introduced to the audience. Rs. 4,000/- was collected from the participants of this event that would be divided between two registered causes (PUNYA and PETA).

Educational Factor: We started with 140 character tweeduction of participants, followed by a platform to discuss ‘How Social Media has influenced lives’. Few participants had amazing stories to share relevant to Social Media and Success. The session went on to shape up as panel discussion amongst the strong Social Media users from Chennai. Few questions that were answered in the discussion;

- How Social Media is professionally used on a low budget for marketing.
- How Social Media life and personal life is balanced.
- How can Social Media be used to better influence the life.

Fun Factor: We had Housie / Lotto game running for the crowd. Random numbers were picked and announced by show stealers Mr. Ram Subramaniam, Ms. Aarti krishnakumar and Ms. Nadhiya Mali (The active Social Media users based out of Chennai). There were 3 prizes / gift for different lines of housie.

Special thanks to

Echovme team – Ponsakthi, Karthik and Niranjan.
Photographers: Shantapa, Shankar (Budding photographer)
Sponsors: Basics Life, Chennai Plywoods
Participants

Photos of the Event:

6 Pointers for Personal Branding via Social Media

2010-06-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

It’s called the Attention Age that we are living in right now; with the advent of the Web 2.0 the common man is his own brand. A person and his career together can be defined as a personal brand, you sell yourself over the net and it’s not without good reason that this trend is on the upward swing. Social Media has taken made the role of the consumer dynamic. Now people actually want their brands to be marketed to them in a specific way, and what better way to do it than do it yourself? With user generated contents you can effectively diversify your audience on your Personal Brand. Now that you have established yourself as a brand, how do you go about marketing it? Let’s break it down to six easy pointers.

- Availability
- Visibility & Credibility
- Approachability
- Passports
- Regularity
- Outsourcing

WHAT: Availability

WHY: A personal brand by itself cannot bring about any hits or comments; the personal brand is but a poster to your profile therefore unless there you are available to your target group, the brand can lose out on its steam very soon. Your presence creates a platform upon which your visibility can be built upon.

HOW: Make yourself available online to be able to respond to feedbacks and comments, a timely replied criticism can gain consumer confidence and help change people’s outlooks.

WAYS: On the first instance be a part of the most important social networking tool that is making a huge growth and impact; Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

WHAT: Visibility & Credibility

WHY: When you are being seen around the cyber space people tend to take notice, it is by simple curiosity that people will pause to take a closer look at your brand profile. And it creates an arc of interest on your domain or profile, and this in turn can bring in more people for inspection.

HOW: By storing your ego searches and registering yourself on search engines. It helps to create an easy access point to people who might come across your profile.

WAYS: Make your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profile visible in your signatures and regular activities. Get a blog submitted on search engines, directories and blogger communities. Do not forget to miss out on details, make your profile complete with all your personal branding statements that you think can be rewarded or appreciated by general audience.

WHAT: Approachability

WHY: Once you are being noticed, interested people tend to try and get in touch, reciprocating to a feedback helps build your brand better. A strong PR goes a long way in maintaining the image that you are planning on portraying to the target user.

HOW: Having a comments section would help make this possible and make sure you constantly respond to comments and criticism. Conduct discussions within a certain criteria so that it helps interaction between people avoiding post inflammation.

WAYS: Listen to what people are talking, engage with them, and offer the ecosystem a value by providing contents and creating engagement opportunity.

WHAT: Passports

WHY: Having accounts with various other social networking sites helps spread the word around about your personal brands. Linking your site on other social networking sites and blogs through outposts and RSS feeds can help amalgamate your Personal Brand and diversify to a larger audience.

HOW: Create a link on various sites to your domain (Can be done by writing interesting contents on blog and obtaining an authority), and create flogs and RSS feeds to constantly notify users on your prerogatives. This helps for an easier reach to the users.

WAYS: Apart from the above mentioned backlink methodology, have an email subscription option made available. Link Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn together to disseminate your thoughts everywhere equally. Participate in groups and forums. Join new tools such as Slideshare, YouTube, Scribd as value added tool to your social media activities.

WHAT: Regularity

WHY: A constantly updated site keeps existing users to keep coming back, and also to bring in newer people to the site. Confirm the site is in update to the latest trends and news; make sure to keep the layouts fresh without totally overhauling the basic core of your domain.

HOW: fresh blog posts can be added at constant intervals, news pertaining to latest trends can be used to help ascertain to the users that your site is under constant evaluation.

WAYS: Constantly update status messages. Networking with people online and taking it offline. Announce your daily professional activity with a little bit of personal value to it.

WHAT: Outsourcing

WHY: There are people who are good at a certain thing, and getting them to help you out with that certain aspect of your branding will make it that much more detailed. And with a subsidized workload, you can concentrate better in the promotion. Outsourcing is basically most helpful when you are expanding your Personal Brand to a wider horizon in terms of scale and output.

HOW: If you are able to afford it, having a creative consultant helping you with the aesthetics of your blog or brand helps attract people to look into your domain. People are in general very visual, meaning pictures are faster in reception and understanding than words.

WAYS: Team at Echovme does take care of the Personal Branding via Social Media, we engage with entrepreneurs and celebrities and maintain their personal branding accounts. We also allocate trainers to consult them on Social Media branding and help them leverage it.

Integrating Social Buttons with Email Campaign Increases the Response Rate by 55%

2010-06-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

GetResponse an email marketing provider recently released a report titled "Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report" integrating social media buttons to your email marketing template can increase the click through rate of email marketing by up to 55%. Other fascinating facts from the report were:

1. Adding social media sharing buttons created a click through rate 30% higher than email without social media sharing options.

2. Emails with a Twitter sharing option alone were among the most effective, with a 40% increase in click through rate for a Twitter button itself.

3. Integration has become key prime of the customers these days. Integrating Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Digg with email is increasing on a daily basis.

4. The button that worked most were Twitter and Facebook with highest Click Through Rate, LinkedIn and Digg recorded the lowest CTR.

5. The total number of social sharing links in each email message 60% of social emails linked to 1 network 26% of social emails linked to 2 networks, 8% linked to 3 networks and 6% linked to 4 or 5 networks

Reason being: Credibility of the emails get easily evaluated with the direct links to the company’s Social Media accounts that shows the human value of the email and makes them stand unique from usual bulks. Sharing email template on Social Media is not an easy task, integrating buttons allowing readers to share the information on Social Media spreads the word and increases the CTR of the email campaign.

Download Free Report Here

Celebrate Social Media Day in Chennai on 30th June

2010-06-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the First social Media Day team at Echovme has taken the responsibility to help the Social Media Information Giant MASHABLE organize a Mashable Meetup in Chennai on 30th June. What better way to celebrate social media than connecting with other enthusiasts in your area? The theme of this meetup is to Celebrate “Social Media Your Way”. Till now, for this Mega Meetup Worldwide more than 75 countries have confirmed their participation with 414 Meetups and beyond 5000 people officially confirming their presence for the meetup.

Event Description

• Time: 7:00 PM
• Date: 30th June Wednesday
• Venue: Echovme consulting Pvt Ltd, Gemini Parsn Manere, Nungambakkam (Above Hotel Veg Nation)
• Agenda:
- Quick Networking and Introduction (No Card Exchanging Please, that’s scheduled post event ;D)
- Answering Question in Minute on "Why & How Do You use Social Media"
- The Social Media Game and Fun!
- Contribute to a Cause (The way you want)*

*We call for the NGOs based out of Chennai to raise an issue that needs financial, social or awareness assistance. The NGO that gets majority supporters takes away the contribution.

• RSVP here: Mashable / Facebook

EAVB_KPIZTEFNVD

Social Media Usage Increased by 3 hours in April 2010

2010-06-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

April 2010 showcased 24% Increase in the Social Media or Blog visitors when compared with April 2009 says the research giant AC Nielsen. There has been 66% shift in the time spent on Social Media. The increase in visitors and time spent on Social Media indicates Marketers to involve Social Media in their marketing plan before their competitor’s take away the social media fame.

The report also revealed the following:

1. Globally, 75% of the internet users made a visit on social media (networking sites and blog) in April 2010, spending 22 percent of their online time that calculates to be more than 110 billion minutes on the whole.

2. In year 2009 (April), users spent 3 hours 31 minutes on Social Media that increased to 5 hours, 51 minutes in year 2010.

3. Facebook has hit the revolution by showcasing a massive increase in the number of subscriptions. It increased from 200 million to 500 million approximately in the span of a year and resulting in the 3rd most popular online brand with more than 50% internet users visiting the site. Google stood ahead with entertaining 82% of the internet users, Yahoo was fourth at 53 percent.

4. Facebook rocked the virtual world in April 2010 by making users spend at least 6 hours on average, where people spent only 1 hour 21 minutes on Google. It’s a good signal to advertisers on their banner ad network decision making.

5. Among the users (by country); social network users in Brazil were way more beyond expectations comprising of 82% share of the total internet users. On an average more than 7 hours was spent on Social Media by Australians, thus making it the leading country leaving America behind on third position with 6 hours, 43 minutes average time spent on Facebook.

Top 5 Reasons to Attend Social Media Workshop by SocialME

2010-06-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

Just after the event is over, I thought of upgrading this blog post to give you more insights about One Day Social Media and Business Workshop. Our first workshop in India was in Mumbai on 21st May 2010 with over 20 marketing enthusiasts (managers, CEOs and executives) taking part from different industry. The session in Chennai was conducted today 11th June 2010 at Hotel Breeze.

As a part of SocialME workshop blogging session we do a collaborative blogging, we picked a random topic on Top 5 reasons to attend Social Media workshop today and asked participants to contribute. Contribution mentioned below:

1. Knowledge up gradation
2. Compulsion (Registered on behalf)
3. Awareness of best practices in Social Media
4. Understand the business potential of Social Media
5. Turning marketing campaigns to be more efficient using Social Media.

Social Media Club Chennai 5th June Session Take Aways - Guest Blogging

2010-06-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

On the first Saturday of every month, few Social Media enthusiasts from Chennai unite together to bring exclusive session on Social Media to the Chennai city. On the 3rd session we had ex Google employees who rocked the show with their search and social media talents. Mrs. Priya Ramakrishnan (Content Head and Technical Writer at CMO Axis) was also the part of successful show, she took the opportunity to contribute as guest blogger on the take aways from the session.

From Mrs. Priya Ramakrishnan:

I was drawn to the Social Media Club Chennai when I read a presentation made by Mr.Sukumar Rajagopalan, Senior Vice President, Cognizant Technologies. A new entrant to Social Media, the web taught me enough and with browsing , sharing and applying some of the principles of Social Media, I considered myself an “SM specialist” – until I heard Jayshree Ramasubramian (Web Marketing Manager, Intuit) and Bharath Moro (ex-Googler and Visiting Faculty at Symbiosis Pune). I came back realizing how little I knew and what companies jumping into the Social Media bandwagon should be wary of. The speakers being ex-googlers have a head start in this field – they are able to analyze data and draw conclusions with much greater authority and clarity than any of us would ever be able to.

I have tried to capture some of the things that were said. Some of the pointers from Jayshree were from Intuit's Social Media Marketing perspective which I think are simple yet very important:

• Companies should give their employees “External Communication Training” which would include “what to say about your brand in Social Media” & “what not to say about your brand”– How very crucial for companies foraying into Social Media.

• What not to say would probably include
Company Strategy
“New to market”
Revenue of the company
Details of New Business Acquisition

Do not try to hard sell on Social Media – Social Media Marketing should focus on retaining the old and acquiring new customers.

Jayashree said Live Communities are very important and they provide for organic growth and the inner circle involvement. Jayshree also mentioned that Aspirational Value would bring in more involvement and also that emotional relevance played a key role as well. She also insisted on keeping the 'humanization' aspect as top priority of your Social Media activities is crucial as Social Media is not about selling products but about engaging with people and creating relationship.

Bharath Moro pointed out that the Number, Adjective and Trend is one way to write content to attract people to read. He also gave us an insight into the work culture at Google, which was also reflected in the speaker’s depth of knowledge, attitude and above all the humility that comes with knowledge. Thank you Sorav and the Social Media Club Chennai team for organizing these unique events.

Thank You Priya for your kind words and the blog post - Sorav

Report: Surfing Travel Sites the most popular activity amongst the Indian Internet Users

2010-06-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

A research conducted by ComScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, released a report on 2nd June on the top Travel sites in India. The report found that traffic to the Travel category grew to more than 14 million visitors in April, an augment of 50 percent from the last year, as a growing number of Indians turned to the expediency of the Web in search of travel deals and accommodations.

Quick report: Increase in Travel Portal Usage

1. Around 14 million people age 15 and older visited Travel sites in India in April, representing 37 percent of the total online population and an increase of 50% from the previous year.

2. As railways is most preferred travel choice by average Indian population people spend more time on railways ticket booking site (IRCTC) or information site (IndiaRailInfo) with 7.7 million visitors in April 2010, up 46 percent versus year ago.

3. Travel (hotel / flight) booking has been the popular most reason of engagement with Makemytrip.com followed by yatra.com (major travel portal rivals in online world).

4. Many sites such as Travelocity, IndiaRailinfo etc showed triple growth than last year.

5. Railways also rocked the show with the increase in amount of time spent on the railways portals ex: Indian Railways (average: 33 minutes, consumed 50 pages and visited nearly 4 times), IndiaRailInfo.com (34 minutes, 66 pages, 2 visits) and eRail.in (28 minutes, 38 pages and nearly 4 visits).

6. India is ranked second among all countries, behind only the United Kingdom, in terms of the average time spent per visitor in the category.

Reasons why travel related activities are on rise or the most popular in India:

1. Explore: More consumers are turning to the Web to fulfill their travel planning and booking needs. In fact, rural India to some extent now understands the value of online booking. Thanks to the online booking service started by Indian Railways.

2. Comparison: In the current economic climate, consumers are being more cost-conscious when making travel arrangements. With half of all visitors to the category frequenting two or more travel sites during the month, it’s clear that consumers are taking the time to diligently compare prices prior to completing their transaction.

3. Perception: General perception of people regards to the high charges levied by agents, make them move to the travel portals to confirm the present costs.

4. Information: Not all book tickets online, many prefer online travel portals as source of information related to flight / train / hotels details. Thus saving the phone call costs or avoiding the hassles of long queue on phone and exhaustive poor answers from the customer service executives.

5. Curiosity: Surfing the travel deals or the misleading banner advertisements by travel portals such as: “Flight Ticket at Rs. 1” lets curious individuals surf these travel sites more to hit the 1 Rs deal though they might know 1 Rs deal is not possible.

6. Necessity: Booking a railway ticket online is an easy option especially when it comes to ‘Tatkal’ booking. Tatkal booking is made easy via online ticketing as standing in the queue early in the morning before 8 AM is trouble for many.

Pros and Cons of MillatFacebook – My view

2010-05-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

Myself and Niran (Account Manager at ECHOVME) were talking about the recent Gyaneshwari Express blast in India, he introduced me to the ‘MillatFacebook’. Puzzled me did a speedy web surfing and found MillatFacebook is for Pakistanis who are not able to access Facebook any more, or for Muslims who have abandoned the site as protest, an replica of Facebook called ‘MillatFacebook has been set up’.

I had this question running in my mind, MillatFacebook is just another ordinary Muslim community then why so much of fuss? There is a reason behind this: Access to Facebook was banned in Pakistan earlier this month due to a group promoting the portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad. Which is considered the ultimate profanity in Islam. Six young IT professionals from Pakistan’s capital Lahore, decided to launch their own version of the social networking site. Millat Facebook is envisaged as a site run for Muslims, by Muslims, but “sweet people from other religions” are also welcome to join in (not too sure of what does Sweet people mean, is there any eligibility criteria to be termed as sweet individual?). Below mentioned are my views on pros and cons of MillatFacebook:

Pros of MillatFacebook

1. Religious community, as it grows makes the perceptions and actions towards religion stronger.

2. Connects likeminded individuals.

3. No fear of getting banned as it is the parent body.

4. Penetration of Social Media might also go to rural parts of countries to the small Muslim communities as the part of supporting community or protest against bodies that have banned Facebook for Pakistanis.

5. Can be a reason to foster and implement computer education & internet usage in Muslim nations.

Cons of MillatFacebook

1. Though I do not support this fact there is a strong belief by many that origin of terrorism is from Muslim communities. This online community especially designed for Muslims and by Muslims may be keenly watched worldwide to track terrorists or conversations related to terrorism.

2. Such communities dilute Facebook population and gives thought to other religions to create one for them, thus loosing the essence of Social Media. As Social Media is people centric and not religion centric.

3. This community might be the reason to create many ‘Hate Groups’ and promote terrorism as the privacy policies, restrictions and governance of the community will not be as strong as in case of Facebook.

For ex: The fuck India community created by Pakistanis on Facebook can be reported under racist section by Indians or other people world-wide. Similar action of reporting might not be possible in the closed communities as ‘Millat Facebook’.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my thoughts as possibilities, it wasn't intended to hurt any individuals’ feelings or religious communities.

SocialME's Social Media and Business Workshop in Mumbai on May 21st 2010

2010-05-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

ECHOVME is launching its workshop wing SocialME in Mumbai on May 21st 2010. “Social Media and Business” is the title of the workshop that aims to bring together the Business, Marketing, Sales, HR, PR and Communication professionals to explore the potential of Social Media with ‘hands on experience’. This energetic workshop consists of Demonstrations, Practical hands on experience, Videos, Presentations, Online Interaction, Debates, Case Studies and more. Few significant points that you would explore at Social Media one day workshop for business are:

* Social Media Business Ecosystem
* How to use Social Media for business growth and track competitor’s footprint
* The potential of Inbound Marketing
* How to use Social Media tools for marketing, demand generation and brand building.
* How to develop Social Media campaign goals and set critical metric of success.
* How to use Social Media from different perspective of business Branding, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Service, Online Reputation Management and more.
* Social Media Marketing Ecosystem best practices
* Importance of Personal Branding
* Practical Social Networking knowledge.

Th session is ideal for professionals who wants to explore the business potential of Social Media with 'hands on' Social Media. The agenda and other details can be found here>>. The event will take place on May 21st 2010 from 8.30 AM to 6 PM and the ticket costs Rs. 2000/- (exclusive of taxes, ticket can be purchased from the ticketing partners eventnu)

Facebook Open Graph Fuss! - My Take

2010-05-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

Facebook’s recent Open Graph announcement has been making all the news. While many have heralded the dawn of Web 3.0, the media, unable to comprehend the excitement going all around the web, have crowned Facebook as the new Google, making ambitious assertions over how the popular ‘like’ button could replace the links, the raison d’etre behind Google’s monopoly over the web. Whoahh! If we could let the feverish excitement peter down for a while, we shall begin our journey to understand what it means for the future of the web.

An introduction to Open Graph

What is Open Graph? What is so open about it?

It’s an ambitious conceit daring to change the fundamental core of our web experience. The timing could not have been any better, considering the tsunamic explosion of social media in the recent years. It is one of the first steps in realizing Sir Tim Berners Lee’s vision of building a semantically aware web where information is organized based on individual engagement with the information along with its relevance, thus opening up the silos of information.

Let us start our journey from Facebook to understand this further.

Most of us are familiar with Face Book ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ features where links and photos are featured in the news feed, recommended by our social network. Several social networking sites which sprang up after Face Book began to incorporate such features and began to annotate the information users shared in the network.

Social Islands

The volcanic explosion of such social networks in the recent years led to creation of several huge social islands, populated by a passionate set of adopters, who began to share their lives in these islands. They had to undergo the trouble of trudging through them as they played different roles in each of them, built to suit their needs with distinct characteristics. Using social Plugins that would enable “like” buttons in every website, Face book will create a common platform that would merge these social islands into unified, whole network. This would help in creating Linked data, as envisioned by Sir Tim Berners Lee, dramatically changing the purview in which information is sought.

So what’s the fuss all about?

• While this experiment sounds exciting, it will be naïve to assume that this would replace the world of links. While we might depend on our peer group to decide on the restaurant we wish to go, we would rather prefer an expert opinion when we are about to decide the course of treatment for a specific symptom.
• It would be pragmatic to perceive open graph as an added dimension in which documents would arrange itself personally, along with the traditional page rank algorithm we are so used to.

Conclusion

I know what you’re thinking at. While Face book likes us to believe that the fears of piracy are unfounded, this experiment brings in the Benefits Vs Privacy Conundrum in far bigger scope than any other innovation in Facebook ever warranted. While it ambitiously seeks to integrate the various social islands we’ve built, it would work only if we are willing to lose control and repose trust in this panoramic web of networks which Face book strives to build.

One thing is for sure. The meaning of Viral Marketing would take a grander dimension, far beyond our conceptions, thus transforming the way businesses existed in the web. Exciting days are indeed ahead.

Report: Inbound Marketing Wins Over Outbound Marketing

2010-04-22T11:48:00.000-07:00

For last three to five years many a times there had been lot of conversations or debates on how well established brands have been concentrating more on inbound marketing over outbound marketing and how the way they are planning % of budgets should be invested in inbound marketing activities. Outbound Marketing is the traditional way of marketing such as activities like Cold Calling, TV Ads, Radio Ads, Print Ads, Direct Mailers, Seminars, Road Shows, Banner Advertising, Exhibitions, Leaflets and Brochures etc.

Outbound Marketing is activities that hope to reach out people and await response. It is certainly a great strategy that is expected to generate 80-95% of leads but on comparison with inbound strategy cost per lead or cost per sales is very expensive. Inbound marketing activity is art of generating demand that have higher quality of conversion and lower cost of acquisition. This art is mainly performed through Internet with a pull marketing strategy that meets the demand of the customers.

A recent survey conducted by the Hubspot (company that offers various free software and training to evaluate your online marketing activity) among 2500 business professional and after evaluating various data in their free tools like Website Grader, Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader, HubSpot confirmed statistics that proved inbound marketing is more effective and important.

Inbound Marketing Effectiveness:

The survey conducted showcased how cost per lead is higher in outbound marketing than the cost per lead in the inbound marketing. As we know how expensive today an advertisement on TV or print media would cost, going about Internet marketing is essential and strategically economical for brands to adopt alongside Outbound Marketing. Social Media and blogs are considered to be the most effective, where professionals are are trying to be ignorant to telemarketing, tradeshows and direct mail on comparing with inbound marketing.

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Importance of Inbound Marketing:

HubSpot compared its recent survey report with the last year one and identified how the value of outbound marketing is going down every year with ushering importance towards the inbound counterpart. Email, Social Media, SEO and Blogs have become more important in the last 6 months.

Inbound Marketing Increase in Budget:

There has been 51% increase on the inbound marketing in year 2010 spending when compared to year 2009 with a complete shift downside on the outbound marketing budget. Companies or professionals increasing their budget on inbound marketing in year 2010 are those who have got good past experience with inbound marketing in the post or the ones who would like to go for economical way of marketing.

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It is necessary for the brands to establish a inbound marketing team that maneuver the complete demand generation campaign via branding on web and marketing on search engines. Opt for a effective Inbound Marketing Strategy, as you can be the case study than following one.

61 Social Media Designations / Roles

2010-04-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here are few of the cool Social Media Designations that I thought of jotting down on request of Miss. Alpa Barot (Marketing Manager at Regalix). Individuals or companies can use this list to choose a suitable designation for their Social Media work person in the organization.

1. Social Media Guru
2. Social Media Explorer
3. Social Media Enthusiast
4. Social Media Buff
5. Social Media fanatic
6. Social Media Devotee
7. Social Media Admirer
8. Social Media Activist (for Marketers or PR at NGO)
9. Social Media Genius
10. Social Media Mastermind
11. Social Media Wiz Executive
12. Social Media Wiz Lead
13. Social Media Wiz Manager
14. Social Media Mavens
15. Social Media Addict
16. Social Media Pro
17. Social Media Entrant
18. Social Media Intelligence Executive / Manager
19. Social Media Guide
20. Social Media Marketing Freak
21. Social Media Marketing Designer (SMMD)
22. Social Media Strategic Planner (SMSP)
23. Social Media Analyst
24. Social Media Investor in Research
25. Social Media Chief Planning Officer
26. Social Media Fresh Explorers (for Freshers)
27. Social Media Hero
28. Social Media Marketing Specialist
29. Social Media Trend Setter
30. Social Media Observer
31. Social Media Heroine
32. Social Media Expert
33. Social Media Techie
34. Social Media Technician
35. Social Media Technologist
36. Social Media Analytics Pro/Expert/Guru
37. Social Media Marketing Innovator (SMMI)
38. Social Media Relationship Executive/Manager(SMRM)
39. Social Media Marketing Officer (SMMO)
40. Social Media Optimizer
41. Social Community Developer
42. Social Application Developer
43. Social Media Fellow
44. Social Media Contributor
45. Social Media Consultant
46. Social Media Coordinator
47. Social Media Community Manager
48. Social Media Editor
49. Social Media Communications Strategist
50. Social Media Program Manager
51. Social Media Marketing Director
52. Social Media Strategist
53. Social Media Creative Director
54. Social Media Blogger
55. Social Media Content Developer
56. Social Media Intern
57. Social Media Planner
58. Social Media Assistant
59. Social Media Freelancer
60. Social Media Associate
61. Social Media Capability Architect

I would be glad if you can contribute some more names from your creative acumen and make this list grow. Subscribe to Sorav's Social Media Blog by Email

Report: Social Media Referral Works in US and in India?

2010-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

US is known for its Internet boom and the advanced ecommerce scenario when compared to other countries in the world. The impact of Social Media Marketing can be better judged from the US of which maximum crowd actively engage with brands online or spend more time on Social Media comparatively.

US Scenario

A research conducted by Morpace on the consumers in US confirmed 68% of the consumers would increase their chances of purchasing a product or visiting a retailer if recommended by their friends or peers on facebook.

41% respondents meant being a fan is equal to supporting a brand and they preferred being fan to show to their friends what product they support. Aligned with other researchers, Morpace found that coupons and discounts were also key motives to join a fan page, cited by 37% of Facebook users. On average, users were fans of nine pages

More details on how active Hispanics are on Social Media can be found on the emarketer blog.

Indian Scenario:

In India as per my analysis and observation people share their feelings about the brand, complains, and ask questions on Social Media right from the era of Orkut. India is a country where decision is set or confirmed by peers and family members, today Social Media has become a potential source to obtain confirmation on decision and sharing on Social Media has become a vital part of the active Internet users which makes up to millions.

This is mere a assumption but the usual engagement and conversations, brand recommendations, queries is a usual process on the popular social networking sites besides on other Web 2.0 sites that is specifically designed for such purpose ex: Burrp.

Facebook Page Optimization - Is it the Next Business Model?

2010-04-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

With the recent hot news in the Social Media industry and the continuation of research in relevance to my predictions on my last blog post (Facebook is the Next Google), I made a presentation yesterday on 'Facebook Page Optimization - Is It the Next Business Model?' This presentation is a piece from the research on how facebook is searched and used for search in current social media scenario. This presentation concludes with the situation today and forecast for tomorrow.

The research on this topic is still going on and will continue with time. I hope you like this presentation of 8 slides and the comment section here is open for your comments.

Facebook Page Optimization - Is It The Next Business Model?

View more presentations from Sorav Jain.

Sorav is hosting a one day bootcamp session on Social Media Marketing in Chennai. Details here: www.echovme.com

Report: Double the power of Social Media Marketing with Email

2010-04-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

Misconceptions made clear by a survey conducted by emarketer. As the buzzword ‘Social Media’ was making its prominent entry there were conversations, debates and arguments over Email being the medium at the exit edge. If you are an active Social Media user or a marketer that creates a Social Media strategy you would agree to the fact that Social Media strategy needs a strong combination of email, reason being; “not all are active on Social Media”. It is not just activeness of users but many Social Media campaigns needs its continuation on email or just start by informing users of company’s entry into Social Media.

27% respondents of 2010 Marketing Trends survey says they will integrate Social Media into their email marketing program, whereas; 43% are agreeing for implementation but are not sure how to go about it. For example: Lot of email flyers today has links to company’s twitter, Facebook, micro community or LinkedIn profile. Similarly, individuals are using their personal profile links on emails to connect with people on Social Media.

Why Email and Social Media integration?

Social Media extends the reach of the content or message in the email to the new markets. If Social Media links or share options are made available in the email that helps marketers in obtaining good WOM.

Companies that are active on Social Media have got one advantage: they add a remark to their brand reputation by being available on the networking world to engage with customers. Similarly, when your email shows your activism on the networking tools it leads to brand awareness and perception.

An Email Marketing Bench Mark Survey conducted by emarketer confirms Social Media increases the ROI of Email Marketing campaign for many marketers by increasing brand awareness, obtaining qualified leads and augmenting the growth of email lists.

Social Media Marketing Bootcamp in Chennai - B2B Perspective

2010-04-06T23:18:00.000-07:00

Digital marketing is no more an option or an opportunity it’s the need of the hour and going the right way about it is the competitive necessity. One thing wonderful about this industry is, there is something new everyday. The processes aren’t traditional, it is crowded with innovations. It is difficult to keep up with the rapid changes and innovations. We understand the kind of dedication and passion it takes to always be on top of the latest trends in digital marketing.

ECHOVME is starting with one day practical hands on Social Media Marketing sessions that would help you explore:

• Introduction to Social Media Marketing Ecosystem
• How to analyze the business’ (and the competitor’s) Social Media footprint
• How to choose the right platforms for the Social Media campaign
• How to use tools for marketing.
• How to develop Social Media campaign goals, strategy and set critical metrics of success
• The right measurement tools for the business’ goals & objectives
• Social Media Marketing Ecosystem best practices
• Importance of Personal Branding
• How to perform Social Media activity to boost your SEO rankings.
• Practical Social Network Knowledge - Registration, Targeting, Promoting, Conversing, Creating buzz (any 3)

• Youtube
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Slideshare
• Ning / Groupsite
• Blogging

This intensive training is built upon an interactive, face-to-face exchange of ideas and best practices, giving organizations the tools they need to successfully build and implement their Social Media strategy

The Session would involve:

Demonstrations, Practical hands on experience, Videos, Presentations, Online Interaction, Debates, Case Studies, Live Blogging, Live Tweeting, Live Activities on Facebook, Facebook Fan Page / Community Development, LinkedIn Activities, Slideshare Usability, Integration possibilities, fun and lot more.

Session is Usable for:

CEO, CMO, CFO, Marketing Managers, Business Development Managers, MARCOM managers, Sales Managers and Creative Directors.

You can purchase your tickets at: Eventnu

Social Media Chennai Inaugral Session on Marketing

2010-04-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

On April 3rd we had Mr. R Naryanan the CEO of 2020 Media at the first Social Media Club Chennai session on ‘Successful Social Media Marketing’. We missed out Mr. Krish Ashok (The Innovation head Web 2.0, TCS) as he was stuck in something unexpected.

Session started with quick round of introduction about members, enthusiasts and organizers, followed by a wonderful presentation by Mr. Naryanan on Social Media and Journalism. Mr. Naryanan discussed with us how Social Media in India is creating a hype that either creates over expectations or confused expectations.

Gartner Hype Cycle:

He placed social media in to Gartner Hype cycle- Innovation trigger, peak of inflated expectations, slope of enlightenment, trough of disillusionment, plateau of productivity and stated ‘Blogs have gone past the peak of inflated expectations, where as Social Media on the overall level is reaching the heights’

About Innovation & Hype

Innovations are of two kinds internal and external innovations. Narayanan said External innovation is often sold to businesses through carefully crafted marketing strategies. As hype created on Social Media is connected to journalism it arises from interplay of innovation qualities and human nature. Ideas often behave as an independent viral entity, internet has acted as an accelerator of such contagion. Social media is subject to same hype that has created a buzz in the industry but there is no single value proposition that a social media agency could quote to their client. Social Media is largely PR controlled by public and not by agencies.

India and Social Media

*In India early adopters of Social Media will have an advantage. Early adopters are *unsure what to expect, but they are keen to adopt.
*Lack of understanding of the medium.
*Out of <6% English speaking population of India 3% active on Internet.
*The Internet users are urban populace that has strong purchase power.
*Social Media is largely a PR that is triggered and managed by public media gets benefited out of it.
*Strategies on Social Media needs to be designed and implemented in a way that could compliment to the present business scenario and should not to be considered as only medium of promotion.

The session ended by a question round followed by networking lunch.

Thanks to Mr. Shrinindhi for compiling down Mr. Naryanan's speech.

Pics of the event:

Myself Introducing the Event and Club

Mr. Naryanan Presenting

Kiruba Concluding the Event

Ching's Secret and Fastrack Facebook Page Study

2010-03-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

There are two Indian brands (Ching’s Secret and Fastrack) that are enjoying the Social Media space with more than 1 lakh fans on Facebook. Facebook is known to be the youth target spot of India by marketers today. There are approximately 5 crore Indians online and 1crore Non resident Indians. Facebook alone now has 75lakh Indians and 40lakh Non resident Indians. Facebook users grew by more than 500% when compared to year 2008. Also over the next 3-4 years this is only going to rise massively.

Brand: Ching’s Secret / Fastrack

Type: Food Product/ Youth Products

Number of Fans on Facebook: 100,500 / 1,00,000 (As on 30th March 2010, Morning)

Analysis:

Purpose: Engaging Users + Broadcasting Ching’s latest activities and innovations.

Ching’s Secret Present Scenario:

1. A simple Facebook fan page with no extra ordinary FBML tabs and applications.

2. Fan page Wall view restricted to messages from Ching’s Secret alone and the messages from fans get filtered in the ‘Just fans’ sub tab.

3. Photos of the creatives, advertisements and products.

4. There is no interaction among consumers but the questions or messages posted on the Ching’s wall are regularly answered by a Ching’s representative on a very short notice.

5. Growth of the page is moderate. Per day on average 200 – 300 people join and rejoice the Ching’s experience online.

6. On an average at least 60 followers likes the activity performed by Ching’s Secret and atleast 40 comment approximately.

My Take on Ching’s Secret:

1. This page looks like a broadcasting medium of the Ching Secret activities.

2. Successful in the space because of its regular offline activities that promotes its presence on Facebook (the necessity of era to integrate the traditional marketing with the modern marketing)

3. Consumer satisfaction is another reason that helps it grow naturally.

4. As the amusement demands it is essential to add the value of technical creativity to the page by adding innovative applications, quizzes, games, contests and more.

5. The twitter, buzz or Youtube page can be integrated with the Ching’s secret fan page using Involver.

6. The proposition of the fan page should move beyond broadcasting and must be a consumer driven community that leads to massive interest and fun.

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Fast Track Present Scenario:

Purpose: Clear Engagement Strategy, Consumer Driven Community

• Fast track has got 101372 fans. On an average it gets a 2,000 fans per day. As I started researching on it in the morning the fan numbers were 99k + by evening it increased to 101230.

• It is a complete consumer driven community where consumer posts queries related to watches, bags, shades etc.

• Consumers share their experience buying products at fastrack store, photos of their latest gadgets purchased, their opinion on the brand and lot more.

• Consumers post questions related to launch of product, availability, existence of stores and lot more. Well, Fastrack representative answer them all thus obtaining a good customer service quality.

• More than 20 albums shared, on an average 1000 people like the activities posted by fastrack and more than 200 people actively comment and engage in the conversation.

• Amazing Bikers application and kickass cards tab on the fan page that makes it technically active and makes users feel an unusual experience

• Integration with mobile is great application. Customers can subscribe to fastrack’s activity via SMS.

My Take:

• Fastrack engagement and customer service strategy via Facebook fan page can be called a very interesting strategy. For me, this is a complete successful case study.

• As more customers interact and share their experiences their friends get to know about the brand resulting in an inexpensive brand awareness and huge fan growth per day.

• To get audience crazy Fastrack needs to host lot more contests on a weekly basis that keeps the 1 lakh audience puzzled and discuss about it online as well as offline.

• The twitter followers are very less in numbers when compared to Facebook fans. There should be an approach that involves usage of twitter and Facebook both in an integrated way.

My vote goes to Fastrack for its successful strategy that is driven by consumers (achieving social media expectations). My next post will put froth a comparative analysis of both with a framework. Please subscribe to my blog if you would like to read more.Subscribe to My Blog Here

Should a Company speak or a Person on Social Media?

2010-03-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

Today I had given a presentation (guest session) at Beroe Inc a Market Research company on how to leverage Social Media for marketing and research purpose. The session started with a video on ‘Social Media’ followed by introduction to social media marketing, Indian social media scenario and over view of the best marketing and usage practices for Research companies.

The audience included Research Analysts, Account Managers, Content Developers, HR and other officials of the company. Overwhelmed with the hospitality the session had amazing round of questions that every social media marketer must be in a position to answer.

Few Questions were:

1. Should Social Media Marketing be from company’s perspective or personal perspective?

My Answer: Social Media is for networking and personalization of your social efforts on web. Unless a company is a renowned company or globally recognized firm using a company’s name for activities or engagement may not obtain credibility as in approach by a person (the face of the company / on behalf of the company). It is essential to have mixture of both for different reasons:

1. Relationship:- Personal

2. Customer Service:- Company / Personal (If company approaches that gives customers a sense of satisfaction of being approached by “the company” directly)

It is also crucial to know from B2B perspective being personally approachable on Social Media is a better choice.

2. Apart from LinkedIn what are the other tools that we could make use of in Research (especially for targeting Europe Market)?

Ans: Xing and Viadeo are professional networking tools. It is essential to be an active German speaker to obtain a value from Xing. Whereas there are country specific tools such as Koolred targeting Malaysia, Xionei for China etc. I guess my post few months back on 240 social networking sites I admire can help research analysts obtain some more relevant sites.

3. What is your opinion on the Privacy Policy of Social Media? Does it limits to companies or customers also?

Ans: Many companies design limitations for its employee’s use of Social Media in relevant to share company’s information. Some companies do not prefer being active on Social Media or some have restrictions in sharing information such as: project wins, internal issues, process, business models, words against team members or authorities etc. Doing so can penalize the employee or they can be rusticated from the job. Engaging with a company on Social Media mostly does not really hold any privacy policy for customers unless in case of Facebook applications where customers can prefer not to share the personal information or the usage of application with friends.

There were other interesting question in the session related to Social Media such as ROI, NGO and the relevancy etc.

Thanks to Mr. Sunil Ashwin Roy (Account Manager at Beroe) for humble hospitality and gratitude to Mr. Vel Dhinagaravel (CEO of Beroe) for giving an opportunity to share.

Photos of the event here:

Poster for Internal Promotion of the talk:

Social Media says "NO" to Direct Sales: A Research Report

2010-03-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

Overview of Research Project: ECHOVME sponsored two MBA students (Mr. Rishi Unnikrishnan and Mr. Apoorv Surkunte) of Great Lakes Institute of Management (Chennai) to investigate the impact of Social Media Tools on Customer Satisfaction, Brand Equity and Sales performance under the guidance of Dr. Krishna Ram (ES Guide).

Aim: To Investigate the Impact of Social Media Tools on Customer Satisfaction, Brand Equity and Sales Performance.

Purpose: This paper aims to study the impact of SMOs on a firm’s sales and brand equity in an isolated environment removed from traditional media and garner useful insights on what should be the optimum promotion mix for an organization. This paper utilizes the survey approach and advanced statistical methods to draw insights from responses elicited from web users from diverse geographical, cultural and political backgrounds.

Research Methodology: Survey (Quantitative analysis)

Sample Size: 200 Professionals (Marketers, CEOs, Managing Directors and Executives) mainly from IT background.

The questionnaire was distributed into

i) Usage pattern and perception about social media
ii) Information on generic social media tools
iii) Helpfulness of information on social media to end customer

Statistics: Regression and Annova

Findings:

Hypothesis 1:-. Non conventional stratagem based on Web 2.0 will help increase firm’s sales numbers. (Quantitative Analysis)

• Analysis of the data does not reveal a very high correlation between Social Media and impact on direct sales

• Social Media though used extensively so far has not really translated into direct sales.

• Even if sales have occurred there are no set processes in place to measure the impact of social media vehicles and attribute the sales directly to usage of social media.

• That being said, social media is here to stay and helps organizations in several tangible and intangible ways like improved accessibility, faster decision making and uninterrupted dissipation of information.

Hypothesis 2:- Non conventional stratagem based on Web 2.0 will have limited or no effect on an organizations brand perception. (Qualitative Analysis)

• As per the analysis feedback and decision making seem to be the most important factors of social media contributing to brand equity.

• There is a strong correlation between adoption of social media and consequent impact on brand equity of a firm- organization

• Customers perceive companies to find social media tools most useful for:-

 Dissipating information about products and services
 Dissipating information about new project wins
 To segment the market based on usage patterns
 Track movement in consumer choices, preferences, fads etc

• Use of Social media for Recruitment, Social Service and information about cultural events does not seem to be significant in the minds of the consumer.

My Take:

The first hypothesis confirms there is not a significant relationship between direct sales and Social Media. As per the observation and the user feedback direct marketing on Social Media is considered as spam or activity to be ignored unless in the case of ‘Dell’ (The popular direct marketing / sales via twitter case study). Direct marketing is not to be the element of your strategic approach as the purpose of Social Media is for networking and engaging customer for a distinguished experience.

The second hypothesis confirms there is a strong relationship between a firm’s Social Media activity and consumer’s perception on its brand equity. The professional respondents perceive companies to find social media tools most useful for sharing information (company and industry insights) and customer analysis.

Thus, Social Media is to make people aware about your presence in a way that leads to an experiential marketing. Dissipation of information about products, insights of company and industry, project wins, recruitment process etc impacts the band equity of the firm. Besides, just broadcasting information and no engagement can be considered as ‘spam’. To have an positive impact it is essential to share knowledge, engage and build relationships that later reflects on business development and sales.

Please subscribe to my blog If you like this post. For availing full report write to me at: sorav@echovme.com

Facebook is the Next Google

2010-03-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

For all the Social Media Marketers keep your Facebook campaign as the most crucial one as I believe and as the facts suggests Facebook is soon going to be the ‘Next Google’. The stats suggest:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 60 million status updates posted each day
• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Source: facebook

Recent Facts:

Facebook is the 2nd most visited site in the US (the country which is known for its speedy internet spread) According to Mashable, Facebook is now larger than Yahoo!, in terms of site traffic, after it obtained 133 million unique visitors in January this year, with Yahoo! slightly below, at 132 million.

Just recently, the social network celebrated it 400 millionth member, with the user base showing no sign of slowing down. Yahoo! remained the top U.S. website for years, until Google took the top spot, and now it has been pushed down to third, with the embedded graph below indicating its decline.

For Social Media Marketers:

For social media marketers considering ‘Facebook’ the base of all their other social networking activities would be an ideal decision. Activities on Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace, Youtube, Viadeo and other social networking site should aim to bring customers/ individuals to Facebook.

Prediction:

I am sure no sooner facebook will begin its search function on a large scale thus the start of fan page competition to top the list and offering a another limelight of opportunities to the Industry with “Facebook Page Optimization”.

If you agree to my point of view and would like to read more of my blog posts then please subscribe to my blog. I would be glad.

Love in Jeans Condoms - Indian Social Media - Case Study

2010-03-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

About Brand: Renowned condom brand known as ‘Durex’. It has been in the business of making condoms for nearly eighty years i.e. even before the era of condoms or probably the demand began.

About Product: with the tagline “Live in Jeans. Love in Jeans” Durex Jeans is a trendy condom wear targeting youth

Social Media: Facebook (fan page)

Number of Fans: 5600 (as on 9th March 8:13 PM IST)

Social Media Strategy:

1. ‘Brand Awareness and Brand Building’ strategy.

2. Confused engagement strategy with contests.

3. Hilarious activities and contents on the wall.

4. A semi- engagement and more of consumer driven community (where customers be the most active part of the community, initiating messages, activities and other initiation to engage with others)

5. As the word ‘Sex’ rules the fan page the enthusiasm among the consumers creates a different feel on the wall post. Certainly different than the other fan pages I have seen.

6. The strategy can be called ‘sexy strategy’; activities, wall posts, and interaction revolves around sex.

7. Right target place (Love in jeans looks more of youth focused and facebook is the right choice)

8. Well designed FBML tabs and application ‘Champ the Damp’ that allows you to test your goodness on bed. Appreciative ‘Unzip your Attitude and Bunny Blues’ application. Overall a very creative approach to make the fan page completely lively.

9. Regular updates about brand activities (tee shirts, absolute loving, road promotions, advertisement videos etc)

10. Great Punch Lines as status message, one of the other impressive ones I would
like to mention in my blog:

The leggy ones, the heavy ones, the cute ones, the fiery ones, the silent ones, the giggly ones, the single ones, the not-so-single ones; be fair to the fairer sex today. Let us all appreciate their minds as well as their beauty today. Wishing all the women a very special Women’s Day

My Take:

1. No weekly activities or monthly activities set by the brand. There needs a monthly objective. If hosting a contest: the application, the material, how to advertise, time period, reward and how is it going to help the overall brand?. Need to use Posting/Month model.

2. The name ‘Love in jeans’ may result in the slow growth of the fan following and as the purpose of the fan page is to increase brand awareness and create brand image. ‘Love in Jeans Condoms’ would have been a better name for the profile that would have attracted the common condom lovers and Durex brand lovers.

3. Facebook has this wonderful feature of syndicating activities done via anybody. Ex: you join a XYZ group and facebook let your friends know about it. Similarly the fan page with title ‘Love in jeans condoms’ can generate keen and funny comments thus raising curiosity of many and increasing the overall fan.

4. User generated contents required to bring in more eagerness. Host contests were user creates suitable tag lines, creatives such as mugs, t-shirt designs, hoardings, etc.

5. End of the day this is an Adult fan page, ask questions about customer's satisfaction level with Condoms that would zeal in more fervor and inquisitiveness.

6. 7 million Indians (above age group 18) are on Facebook so there needs to be regular advertisement of the fan page on the advertising board of Facebook as well as on the offline promotional activities.

Overall it is a great fan page to be a part of. The community interaction is high that gives customer an unforgettable experience and on an overall level, this contributes to the experiential marketing of the brand.

This page was created by the Creative Digital Agency Geek

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Basics Life Social Media Strategy : Case Study

2010-02-27T01:37:00.000-08:00

About Brand: Cloth brand with multiple stores across India. Four sub brands: Hasbro Clothing, Genesis, Basics 29, Pro Base.

Social Media: Facebook

Number of Fans: 1774 (as on 27/2/2010 : 3:08 PM)

SMM Strategy:

1. Contests, engagement and points strategy.
2. Contests hosted at least weekly thrice. Contests in forms of quizzes (quiz applications created).
3. Fan page completely customized (FBML edited). A FBML tab for contest winners, frequent buyers and brands under Basics.
4. Frequent buyers fbml tab results in registration of the customers. On registration they receive FBP (Face book page) points that can be redeemed for discounts.
5. The contest quizzes are generally query about the brand, thus increasing brand awareness among the customers.
6. The winner obtain free give aways (hot and trendy products).
7. Page is also used for displaying its latest products, disclosing interesting facts, news, celebrity endorsements etc.
8. People use this to share pictures, winners of the contests share pics clicked with prizes.

My Take:

1. Clear engagement strategy.
2. Interesting contests and high quality freebies keeps the brand value intact.
3. Fans now becoming a community, resulting in interaction among each other, discussion about brand and products and assisting brands to get easy direct customer decisions.
4. Role of technology is essential here as the FBML and quizzes are neatly created and are made geographic friendly (targeted).
5. Low response rate at present. Basics needs to create awareness in store about it facebook activity and contests. It can avail facebook access facility in stores asking customer to participate.
6. Basics has diluted its products in different sub brands for unusual set of customers, this might create a little confusion among the facebook users. As the expectations of customers with basics life’s engagement activity would differ.

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