Our Objectives on Various Social Platforms

Facebook

We wanted to build an interactive community for Maruti AltoK10 to share brand messages and listen to fans feedback and queries. To tap into the members and ensure them of a good conversation building a direct connect with the TG. The idea was to position Maruti Alto K10 as the car for the young generation.

You Tube

We wanted to leverage the power of video sharing and community building. And as a result, created an official channel for Alto K10 on YouTube to get interaction.

Twitter

We wanted to reach all those prospects who can be loyal followers to the all new Maruti Alto K10. The objective was to do real time monitoring of Alto K10 Sentiments and respond to followers queries.

Foursquare

We wanted to tap all the Maruti Service Centres and Dealers to provide easy access for Maruti Owners. Other objective behind foursquare campaign were:

• Make MARUTI SUZUKI Omnipresent through virtual check-ins and tips
• Tap all the Maruti Service Centres and Dealers to provide easy access for Maruti Owners
• As and when any user checks-in on these locations, he will see a Maruti Suzuki Tip
• A Great Way to Publicize and Be Present Everywhere

A situational quote by Jay Abraham

If you’re attacking your market from multiple positions and your competition isn’t, you have all the advantage and it will show up in your increased success and income.

Results on Sales

From our analyzed data “The Social Media Efforts drove around around 2% of Alto K10 Sales by Sep. 2010”. For more details you can check Alto K10 – Social Media Activation Case Study

Get in touch, If you want to explore more about your brand or interested to know what are your customers talking about you and where.

Brands slowly and gradually are recognizing the need to be present on this medium to make direct connect with their target audience. Facebook being 22 million strong in India has emerged as the most sought after social networking site both by the users and the marketers.

Marketers have always tried to find ways to reach and interact with their consumers directly, finally they have found a solution, it seems. Social Media Platforms have come as a boon to brands which want to reach their target segment in a new and better way. The objective could be better service, promoting new products, getting leads or just building a connect with the consumers. 85% of Indian Youth is hooked to Social Networking Sites these days. This statistics has made it imperative for the brands to consider this new and emerging form of media seriously and tap its consumers where it is present most of the time. A big catch for the marketers is MINIMAL COST!

What drove me to write this post was the sudden rise in companies promoting their social media platforms via offline mediums and drive more users online. A case in point is the Vodafone’s recent “ZooZoo” Ad which was on the front page of Times of India. The only link mentioned in the ad was their Facebook Page. So, is Social Media Platforms like Facebook getting more prominence than the websites?…It is too early to say that. But such promotions do suggest that companies are now making an effort to promote their social platforms via offline mediums. Find below few of the recent examples of brands promoting their social mediums in Print Media:

Vodafone’s 3G Ad with Facebook URL

Valentino promoting their Social Platforms: Orkut, Facebook and  Twitter – though a very important thing missing is their Handles

Even Tihar Jail is now on Facebook,
though they have not created a page  but a User Profile.

Pandawok, a restaurant in Noida promoting their Facebook Fan Page in their pamphlets

On the same note, Shoppers Stop has also been giving a full page advertisement with the link to their Facebook Fan Page promoting their discount season. Hope to see more brands and companies leverage the power of Social Media…This is just the beginning

Cross Posted from Charu’s Blog;

I recently got quoted in an article by the Inc. Magazine along with Pradeep Chopra of Digital Vidya and others.

Online Reputation Management is a key deliverable when it comes to working for brands on Social Media. Over the past two years, I have been associated with it and still continue to figure out better ways of separating the signal from the noise.

In my quest to bring up a sound listening framework and tool, we at Media Redefined have had several achievements and insights to share with.

You may want to download it to read it offline. Here is a copy of the article;

If you’re interested to know what are your customers talking about you and where, get in touch.

What comes after the rise? The fall and that what will define 2011 social media market.

Please note I am not predicting the way brands may move on social media, but the challenges that Indian social media industry might face and the way it shall shape up in 2011 . This might not be in the interest of several social media experts, but will definitely excite people who are working hard to create big social media stories in India.

#1: Some brands will move from Social Media Marketing to Social CRM mode. Tools are already in place, brands have already accepted the presence of  angry consumers on social media. However, brands are yet not ready to integrate SCRM process internally in every department. It will take some real muscle power from some big names to get big SCRM stories out.

#2: We have seen a lot of small medium sized social media startups dying out last year. Among which some where very promising and understood the internet/social media very well. Performance didn’t burned them up, but a hirearchy of Client –> Media Planning agency –> Social media agency did. We will see brands settling for either a independent social media agency or a big Media planning agency to take care of their social media activities. The three level hierarchy outsourcing model will die to the end of 2011 as brands come out from a campaign approach vendor model.

#3: We will see a premium and non-premium segmentation of the market. While some agencies will take a volume approach to there business for small sized clients to thrive and scale there business, others will work with a few clients at a premium cost. People who see 2011 as the time when the pricing becomes stable in the industry, will be highly dissapointed.

#4: Measurement and ROI talks will become fierce, brand managers shall live in a hope that the measurement methods for social media shall give them a window through which they can relate traditional campaign goals on social media. Social media mavens like it or not, fans/followers count is still a measurement for most of the brand managers in the industry and this is not going to change very soon.

#5: We shall see the dust settling down and self-proclaimed social media gurus fading away. We have seen it happening with internet startups/ FOSS domain and social media shall follow the same path. It’s business my dear friends at the end of day .

Would love to hear your views. All agreements and criticism are welcomed.

Cross posted on Gmishra.com

The days of building a web site, filling it with content and waiting for Google to reward you with a first page ranking are gone. More than ever, companies need to do a better job of putting out steady stream of fresh, relevant content if they want to get people to find and engage them online. Here comes the need for Social Media, but most of the companies ignore it. I have come up with 5 reasons why Social Media is ignored or not taken seriously.

1) ROI – Return on Ignorance: It’s funny, but lot of businesses don’t know that Social Media can be effectively measured. They are still living in an oblivion as to why invest in Social Media when we don’t get the ROI (I meant Return of Investment here.) The fact is Social Media can be so effectively measured that you can pin-point every single user, comment, update or even a tag. Ask me, I’ve made reports for our clients. The reports are so in-depth that they are self-explanatory with facts & figures.

2) You can’t get a $ outta me: These words are by the famous rapper 50cent. In many cases, establishing a presence in Social networks is free. But remember the saying, “nothing in life is free?” The same holds true in social media. Your time has a price tag, and resources don’t materialize without costs. I have myself come across business entities who have setup free online profiles on prominent social networking sites but as expected are not getting the returns. Such failed attempts make them believe that Social Media is off no good.

3) System Message – Error code 0xc0000028: Like every system message has a different code to it and that in-turn interprets to something specific with a solution attached to it. Similarly, its not about the platform its about the message you send across. Companies are spending a lot of time focusing on which new platforms they should be launching instead of focusing on how to produce better content. Launching a new platform like Facebook, Twitter or others with the same content strategy you are using now will not yield any better results in the form of visitors, leads and sales. If it was just about being the first one on a New Social Media platform then nobody would ever need a Social Media Agency for planning, content strategy, interaction and results.

4) 140 characters to promote my brand? : Oh Yes! they say a lot can happen over a coffee but I say a lot more can happen on twitter. I have one word for the people who ignore the power of twitter – DEAD. Twitter is a storm that has swept the Social Media by its feet. The promise of interactive marketing is not about establishing a means; this is about defining and connecting the dots to create a means to an end. Identifying that end helps us reverse-engineer the stops necessary to reach our destination—or at least validate our path. With twitter not only the conversation get personal but also very measurable.

5) Harry Winston Opus Collection: You must be wondering what has Harry Winston ‘Opus’ collection to do with it. Well the answer is ‘Niche Segment’, I was giving an analogy when I mentioned the ‘Opus’ collection as its only built in limited number(usually 10 for each year). Social Media is a niche segment and comes under Public Media or  Advertising Media. Because of this constraint it is always handed over a very bleak budget but expectations are held higher than a regular form of media. Maybe, right now Social Media is not given the level of importance it deserves but in the times ahead it can’t be considered as just a niche segment of media because of its widespread and multi-platform reach. The day isn’t far when Social Media Agencies would be as precious and handpicked as Harry Winston’s Opus Collection, till then people like our team @MediaRedefined are working are a** off to get it to that level.

6) You think you are too clever: I have already mentioned the Top 5 reasons so why are you reading this point anyways. Not everything I type has to be read, OMG you are still reading it. Alright now that you have read it, read the P.S. too.

P.S.: This is my first post on Social Media as a blogger so please bear with my writing style. I know its wacky and witty specially when it comes to writing about analysis of Social Media and Marketing. This post might not match up to the standard that has been set up by the @MediaRedefined team but I believe with time I would match up with the likes of @Praval @GMishra @Honeytech. Please feel free to correct me and share your valuable comments. Now, it’s time for a quote as that how I always end any post on my blog.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

This post has been cross posted from “Praval’s Musings“

In this digital era – where we look into the world through our wide screens monitors or 4″ screen iphones, we foresee a large amount of conversation around varied topics. To an extent, we’re true with our perception. However, when we talk about online communities, do they actually help scale the passion to a level that smaller, yet offline communities are good at?

When I think of offline communities and societies, there are  direct, one-to-one relationships that appear in the backdrop of my mind – many, if not with all the members. However, being a member of an online community – where I may share an idea, get it voted, do a debate with ‘handles’ and not always people – just fails to generate those vibes.

The essence of building social communities – offline or offline was always to drive participation around a passion or cause with people from varied fields of work but with a common interest or goal which gels with that of the community itself. It essentially is a platform to talk, discuss, share things beyond work.

More importantly, for me, a community is a forum where you build relationships – personal and professional, depending on its kind. How many relations did you develop with people joining an online community? Here, I ain’t talking about Social Networks like facebook, orkut, etc. Shall you need to distinguish between social communities, networks and outposts, Gaurav, had come up with a neat post on this.

The dent which I was trying to make is that the essence of offline communities is entirely different and we as social media practitioners/experts should still think of building up such communities. The size does not matter much. What matters is the content, the objective and the passion. A great example would be Social Media Baithak. An initiative by Sanjukta Basu and Abhay Adhikari. I am glad to be invited for the 1st edition of this initiative where a bunch of social media ’gurus’ ( read, advocates and evangelists) try to help out NGOs and individuals working for a cause, in what is a one-on-one session.

I truly admire the energy and content we had at the meet.

BarCamp, OSS Camp, TweetUps, Blogger Meets, etc. are some such examples of offline gathering, which help scale the passion of doing something and learning stuff. There needs to be more synergy in offline-online integration of communities. I see that picking up, already. Hope it continues with more people joining in.

Do share your experiences with the offline communities you may have had.

Cheers!

Image Courtesy: Naina @ StudioAside

When we entered in the business of Social Media, little we knew that in the process of building a sustainable  business we would be witnessing a major phase shift on world wide web, and hopefully will be a part of it. We were blessed to spend our time understanding human behavior on these social platforms and finding ways to link all these conversations to find some meaningful data.

Conversations vs Pageviews

“Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.”

Till date the web is a place where people find content and services which can help them. The real core value proposition of having conversation with strangers and being a truly global society seems to fade away in all these noise.

Then came the concept of user generated content which started making sense, in last 5 years. Social Media interestingly moved to listening, measuring and responding to insightful data around products and services. Consumer evangelism and identifying passion, creating cause and driving communities around came as a part and parcel of the entire phenomenon.

Slowly, the sentiments became more important than the actual content, thus, enabling the power of social context to change the way we search, read and intake information on world wide web. Web had always sailed on the shoulders of traffic or we often call – page views.  Money Metrics was always driven by the amount of unique content a portal has. No doubt that this helped web to scale up to the position where it is and is still driving the inter-webs, but it also produced so much of noise that real contextual data became really hard to find. This felt a need to change the way in which search engines spider and indexed content. But nobody really knew how ?

Then came the era of social media , user generated content and contextual weight of links.  All the metric tools started putting conversations as a base, which was directly related to a contextual reach of content. Thus, finally creating a much needed shift in web or I would say a shift to web 3.0 (if that exists, somewhere!). Several tools, such as radian6, sm2, viralheat and half a dozen more, started to focus on people rather than the reach. Brands finally found a way of listening to customers and actually understand what they really want.

Birth of Social Advertising

Among all these radical shifts , the biggest concept we will see emerging will be of  Social Advertising and it may challenge google’s core business. It’s a no-brainer to understand that Facebook sits in the center of social advertising phenomenon  and it’s catching fast with it’s social facebook ads. There are few very interesting case studies on facebook ads,  which showcase how contextual advertising brought more revenues than the normal adwords based campaigns. Adhustler carried out a comparison of adwords based campaign and facebook contextual campaign. Facebook ultimately gave 1/10th of CPM adwords gave. You may read complete case study here. (However, author failed to mention actions figure from these campaigns, which would be really helpful in determining actual ROI from facebook social ads).

Now, after facebook has establised itself as a major player in advertising network. They are moving towards ranking world wide web on the theme of google pagerank. Social Media practitioners and advocates,  Gauravonomics and Chris Messina mentioned a detailed study of facebook open graph likes vs google link back pagerank system.

Social advertising is a clear win over traditional advertising on pay per click advertising models, because a granular level targetting, which a social context can provide can never be achieved via targetted ads on pay per click services. However, facebook ads are pretty new and unless it’s used upto a large level like google adwords, a comparison on CPC would be unfair.

If you’re interested to evaluate your chances of success with Social Advertising, do get in touch with us. We at Media Redefined work day & night to figure out what works best for whom. Be it a product, service, event or just an idea – we love to sit with you and see how can we help your business with social media. See ya!

Samsung Mobiles

Samsung Mobile division manufactures and markets a wide range of mobile telecommunications products across pre-pay and post-pay markets, in both the consumer and business segments. Samsung’s mobile phones are divided into 6 major categories: Style, Infotainment, MultiMedia, Connected, Essential and Business, and the division is led by Vice President, Mark Mitchinson.
The Mobile division is part of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

What are Social Media Sentiments?

Social sentiments defines the moods of consumers, bloggers, advocates and brick-bats and their feelings for the product/brand and passion to stick with the brand. Sentiments Analysis is defined as an attitude of a speaker or a writer with respect to some topic or brand. The exact definition on Wikipedia says,

Sentiment analysis or opinion mining refers to a broad (definitionally challenged) area of natural language processing, computational linguistics and text mining. Generally speaking, it aims to determine the attitude of a speaker or a writer with respect to some topic. The attitude may be their judgment or evaluation (see appraisal theory), their affective state (that is to say, the emotional state of the author when writing) or the intended emotional communication (that is to say, the emotional effect the author wishes to have on the reader).

Status of Social Media Sentiment Analysis for Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Wave

Position of Samsung Galaxy S

Drilled down analysis of Samsung GalaxyS in August 2010 on Twitter

Note: This is a targeted analysis based on certain keyword in the last one week.

Position of Samsung Wave

We also do detailed product insight reports for our clients. If you’re interested for planing a campaign, launch, event or an online reputation management gig, do get in touch with us. We would be glad to help you with our expertize, team and tools!

India: Where old is still the gold!

Without more people joining the social networks like Orkut and facebook, brands are finding it easy to spread the word about them over the web. Social media companies have just begun to leverage the same, despite the dreary desert of recession having hit them.

Still, there lies a disconnect between the end users, corporations, marketing and media planning people. For this, we need social media uniformity and trust. There is still time before the internet media shall match the traditional media presence, but the rate at which this is growing is huge.

A decade ago, while Pyra labs was building the first blog engine – Blogger,  a lot of internet users did not have an idea of what would possibly be a huge success. Weblogs would carry more information than a traditional website ever did. Social media communities, blogging, twitter, etc. were beyond expectation for many.

Online shopping and internet reservations brought nightmares while online dating was gaining good heights. Registering on a matrimonial website was almost a crime.

Even today, online advertising is not as lucrative as it is in the west. A lot of major corporations are still not tracking referrals from other sites. The oldest memory one can have of anything “social” on the web in India are mailing lists or egroups.

India still has miles to go in terms of adoption of the internet as a complete source of information and the alignment of infrastructure to support that. The available infrastructure is limited to urban and semi-urban areas and penetration of technology is still a myth here in most cases.

Social media Optimization and Social media Marketing are the hot trends in the market. Most companies hire a social media strategist for getting what they still fail to figure out. The situation today is a little dicey with most companies who work and provide such consultin services.  Boosting up a brand identity is what most businesses want, but there still needs to be a formal method of doing it known to the social marketing gurus.

Image credits: Frisko Dude