tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86349484974530963392024-02-07T08:40:06.391+05:30Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and BusinessBlog on Social Media Marketing and Strategy. Find useful Social Media Marketing tips for Startups, Brands, and Small businesses. Understand Facebook, Twitter, Google advertising, Social Media, Mobile App marketing, Pay per Click and marketing communication essentials in the digital age.Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001064353292832763noreply@blogger.comBlogger561125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-52119304741847324072016-07-11T17:36:00.001+05:302016-07-11T17:36:40.165+05:30Why introverts don't use social media?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DmM9H8oGXyc/V4OKYyI7BQI/AAAAAAAABxM/gY87HPJDMhIdAh-ljXNXd-RGW2u9AgE8wCLcB/s1600/why%2Bintroverts%2Bdont%2Buse%2Bsocial%2Bmedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="why introverts don't use social media" border="0" height="178" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DmM9H8oGXyc/V4OKYyI7BQI/AAAAAAAABxM/gY87HPJDMhIdAh-ljXNXd-RGW2u9AgE8wCLcB/s320/why%2Bintroverts%2Bdont%2Buse%2Bsocial%2Bmedia.jpg" title="Why introverts don't use social media" width="320" /></a></div>
I came across this very interesting <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-introvert-people-don-t-use-social-media/answer/Sushant-Kumar-99?prompt_topic_bio=1" target="_blank">question</a> on Quora asking "<i>Why introverted people don't use social media?</i>"<br />
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I am sharing my thoughts based on research I've come across that can help us understand the relationship between a very important personality trait and social media usage.<br />
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Introverts do use social media. The author was correct in pointing out that extroverts use social media more than introverts (Recent studies do indicate a positive impact of extraversion and social media use). However it depends on the context and the results have been mixed. In fact early studies pointed to the fact that introverts used social media (chat forums, messaging boards etc.) more than extroverts. I am sharing a few reasons below based on research on personality and social media usage.<br />
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<b>Introverts using social media more</b></h2>
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Early studies of individuals’ online activities found those high in extraversion and low in neuroticism were not as heavy Internet users as their more introverted, more neurotic counterparts. They hypothesized that the anonymity of the Internet attracted people who were less comfortable with themselves and who otherwise had trouble making connections with others.</div>
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<b>Gender, personality and social media usage</b></h2>
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Gender differences in early studies of the Internet were also evident – introversion and neuroticism were higher among women who turned to the Internet for its social services, such as online chats and discussion groups (Hamburger & Ben-Artzi, 2000).</div>
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Neuroticism, which can be manifested as loneliness, was again linked to women’s Internet use in a 2003 study that posited that lonely women were drawn to the Internet perhaps as a means to reduce their loneliness (Amichai-Hamburger & Ben-Artzi, 2003)</div>
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<b>Extroverts and social media use</b></h2>
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More recent studies, however, have reflected a reversal in the association between some types of Internet use and personality traits. This may be due in part because of the restrictions on anonymity in certain types of online applications, such as social networking sites. Most people use these sites to interact with individuals they already know, therefore limiting their engagements with strangers (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfeld, 2006).</div>
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Extraverted individuals have many connections with others via social networking sites and in the ‘‘real world,” and also tend to have higher self-esteem (Zywica & Danowski, 2008).</div>
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A study of college students found the people who used Facebook less frequently felt less satisfied with their lives, leading the authors to speculate the site could help individuals overcome low satisfaction and low self-esteem (Ellison et al., 2007).</div>
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A 2010 study by Correa, Hinsley, and Zúñiga found that extraversion and openness to experiences were positively related to social media use, emotional stability was a negative predictor, controlling for socio-demographics and life satisfaction. These findings differed by gender and age. While extraverted men and women were both likely to be more frequent users of social media tools, only the men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more regular users. There are a few other studies as well that indicate a similar result. In my own research I haven’t found anything significant.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-89480022196066305912016-06-28T16:27:00.002+05:302016-06-28T16:27:24.902+05:30How do brands use Instagram to connect with fans?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vfIzjcNTzQg/V3JXiCqUv4I/AAAAAAAABwA/_zMPLVlkkfAAGJpPwwRUtT3EfQit8u1bACLcB/s1600/Instagram%2BMarketing%2BCourse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vfIzjcNTzQg/V3JXiCqUv4I/AAAAAAAABwA/_zMPLVlkkfAAGJpPwwRUtT3EfQit8u1bACLcB/s320/Instagram%2BMarketing%2BCourse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Instagram is increasingly becoming a favorite platforms for Brands globally to engage with their customers.<br />
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It's importance can be gauged by the fact that it is the world's largest mobile ad network. <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Instagram" target="_blank">Instagram</a> now has a community of over 500 million users liking over 4.2 billion photos and sharing over 95 million pictures daily. The format of Instagram makes it a great medium for visual story telling.<br />
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There are multitude of ways used by Brands to connect with fans, drive awareness and generate sales. Following are three key points</div>
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Content</h1>
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Great content sells on Instagram. Check out the channels of Coca-Cola Argentina, Petco, FedEx & Frooti. They produce great content, share what goes on behind the scenes, employee stories etc. In case you are getting started, you can check out these <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/2016/04/7-easy-instagram-marketing-tips-for.html" target="_blank">7 easy Instagram Marketing tips</a>.</div>
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Contests on Instagram</h1>
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Instagram contests are a great way to keep your followers engaged. Contests can be around your brand (such as some trivia), content you are sharing on Instagram, or even can be user generated content where you can ask consumers to take pictures about your product/brand and share it through a hashtag.</div>
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User Generated Content</h1>
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Brand generated content and contests are a great way to engage with users. However remember that social media is not just about you. It is important to share user generated content and re-share posts by your community. You can learn more about it through this free 2 minute e-learning course <a href="http://learn.pickdup.com/course/view.php?id=8" target="_blank">How to increase engagement on Instagram?</a></div>
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You can also check out this 2 minute free e-learning course on <a href="http://learn.pickdup.com/course/view.php?id=10" target="_blank">How to Build a Brand on Instagram in 2 minutes.</a> It is rich with examples.<br />
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This is an answer to a question on <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-do-brands-use-Instagram-to-connect-with-fans/answer/Sushant-Kumar-99?prompt_topic_bio=1" target="_blank">Quora</a> on How do brands use Instagram to connect with fans?</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-10170593160451361812016-06-10T16:50:00.002+05:302016-06-10T16:50:49.931+05:30Is Google certification important for a career in Digital Marketing?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ocuDAjPYRaU/V1qiKk-IOhI/AAAAAAAABuo/6PxGMX7I10ccxbBebroFKsW--OdbbN1BwCLcB/s1600/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B10-06-2016%2B164802.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ocuDAjPYRaU/V1qiKk-IOhI/AAAAAAAABuo/6PxGMX7I10ccxbBebroFKsW--OdbbN1BwCLcB/s320/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B10-06-2016%2B164802.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
A lot of people will encourage you to get a Google certification to build a career in Digital Marketing. In my experience as a digital marketing professional, I've rarely seen a certification by Google as a criteria for hiring managers.<br />
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I was reading through a few answers on a <a href="https://www.quora.com/Is-Google-certification-valuable-if-I-want-to-have-a-career-in-digital-marketing" target="_blank">Quora thread</a> about the importance of getting a Google certification (Adwords, Analytics etc.) for building a career in digital marketing. Almost 90% of people said that it was important.<br />
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I have a slightly difference point of view on this subject. To have a career in digital marketing, you need to understand digital marketing - which means having a strong working knowledge on various platforms (not just Google), have a good understanding of marketing (fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed), and have a strong hold of analytics.<br />
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<a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Google" target="_blank">Google</a> certification can help you grasp some of these concepts. Facebook has Facebook blue print, which is the learning management system of Facebook.
If you get a chance, work as an intern or with an agency and get a hands on experience of digital marketing. Hiring criteria -> aptitude + analytics.
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<a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Internet" target="_blank">Digital</a> is a very dynamic medium. It’s your grasp of marketing fundamentals and ability to stay updated that helps. Having worked on digital marketing projects works better rather than a certification. Most digital marketers have learned through experimentation. There is nothing better than a hands on experience.</div>
Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-3696618022901438152016-06-09T04:52:00.002+05:302016-06-09T05:15:01.752+05:30Is repeating the content of all social media channels advisable?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gFec4iZmAnA/V1in-E2LXfI/AAAAAAAABtc/ReSemZqWJqIOVelrUFY9pSqX-Mi7S4q7gCLcB/s1600/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B09-06-2016%2B044825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="social media content publishing tips" border="0" height="196" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gFec4iZmAnA/V1in-E2LXfI/AAAAAAAABtc/ReSemZqWJqIOVelrUFY9pSqX-Mi7S4q7gCLcB/s400/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B09-06-2016%2B044825.jpg" title="Social Media Content publishing tips" width="400" /></a></div>
Content creation and dissemination on social media can be a tricky thing. Creating good original content takes a lot of time and money. It is important to make the most of the content through <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Social%20Media" target="_blank">social media</a> assets for a brand. There are pros and cons of adapting and sharing the same content on all social media channels at the same time.<br />
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<li>It ensures consistency in communication. This is a critical thing when it comes to integrated <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Marketing" target="_blank">marketing</a> communication. </li>
<li>All your audiences following your channels on various platforms get access to the same message. </li>
<li>Consumers want <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/2015/10/a-great-story.html" target="_blank">a great story</a> and it works every where (be it any channel).</li>
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<b>Cons of sharing the same content</b><br />
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<li>Every social media channel has a unique audience and (effective) content formats vary across channel. What works on Instagram, does not work on <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Twitter" target="_blank">Twitter</a> (The content format).</li>
<li>Each social media channel has separate properties when it comes to information diffusion. E.g. Twitter is great for breaking news. Information diffusion is relatively slower on <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Facebook" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. Twitter can be a great channel for new announcements and can act as a hub.</li>
<li>Timing is another issue. The number of active users differ across platforms. However I think it shouldn’t be much of an issue. It can play a small part if your content (and its ability to spread) is extremely sensitive to time such as breaking news.</li>
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For any integrated social media campaign, make sure you choose a hub(s), which will be the central place where your story will be told. Other channels can serve as extensions. For video, I’d recommend go for Facebook and <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/YouTube" target="_blank">YouTube</a>. For information rich content such as an announcement, you can try your blog as a hub. It is also recommended to focus on a few social media channels relevant to your business rather than focusing on all platforms.<br />
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<i>P.S. This is an answer by me to a question posted on <a href="https://www.quora.com/Is-repeating-the-content-of-all-social-media-channels-advisable-at-times" target="_blank">Quora</a>. I will be sharing more of my top voted content on Quora. You can follow me on Quora through this <a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Sushant-Kumar-99" target="_blank">link</a> </i></div>
Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-30329724175059925152016-04-19T18:46:00.000+05:302016-05-15T11:40:43.340+05:307 easy Instagram Marketing tips for beginners<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<img alt="7 Easy Instagram Marketing Tips for beginners" border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QzQfzyWetV4/VxYutBvrNII/AAAAAAAABqM/4xRPWLWTz-8uLj6aEzo4ts192y7TLyA4gCLcB/s320/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BTips%2Bfor%2BBeginners.png" title="Effective Instagram Marketing Tips for beginners" width="320" /></div>
Instagram started as a iOS only application and quickly became a huge social networking website with a presence on Android and the web. An active and rapidly growing user base has made <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/2016/04/importance-of-marketing-on-instagram.html" target="_blank">marketing on Instagram</a> important for brands, small businesses and startups.<span class="fullpost">
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Instagram has more than 75 million daily active users, with a total user base of over 400 million. Instagram users in 2015 were sharing over <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics-for-business/" target="_blank">70 million photos</a> per day. Given its growing importance we'll explore some easy tips that can help you with Instagram marketing.</div>
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Starting up with Instagram Marketing - Building followers</h2>
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In case you are just starting up on Instagram and only recently have decided to market your product or service on Instagram, one of the first things you might want to do is to build a small but active follower base on Instagram. </div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9YivnKVABlU/VxYLD8ndByI/AAAAAAAABoY/damAOC9B2QYB9gZWJz4A5QKQEc6GjYHZgCLcB/s1600/Instagram%2BFacebook%2BNotification.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9YivnKVABlU/VxYLD8ndByI/AAAAAAAABoY/damAOC9B2QYB9gZWJz4A5QKQEc6GjYHZgCLcB/s320/Instagram%2BFacebook%2BNotification.PNG" width="320" /></a>You can start by inviting your friends on Facebook to your Instagram account. Instagram automatically notifies your friends if you've just created an account on Instagram. You get a notification saying, "You Facebook friend alpha is on Instagram as alpha" In this way Instagram assists you in starting up. </div>
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It is always a good idea to connect your Facebook account with an Instagram account. </div>
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Sharing Instagram content on your Facebook page</h2>
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Let's say all this while you were busy engaging with your audiences through Facebook and built a decent following for your brand. You can tap in to that base by sharing content you are publishing on Instagram. For Facebook you simply need to copy the link and paste it on to your Facebook page. Instagram allows you to <a href="https://help.instagram.com/356902681064399" target="_blank">connect your Facebook profile and page</a> with your Instagram account. This will allows your fans on Facebook to discover content you are publishing on Instagram. Since a lot of users are using Facebook on their mobile devices, it can be a good way to improve discoverability of your Instagram account. If you are just starting up, you can also publish a post that informs your users about your new Instagram account. Users on Facebook would be able to click on the link and would be directed to your Instagram post.</div>
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There is however one limitation of this approach. It is a good practice if you are just starting up on Instagram. However if you do it excessively, it can kill the engagement of your Facebook page. It is important to have the right balance.</div>
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Connecting Instagram with your Twitter profile</h2>
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To boost discoverability of your Instagram account, you should try connecting your Instagram account with your Twitter profile. Before publishing content on Instagram you have the option to choose whether you'd directly want to post it to Twitter. This approach can promote your Instagram content to your followers on Twitter. Again, it should be used in moderation. Else it can impact your engagement on Twitter. </div>
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For effective Instagram marketing, you definitely should explore tapping in to your existing follower base as there will be a high overlap. In high probability some of your fans or followers on Facbook/Twitter would be active on Instagram. They probably haven't found out about your new account. It is a good idea to inform them about your Instagram presence and share your content on Facebook & Twitter (or channels where you have an active presence)</div>
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Promoting Instagram Notifications</h2>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fnt912ujHOU/VxYbt5outKI/AAAAAAAABow/m8n17NGoOC88fvIrYEKXkk5e7RYWkAqowCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2Bmarketing%2BPost%2Bnotifications.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Effective Instagram Marketing by turning on notifications" border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fnt912ujHOU/VxYbt5outKI/AAAAAAAABow/m8n17NGoOC88fvIrYEKXkk5e7RYWkAqowCLcB/s200/Effective%2BInstagram%2Bmarketing%2BPost%2Bnotifications.PNG" title="Notifications in Instagram" width="118" /></a></div>
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Facebook has been working on the content users see on their home/news feed. To provide a better user experience, Facebook has put a few limitations on the reach of content organically. In case you've managed a Facebook page, you'd know that Facebook limits reach of content. The same can happen on Instagram any day. Instagram in fact has already informed users that it will be working on rearranging its feed. Instagram recently <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-04-16/love-instagram-then-you-should-understand-whats-happening-your-feed" target="_blank">announced</a> a change to how feeds in the Instagram timelines will be filtered i.e. through an algorithm, instead of a chronological order. Latest images won't always appear at the top. This could also mean that content for your brand can get hidden in the timelines of users. </div>
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To avoid this it can be a good idea to inform users about activating notifications for your account. </div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QlZ1Ep99DAc/VxYb8fZvcvI/AAAAAAAABo0/SJ2OjsN60y0vzhUnvCw9VArlq1Gbxg5BgCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BPost%2BNotification%2BExample.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Getting users to turn on notification for Effective Instagram Marketing" border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QlZ1Ep99DAc/VxYb8fZvcvI/AAAAAAAABo0/SJ2OjsN60y0vzhUnvCw9VArlq1Gbxg5BgCLcB/s200/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BPost%2BNotification%2BExample.PNG" title="Example of a post to get users to turn on Instagram notification" width="191" /></a></div>
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Your followers who have turned on post notification will get a notification whenever you post any content. This means higher engagement for you on Instagram. You can creatively inform your followers about turning on post notifications (Check out the example). </div>
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However post quite frequently can irritate your followers and they can disable notifications or even un-follow you on Instagram. If you are getting users to consume your content more often you should be extremely careful about what you are posting. Anything that is not good will be rejected instantly.</div>
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In case you want more of your followers to turn on notification on Instagram, you can run a sweepstakes campaign where a lucky follower who has turned on notifications can win a gift voucher. Going about a sweepstakes campaign to give a boost to your Instagram marketing efforts is quite simple. You need to ask your followers to turn on notifications. They can take a screen shot on receiving an Instagram notification from your account and can share it on their Instagram account by tagging you with a unique hashtag (let's say #InstaNotifyContest). You can then select a winner. The advantage of doing this is that you can easily engage with your Instagram followers and also increase the number of people who are following you and have notifications turned on. One disadvantage of this tactic is that once the contest is over, in high likelihood a few of the participants will turn off notifications.</div>
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Real pictures for effective Instagram marketing</h2>
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Great content sells irrespective of channel. There is nothing new in this and you might have probably heard of this multiple times. Great content irrespective of channel makes users want to come back to your channel. It can be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, or even your newsletter.</div>
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You cannot get away by publishing poor quality content on Instagram. If your content makes your followers drool, they'll definitely turn on notifications for your Instagram account. This means they don't want to miss any content. It is always a good idea to publish real pictures on Instagram. Avoid using stock photos. Real high quality picture can drastically improve your engagement. Your content will appear more authentic and will drive higher engagement. Try avoid posting banners on Instagram. In case you feel the need of posting banners, it's better to again use real pictures.</div>
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Check out a few example of some high quality content from Instagram channels that are doing well.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yEoyaP5gLcU/VxYgLIUHk_I/AAAAAAAABpU/o-VTns_E9tUbpPXlv5teC_FhRhRbokoEQCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Effective Instagram Marketing example of Delhi Food Walks" border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yEoyaP5gLcU/VxYgLIUHk_I/AAAAAAAABpU/o-VTns_E9tUbpPXlv5teC_FhRhRbokoEQCLcB/s400/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample1.PNG" title="Delhi Food Walks Instagram Post" width="327" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9lfw9PAwbDo/VxYgJDdbHlI/AAAAAAAABpM/mi2L5Kr-qFACo8vxr-yqpvP8Tkc0UdzSwCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample%2B-%2B2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Example of good content by Jean Jullien on Instagram" border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9lfw9PAwbDo/VxYgJDdbHlI/AAAAAAAABpM/mi2L5Kr-qFACo8vxr-yqpvP8Tkc0UdzSwCLcB/s400/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample%2B-%2B2.PNG" title="Instagram Post of Jean Jullien. Example of great Instagram marketing" width="327" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Hq3YHxnzW8/VxYgKFXTl1I/AAAAAAAABpQ/ztODYeFhItEn4UrlcDVZH4d73XKL1lwcgCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample%2B-%2B3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Example of good content by Ustraa - Effective Instagram marketing" border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Hq3YHxnzW8/VxYgKFXTl1I/AAAAAAAABpQ/ztODYeFhItEn4UrlcDVZH4d73XKL1lwcgCLcB/s400/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BContent%2BExample%2B-%2B3.PNG" title="Effective Instagram marketing by Ustraa." width="360" /></a></div>
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Stay organized around a paricular topic</h2>
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Consistency is very important in your content. It's a good idea to stay organized around a particular topic, while publishing content on your Instagram channel. Having multiple themes in your content can confuse your followers. It can also lead to them un-following your Instagram account.</div>
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Consistency in content over time will definitely lead to higher engagement and successful Instagram marketing.. Remember that your brand, startup or small business can benefit greatly through an engaged Instagram following. Users are not just engaging with your posts on Instagram but are also forming an opinion about your brand with every post they are consuming. Being consistent will help you build recall and the right association over a period of time.</div>
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Staying organized around a particular topic can lead to more people actually turning on notifications for your account. You wouldn't need to run a contest or incentivize users to turn on notifications.</div>
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Check out a few examples of brands who are consistent with their content on Instagram.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-viFy8OvRMK8/VxYlrTnptrI/AAAAAAAABps/g-r-9DvCckwOKGtK0KCM9lZcftsL8tb6ACLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BStory%2Btelling%2Bexample%2Bpaper%2Bboat.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Content consistency and effective Instagram marketing by Paper boat" border="0" height="350" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-viFy8OvRMK8/VxYlrTnptrI/AAAAAAAABps/g-r-9DvCckwOKGtK0KCM9lZcftsL8tb6ACLcB/s400/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2BStory%2Btelling%2Bexample%2Bpaper%2Bboat.PNG" title="Consistent content and effective Instagram marketing by paper boat" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xRBVjWVkaJU/VxYm9gp5FvI/AAAAAAAABp0/aVic6lraYzkFHFKLLN0e3SIjRd0NDNkxwCLcB/s1600/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2Bconsistent%2Bcontent%2B-%2B2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Example of consistent content on Instagram by WatchAnish" border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xRBVjWVkaJU/VxYm9gp5FvI/AAAAAAAABp0/aVic6lraYzkFHFKLLN0e3SIjRd0NDNkxwCLcB/s400/Effective%2BInstagram%2BMarketing%2Bconsistent%2Bcontent%2B-%2B2.PNG" title="Instagram channel of WatchAnish" width="337" /></a></div>
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Content consistency will give your followers a reason to keep coming back to your account, which means higher engagement. </div>
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Use relevant hashtags</h2>
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Hashtags can be a great way for boosting discoverability of your content. This is especially important if you are tight on your marketing budget or are not keen on advertising on Instagram.</div>
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Relevant hashtags set anchor for your content and also help people searching of similar content to discover your content (and your business).</div>
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Hashtags can be a great way to ensure that audiences outside your follower base are discovering your brand. However make sure to not over populate your post copy with hashtag. This can put off a lot of people. Having more than 5 hashtags can impact how people are perceiving your content. In case you are servicing to a particular locality make sure that you are adding the location as a hashtag (#Mumbai #NewYork #London etc.). Also if you are confused about which hashtag to choose among two or more similar hashtags, just search for them on Instagram. It'll help you understand which hashtag is being used more. It's relatively better to have a mix of popular hashtags and a few not so frequently used hashtags. Using a popular hashtag will make sure that you are reaching out to more people. However there'll be a lot of clutter. If you are using a hashtag that is not used at all, people may never discover your content.</div>
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Effective Instagram marketing requires tapping in to your existing followers, posting great content for driving engagement and loyality, and using relevant anchors or hashtags for better discoverability. These are of course only a few things among many others that can come in handy. There are many more tricks and hacks that haven't been covered that'll help you drive better recall, engagement and sales for your startup, small business or your brand through Instagram. I'll be taking those up in other sections.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-87451809945878808022016-04-18T17:47:00.000+05:302016-04-18T18:02:36.999+05:30Is #AirAsiaScam a competitor driven trend?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On 12th April, a popular Indian newspaper published a story, "<a href="http://www.livemint.com/Companies/dXN7jGDvloYOx2jQWfl39L/Who-really-runs-AirAsia-India.html" target="_blank">Who really runs AirAsia India?</a>" It raised some interesting questions about the operations of Air Asia. It stated that "<i>Documents, emails show that Malaysia’s AirAsia Bhd has final say in decision-making, in violation of the Indian law."</i><br />
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Today suddenly after approximately a week I saw #AirAsiaScam trending #1 on Twitter. This came barely hours after Air Asia <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-airasia-announces-air-fares-starting-at-rs-999-for-flights-across-india-2203355" target="_blank">announced</a> Air fares starting at Rs 999 for flights across India.<br />
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The twitter trend #AirAsiaScam had a huge list of Twitter users who were constantly Tweeting about the story that came a week earlier (with almost similar content). A careful look at the Tweets does indicate that something is amiss. </div>
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In the Tweets Below #DipanG118 suddenly realizes that she has to Tweet something about #AirAsiaScam.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rWykYZJZjLE/VxTHk-eBddI/AAAAAAAABmg/XhTA3jhtdYQ5WIRMbVGTvyyC7T2_wS8YACKgB/s1600/AirAsiaScam.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rWykYZJZjLE/VxTHk-eBddI/AAAAAAAABmg/XhTA3jhtdYQ5WIRMbVGTvyyC7T2_wS8YACKgB/s400/AirAsiaScam.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Similarly @ItsNewBeginning had back to back Tweets about the scam, which of course they had read a week earlier. I'm not sure if it's a scam though.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gABs41B8Qeo/VxTHY-lB-EI/AAAAAAAABmg/U7wrQI1WZJkiT_XryZgOBrhM1gxMTkTVACKgB/s1600/AirAsiaScam2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gABs41B8Qeo/VxTHY-lB-EI/AAAAAAAABmg/U7wrQI1WZJkiT_XryZgOBrhM1gxMTkTVACKgB/s400/AirAsiaScam2.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Farman too had similar thoughts on Air Asia. </div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6JiMbqAGb2A/VxTKYq9JpeI/AAAAAAAABmo/otukSTE6ynYxkXnB2DpRUVthG1RdulBWgCLcB/s1600/AirAsiaScam3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6JiMbqAGb2A/VxTKYq9JpeI/AAAAAAAABmo/otukSTE6ynYxkXnB2DpRUVthG1RdulBWgCLcB/s400/AirAsiaScam3.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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And there's more. Rahul singh too had similar thoughts and decided to Tweet about it within a span of a minute. It's humanly impossible to type that stuff and Tweet it in a minute. (Or may be Rahul is an expert at it)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G7ExBKQGBQM/VxTKtnDaoSI/AAAAAAAABms/t-ydjXuI_-Ml8B20flrvlyj_EoYN-Id0wCLcB/s1600/AirAsiaScam4.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G7ExBKQGBQM/VxTKtnDaoSI/AAAAAAAABms/t-ydjXuI_-Ml8B20flrvlyj_EoYN-Id0wCLcB/s400/AirAsiaScam4.PNG" width="352" /></a></div>
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If you notice a lot of them have similar things to say. First is about the great job done for writing the story (it indeed is) and second is about "Silence of the government". Let's look the the great job stuff.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NoeJZXyMPJQ/VxTLd2SjdOI/AAAAAAAABnA/6KqpzbYV5mAEx1QH9CYLn99GuA_C75atgCLcB/s1600/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NoeJZXyMPJQ/VxTLd2SjdOI/AAAAAAAABnA/6KqpzbYV5mAEx1QH9CYLn99GuA_C75atgCLcB/s400/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob.PNG" width="335" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a-KKOm3GZK0/VxTLu7TLntI/AAAAAAAABnM/535JfsWCflI-2LCoywFTFHc_8rU2lGqfgCLcB/s1600/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a-KKOm3GZK0/VxTLu7TLntI/AAAAAAAABnM/535JfsWCflI-2LCoywFTFHc_8rU2lGqfgCLcB/s320/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob3.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EXvoq3Yf130/VxTLnMQicVI/AAAAAAAABnE/AP46rVoLwc4VYJIdTbiACXgQc9VUquj4ACLcB/s1600/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EXvoq3Yf130/VxTLnMQicVI/AAAAAAAABnE/AP46rVoLwc4VYJIdTbiACXgQc9VUquj4ACLcB/s400/Air%2BAsiaScam-GreatJob2.PNG" width="341" /></a></div>
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Silence of the government too did bother them.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xTjU9IY5GBU/VxTMiQvU5ZI/AAAAAAAABnU/ZtDu3P8YL0whKp_nh6GDAUYjFAhOMFPqACLcB/s1600/GovernmentSlienceAirAsia1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xTjU9IY5GBU/VxTMiQvU5ZI/AAAAAAAABnU/ZtDu3P8YL0whKp_nh6GDAUYjFAhOMFPqACLcB/s400/GovernmentSlienceAirAsia1.PNG" width="306" /></a></div>
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In high probability the trending of #AirAsiaScam is being driven by someone. Also the folks who are Tweeting about the issue have in high likelihood been incentivized by someone. It definitely draws attention. If you look closely and pay attention to the content you'll soon realize that this is junk.</div>
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Looking at the timing (coming hours after the announcement of fares), it is quite possible that a competitor is doing this (i.e. getting #AirAsiaScam to trend).<br />
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If that's the case (in high probability it is), it is an extremely bad attempt at misinforming the public. It is also a colossal waste of money.<br />
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One of the biggest challenges of marketing on social media is that while it is an information highway, it can suddenly become a mis-information However one needs to know that the consumer is not a moron. (she is your wife ~ David Ogilvy)<br />
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There are a few people who observed and criticized the twitter trend of #AirAsiaScam.<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/basushamik">@basushamik</a> Wanna get a taste of paid tweets? Follow the trending hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AirAsiaScam?src=hash">#AirAsiaScam</a> :D Funny how people can be easily fooled or misguided</p>— Gaurav Kamble (@keenobserverGK) <a href="https://twitter.com/keenobserverGK/status/722017491627565056">April 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AirAsiaScam?src=hash">#AirAsiaScam</a> is surely a paid Twitter Trend by influencers just to malign <a href="https://twitter.com/airasiain">@airasiain</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AirAsia?src=hash">#AirAsia</a> company , <a href="https://twitter.com/RNTata2000">@RNTata2000</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/tonyfernandes">@tonyfernandes</a> !</p>— Malhar Takle (@MalharTakle) <a href="https://twitter.com/MalharTakle/status/722023798531235840">April 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Errrm what exactly is the scam here ? People curious to know the owners, but what is the scam part here ? Another paid trend ? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AirAsiaScam?src=hash">#AirAsiaScam</a></p>— The Common Indian (@AegisJesusHad) <a href="https://twitter.com/AegisJesusHad/status/722036776693587968">April 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-28931652211836604382016-04-17T22:40:00.000+05:302016-04-17T22:40:02.671+05:30Importance of Marketing on Instagram<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>"If the photo is legitimate, it seems to have worked like a charm." </i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BCpQBQROS5l/" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HUQODAg4x_s/VxOsBXdwwsI/AAAAAAAABlY/44_1_tKCiWIRiH7_GSH3ezeCBocU_IwVwCLcB/s320/Kim%2BKardashian%2BInstagram.PNG" width="269" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://instagram.com/kimkardashian">instagram.com/kimkardashian</a></td></tr>
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This was the final comment of a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/07/kim-kardashian-s-nude-pic-breaks-the-internet-again.html" target="_blank">post</a> on the daily beast on the subject of a naked selfie by Kim Kardashian on Instagram. For those living under a rock, on 7th March, Kim Kardashian barely a few weeks after giving birth to her second child posted an innocuous comment "<i>When you're like I have nothing to wear LOL</i>" with a picture that got the internet drooling.<br />
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Most stories carried the title "<i>Kim Kardashian’s Nude Selfie Breaks the Internet—Again</i>"</div>
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More than an year back, papermag.com a 30 year old indie mag paper (65% of revenues coming from the magazine itself, and just 13 per cent from digital assets) decided to use the printed mag to create a digital sensation.</div>
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<b>Their big idea was to - break the internet. </b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-80qKwMjOsOM/VxOwFj7GZII/AAAAAAAABlw/Pw-RTR911DkuRYO66YcFCeercnvd-30BQCLcB/s1600/BreakTheInternet.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-80qKwMjOsOM/VxOwFj7GZII/AAAAAAAABlw/Pw-RTR911DkuRYO66YcFCeercnvd-30BQCLcB/s1600/BreakTheInternet.PNG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://papermag.com/">papermag.com</a></td></tr>
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Kim Kardashian was booked to be on the front cover in September, 2014. On the day of release each of the Instagram stars released images in a ripple effect and the now iconic image of Kardashian posing with a champagne bottle resting on her bottom, as well as a serious of naked alternatives. </div>
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#BreakTheInternet became an overnight sensation and it sent the internet in to a frenzy. It is estimated that on the day of the release approximately 1% of the entire U.S. traffic went to papermag.com. The company in a span of 12 month has 10 times more traffic and is totally different today.</div>
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Instagram today has grown many fold. By Sept, 2015 it had almost 400 million monthly active users. In India alone <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/1vbk7EK1fSHo0pxbJkDKKI/Instagram-Indian-monthly-active-users-have-doubled-Kirthiga.html" target="_blank">active users on Instagram</a> more than doubled in a year. According to a <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/1vbk7EK1fSHo0pxbJkDKKI/Instagram-Indian-monthly-active-users-have-doubled-Kirthiga.html" target="_blank">statement</a>, almost half of the 100 million users added were from Asia and Europe.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="386" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6_PCYsATuak/VxOvagPHxZI/AAAAAAAABlk/c5HFU1QEDLApu38OuQbiXXURngwwx9TNgCLcB/s640/Instagram%2Busers%2BGlobally.PNG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: www.statista.com/</td></tr>
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The rapid of growth of users and greater share of time spent on Instagram makes it an option worth considering while creating your marketing plan. It is not just an effective channel for big brands, but can become an effective channel for startups and small businesses.</div>
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Already a few small businesses have started marketing on Instagram and early results are positive and indicate a good return on investment.</div>
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Marketing on Instagram has several factors making it a lucrative channel</div>
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Active Instagram users have high spending power</h2>
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A <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-11-19/news/68412559_1_facebook-india-monthly-active-users-400-million-users" target="_blank">study</a> found out that active users on Instagram have relatively higher spending power. Some factors worth taking a look at are<br />
- 37% of Instagram users in India above 18 years of age own a car<br />
- 25% of these active users have a post-paid mobile phone connections.<br />
- 90% of active Instagram users are below the age of 30 years<br />
This makes it an extremely valuable channel. You have a target audience with a relatively high purchasing power. Reaching to an audience with a high purchasing power is extremely valuable for startups, big brands, and small businesses.<br />
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<b>Aligned to small businesses and brands</b></h2>
Getting a user on Instagram to follow you can be ideal. <b>More than 50% of Instagram users in India purchase products and services from the brands they follow</b>. This means that for a small business acquiring a followers through relevant content can translate in to revenues. This also makes it important for your brand to have an active engaged audience. The study found out that Indian Instagram users follow brands to know about latest products, deals and shop for products online. An engaged audience on Instagram connected with an online store can not only increase awareness for your brand, but can also translate in to sales. However you need to know that sharing links on Instagram post is not possible. The only way a user can find a link to your store is through your Instagram bio. In case you are running ads on Instagram, you can have a call to action and can directly take users to your store or can get them to download your application.<br />
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Clutter (Lack of it)</h2>
Advertisers are still adopting Instagram as a channel. New platforms and inventory relatively have lower competition, which means better rates, translating in to better ROI.<br />
Catching up early on Instagram is very important. This is true both for a start-up, small business and a big brands. There are few brands in India including KitKat, Paperboat, and TrulyMadly, who have already started <a href="https://business.instagram.com/advertising/" target="_blank">advertising on Instagram</a>. At this point in time there is relatively lower competition as compared to a channel like Facebook. Lower competition would not just lead to lower rates while bidding but would also mean that users see fewer ads. This should translate in to a better ad recall.<br />
According to a <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/1vbk7EK1fSHo0pxbJkDKKI/Instagram-Indian-monthly-active-users-have-doubled-Kirthiga.html" target="_blank">report</a>, after advertising on Instagram, Nestlé KitKat, saw a 42 points lift in ad recall. These numbers present a very strong case for marketing on Instagram.<br />
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Discoverability of Content</h2>
One major advantage of Instagram over Facebook is discoverability of content (and your business). Facebook is a semi-public platform. Posts on Facebook pages don't automatically end up showing on timelines of people who haven't liked your page. Facebook also limits the number of users who see your content. All your fans don't see your content. Instagram is on the lines of Twitter. Hashtags on Instagram allow better discoverability of content.<br />
In case your post is about Indian food and you've added relevant hashtags (#Food, #India #Mumbai etc.) people searching for Food, India or Mumbai can easily discover your content. This means that if you are keen on reaching out to users organically, your content discoverability would be good. For a small business or a startup, marketing on Instagram can prove to be a cost effective option. Do not that Instagram has started restricting posts by users. It is possible that the posts you are making may not reach out to the timelines of all your followers. Facebook started doing this and gradually restricted reach of content to less than 2%. It is important to start early and have an early mover advantage before this kicks in.<br />
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About Instagram</h3>
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook & Twitter. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010. It rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion.<br />
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-13111419340164607752016-04-02T05:28:00.000+05:302016-04-08T00:36:38.370+05:30How to choose the correct hashtag for your #SocialMedia #Marketing campaign?<div style="align:right">
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Choosing an appropriate hashtag for your social media campaign can prove to be a tricky exercise. At times it can also determine success or failure of your campaign. A bad choice can result in negative conversations about your. How can you differentiate and make your campaign stand out? How can you make sure that the message reaches your audience?<br />
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One possible solution is in the construct of your campaign. The insight and the construct of your campaign plays an important role as it determines how effectively you'll build brand recall and facilitate positive word of mouth. The construct of your campaign should translate in to a hashtag, which communicates the message effectively (<i>A hashtag is a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content</i>). A hashtag is so recognized that in 2010 it was added to <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bff-hashtag-unfriend-and-other-additions-to-the-oxford-dictionary/" target="_blank">Oxford dictionary</a>.<br />
But how do you go about choosing the perfect hashtag?<br />
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The most common question is - <i><b>Should your brand's name be part of the hashtag?</b></i><br />
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<b><i>Branded Hashtag</i></b><br />
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One of the benefits of plugging your brand's name in the hashtag is that when it trends (or when your content spreads), the probability of users being exposed to the message (and brand) while they are consuming the message is high. Having a branded hashtag however limits the reach of content. People are particularly immune to branded content. With decreasing attention spans on the internet, and a tendency to skip branded content, a branded hashtag can reduce the organic spread (or sharing) of content. However if the content is very good, users will have a higher recall for the content and the brand.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost"><b><i>Unbranded Hashtag</i></b></span><br />
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<span class="fullpost">An unbranded hashtag can lead to a relatively higher level of curiosity among users. The probability to explore the hashtag, and conversations around it will be relatively higher than an unbranded hashtag. Also, there are relatively lower barriers to co-create content. Over time as a brand you can end up creating rich cultural capital. However the drawback is that till the time people click on it and explore, they would not associate your brand with the hashtag (which is not the case with branded hashtags). Unbranded hashtags here have a relatively higher probability of moving beyond the first lot of mobilized community but they come at the cost of an overt association with the brand. It is analogous to the experience where you remember a great ad, but don’t quite remember the brand. An unbranded hashtag can also be ambushed or hijacked by a competing brand.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost"><b><i>So how do you decide on which hashtag to choose?</i></b></span><br />
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A hashtag should aptly represent the message. If you have an established brand, having your brand's name in the hashtag can help you leverage on the equity. However if it does not blend with the message, it is preferable to not use it. If the hashtag (without your brand's name) has the power to generate enough curiosity, users will definitely explore.<br />
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The choice of a hashtag will determine how effectively your message spreads. It'll determine the efficacy of your media spends. At the end of it, the objective is to facilitate positive word of mouth for your brand (and not just the content). Remember that the hashtag and the message is only the means to drive positive word of mouth and build a positive perception <b><u>for your brand</u></b>.<br />
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<b><i>Keep the following 6 points in mind to make sure the your hashtag is a #Win and not a #Fail.</i></b><br />
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1. Hashtag is NOT your campaign in one word. It should communicate your message effectively.<br />
2. It is for the people.<br />
3. Open ended Hashtags or hashtags with your brand name can backfire (Remember the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/22/well-the-mynypd-hashtag-sure-backfired-quickly/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">#myNYPD</a> hashtag).<br />
4. Gauge the sentiment of users effectively before using a branded hashtag. It can quickly build a community around your detractors (Read <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/24/mcdstories-when-a-hashtag-becomes-a-bashtag/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bashtag</a>)<br />
5. There is a higher probability for an open-ended or an unbranded hashtag being hijacked or ambushed (since your brand association is still not built)<br />
6. It is important to ride on to trending topics (or trending relevant hashtags for your brand). This will help build cultural capital. </div>Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-51685123405789009792016-02-08T00:27:00.000+05:302016-02-09T03:48:32.084+05:30Notes from Zero to One by Peter Thiel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel has been one of the better books that I've read recently. It not just gives a perspective about startups and businesses, but there are some interesting things about life in general. Following are a few excerpts from the book.<span class="fullpost">
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“The smartphones that distract us from our surroundings also distract us from the fact that our surroundings are strangely old:”</div>
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“Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.”<br />
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<b>Competition</b></h2>
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<i>“Under perfect competition, in the long run no company makes an economic profit.”</i></div>
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<i>“Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.”</i></div>
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<i>“Professors downplay the cutthroat culture of academia, but managers never tire of comparing business to war.”</i></div>
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<i>“The two houses are alike, yet they hate each other. They grow even more similar as the feud escalates. Eventually, they lose sight of why they started fighting in the first place.”</i></div>
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<i>“Inside a firm, people become obsessed with their competitors for career advancement. Then the firms themselves become obsessed with their competitors in the marketplace. Amid all the human drama, people lose sight of what matters and focus on their rivals instead.”</i></div>
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<i>“Competition can make people hallucinate opportunities where none exist.”</i></div>
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<i>“Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn’t one worth fighting.”</i></div>
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<i>“Sometimes you do have to fight. Where that’s true, you should fight and win.”</i></div>
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"Only when your product is 10x better can you offer the customer transparent superiority."</i><br />
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<i>“once you’re 10x better, you escape competition.”</i></div>
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<i>“No technology company can be built on branding alone.”</i></div>
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Disruption</h2>
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<i>“Disruption also attracts attention: disruptors are people who look for trouble and find it.”</i></div>
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<i>“Disruptive companies often pick fights they can’t win.”</i></div>
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<i>“moving first is a tactic, not a goal. What really matters is generating cash flows in the future,”</i></div>
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<i>“to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.”</i></div>
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<i>“Every company starts in unique circumstances, and every company starts only once.”</i></div>
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<i>“To an indefinite optimist, the future will be better, but he doesn’t know how exactly, so he won’t make any specific plans.”</i></div>
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<i>“In philosophy, politics, and business, too, arguing over process has become a way to endlessly defer making concrete plans for a better future.”</i></div>
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<i>“In exchange for better insurance contracts, we seem to have given up the search for secrets about longevity.”</i></div>
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<i>“Every living thing is just a random iteration on some other organism, and the best iterations win.”</i></div>
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<i>“you can change the world through careful planning, not by listening to focus group feedback or copying others’ successes.”</i></div>
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<br>Secrets and the power law</h2>
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<i>“we don’t live in a normal world; we live under a power law.”</i></div>
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<i>“The biggest secret in venture capital is that the best investment in a successful fund equals or outperforms the entire rest of the fund combined.”</i></div>
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<i>“Every individual is unavoidably an investor, too. When you choose a career, you act on your belief that the kind of work you do will be valuable decades from now.”</i></div>
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<i>“you cannot run dozens of companies at the same time and then hope that one of them works out well. Less obvious but just as important, an individual cannot diversify his own life by keeping dozens of equally possible careers in ready reserve.”</i></div>
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<i>“You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.”</i></div>
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<i>“If you think something hard is impossible, you’ll never even start trying to achieve it.”</i></div>
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<i>“Belief in secrets is an effective truth.”</i></div>
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<i>“The actual truth is that there are many more secrets left to find, but they will yield only to relentless searchers.”</i></div>
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<i>“Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, it’s rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know.”</i></div>
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Startups</h2>
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<i>“Startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.”</i></div>
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<i>“As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.”</i></div>
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<i>“he who is not busy being born is busy dying.”</i></div>
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Hiring and Selling</h2>
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<i>“Recruiting is a core competency for any company. It should never be outsourced.”</i></div>
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<i>“Everybody has a product to sell—no matter whether you’re an employee, a founder, or an investor. It’s true even if your company consists of just you and your computer. Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.”</i></div>
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<i>“most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete.”</i></div>
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Data and technology</h2>
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<i>“Today’s companies have an insatiable appetite for data, mistakenly believing that more data always creates more value. But big data is usually dumb data.”</i></div>
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<i>“A great technology company should have proprietary technology an order of magnitude better than its nearest substitute.”</i></div>
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Social Entrepreneurship</h2>
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<i>“Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.”</i></div>
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Valuable Business</h2>
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<i>“An entrepreneur can’t benefit from macro-scale insight unless his own plans begin at the micro-scale.”</i></div>
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<i>“valuable business must start by finding a niche and dominating a small market.”</i></div>
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<b>And finally...</b></h2>
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<i>“Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better”</i><br />
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You can check out more about the book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_to_One" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-19419449587793055922016-01-27T01:48:00.001+05:302016-01-27T01:48:50.022+05:30Rajnigandha Six Word Story Contest - And the winner is...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Rajnigandha Pan Masala, one of the sponsors at Jaipur Literature festival every year organizes a contest i.e #RajnigandhaSixWordStory. It's a interesting brand engagement consistent with the theme of the festival. <div>
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Users have to share a six word story and they can stand a chance to win. The event being one of the largest of its kind in the world attracts a lot of participation and so does the contest.</div>
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This year however it did not go as planned and the contest backfired. The narrative on social media was not about the contest, literature or the Jaipur Literature festival. It became a narrative about Rajnigandha, chewing tobacco and oral cancer.<a name='more'></a></div>
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Users got creative and used the brand hashtag to spread the message of chewing tobacco and oral cancer.</div>
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This is not the first time such a thing has happened with Rajnigandha. It faced similar backlash during the Times Literature Festival held in New Delhi. </div>
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The consumer feedback and sentiment is becoming stronger on issues that concern health and hygiene. It's important to consider the incremental value such integration versus the risks of negative word of mouth. For a brand such as Rajnigandha keeping the narrative open-ended may not be the best idea. It can go out of control. This is also not the first time such a thing is happening to brand/institution. In April, 2014 the New York Police Department did an <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/2014/12/importance-of-twitter-in-social-media.html" target="_blank">activity on Twitter</a> where they asked netizens to share a picture with a NYPD officer. The NYPD campaign backfired as people shared images of police brutality. Soon this campaign made way in to the timelines of people on and off Twitter. One important lesson here is to gauge sentiment accurately before starting such an activity. The traction that a campaign can create can lead to both amplification of positive or negative sentiment. On social media you cannot create perception. You can only amplify it.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-50552468175096106182015-12-27T04:07:00.000+05:302015-12-27T12:27:18.178+05:30Brands and Magnets – Polarize to Mobilize<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the most valued asset of an organization is the brand. Recent literature in branding points to the brand playing the role of a social actor capable of forming intimate relationships with its customers. One of the biggest challenges for a brand is in building loyalty (or reducing infidelity). Organizations globally spend billions of dollars annually in building a stronger brand. However most brands do not take a stance, do not polarize.<br />
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Magnets polarize and attract. Their invisible field attracts all magnetic materials (the target group). For a brand this means taking a stance, creating not just a pole but a strong one. Brand, the social actor should have a strong point of view to attract. The organization should be polarized to internalize this point of view and communicate it through every touch point. One of the best examples is Apple. Its community, a creation of this strong point of view has been loyal. Research on an abandoned Apple Newton community (Muñiz Jr. & Schau, 2005) found supernatural, religious, and magical motifs common in the narratives of the Newton community, including the miraculous performance and survival of the brand, as well as the return of the brand creator. These motifs invested the brand with powerful meanings and perpetuated the brand and the community, its values, and its beliefs. These motifs also reflected and facilitated the many transformative and emancipatory aspects of consuming this brand.<br />
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The strong brand, a magnet can polarize the elements in its field, which can further increase the reach of the field thus building the community around the brand. In the digital age this means reaching out to more people with a lower media investment.<br />
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A strong field however will not just seduce and attract but shall repel as well. The repelled audience will directly benefit your competition (if it’s smart enough). Research also points to a significantly higher presence of anti-brand sites for stronger brands (Kucuk, 2008). This makes it important to choose the stance of the brand and its personality. The top brand will be the one with not just the stronger field but the field that attracts more people than it repels. Political parties function in a very similar manner. They take a stance, polarize and mobilize people. The one with a stronger field appealing to a larger audience wins.<br />
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Most strong leaders too have a very strong point of view (especially on issues that matter to their target audience). They act as a powerful brand, a magnet that attracts people. They polarize, influence thought and take forward masses of people in one direction.<br />
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</span></div>Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-2576094671641135162015-10-30T04:18:00.000+05:302015-10-30T04:18:01.146+05:30Your Customer - Another line in a database<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Email marketing can be the trickiest thing in the online marketing jigsaw. Most promotional emails end up as being marked as read or spam. No one cares! Well because most of the time, the ones sending it through a database also don't care.<br />
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You may need a CRM system with an accurate machine learning algorithm that targets the right set of people with content that matters to them. That's one way of looking at things and perhaps the right away. Another way can be targeting fundamental human needs such as being made to feel important, liked etc. I am not getting in to theory here. In case you are interested, try checking out David McClelland's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_theory" target="_blank">theory of needs</a> or the media <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327825MCS0301_02" target="_blank">uses and gratification</a> perspective. This should be part of every communication (not just email).<br />
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Coming to the point I got this email today, which could've been another generic emailer that would've been skipped in the pile of emails that come everyday. However it's sender chose to be creative, and authentic. </div>
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<i>Hi Sushant,</i></div>
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<i>I sent you an email today that was painfully generic and I apologize. The whole team was super excited to introduce you to Jenny and the dreadful CONTACT.FIRSTNAME salutation was delivered to your inbox. It's not good to feel like just another line in a database. </i></div>
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<i>So, Sushant, please accept my sincerest apology for addressing you as another contact, because you're not. You're Sushant, and our whole team - fuzzy green deer, blow-up cactus and all - are happy to know you.</i></div>
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<i>With warmest regards and a bit of a puppy-face "I'm sorry"</i>,</div>
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There is an important tip here - Are you making your customer feel like another line in a massive database? If yes, then chances are that she is going to reject you.<br />
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P.S. Content matters!</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-92066984995936344422015-10-29T01:37:00.002+05:302015-10-29T02:08:01.036+05:30Twitter's TV ad campaign<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Twitter has launched its TV ad campaign promoting moments, which was launched earlier this month. Since Jack Dorsey has been handed over the reins at Twitter, a lot new has happened. Twitter finally seems to have a sound <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Jack-Dorsey-just-gave-a-peek-at-the-new-bolder-Twitter-thats-in-the-works/articleshow/49560842.cms" target="_blank">product roadmap</a>. One of the biggest challenges being faced by Twitter right now is its sluggish user growth as compared to Facebook (apart from the lack of a steady revenue stream). This campaign should hopefully help set things up and speed up the growth of Twitter.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMKbBzdXBOg/VjEsOVHdYvI/AAAAAAAABWU/wt8_ZJZt5yI/s1600/Twitter%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMKbBzdXBOg/VjEsOVHdYvI/AAAAAAAABWU/wt8_ZJZt5yI/s320/Twitter%2Bad.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="fullpost">Twitter will be starting a large-scale marketing campaign aimed at acquiring new users and getting back the ones who used and abandoned the service years ago. It's TV ads have been created by <a href="http://tbwa/CHIAT/DAY" target="_blank">TBWA\Chiat\Day</a> (also responsible for the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I">famous 1984 Macintosh ad</a>).
The ad is good, fast paced and aptly represents Twitter moments. To the ones who are new, this should definitely create enough curiosity. It beautiful captures conversations that happen during live events and the use of second screen by consumers. This also comes from the insight on the heavy use of Twitter by consumers to share opinions and updates </span>during live events.<br />
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The use of TV ads by Google to promote Chrome helped Chrome reach number #1 in the browser space from the third spot. This campaign should hopefully revive the user growth of Twitter. But it'll still have to backed by a steady revenue stream to keep this growth model sustainable.<br />
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P.S. Twitter did a one off ad in 2012. For all practical purposes, this can be considered as Twitter's first biggest ad campaign.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-15590875285767156132015-10-27T04:04:00.002+05:302015-10-27T04:06:18.838+05:30Content Marketing - Launch of Tommy Hilfiger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="fullpost">In 1985, Tommy Hilfiger was launched through an ad campaign that practically made Tommy Hilfiger an overnight sensation in America. The ad showed a fill in the blank style list, which featured Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and suggested that Tommy Hilfiger should be added to the list. The ad, which mortified Tommy finally went live including being shown at a </span><span class="fullpost"><span class="fullpost">Times Square </span>Billboard.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost">This ad is a perfect example of great content. It generates curiosity, makes the consumer think and builds the right association. For a new brand, it was definitely bold and at the time did make Tommy uncomfortable so much so that he distanced himself from the ad. </span><br />
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<span class="fullpost">Content has to be edgy and should make you uncomfortable. It is even more important in the age of digital where great content can spread very rapidly. Given the availability of media in 1985, the Tommy Hilfiger ad demonstrates how content can spread. At the time Tommy Hilfiger booked TV appearances and got millions of dollars of free advertising. On digital media this can be substituted with influencer engagement and virality in return.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost">P.S. Being uncomfortable does not mean being crazy or stupid.</span></div>
Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-78264445838792254922015-10-25T15:45:00.000+05:302015-10-25T16:47:07.093+05:30Nobody's perfect - Volkswagen should NOT cut down on communication<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Volkswagen, Europe's largest car-maker is facing its biggest crisis in its 78-year history. On 22nd Sept, 2015 it said that as around 11 million diesel cars across the world were equipped with an engine type that could skew emissions data. While this highlights a dangerous unethical management culture, it's perhaps the biggest threat to the iconic brand.<br />
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Volkswagen has recently announced that it has <a href="http://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/volkswagen-to-freeze-promotions-due-to-emissions-scandal-report/49519660" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">frozen</a> all promotions. While media spends can be cut down due to the huge financial losses, communication should not stop. Brands are social actors capable of forming intimate relationships. While these relationships for Volkswagen are strained right now, it's important to not cut them off completely even if momentarily. It won't give a return in the short run but will go a long way in restoring the lost trust.<br />
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It's important to inform that <i>Nobody's perfect</i>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1960 Volkswagen America Ad</td></tr>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comNew Delhi, Delhi, India28.6139391 77.20902120000005228.1680166 76.563574200000048 29.059861599999998 77.854468200000056tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-2846740847462501532015-10-25T07:05:00.001+05:302015-10-27T01:50:42.311+05:30Great TV ads also work well on Social Media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've heard a few marketeers say, <i>"These ads are meant for TV and <u>thus</u> won't work for digital"</i>.<span class="fullpost">
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Fact - An ad that won't work well on digital will also not work well on TV. People have rejected it.</div>
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TV Advertising is a very challenging space. You have an extremely limited amount of very costly time to engage with your consumer and communicate your message. If the consumer does not like your ad on TV, she's going to skip the same ad/content on social media as well. The vice-versa is also true. If she likes your ad on social media, she's definitely going to give your ad on TV a second look.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1984 Apple ad</td></tr>
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The challenge with digital media is slightly greater than TV. Fundamentally passive consumption of content is happening on TV. A consumer passively consuming content might simply consume your ad due to inertia. On digital a consumer is actively seeking content and has much higher perceived control than on TV. Anything that gets in the way of a consumer actively seeking content will be skipped and rejected unless really liked by the consumer. </div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comNew Delhi, Delhi, India28.6139391 77.20902120000005228.1680166 76.563574200000048 29.059861599999998 77.854468200000056tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-83450590379066725432015-10-05T02:10:00.001+05:302015-10-19T02:45:30.788+05:30A great story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's a lonely time for the brand.</div>
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In a world where clutter is increasing by the day a lot of marketers are focusing on call to action driven marketing. With the knowledge that a consumer's attention span is decreasing more marketers are trying to bombard consumers with messages that have a clear call to action i.e. "Come try my brand (as soon as possible)". Even more visible are conversations where practitioners try to distinguish between marketing activities as branding activities and sales activities. Why? Do strong brands don't sell? Why would a strong brand not sell? <i>If the objective of your business is sale and revenue, why invest at all in a branding activity?</i><br />
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The increasing cost of getting mind-share of a consumer is leading to marketers focusing too much on media and too little on content. The focus on medium has become so high that it has made most campaigns a media management and optimization exercise. Most marketers tend to be trying to answer one question - <i>How can I reach the consumer more times in the most cost efficient manner?</i></div>
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The media management exercise is leading to fewer people recalling the message for the amount of money spent or in short making the campaign an in-effective/expensive campaign. Social Media is not spared either. I've observed a lot of practitioners trying to identify ways to promote a campaign on social media or extend it on social media. The fundamental question we need to be asking ourselves is - <i>What's the story we are trying to tell here?</i></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crOQ7JQx62k/VhGU3__1F7I/AAAAAAAABUA/rQGxK2NrEOQ/s1600/A%2Bgreat%2Bstory%2B-%2BEconomy%2Bof%2BSocial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crOQ7JQx62k/VhGU3__1F7I/AAAAAAAABUA/rQGxK2NrEOQ/s320/A%2Bgreat%2Bstory%2B-%2BEconomy%2Bof%2BSocial.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
A great story will work on any medium. Adding media muscle to it can only amplify a story. Stories transcend medium. Something that will work on social media shall also work on a less interactive medium. A captivating story will evoke emotions and encourage dialogue. In a world where more users are increasingly spending their time on social media, these conversations help the story spread.</div>
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The protagonist of your story need <b><u>NOT</u></b> be your brand. A Brand tends to be the center of the universe for a marketer (and rightly so). However your brand is not the center of the universe for the consumer. At times beautiful stories get corrupted with the brand acting more like the intruder. Audition your brand for a great story. Show it the love of a great narrative. Seduce your consumers with a great story. </div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-82648412637330410062015-09-27T03:10:00.000+05:302015-09-27T04:32:59.537+05:30Content Marketing - Creating Headlines, Avoiding Clutter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Content Marketing is the buzz word right now. Content Marketing institute <a href="http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">defines</a> Content marketing as a<i> "strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.</i>"<br />
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Rather than talking about content marketing, I'd like to focus on the objective i.e. <b>Profitable customer action. </b>Profitable customer action apart from advertising dollars would mean a purchase. For most high involvement purchases, a lot of content is informational including consumption of reviews (Word of mouth). In this space you'll find a lot of <i>How To guides</i>, which have been practically done to death by most e-commerce companies. If you start searching for how to guides such as how to buy a refrigerator, a mobile phone etc. you'll find practically every e-commerce company offering one without much difference in quality or presentation of content. Not to mention the ads by <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Google" target="_blank">Google</a>.</div>
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One big challenge is doing such form of content marketing is the presence of clutter. As a consumer you end up asking yourself, "<b><i>How to figure out, which How to guide should I read?</i></b>" Similarly in the space of fashion, you'll finds tons of online magazines offering fashion tips, etc. The space of gifting is not much different. As another player in online commerce the instrument of content marketing may not be much useful. You might end up spending money distributing your content, building an audience in order to finally drive transactions (profitable customer action). The long funnel has been one of the reasons most marketers and online shopping companies have not been able to get ROIs through content <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Marketing" target="_blank">marketing</a>. Another challenge with content marketing is that most online commerce companies cannot beat the might of media houses in terms of creation and distribution of content. Since creating and distributing content is not the core competence, it essentially leads to costlier content creation and distribution thus leading to costlier acquisition and retention through content marketing.</div>
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However there is another form of content. This is not the content that you host on your website or your App. It is the content that resides on influential media portals and is not sponsored on paid for. Most successful marketing campaigns are great stories that make headlines. This is the content that users seek and would like to read. This content is not consumed based on a need but out of habit. This content is essentially a news headline. It also uses the competence of a media house in creation and distribution of content.</div>
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Is your brand doing cool things that make headlines? These headlines cut through the clutter and find their way in to the timelines of millions of users who end up sharing it. Doing this consistently means a high recall for your brand. If the associations are built in the right manner, your <a href="http://www.economyofsocial.com/search/label/Brand" target="_blank">brand</a> should definitely find its way in to the consideration set during purchase. </div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-77773171591628339822015-08-31T20:19:00.000+05:302015-08-31T20:19:07.081+05:30Choosing a Hashtag for your campaign<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Being active on Social Media is no longer a competitive advantage for your brand. Everyone is doing it. Everyone is also focusing on content marketing, native ads and to add to your woes as a marketer is the ever increasing clutter on social media. So how can you differentiate and make your campaign stand out? How can you make sure that the message reaches your audience?<br />
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One possible solution is in the construct of your campaign. The insight and the construct of your campaign plays an important role as it determines how effectively you'll build brand recall and facilitate positive word of mouth. The construct of your campaign should translate in to a hashtag, which communicates the message effectively (<i>A hashtag is a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content</i>). A hashtag is so recognized that in 2010 it was added to <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bff-hashtag-unfriend-and-other-additions-to-the-oxford-dictionary/" target="_blank">Oxford dictionary</a>.<br />
But how do you go about choosing the perfect hashtag?<br />
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The most common question is - <i><b>Should your brand's name be part of the hashtag?</b></i><br />
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<b><i>Branded Hashtag</i></b><br />
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One of the benefits of plugging your brand's name in the hashtag is that when it trends (or when your content spreads), the probability of users being exposed to the message (and brand) while they are consuming the message is high. Having a branded hashtag however limits the reach of content. People are particularly immune to branded content. With decreasing attention spans on the internet, and a tendency to skip branded content, a branded hashtag can reduce the organic spread (or sharing) of content. However if the content is very good, users will have a higher recall for the content and the brand.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost"><b><i>Unbranded Hashtag</i></b></span><br />
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<span class="fullpost">An unbranded hashtag can lead to a relatively higher level of curiosity among users. The probability to explore the hashtag, and conversations around it will be relatively higher than an unbranded hashtag. Also, there are relatively lower barriers to co-create content. Over time as a brand you can end up creating rich cultural capital. However the drawback is that till the time people click on it and explore, they would not associate your brand with the hashtag (which is not the case with branded hashtags). Unbranded hashtags here have a relatively higher probability of moving beyond the first lot of mobilized community but they come at the cost of an overt association with the brand. It is analogous to the experience where you remember a great ad, but don’t quite remember the brand. An unbranded hashtag can also be ambushed or hijacked by a competing brand.</span><br />
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<span class="fullpost"><b><i>So how do you decide on which hashtag to choose?</i></b></span><br />
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A hashtag should aptly represent the message. If you have an established brand, having your brand's name in the hashtag can help you leverage on the equity. However if it does not blend with the message, it is preferable to not use it. If the hashtag (without your brand's name) has the power to generate enough curiosity, users will definitely explore.<br />
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The choice of a hashtag will determine how effectively your message spreads. It'll determine the efficacy of your media spends. At the end of it, the objective is to facilitate positive word of mouth for your brand (and not just the content). Remember that the hashtag and the message is only the means to drive positive word of mouth and build a positive perception <b><u>for your brand</u></b>.<br />
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<b><i>Keep the following 6 points in mind to make sure the your hashtag is a #Win and not a #Fail.</i></b><br />
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1. Hashtag is NOT your campaign in one word. It should communicate your message effectively.<br />
2. It is for the people.<br />
3. Open ended Hashtags or hashtags with your brand name can backfire (Remember the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/22/well-the-mynypd-hashtag-sure-backfired-quickly/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">#myNYPD</a> hashtag).<br />
4. Gauge the sentiment of users effectively before using a branded hashtag. It can quickly build a community around your detractors (Read <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/24/mcdstories-when-a-hashtag-becomes-a-bashtag/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bashtag</a>)<br />
5. There is a higher probability for an open-ended or an unbranded hashtag being hijacked or ambushed (since your brand association is still not built)<br />
6. It is important to ride on to trending topics (or trending relevant hashtags for your brand). This will help build cultural capital. </div>
Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-17756312352787511782015-08-31T18:27:00.000+05:302015-08-31T18:27:49.113+05:30Facebook, Email and bigger brands<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Facebook reached 1 billion unique users using its service in a day for the first time on 24th August. To put things in perspective, <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-08/28/facebook-billion-users-video-autoplay" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one in seven persons</a> on Earth used Facebook (or only 85.7% of planet earth did not use Facebook). While 14.3% used Facebook on 24th August, it is important to note that over 65% of world's population brush their teeth from Colgate every day.<br />
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There are bigger brands used by more unique people every day. Today, <a href="https://www.worldofcoca-cola.com/about-us/coca-cola-history/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">daily servings of Coca‑Cola beverages</a> are estimated at <b>1.9 billion</b> globally. It is interesting to note that there is one thing common among all these brands - They solve a fundamental human need (Oral hygiene, refreshments, Personal computing/productivity, and communication). </div>
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In terms of social networking, Facebook is by far the most used social networking site. Only YouTube comes a close second with a billion unique users using its service every month. But, is Facebook the ultimate communication medium?<br />
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The only threat to Facebook comes from Email, which can perhaps facilitate the creation of the next big communication network. Email still rules when in comes to being the ultimate communication medium primarily because of the following three things (missing in Facebook)<br />
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<li><i><b>Ubiquitous </b>- Every device, network and system has (and needs) an email address</i></li>
<li><i><b>Democratic </b>- No central controlling authority (unlike Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter)</i></li>
<li><i><b>Open </b>- While spam filters keep out the garbage, and do an increasingly good job, it’s still the most reliable way to reach out to someone, especially a new contact.</i></li>
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Facebook has done well to keep the threat of email at bay so far by acquiring WhatsApp (which does not require an email). Also, in the list of top 10 networks, Facebook owns 4 (Including Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram).</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comNew Delhi, Delhi, India28.6139391 77.20902120000005228.1680166 76.563574200000048 29.059861599999998 77.854468200000056tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-13074137779647739222015-02-21T05:01:00.000+05:302015-02-21T05:01:14.932+05:30Blogger Engagement as part of social media strategy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Social Media marketing and strategy is quite often focused on the content and story telling by brands on the channels owned by them. In reality a brand's channel and content may not even be checked or consumed by 99% of those who follow. Most of marketing efforts at times end up in shaping brand generated content, which quite often does not reach the audience or gets lost in clutter. A heavy focus on brand generated content in a social media strategy can make it in-effective.<div>
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An important aspect of social media is user generated content. In the entire space of user generated content, influencers dominate content consumed by users. These are quite often active social media users who create more content and disseminate it through channels such as their blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Influencers also tend to demonstrate expertise in a particular area, which leads to community built around them and the content they create and share.<a name='more'></a></div>
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Social media is now moving away from story telling to a mode that facilitates and taps in to stories created by users. Users that matter are influencers, where a large set includes bloggers. An effective social media strategy should incorporate these elements as part of the larger marketing plan.</div>
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Are the top bloggers discussing your product? What's their feedback? Is it positive?</div>
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These aspects determine how your product or service will be perceived by audiences. Your product's perception will not be determined by your brand's Facebook or Twitter posts along but to a larger extent by the positive/scathing reviews by influencers/bloggers. Negative reviews by influencers or bloggers can make your social media strategy fall flat. Have you effectively communicated about your product or service to this community? Social media strategy should also incorporate the views of this community and share this feedback. Listening is an extremely important part of any social media marketing strategy.</div>
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The verdict of an influencer/blogger quite often is sticky and stays on the web. It quite often would show up on top of search results. It also tends to shape how others seeking information about your product would perceive it. Imagine the fashion expert in your group giving a thumbs up to the latest Nike sports shoe. His/her approval would increase your probability to buy it. Social media is just about it. A big thumbs by top tech blogger for a new mobile would not just impact sales but also equity for the brand.</div>
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A blogger's content also has a far higher probability to cut through the clutter. Being a neutral source an influencer/blogger has a far higher probability in being heard. There is higher credibility to the content being created. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7LFUXDSu7E4/VOexqXFr1TI/AAAAAAAABLw/d4xDNKaFO_Q/s1600/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B21-02-2015%2B034237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7LFUXDSu7E4/VOexqXFr1TI/AAAAAAAABLw/d4xDNKaFO_Q/s1600/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B21-02-2015%2B034237.jpg" height="400" width="332" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-path-to-purpose.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Path to Purpose</a> (Think With Google)</td></tr>
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There are lot of ways to engage with influencers/bloggers. One way is an extension of PR where you engage with bloggers through meets and product launch events. This helps in getting coverage and is a typical way of engaging with top bloggers/influencers. Influencers/bloggers typically play the role of journalists in covering and disseminating information. Further engagement can be done through product sampling or giving bloggers exclusive access to information or content creation opportunities. </div>
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Unboxing videos in particular have increased in popularity. It's been <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/youtube-insights-stats-data-trends-vol7.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reported</a> that in 2014-15, <b>unboxing videos have grown by 57%</b>. It's not just the content that has grown but its role in facilitating purchase. Recent (Oct, 2014) <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/youtube-insights-stats-data-trends-vol7.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">surveys</a> have found that, <b>62% of people who view unboxing videos, do so while researching a particular product</b>. They've found that unboxing fuels anticipation and provides useful product information. A successful social media strategy can tap in to these consumer trends by engaging with relevant influencer/bloggers creating content in this domain.</div>
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Influencer and blogger engagement is also beyond generating user generated content which has high informational value. There are a lot of viral content creation sites, which have higher fan/follower base. One <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-path-to-purpose.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">primary motivation</a> for consumers to go online is to seek entertainment, and view feel good content. These websites, blogs are influencers in this space and engaging with them can be effective in cutting through clutter. An effective way is to not follow the traditional advertising route but to engage with them through in-content integration. This is essentially important when your social media strategy is integrating with a branding campaign. Is your latest TV commercial providing cultural capital?</div>
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Blogger contests are another way of engaging with the blogger community. These contests can be done through blog aggregation services and are effective in generating permanent user generated content unlike contests on Facebook/Twitter, which create more temporal content. A shortcoming of this approach is that the top bloggers or the influencers with greater reach tend to not participate. However it can be a good way to creatively generate content about your brand and generate narratives.</div>
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Engaging with bloggers and influencers overall gives the following advantages to any marketer</div>
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1) Cut through clutter on digital media</div>
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2) Generate rich content</div>
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3) Get search engine advantage </div>
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4) Increase user generated content and impact share of voice on social media</div>
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5) Generate credibility</div>
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These aspects are vital for the success of any social media strategy.</div>
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At present a lot of marketers are embracing influencer and blogger engagement. It's role as part of the social media strategy and the larger marketing plan will only increase. Maintaining active relationships and engaging with influencers/bloggers will play a greater role in shaping user generated conversations, brand narrative and perception on social media.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-16268141350495829002015-02-18T04:16:00.000+05:302015-02-19T05:09:45.296+05:30Online Reputation Management - 6 Important metrics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Online reputation management plays a very important role in building perception of a brand and in ultimately driving business results. User generated conversations and word of mouth have shown to have play a role in not just driving purchases but in also impacting stock prices. This makes having a strong Online Reputation Management system important for any brand. An effective Online reputation management system should contribute in building a positive perception of a brand through engagement and should lead to a higher equity for the brand. </div>
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Building online reputation and managing it requires benchmarking to assess performance of your brand and the team. It thus makes it important to select the right metric and understand its relevance.<br />
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One of the most important aspects of Online reputation is to engage with people who are talking about your brand online, especially the ones talking about your brand negatively. This is important not just from the point of view of the person who is talking about your brand, but also from the perspective of spectators viewing those conversations. Perceptions about the brand are mostly build from these public threads of interactions between the brand and the consumer. Social media makes these threads spread at a very rapid pace. Considering the rapid spread of information, these threads if not handled properly can have negative consequences. Effective management of these conversations requires efficient tracking and measurement. Following are 6 important metrics that every brand needs to track for measuring its performance in managing and building online reputation.</div>
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<b>1. Responsiveness</b></div>
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From the perspective of perception, the response of a brand to a conversation requires tracking responsiveness. Is the brand listening? If yes, is it interacting or responding swiftly? An important metric to track here is the average first response time. Average first response time gives a sense of responsiveness. A target for a brand especially in a service industry should be less than 15 minutes. Achieving this means setting up a 24x7 social media monitoring team. Depending on the business, an average first response time can also be up to 5-6 hours. Any negative conversation beyond 5 hours is a potential threat to the reputation. To measure and respond to online conversations, there are many tools (over <a href="http://stuartjdavidson.com/social-media-monitoring-tools/#" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">30 such tools</a> and growing) that can be used. Some of the tools that you can check out are <a href="http://airwoot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Airwoot</a>, <a href="http://germin8.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Germin8</a>, and <a href="https://login.radian6.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Radian6</a>. They essentially monitor social media conversations, segregate conversations (positive and negative ones), and provide analytics. They can also be integrated with the CRM systems of the brand. Responsiveness measured by average first response time, or percentage of people responded within 5 minutes ( or a given target) can be easily tracked by these tools. A lower response time is an indicator of high responsiveness. For an effective online reputation management system, it is important to be high on responsiveness as it builds the perception that a brand cares and is listening to the voice of the customer.</div>
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<b>2. Resolution rate</b></div>
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How long does a customer complaint or a query take to resolve on social media? Post a complaint or query coming on social media, how long does it take to resolve? An effective metric to track here is average resolution rate in hours or percentage issues resolved in a time frame such as 24 hours. High priority teams in any organization need to be created to quickly resolve social media cases. The resolution rate would give a sense of effectiveness of customer issue or query handling on social media. This can be tracked through Social CRM systems. Effective online reputation management means quick closure to complaints or queries. This builds the perception that a brand is swift in resolving issues. It also helps convert customers talking negatively about the brand in to advocates of the brand. This leads to the next metric of measuring advocates.</div>
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<b>3. Advocacy</b></div>
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If 100 customers complained on social media in a month, how many were turned in to brand advocates? The resources required for marketing campaigns to create 100 brand advocates can be far higher than those required to create advocates out of 100 complaining customers. Through effective responsiveness and resolution, a complaining customer can be turned in to an advocate. It thus becomes important to measure the percentage of complaining customers being transformed in to brand advocates. Once a conversation thread leads to a positive conversation, it can be tagged and an overall percentage can be measured. This metric can serve an important purpose in driving agent targets as it measure effectiveness of responsiveness and resolution. </div>
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<b>4. Channel distribution</b></div>
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Which channels contribute to more issues? Is it Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Consumer forums? What is their percentage?</div>
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Keeping a track of issues on a regular basis and their spread across various channels can give a sense of preferred medium of the consumer to touch base with the brand. This can help is understanding user behavior and help in allocation of resources. For instance a shift in percentage of complaints coming through consumer forums should be treated as a worrying sign as users are using media, which does not offer the convenience of a more widely adopted channel such as Facebook or Twitter.</div>
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<b>5. Touch points</b></div>
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Do all customers come on social media and complaint? Have the complaining customers connected with the customer care earlier?</div>
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It is important to assess what percentage of customers come to customer care and then complaint on social media. This percentage coupled with the gap in hours or days for a complaint to spill over from a traditional customer service channel can help ascertain the health of customer care in servicing issues. Call abandon rates of the customer care for a brand also influence complaint volume on social media. A higher abandon rate or a lower resolution rate or high ticket ageing could lead to higher social media complaint volume. This metric can help preempt high complaint volume on social media and can also help in reducing it.</div>
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<b>6. Sentiment and Buzz</b></div>
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Social media sentiment is an important metric to track. While all the above mentioned metrics pertain to complaints and their servicing on social media, sentiment gives a broader picture of a brand's performance. It can measured through percentage of positive, negative and neutral conversations. An important thing to note here is that social media sentiment in isolation is not a good metric to measure. This is primarily because of high error rate in tagging conversations as positive, negative or neutral. While there are tools advancing in this domain, error rate is still a cause of concern. A good thing to do however is to benchmark it with competition using the same tool. This factors in the error in measuring sentiment. Various tools such as <a href="https://www.talkwalker.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Talkwalker</a>, <a href="http://www.meltwater.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Meltwater</a>, <a href="http://www.sysomos.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sysomos</a> among others can be used to get this data.</div>
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Overall buzz can be tracked by calculating share of voice on social media (A comparison of overall volume of conversations of a brand with competition). Sentiment on the other hand can be measure by calculating percentage of positive, negative and neutral sentiment for your brand and competition.</div>
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Buzz measured by conversation volume (or user generated content) and sentiment can be further bucketed in to categories to determine the aspects of brand being talked about on social media. This bucketing is typically enabled through tools and customer dashboards. This bucketing can enable a brand understand, which aspects of its service are being talked about more. It can also help assess volume of conversations generated through offline and online marketing activities. </div>
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<b>Deriving insights</b></div>
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Online reputation management broadly has two aspects. One pertains to reducing negative sentiment and the other in increasing positive sentiment. </div>
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The first five metrics discussed i.e. responsiveness, resolution rate, advocacy, channel distribution, touch points cater to the aspect of reducing negative sentiment on social media. A good performance on these metrics indicates efficacy of a brand in reducing negative sentiment.</div>
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The sixth metric i.e. sentiment and buzz gives a picture of a brand's performance. Positive conversations, in particular percentage of positive sentiment and share of voice indicate the total active advocates of the brand on social media. A good performance here indicates performance of the brand and efficacy of marketing and social media engagement. To improve performance here a brand needs to focus on building advocacy and engagement. This metric can be further divided to identify factors contributing positive and negative sentiment to derive deeper insights.</div>
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An effective Online reputation management system needs to regularly track these metrics to measure its performance. Working on these metrics can ultimately lead to a positive perception of a brand on the internet. However it should be understood that a positive reputation on the internet is also contingent on the performance of the brand as a whole and its product/service quality. Online reputation management system and its metrics do play an important role in providing an overall feedback about the brand. A brand should further listen to this feedback and take appropriate actions and measure their impact.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-65751352930849001132015-01-11T18:06:00.001+05:302015-01-12T12:52:55.609+05:30Social Networking on Mobile - The Big opportunity for marketers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yj1ERthY-O4/VLJrT6GQb2I/AAAAAAAABKQ/wNrq5ExxYss/s1600/Mobile%2BApp%2BIndia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yj1ERthY-O4/VLJrT6GQb2I/AAAAAAAABKQ/wNrq5ExxYss/s1600/Mobile%2BApp%2BIndia.jpg" height="200" width="198" /></a>Facebook has been the dominant social network for quite a while and has an active user base of more than 1.3 billion. Its proliferation in the 18-35 years of age group (52%) makes it ideal for most advertisers.<span class="fullpost">
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An interesting statistic to observe is the number of people accessing Facebook through Mobile. One of the biggest shifts in social media behavior has been its greater usage through mobile devices (in particular smartphones). According to a <a href="http://techcircle.vccircle.com/2014/05/29/india-had-third-largest-smartphone-base-with-117m-users-in-2013-to-grow-45-in-2014-mary-meeker-report/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">report</a>, the internet traffic on mobile accounts for one forth the total internet traffic. Even more important is its growth, which is over 1.5 times per year and according to analysts would stay the same way in the years to come. This shift is even more significant for emerging economies where in a sector such as e-commerce organizations are witnessing close to <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Snapdeal-CEO-Kunal-Bahl-We-gets-65-of-orders-through-mobiles/articleshow/45717690.cms" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">65% sales</a> through mobile.<br />
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<b>WhatsApp</b></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y7kGsqgrE0Q/VLD0EsE2m_I/AAAAAAAABJo/JJGlTQ4o1RY/s1600/Facebook%2Btotal%2Bactive%2Buser%2Bbase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y7kGsqgrE0Q/VLD0EsE2m_I/AAAAAAAABJo/JJGlTQ4o1RY/s1600/Facebook%2Btotal%2Bactive%2Buser%2Bbase.jpg" height="268" width="320" /></a>Facebook has managed to stay ahead of the curve through some high profile acquisitions. Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp was valued at <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/06/facebook-closes-19-billion-whatsapp-deal/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">close to $22 billion</a>, which completed in October 2014. The deal, which initially valued WhatsApp at $19 Billion rose to close to 21.8 Bn due the rise of value of Facebook's shares. 178 million shares of its stock, 46 mn of grants in restricted stock, and $4.59 bn in cash was paid to acquire WhatsApp. This deal made WhatsApp founder Jan Koum and Brian Acton billionaires and gave Facebook access to 600 million active monthly users of WhatsApp.</div>
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According to <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/WhatsApp-user-base-crosses-700-million/articleshow/45790439.cms" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recent report</a>, WhatsApp has more than 700 million monthly active users sharing close to 30 billion messages everyday. This makes it almost 2.5 times bigger than Twitter and almost 0.5 times Facebook's 1.3 billion users/month. India alone accounts for 70 million users on WhatsApp (Nov, 2014). These numbers make it important for brands to closely monitor the evolution of WhatsApp as a platform and use it for reaching out effectively to consumers.<br />
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At present, WhatsApp, which remains an ad free medium does not support a lot of branding activity unlike its parent, Facebook. There are a few brands such as Absolut, and an Israel's chocolate company Klik that have <a href="http://www.lotus823.com/brands-boost-social-media-marketing-with-chat-apps/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">used WhatsApp</a> to engage with Fans. Although its use as a part of most social media campaigns is still not as rampant as Facebook or Twitter. One of the primary reason is the semi-public nature of the platform. Unike Facebook, or Twitter, it does not have an official page/account/group feature. Such features are present in other chat/social networking applications like Instagram, Wechat, and Line.</div>
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<b>Instagram</b></div>
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Facebook's acquisition of Instagram (co-founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger) also keeps it ahead and well established in the space of photo and video sharing along with social networking on mobile. Instagram, which got acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for close $1 billion grew by almost 23% whereas its parent Facebook only grew by 3%. Instagram now boasts of 300 million active users per month (Dec, 2014) pegging it higher than Twitter, which has close to 284 million active users. Twitter despite having a mobile App has not seen the growth in its base as compared to Instagram or WhatsApp. Globally the rise of these mobile social networks and a decline of interest in Twitter is visible in the search volume.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kcEYdQ9eD28/VLEnT4u3oLI/AAAAAAAABKA/jidERtz-mNk/s1600/WhatsApp%2BTwitter%2BInstagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kcEYdQ9eD28/VLEnT4u3oLI/AAAAAAAABKA/jidERtz-mNk/s1600/WhatsApp%2BTwitter%2BInstagram.png" height="217" width="400" /></a></div>
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For brands Instagram presents an opportunity similar to Facebook, where users can get a brand account created and share images to engage with its Fans. One of ways to organically acquire followers on Instagram is through smart use of tagging, which makes content discoverable and allows users to follow you based on content. Contests are another way to get users to follow your brand. One primary differentiation between an Instagram brand account and a Facebook page is that Instagram at present does not filter information. All the content that you post will reach your followers. Although with <a href="http://blog.instagram.com/post/64973363225/adsoninstagram" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram starting advertising</a> on its platform, this may not be the case in future. Another possibility with Instagram is the ability to track conversations that can enable brands to and ask users to share their opinion through hashtags. This makes it a very useful feature to track conversations and generate positive word-of-mouth, which is rich in media (i.e. through images). Also at present, the inability to post urls makes Instagram less subject to misuse.</div>
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<b>WeChat</b></div>
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WeChat, is a mobile messaging App by Tencent (based out of China) that boasts over 438 million active users (Aug, 2014) with 70 million outside of China. It is the world's second largest mobile messaging App after WhastApp. What also makes it unique is that it has not come from the Silicon valley. At present its dominance is in China where Wechat is used by businesses to interact with their customers. It is estimated based on <a href="http://www.business2community.com/world-news/%E2%80%8Bhow-mobile-messaging-india%E2%80%8B-going-evolve-2015-01096977" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">market share data</a> that WeChat could have close to 30 mn users in India (Nov, 2014). In India Wechat offers the capability to create official accounts where brands for instance can integrate their entire search and make product search easy and effective for users on Wechat. This provides a good opportunity for brands to interact with their customers. Although as compared to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, Wechat does not enjoy heavy adoption. But it definitely makes it a hot favorite considering Tencent's presence in India and heavy investment for increasing adoption of Wechat.</div>
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<b>Line</b> </div>
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Line was designed and launched in Japan in 2011. It saw a rapid growth in user base and by 2013 it became Japan's largest social network. It claims to have reached almost <a href="https://www.techinasia.com/line-japanese-messaging-app-has-170-million-monthly-active-users/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">560 million worldwide users</a> with almost a third of it in active accounts. Line is similar to WeChat and provides the capability to brands to create official accounts. However it does not allow tech integration and in functionality works very similar to a Facebook page. It allows brands to send notifications to users following them thus providing an attractive opportunity to engage with followers on mobile. It also allows brands to break the clutter. Its significance for Indian brands can be gauged by the fact that Line claims to have <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-17/news/55148248_1_messaging-app-line-premium-call-viber" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">30 millions users in India</a> (Oct, 2014), which is almost half of WhatsApp users.</div>
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<b>Hike</b><br />
Hike is another instant messaging service with a focus on India. It was launched as JV between Bharti Enterprises and Softbank and has close to <a href="http://www.indiawest.com/news/business/hike-messenger-snaps-up-u-s--based-zip-phone/article_84652336-97e4-11e4-adfa-9beb7decb7f3.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">35 million users</a> (Jan, 2014). It was launched in Dec, 2012 and has users primarily under the age of 25 (Which is the case with most mobile messaging applications). At present it allows restricted presence to brands. Brands through tie-ups can provide offers to users on Hike through a separate offers tab. Domino's has been one active brand offering these offers apart from many other brands in the e-commerce space. Considering the competitive mobile social networking/messaging space in India, Hike is one App to watch out for.<br />
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<b>Viber</b><br />
Viber is an Israel based instant messaging App. It was launched in direct competition with Skype and currently has over <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-11-25/news/56455707_1_viber-mark-hardy-100-mn-users" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">33 million Indian users</a> registered on the App (Nov, 2014). It also makes India the largest market for Viber overtaking the United States. At present Viber is still opening up to brands. What makes it an App to watch out for is its aggressive marketing that can help it overtaking other instant messaging apps in India. It has plans to launch a game store and micro payments system in India by 2015. It is backed by Rakuten, that acquired the application for close to $900 million (Feb, 2014).<br />
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In the Indian mobile instant messaging space, WhatsApp is the dominant player. With limited options for brands to engage on WhatsApp, other Apps become important for marketers to engage on mobile. The growth of users in applications such as Hike, Viber, Wechat, and Line in India make it an important space to watch-out for building engagement and recall. Apart from Instagram, no other application at present has an advertising inventory. This makes it important to get in early in these eco-systems and use content and creative techniques to build a follower base specific to mobile. Strategic tie-ups with these applications can also help brands. One of the biggest advantages offered by these mediums at this stage is the clutter free space they can offer. This perhaps may not be the case in future as usage and adoption increases. Also, considering the dynamic and rapidly growing space, it is important to watch out for these applications, their <u>active</u> users per month to determine which Apps could be worth investing on.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-62680116907745200692014-12-27T16:24:00.001+05:302015-02-19T06:27:24.212+05:30Importance of Twitter in Social Media strategy and way forward<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Twitter</b> has been a brand friendly platform. One of the biggest reasons for wide adoption of Twitter by celebrities, and brands has been its swiftness in dissemination of information apart from its transparency in not restricting content (unlike Facebook). The openness of the platform makes it easy to monitor, listen and communicate.<br />
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Activities such as live Tweeting capture interest in events and couple it with quick dissemination of information. Journalists and the news media has benefited a lot from this. The causes of its heavy adoption are easily visible in its utility in disseminating information at a rapid pace. To add some context, In 2011 when an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Virginia_earthquake" target="_blank">earthquake hit near Richmond</a>, Virginia, New York residents read about it on Twitter when, 30 seconds later, they felt the quake.<br />
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The heavy adoption and utility to Journalists and media houses has also lead to high influence of Twitter in creating news. Influential personalities now display influence through the number of followers and make news through Tweets. Arsenal being the first premier league club to reach 5 million followers is now News. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2014/12/22/7321042/arsenal-become-first-premier-league-club-to-reach-five" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">goal.com</a></td></tr>
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An author recently in an article titled "<i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/22/authors-are-now-judged-by-their-twitter-followers-and-its-a-world-gone-mad" target="_blank">Authors are now judged by their Twitter followers, and it's a world gone mad</a></i>" pointed (and rightly so perhaps) that she spends more time on some of these social media sites and pops her head in every once in a while because otherwise, she's told, she risks irrelevance. Brands similarly do risk irrelevance if they don't work on "engaging" with their followers, especially on a media that is widely adopted by the news making section of the society.</div>
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<b>Hashtags</b></h3>
Hastags first became associated with Twitter groups (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071011020619/http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2007/08/25/groups-for-twitter-or-a-proposal-for-twitter-tag-channels/" target="_blank">in 2007</a>) as a way to make more sense of noise on Twitter. The Tweet by les orchard in 2007 pretty much summarizes hashtags in the way we know them today.<br />
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Hashtags are pretty much used to contribute to discussions around topics, events, experiences or follow such conversations. Brands through communities of customers can to a great degree influence share of voice and recall through effective use of hashtags. In industries/sectors with heavy competition, hashtags to a good extent can summarize which brands are outperforming others.<br />
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They've also become a way for netizens to highlight unsatisfactory experience with a brand. In many such instances conversations around these hashtags act as a proxy for media outlets to infer success or failure for a campaign. This makes the choice of a hashtag by a brand important. It should effectively communicate what the campaign/activity stands for to amplify conversations. Brands should also be prepared for these hashtags to back-fire and assess the risks to reputation associated with it.<br />
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In April, 2014 the New York Police Department did an activity on Twitter where they asked netizens to share a picture with a NYPD officer.<br />
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The NYPD campaign backfired as people shared images of police brutality. Soon this campaign made way in to the timelines of people on and off Twitter. One important lesson here is to gauge sentiment accurately before starting such an activity. The traction that a campaign can create can lead to both amplification of positive or negative sentiment. On social and in particular Twitter you cannot create perception. You can only amplify it.<br />
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To voice discontent with <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/21/nypd-officers-shot-nypdlivesmatter/20731269/" target="_blank">recent shooting events</a> (Dec, 2014) people on Twitter used the hashtag #NYPDLivesMatter to express their outrage, echoing #BlackLivesMatter, which had been used to condemn the police killings of unarmed black men Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York.<br />
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Twitter as a platform has very easily established its authority in quickly disseminating information. <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2013/06/public-conversations-on-facebook/" target="_blank">Facebook introduced hashtags</a> in June, 2013 in a bid to add greater contextualization to its posts. But still Twitter as a platform to understand what's buzzing remains a hot favorite.<br />
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<b>Twitter cards - Beyond Communication and context</b></h3>
Is all the communication on Twitter and positive word of mouth driving sales? All this while for marketeers around the world, it has been a hard time to link word of mouth with sales. The ROI calculations in most cases have been restricted to return on conversations or online word of mouth measured by share of voice.<br />
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To take this forward <a href="https://dev.twitter.com/cards/overview" target="_blank">Twitter introduced cards</a>, which allow brand to use Tweets to drive traffic to a website. This can be done by adding a small piece of code to the website, and any users who Tweets with a link to the content will have a “Card” added to the Tweet that’s visible to all of their followers.<br />
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At present Twitter cards can be used to summarize content, which includes a title, description, thumbnail, Twitter account attribution, and can be used to optimally add product information in Tweets, and also drive App downloads.<br />
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This adds a lot of value in linking websites with Twitter. The card functionality allows greater value for investment for brands on Twitter not just through advertising but in linking their digital properties with Twitter through cards.<br />
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Twitter cards in a nut-shell reduce flow barriers between Twitter as platform and digital assets of a brand. With useful call to action buttons such as download app, shop now, view website, it improves Twitter's utility as a channel for brands.<br />
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<b>Twitter shopping - Shop while you Tweet</b></h3>
Twitter's evolution from sharing your thoughts in 140 characters to organizing experience through hashtags and enabling deeper integration with content, products, and apps through cards has gone a step further with Twitter's recent experiment in the online shopping space. Twitter recently launched the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/09/twitter-roles-out-buy-button-transforms-tweets-into-retail-engines/" target="_blank">buy button</a> where users could shop while Tweeting (Sept, 2014).<br />
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This is in particular for mobile users. In the experiment a few users for whom the access has been enabled can complete an entire purchase with a few taps. After tapping the “Buy” button, they can get additional details about the product post which they'll be prompted to enter shipping and payment information. This step enables Twitter to get richer information about their audience and also lets brands directly sell on Twitter. As a functionality it enables access to a huge marketplace to consumers, which can be directly leveraged by brands, sellers and e-commerce companies. At present the experiment has been small and the results are yet unknown.<br />
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<b>Fabric - Twitter as a technology partner</b></h3>
Twitter evolution as a platform and its role in social media strategy for recall, lead generation, driving visits and app downloads makes it important for brands. The fact that it still does not police what appears on the timeline like Facebook makes it much more appealing. With its recent acquisitions and the launch of <a href="https://dev.twitter.com/fabric/overview" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fabric</a>, Twitter remains an important platform not just for information dissemination, engagement and sales, but also becomes an important partner in technology.<br />
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<b>About Twitter</b></h3>
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<li>Twitter is a micro-blogging website that enables users to share messages in 140 characters</li>
<li>It created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass </li>
<li>The website was launched in July 2006</li>
<li>Hashtags evolved by 2007. They became internationally popular in 2009-10 Iranian election protests</li>
<li>In 2013 Twitter was one of the ten most-visited websites. </li>
<li>It has been described as "the SMS of the Internet</li>
<li>As of December 2014, Twitter had more than 500 million users with more than 284 million active users</li>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8634948497453096339.post-89280418154134173512014-02-07T14:29:00.000+05:302014-02-07T14:32:13.255+05:30Arun Shourie mimicking Arnab Goswami on News Hour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you have been fed up with the daily banter of Arnab Goswami debates, here is some support. Arun Shourie in a very funny manner (video below) explains the exact problem with The News Hour and Arnab Goswami.<br />
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But all said and done, The News Hour with Arnab Goswami is still extremely popular and Times Now is the number one English news channel. The following is an <a href="http://www.domainofhope.com/2014/02/the-psychology-of-arnab-goswami-debates.html">older post of mine</a> that looks at the psychology of these debates and reasons for its popularity.<br />
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Arnab Goswami debates have been famous for fire brand narration by Arnab. I've been a prisoner to these debates everyday for the last few years. They are famous and have gone a long way in making Times Now the number one news channel. They have made Arnab Goswami and subjects of his debate trend on Twitter. They've also been converted in to some hilarious parodies like the one on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFj-0X116bY" target="_blank">Pranab Mukherjee's son Arijit Mukherjee dented and painted women</a>.<span class="fullpost">
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But what is it in these debates that make them so catchy? Is it the content, Arnab's personality, or something else?</div>
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Swapan Dasgupta in his <a href="http://freepressjournal.in/the-voice-of-the-nation/" target="_blank">analysis</a> of Arnab Goswami has said that, "<i>On air he becomes a voice of indignation, anger and even insolence. These are qualities which the little man doesn’t possess in abundance. He wants to kick the errant netas. Since he can’t, he is happy for Arnab do it for him.</i>"</div>
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Delving in to the psychology of Arnab's debates, the famous super prime time News Hour, I feel it is just an amazing story that unfolds like reality TV. It is not actually a debate but a powerful narrative. If you look carefully, Arnab Goswami's debate has a villain, a very powerful villain, which is sketched out early on in the debate. </div>
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The story of Arnab Goswami's debate is the story of the fight against the villain. Villain can be the state, the government, a political party that has said/done anything controversial (according to media). It is built up very well before the show from 6 P.M. till the beginning of the debate when Arnab Goswami sets the tone for the narrative.</div>
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The debate enacted like the crusade against a villain or a set of them is one reason why Arnab Goswami's debates often take a very aggressive tone. I am unsure whether this is characteristic to a usual debate.</div>
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The debate has a set of heroes who are constantly propelled by Arnab Goswami. When these heroes are not able to speak in a firm and affirmative manner Arnab Goswami takes on the role of a crusader. In presence of some powerful heroes, he simply catalyzes the process.</div>
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In the end it becomes a plot with a powerful villain, which is quite similar to a classic Hindi movie potboiler. If you closely look at the language of Arnab, he uses words such as "Do you apologize", "Will you change", "Do you admit your mistake", when he talks to the villain. This again reinforces the story that is being unfolded on The News Hour. It also adds up to Swapan Dasgupta's observation that his presence are qualities which the little man doesn’t possess i.e. taking on the powerful villain. This is also one phenomena that has lead to the success of many Hindi movies like Sholay, Mr. India and many more.</div>
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The whole process of this march against the villain trying to make him bend down has been a feature that is also reflected in Arnab Goswami parodies created on the internet. One interesting parody that did rounds on Facebook was after Arnab's Frankling Speaking interview with Rahul Gandhi shows Arnab as a Cheetah. It is a reflection of the Chase against a person who is considered powerful shown as weak in the presence of a hero.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://en.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2014/1/29/24_08_56_16_Rahul_Interview_Times_Now_480.jpg" target="_blank">en.newsbharati.com</a></td></tr>
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Madhu Kishwar's <a href="http://kractivist.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/open-letter-to-arnab-goswami-by-madhu-kishwar/" target="_blank">open letter to Arnab</a> complaining about The News Hour debate has also made a similar observation. He says that Arnab has made it fashionable to see every issue through a prism which allows only two colors to permeate– black and white<i>. </i>That prism enables the anchor to see himself as lily white knight in shining armor out to save India from its various real and imaginary enemies and ills and ensures that all those whose alleged misdeeds have been exposed or whose views are being targeted come out pure black, pure evil.<br />
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There are other view points that tool talk about the villain, but indirectly. In a <a href="http://amreekandesi.com/2012/12/02/open-letter-to-arnab-goswami/" target="_blank">blog post</a> Atulya Mahajan says that "<i>All these years, i have longed for the day when you would, on prime TV, announce your real superhero identity, and fly off to stop a group of terrorists trying to wage battle against India.</i>" Super heroes are only created in the presence of super villains. The News Hour narrative in fact is propelled not by Arnab but the super villain he creates.<br />
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Arnab Goswami debates are unlike debates on other news channels where they aren't taken up as a crusade against a created villain. In the end this creates a very powerful narrative, which has definitely managed to hook me on for quite a while. It is good marketing through some very good story telling. </div>
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But is it good journalism? I leave that to you.</div>
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Sushant Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857933559234431176noreply@blogger.com