Social Media, Digital Marketing, Startups and Society

Do Smartphones make you dumb?

2013-06-11T03:09:00.000+05:30

A few months back I had no smartphone. Life was much simpler. The phone ringtone was loud enough to be heard even when the phone was buried under the pillow. Even the one alarm that I could set on it was loud enough to wake me up. Only a few rare occasions drove me to the world of smartphones and their extravagant displays, with a smooth touch navigating through a web of mesmerizing applications.

The only thing holding me back from a smartphone was the fact that I was almost incapable of typing on touch. If wanted to type "Hi", I would end up typing "Go". To avoid the inconveniences associated with it, my happy life continued with what could have possibly been the cheapest phone in the market.

But God and Samsung had different plans. While buying an external hard-disk, I came across a touch and type Android phone (Samsung Galaxy Y-chat). That single glance was enough for me to buy it without a second thought.

I could finally have my own personal digital servant - A(n)Droid. The reason why I badly wanted an Android phone was due to the fact that I could sync my contacts. My cheap phones that were handled rather badly by me ended up being broken leaving me loosing my contacts. Now I could sleep peacefully knowing that some remote server in North America or somewhere else on a cloud was burning power to keep my contacts safe.

My initial resistance to not use WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook apps on my phone were soon overcome by sheer curiosity and desire. I was instagram-ming random pics with smart tags, tweeting my thoughts, Facebooking (or Face-bugging) my friends or saying "Whats up?" to old friends on Whatsapp!

Over time (like a month or two perhaps), the dissonance of excessive usage of these applications took over and I started abstaining. Partly because these apps did not evolve and partly due to some boring friends. Moreover I had stopped meeting new people, or having interesting conversations with "real" people rather than some digital avatar. This was serious. There was nothing new in life other than cute baby pics, double meaning jokes or news related sarcasm and my likes, re-tweets or comments.

This led me to one question - Are Smartphones making people dumb?

Smartphone gives us access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp etc., which enable us to "Share our thoughts". Instant access means that people don't think before sharing their thoughts. Now who does that? Perhaps a dumb person. Not to mention how this reckless sharing of thoughts has damaged personal lives.

Unless something is very urgent, why would you share pics on the move. No one is dying to watch it and Facebook is using an algorithm to prevent noise makers from contaminating news feeds. Why don't you spend some time, look at the pics you clicked and only share the good ones. Spare us some time and save Facebook some server space.

The stupidest is when people go to a concert and share pics. Yeah, live! Dodo, why don't you enjoy the music and shut your mouth! Are you an RJ, VJ, a reporter?

And not to mention when people become weather reporters and start blabbering about the wind, and how wet is the rain and how hot is the sun. We know that folks!

Think about this. The time you would have otherwise spent on thinking, observing or enjoying the world around is now spent staring at a five inch interactive screen, with of course your personal digital servant - The Android. It would not be wrong to say that droids have started taking over planet earth.

As a final note, I'd like to quote Abraham Lincoln who has wisely said that it's "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Do you still think smartphones help you?

[Infographic] Social Media and Indian Elections

2013-05-29T05:53:00.000+05:30

Would Spot Fixing help brands advertising in IPL?

2013-05-20T01:27:00.000+05:30

S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila may have failed a cricket worshiping nation, but have they undone the big bucks of marketers riding on IPL?

There is no doubt that the Indian Premier League is about the money first and the cricket later. But has the money brought into it by splurging brands been undone by the perils of big money?

Rajesh a resident of New Delhi spends his evenings with his family watching matches. But now after hearing about the Spot Fixing scam, he says there is really no point watching it. Similarly Preeti another young tech savvy individual thinks watching IPL is a waste of time.

While the entertainment might have faded for few, but did IPL really loose its sheen due to spot fixing. I had my doubts this season looking at the high number of last minute finishes this season. These last minute finishes did although did pump in dopamine into the Indian social networking audience.

Here is a look.

The focus has shifted from IPL - The Game, to IPL - The Fixed Game. While brands had spent on IPL- The Cricketing Game, which is being aired on Set Max, the spot fixing scam has made people switch to watch the proceedings of IPL - The Fixed Game, which is airing on News Channels.

After all the attention span of people is limited. The controversy leads people to switch from the Game (where brands are) to News Channels (where controversies are). A direct impact has been the decline in conversations around IPL and an increase in conversations around controversy and Sreesanth.

Considering the big budgets, many brands and the resultant clutter, topped by controversy, I have my doubts over IPL still being a useful platform to splurge their annual marketing budgets.

Lemonade to Viagra - An Entrepreneur's dilemma

2013-05-17T03:26:00.000+05:30

If your lemonade does not sell, would you switch to selling Viagra?

Even more if you are passionate about making a lemonade.

I recently had an interesting conversation on Twitter with a friend on an important aspect of entrepreneurship. It all started with a thought

Me: Sometimes I feel entrepreneurs have a misplaced sense of objective especially when it comes to making money versus doing what they love.

Friend: When bills pile, passion vanishes.

Me: Test of an entrepreneur's passion is in d face of piling bills. Just as test of man's character is in d face of adversity.

Friend: True that!

This also brought me back to an old conversation with a friend who had ventured out on his own. It was about the journey from passion to returns on investment

November 11, 2012

I recently had a chat with my friend who left his job to start his own venture. His venture is doing very well. It started as a passion but in my last talk to him, I heard the word ROI. He says that for every simple decision we make, we look at ROI and its role in sustenance. It has not been smooth sailing for him, but the important question is ROI. If an entrepreneur is into a venture since it has been a passion, what is the primary goal of the venture - Generate returns or do good work?

For many startups cash flows are a big problem. Most don't survive due to this problem. Many budding entrepreneurs today are limited by cash flows. VCs are not the best bet in such situations. It is your own practical thinking and here is why the ROI focus becomes important. Passion on one hand is focus on the value proposition while ROI is sustenance.

It is like a canon on a ship with the canon (passion) delivering the power and the ship (ROI) taking it to distant shores. If there are leaks in the ship, it is highly likely that a great canon will sink. ROI focus and initial number crunching is as important as the value proposition. Great ideas need great ships to carry them.

Infibeam.com - NEVER use it!

2013-04-27T16:13:00.001+05:30

It was 11th April and I was very happy to order "The Great Gatsby", a classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald on Infibeam.com. I was even more happy to get a good deal on it. Although while ordering they said that despite being in stock, I was told it would deliver the book to me a fortnight later. This is when the delivery had to happen in Delhi. Had I stayed in a remote town in India, it would have been justified. Anyways the price conscious Indian consumer in me was very happy.

Then Infibeam did a disappearing act till 24th. Till 23rd April I received no news about the book from Infibeam. Instead I got emails of promotional offers. I am also not sure as to where all have they sold my contact details.

On 24th they came back with the news about the book. "We regret to inform you that the expected shipping date for the item(s) listed below has changed." In short we will deliver your book by 27th.

Although I was annoyed, the happiness over the fact that I would read it three days later drowned the annoyance over their mismanagement.

And then came 27th of April. Infibeam.com send me this message "Thank you for being our customer. We regret to inform you that your item(s) with order ID : 10565339 have been canceled due to stock issue."

In short I lost 16 days. I did not get my book and their site was a total failure. It is more than the time I would've taken to read a 120 odd page book.

This is not the first time they have messed up their service. Earlier they have often delayed the delivery, but the delivery did happen. Now they went a step ahead and said that delivery was not possible.

I guess their tag line, "Shop with a smile" is a good indicator of what you can expect. Smiling would be important to curb the anger and frustration from a pathetic service.

This is the last time I am buying through Infibeam. I wouldn't recommend you to use such an unreliable service either.

Social Media, Sustainability and Green Supply Chain

2013-03-06T09:30:00.000+05:30

Social Media has been in part responsible for huge political changes like the ones in the Arab world, has helped shaped huge election campaigns (Barack Obama), and at a micro level changed the way we interact with friends and family.

All these changes have a fundamental common factor that makes social media unique and more important than any other media form - It puts us all on the same space. There is no hierarchy, caste, class or status that stops your voice from being heard.

While social media has caused so many changes for good, can it also provide the solution for a big problem facing mankind today? Can social media drive sustainability?

Social Media has been effectively used by environmental activist organizations such as Green Peace that have successfully managed to garner support for causes against environmentally irresponsible behavior of many large organizations. Their methods although have been high handed but they've managed to make a dent. However it needs to be noted that changes in organizational practices due to such movements have been reactive owing to social pressure created by their efforts.

Pro-active efforts of organizations in last few years has been encouraging. Yeomans at The Guardian reports that "Indeed, in 2010, when we first published this (Social Media Sustainability) index, just 60 companies had dedicated social media channels to talk about sustainability. By 2011 that number had doubled. For 2012, we found 176 major companies around the world that had allotted dedicated resources and social media channels to their sustainability dialogue."

The SMI-Wizness Social Media sustainability index has found that companies have used editorials to communicate sustainability, and also used games, apps, and maps in their social media sustainability efforts. The good thing is that sustainability has also been employee making the campaigns more engaging and human.

As this planet faces the heat of dwindling resources there is a need for a pro-active in moving towards sustainability. One such way has been the path of Green Supply Chain. Winston at Harvard notes that "while the greening of the supply chain has been in the works for decades, the movement has really taken off in 2010."

Prof. Samir K. Srivastava in his review of Green Supply-Chain Management has defined it as "integrating environmental thinking into supply-chain management, including product design, material sourcing and selection, manufacturing processes, delivery of the final product to the consumers as well as end-of-life management of the product after its useful life".

Breakdown of social media sustainability initiatives
(Source: SMI-WIZNESS report)

Social Media can act as a channel to integrate product disposition with the organization. A company can connect with its customers on social media to integrate their disposition of product with their supply chain. This can be particularly effective in the case of durable products. Also, this reduces raw material costs and has the potential to increase loyalty by adding a touch point.

A customer planning to buy a new mobile (and dispose the existing one) can be reached by a mobile manufacturing company. With short product life-cycles with mobiles and the problem of e-waste, this strategy can be effective.

Another approach can be to integrate with the broad objective of re-cycling. Levi's has done this effectively and announced a new product line called as Waste<Less. MNN reports that Waste<Less Denim Collection will be made from a minimum of 20 percent post-consumer recycled waste.

Social Media sustainability initiatives are right now being led by U.S. and Europe respectively. This is one area where emerging economies like India and China need to catch up. Having huge consumption potential, an early beginning can give organizations in emerging economies a good competitive advantage as well.

What digital metrics don't say about brands

2013-03-05T08:00:00.000+05:30

There have been a lot of discussions around sentiment analysis and metrics about brands on the internet. To address this area, there are a lot of companies that have designed software that help brands figure out sentiment and other related things in real time.

With fancy interfaces that look no less like a NASA control panel, these packages aggregate what people are talking in real time, process it and make sense out of it.

All this enables brands to figure out their online sentiment and the profile of engaged netizens. What it does not tell brands is the culture. The big problem with a sentiment metric is that it takes the social out of social media.

Social Media for a major part is about conversations. It's not about people talking in silos without any interaction. Conversations on the web form subcultures around brand and other consumption activities. These cultures cannot be understood by bots or information processing programs. You need people to understand them.

To make effective use of social media, you need to understand the subculture. That will help brands know why the sentiment is positive or negative. More than why, it will also give information about the context and evolution of interactions around the brand.

The narratives around the brand don't always stay constant. The web like life unfolds like an on-going narrative. These narrative change because of people and this change is again that can only be interpreted by connecting the dots, that are subjective in nature.

Dr. Kozinets and Dr. Handelman in a paper published in 2004 looked at anti-consumption from the lens of new social movements. They studies movements among anti‐advertising, anti‐Nike, and anti‐GE food activists. They fond collective identity of activists indulging in anti-Nike/GE/advertising activities was linked to an evangelical identity related to U.S. activism’s religious roots. Their findings explained the value of spiritual and religious identities in gaining commitment and highlighted movements that seek to transform the ideology and culture of consumerism.

While the above research was published as a theoretical paper, its methodology speaks volumes about what can be done. A Nike or GE looking at their social media sentiment could have never possible uncovered such a phenomena. They would have simply seen a negative sentiment.

Another aspect is context. A person keen on healthy foods is not really going to speak volumes about a wafer/cola brand. The relevance of netizens speaking about your brand is a major issue that I've seen has not been addressed by social media sentiment packages.

This again highlights the importance of cultures. A common theme or homophily forms many online subcultures. Internet and social media acts as glue in bringing people with similar tastes together. It is important to move beyond metrics to cultures that exist around brands on the internet.

Do you agree with this? Share your thoughts below.

Facebook Algorithm tweaks and its impact

2013-03-04T03:18:00.000+05:30

Facebook has tweaked its News Feed algorithm that basically displays the activity of your friends and subscriptions. To those who have seen a decline in activity or the number of likes and comments on their posts, there is a surprise.

Nick Bilton, a popular journalist made merry of the subscription feature that was introduced on Facebook which allowed people to see others public activity streams without being Friends. Many other journalists and celebrities like Nick made good use of this feature and promoted their content and activity on Facebook. Like in all happy tales, there was a climax.

But in the quest of making more for its advertiser base, Facebook started sponsored stories, which allowed an advertiser to promote his/her story on your timeline. But along with this what Facebook also did was "suppress" the updates from your personal network.

I too noticed this odd change as I was being exposed to a lot of updates from brand pages than my own friend circle. I thought probably they had made a wise choice to refrain from Facebook, but that actually wasn't true. Most of their activity was actually not making it to my timeline. In the last few months I have lost interest in Facebook. I see this as one important factor.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has noted that "Facebook has the incentive to make the free views scarce to increase demand for the paid views"

Facebook, which earlier helped people stay closer to friends is now helping people stay closer to "brands" and advertisers. This in the long term has the potential to impact happiness quotient. Relational goals and Materialistic goals are two extremes. Staying connected with your friends and family helps you achieve relational goals. Getting into a materialistic lifestyle facilitated by consumption of brands reduces long term happiness.

The problem is not in promoting brands. I am perfectly OK with Facebook getting a large share of the advertising budget and its shareholders becoming rich. What I am not OK with is the non-democratic approach followed to reach there. Internet is a huge democracy and companies like Facebook have become rich and powerful owing to this structure of internet where all nodes are equal. Why suppress feeds of my friends? We can have both in the same place.

The argument against having both in the same is place is the problem of low attention span. If you have too many stories on your news feed, chances are the attention per-story is going to reduce. Couple that with an increasing weight on updates in people you know, brands will loose attention span. This makes the case for suppressing updates from people you know.

But what will happen if people did not get comments and likes on their posts or stuff they shared? It is going to reduce a key aspect of relational development process i.e. reciprocity. Reciprocity is a very important aspect of relationship development. If people feel there is no reciprocity, they are either going to buy it through sponsored stories (which seems like an unlikely event) or their attention span on Facebook in whole is going to further reduce. It again hurts the advertiser and also reduces interest in Facebook.

These tweaks in the algorithm of Facebook affects 1 billion people. Factoring in the time spent by each of these users, Facebook has a big social responsibility on its hands.While research shows social media use has positively impacted happiness, such tweaks have the potential of long term harmful impact on society.

Do you agree with this? Share your thoughts below.

Redbus.in and the moon shot attitude

2013-03-01T15:16:00.000+05:30

Entrepreneurship is about innovation and the ability to tackle problems. Doing both means you have a successful venture. Redbus.in is a classic Indian example of a startup that tackled challenges through innovation. RedBus (redbus.in) is now India's biggest online bus ticketing company.

Interstate bus travel in India was a highly unorganized sector with many private local players and government buses. A consequence of this was the selling of bus tickets through traditional brick-and-mortar agents. Another problem with bus travel was immediate booking of tickets before journey. There used to be few advance bookings. Travelling to remote corners or on an immediate basis through bus remained a cumbersome task. Moreover there was no guarantee that if you went to a bus stand, you would find a bus.

To address these problems, in 2006, BITS Pilani alumni Phanindra Sama, Sudhakar Pasupunuri and Charan Padmaraju started Redbus, to sell bus tickets online. The idea came from Phanindra's personal experience with bus travel when he could not spend vacations with his family and reach home on Diwali.

Diwali is a peak season for travel when many people in India travel from one corner of the country to the other to celebrate the festival with their families. On facing problems himself, Phanindra came up with the idea of starting a bus portal where you could book tickets in advance. In addition, you could also book the tickets for return journey.

Phanindra and his two co-founders took market surveys to understand the market and they developed a plan for their business. Their business plan was among one of the winners at the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) mentorship competition. Their portal was created with the help of the mentoring and seed funding provided by the competition.

Today Redbus has managed to transform an entire system of age of travel in this country. One of their major achievements has been in convincing bus operators to try their system. I feel this is one major barrier they've overcome as changing minds of old business owners is a herculean task.

Redbus operates in a two sided market much like credit card companies. They have two sets of customers 1) Use their portal to buy tickets, 2) Bus operators. These markets are tricky to get into as for you getting one customer is contingent on having the other and the vice-versa. So for Redbus to have people buy tickets, it needed bus operators on its site and for bus operators to see viability, they needed to see people buying tickets.

There are importantly 3 factors that are responsible for RedBus.in's success.

1. Customer orientation
Their business idea from its inception focuses on reducing customer hassle. Customer orientation and user experience is the core. Their first customer i.e. the ticket buyer was always easy to get as they had a sound pain point. The other important factor i.e. getting bus operators to sell tickets also proved to be an important pain point for operators. Many operators were running on unprofitable routes with low occupancy and an increasing salary bill. Thus their business model addressed to needs of both sets of customers.

2. The right mix
A great team is on key ingredient of any successful startup. Many startups with great ideas fizzle out because of the wrong people. Redbus has done it by bringing in veterans of the online market on board. One such employee is its chief product officer Alok Goel. Alok spent around three years at Google India and became the head of mobile search and products. Alok put in his papers at Google and joined Redbus in October 2012. Drew Olanoff at Techcrunch in his story on TechCrunch said that Alok clearly has a Google mind. A Google mind is something I’ve noticed from current and former Googlers where they attack a problem as if they have all of the world’s resources at their fingertips, whether they have $1 or $1 billion. That type of moonshot thinking is what propels a startup into a world-class business.

3. Long term vision
Redbus is constantly in the mode of pushing the boundaries of improving user experience. One such innovation they brought in 2012 was the SMS ticket feature. Before that users had to take a printout of the ticket. In a country like India, which is still low on internet penetration leave along printing facilities SMS was one feature that would've been easy on users and the environment. Redbus implemented it by persuading drivers to accept SMS as a ticket.

Agree with this? Share your thoughts in the discussion section below.

Read more interesting articles on Redbus

RedBus Continues To Dominate In India, But That’s Not What Makes Them Special (TechCrunch)
Redbus Has The Hot Ticket (Forbes India)
Redbus company profile (Crunchbase company profile)
Redbus (Story of Redbus)
RedBus.in Weekly Startup Profiles (NEN)

Twitter vs. News - Effectiveness in building relations

2013-02-19T10:00:00.000+05:30

Social Media has been termed as an effective way to build relationships. Brands are trying to harness this capability by building social presence on this new media. Celebrities today account for the maximum amount of followers on the web with twitter being a fine example for this.

But is this new media effective in creating relationships with this vast list of followers, which celebrities often tend to have?

In an interesting research by Lee and Jang, they explore the effectiveness of celebrities in building social presence on new media. They compare twitter and a news website to check the relative effectiveness of enhancing social presence. While the traditional PR machinery used by celebrities might give them news coverage, they contend that their tweets can reduce the barrier of relational development as compared to a news website. Their findings are counter-intuitive and very interesting.

They find that a celebrity’s Twitter page promotes the feelings that users are actually having a two-way conversation as compared to the news article about the celebrity saying the same thing. But this tendency is visible for only those people shy away from social interactions. They find that people who have greater affiliative tendency i.e. those who place greater value on social interaction experience a greater social presence while reading the news article than a tweet.

Affiliative persons are friendly, sociable, helpful, skillful in dealing with people, and open about their feelings. They make good companions because they are pleasant and agreeable. Others feel comfortable with them and like them.

Their research showed that people higher on affiliative tendency experienced celebrity's presence more vividly while reading the news article. An explanation they give for this finding is in the violation of the expactancy. Readers of celebrity Tweets would expect more of private life of the celebrity on Twitter than in news, since such is the characteristic of individuals that show high affiliative tendency. Since they disclose more, they expect the celebrity to do the same and this causes celebrity to fall short on expectations. To highly affiliative persons, Tweets might not be sufficiently personal and disappointing.

Another possible cause they suggest is the absence of a feedback mechanism. Not having the means by which they can participate in the interactions make affiliative individuals feel unnatural even cause frustration.

As branding moves to the digital age with a focus on engagement and relationships, this research proves that the concept of the illusion of a face-to-face relationship with celebrities on twitter might not be true for all individuals. While a medium such as twitter filters out many formal mediators, the informal nature does not give this illusion of being close to all.

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.

Computer games can improve your mood

2013-02-18T05:52:00.000+05:30

Computer games always had a negative correlation with my grades. Although I have never been an addict, I've had phases where I spent long hours playing Age of Empires, Counter Strike and Cricket 97. The answer to the reasons behind the phases of playing them in excess has been found by some recent research.

Bowman and Tamborini in their recent research published in the New Media and Society argue that a computer game play has the potential to intervene in noxious mood states. It is due to the fact that it is simply a more demanding task.

They use the backing of mood management theory to say that computer games are adept mood repair agents. Mood management theory posits that the consumption of messages, particularly entertaining messages, are capable of altering prevailing mood states. Selection of specific messages for consumption often regulates our mood states.

The idea of selecting media content in the interest of enhancing our mood states was proposed by Zillmann and Bryant in 1985 and extended further by Zillmann in 1988.

Mood management is based on the premise that individuals are motivated for pleasure. It states that individuals tend to arrange their environment so that good mood (commonly pleasure) is maximized or maintained, and bad mood (commonly pain) is diminished or alleviated.

Bowman and Tamborini conducted a study that varied the levels of task demand in a computer game to test the validity of their argument. Results showed that increasing the amount of control an individual has over the environment significantly increased medium’s intervention potential. This increase in intervention potential resulted in an enhanced ability to relieve boredom and stress. But they also found that too much task demand is detrimental to mood repair.

This shows when under stress, it is good to play a computer game. Although increased complexity or a very tough stage in the game may not always help you.

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.

HUL's Lifebuoy on Roti at Kumbh Mela - Yuck!

2013-02-08T22:27:00.001+05:30

Hindustan Unilevel, India's largest consumer products firm, along with Ogilvy, has partnered with more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the Kumbh mela site to serve rotis that are stamped with "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?"

Economic Times reports that the company has made special heat stamps to make an impression of its message on rotis and hired 100 promoters to stand in 100 kitchens across the mela. The campaign started on February 1 and will run for 30 days. The company hopes to put the hand wash reminder on 2.5 million rotis.

The campaign surely has grabbed a lot of eyeballs and a lot of positive word of mouth on the internet. The highly positive online sentiment depicts that netizens have appreciated and embraced this creative idea.

But is it great? I don't think so! Imagine a soap's name appearing on the food you eat. It is if not ridiculous completely abhorrent.

From a pure marketing perspective why would you like to remind a person who is about to eat something which is kept in the toilet and completely unrelated to eating. A toothpaste advising you to rinse your mouth after eating is ok since it is somehow related to internal use and not external use.

Imagine the feelings aroused by Lifebuoy, considered a stinky soap (earlier) reaching onto our rotis. It's like the Harpic ad (cleaning toilets) being shown when you are at the dinner table watching TV.

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.

Moving beyond Good Morning - Importance of an Online Content Strategy

2013-02-05T19:35:00.000+05:30

The first phase of social media marketing was dominated by the race for numbers - A greater fan base meant success. To be fair the metric was an easy way of determining success of social media marketing. The only problem was that it did not factor in existing equity of brands. As a result strong brands quickly reached million follower count. This was more a result of the effort given in by previous brand managers. Social media marketers simply harnessed this existing equity.

Another problem was of saturation.The percentage growth of fans had declined to an almost constant level. To prove their worth and drive revenue, social media marketers and media owners such as Facebook tried to attract brands by luring them to the concept of engagement. It seemed like a logical extension.

Irina back in 2010 at adage reported that companies have spent millions gathering fans on their Facebook pages and being "liked" all across the web. But what started as a volume play -- call it Facebook marketing 1.0 -- is shifting. Increasingly, it's not so much how many people are liking your brand, but who those people are and how many are engaging with you once you've got them.

The discussion around social media marketing then shifted from obese numbers to a more fit metric - Engagement. Here brands resorted to content like "Good Morning", "Merry Christmas" and other trivia to engage their so called fans. While this form of engagement did garner a lot of likes, the comments section proved that the engagement was not of much use. It was not real!

In my personal research experience on Facebook pages, I have seen that in most cases discussions are on a completely different tangent. The only solace for social media marketers was the number of likes. Engagement soon became a number and brands were chasing it.

I conducted a personal study on top 900 Facebook pages to find that maximum amount of engagement was around 11% on a page dedicated to Jesus. Major brands had an engagement level of around 3-4% at a maximum.

This trend still continues and it indicates a major gap in the online content strategy. What should it be like? For starters let us look at the current major branding paradigm - Brand relationships. Social media has provided a medium to engage in conversations and build relationships. These ultimately build a culture around the brand. It is similar to the way relationships in group determine its culture and norms. An online content strategy has to be focused on the brand personality and brand culture. Anything apart form this should be resisted.

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.

Narendra Modi wins on Indian Social Media

2013-02-01T14:13:00.000+05:30

India today has over 61 million Facebook users making it almost close to 5% of total population according to statistics provided by social bakers.

Another interesting aspect of the trend is that among politicians, Narendra Modi has the highest number of local (Indian) fans (1.21 million) followed closely by Barack Obama. Another 0.3 million fans are vouching for Narendra Modi as PM.

Cyber-bullying, trolling, free speech and the problem

2013-01-20T04:54:00.000+05:30

A troll is someone who posts inflammatory messages in an online community or a discussion with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or disrupting the discussion.

Cyber-bullying and internet trolling are big cause of concern since they can have a very bad emotional impact on the recipient. While in the name of humor or fun, they might mock certain issues at their own level, it can lead to dangerous consequences such as igniting religious sentiments.

The problem today is about defining the boundaries of free speech. A message with a high inflammatory potential is not good for the society and right now determining the right or the wrong rests in the hands of corporations controlling digital media. More so the culturally boundaries that exists offline are not particularly well understood.

To hold a troller accountable requires revealing identity and is particularly difficult as the definitions would change based on culture and geography. So if the identity of an activist voicing against his/her government is revealed it is again not good for the society. Moreover it poses diplomatic problems. It is again not good if the identity of the troller is not revealed or blocked in someway.

This video is an good quick watch about the problem of online trolling.

Trolls in an online media where today we focus on building relationships and disclosing personal details can be particularly harmful and disturbing. Imagine sensitive or personal information about you being mocked by a troller. In return the troller's rhetoric can be simple - Why take things seriously?

Another problem with online trolling is that you can't run away. So you cannot shift your Facebook profile to a different place or prevent people from tweeting about you. Trolling as shown in the video can also take extreme forms when you mock dead people.

But there is one aspect which separates a regular troller from an accidental troller. An MBA student committed suicide when after the break up, the guy shared the incident on Facebook. Her boyfriend had posted on Facebook saying, "Feeling super cool today. Dumped my new ex-girlfriend. Happy independence day."

While trolling presently is not under control as there are lack of proper mechanisms and the the system is evolving; at present the best way to avoid being a victim is to be discrete on the internet. Moreover dealing with trolls requires collective effort, which the social media makes possible. The only other link is the will to do it.

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.
This is an interesting image I found on the internet that has good advice on ways to deal with cyber-bullying.

Source: fuzion.ie

Hina Rabbani Khar, Social Media and the Gangs of Twitter

2013-01-18T01:50:00.000+05:30

The Indo-pak dialogue on social media is never a polite one. It can get ugly and sometimes outright disgusting. YouTube videos of Pakistani or Indian musicians is one such example where they go way out of hand.

But the rest of social media especially twitter is different. In the case of Hina Rabbani Khar, her statements on India's reaction to beheading of its soldier did not go too well.

The twitter trend started with several news agencies updating their twitter account reporting the statement and opinion. Then it was up to the Gangs of Twitter to decide her fate. I've noticed one interesting thing about this gang - Its popularity hinges on humor and satire.

The "serious issue" soon became an opportunity to mock the incident with utmost creativity and apathy. The following are some of the top tweets on "Hina Rabbani Khar".

Ramesh Srivats ‏@rameshsrivatsMaybe we should counter Hina Rabbani Khar by making Digvijay Singh the External Affairs Minister?

IndiaSpeaksPR ‏@IndiaSpeaksPRIndian Govt declines Hina Rabbani Khar's friend request.

Firstpost ‏@firstpostinHina Rabbani Khar talks peace; Pak Army keeps the powder dry

Stereotypewriter ‏@babumoshoyHina Rabbani Khar is as overrated as Rohit Sharma.

Madhavan Narayanan ‏@madversityThomson: "Hina Rabbani Khar wears shades". Thompson: "To be precise, she is shady" #tintin

Chetan Bhagat ‏@chetan_bhagatHina Rabbani Khar. So pretty. So shrewd. What a character she'd make in a book or a movie.

Ramesh Srivats ‏@rameshsrivatsDear Hina Rabbani Khar, You know and we know that Pakistan doesn't want peace. It wants piece. A piece of India.

What started as a serious issue soon turned out be an object of ridicule. But there is more to the Gangs of Twitter.

While the news media often portrays a sad image about corruption, Indo-Pak issue, and politicians, often making us feel that the world is truly a very bad place; these gangs quite like the Joker do make you laugh and make you realize a hard fact - Life is out of control!.

After all, why so serious?

Do twitter trends influence curiosity in a topic?

2013-01-12T08:05:00.000+05:30

Twitter has a unique feature - It always leads you to wiki page, blog or a news link. Twitter trends lead you to search about a topic and thus actually lead to a greater search traffic. I look at the cases of two people to verify this effect.

Rahul Dravid was trending on twitter. People were wishing him "happy birthday". Although I don't really nderstand the use of doing so, people still wished him. This trend was correlated with search traffic of Rahul Dravid. Same was the case with Arnab Goswami who was trending on twitter. His search volume was very high.

Blue line represents recent interest in topic measured by search volume in last 7 days, whereas the red line represents an average interest in the topic during the last three months

One possible reason for this can be the increasing curiosity due to a trending topic. Rahul Dravid's birthday is comparatively a more trivial issue, which leads to a lower rise in curiosity (see figure above). Arnab Goswami who is less popular than Rahul Dravid induced a greater curiosity and lead to a far greater level of search volume.

This trend also implies how twitter can be a far greater consumer of time than other social networks such as Facebook. It gives trends to explore and the story does not end there. After searching for a trending topic, it is highly likely that you'd have an opinion about it, which of course you'll tweet about. And the story would not again end there. You'll have followers who might agree or disagree and might reply about it. The conversation is just beginning...

It becomes a vicious cycle. What starts as a curiosity in a trending topic actually ends up using quite a bit of time. While Facebook seemed initially seemed like a big time consumer, it seems like diet coke now.

After twitter, Facebook seems like diet coke! #Quote
— Sushant Kumar (@extendedself) January 11, 2013

Arnab Goswami, Twitter and India

2013-01-11T04:57:00.001+05:30

An unlikely messenger has become the message - Arnab Goswami! His firebrand approach and ability to vocally gun down politicians makes people watch the Times Now News Hour in a hope that things will change.

In the beautifully articulated words of Swapan Dasgupta, "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."

While this hope has increased TRPs of Times Now News Hour debate, it has also lead to an almost three day continuous trending of Arnab Goswami. Here is a list of tweets that were really funny.

Once Rajnikanth taught a baby to talk...that baby was named Arnab Goswami!
Arnab Goswami might probably be the only guy in the world to fight with his wife and win.
Apparently the Indian Army has decided to deploy its deadliest weapon yet code named Arnab Goswami ;)
If Arnab Goswami wants his audience to survive his show this ENTIRE year, it's about time he wished them a Happy New "Ear"!
Indian Cricket Team is in serious trouble.We need a new coach.I can think of only one name - ARNAB GOSWAMI Dhoni should be punished by making him face Arnab Goswami in NewsHour!

While Arnab Goswami gives the daily dose of hope to the powerless common man, there is one characteristic that I observed in nature of tweets. What started as a serious thought to Arnab Goswami's show on News Hour quickly became a mode of fun, and satire. Questioning Pranab Mukherjee's son (see Arnab Goswami Mashup) on callous remarks on the Delhi Gang Rape or the brutality of Pakistan, twitterati was more bothered about the funny remark they made about Arnab Goswami.

The important question however is - Is the indulgent Indian twitterati bothered about the core issue? Or is it that they've lost hope too?

Is the growing humor surrounding the messenger an indicator of the increasing helplessness we feel today?

Agree with this? Join this discussion and give your feedback below.

Brand Gangnam!

2013-01-10T04:49:00.001+05:30

A few suggestions on the reasons behind the success of Brand Gangnam!

Twitter and the world of hate - Delhi Gang Rape

2013-01-09T23:01:00.001+05:30

Common wisdom says that venting out reduces frustration. Twitter, Facebook, and blogs help us achieve the same. While what normally starts as a "venting out" experience, I suspect is turning out to be an anguish enhancer. When I look at trending topics on twitter all what I see is a world of "Hate".

Small pieces of hate messages turn out to be a big collective bunch of hate. Take the case of Delhi gang rape and some ill-minded comments of politicians and spiritual gurus. What started as scattered bickering remarks against a comment made by "Asaram" has now become a full fledged ball of rage. This rage was "non-directional", had no agenda and was oriented towards sarcasm and wit.

While Delhi gang rape highlights poor governance, societal problems and problems of law and order, venting out on a forum that accumulates the frustration by many such people only adds to the low well-being. It is time we use some discretion and post messages that are constructive to make a "cumulative opinion" rather than "cumulative frustration".

(Image courtesy: www.benjitao.com)

Why we FAIL when it MATTERS the MOST?

2013-01-03T03:47:00.000+05:30

Don't be afraid to click on the
picture above :P

We give many exams, interviews, public speeches yet when these matter the most for us, we somehow manage to underperform or even at times perform miserably. In this blog post I will talk about why people fail and how you can avoid the trap of failure. I am sure you would’ve read articles on “success tips” and seen many motivational talks on succeeding; I can assure you I won’t be repeating the same. There are three aspects that I’ve come across that make us fail - 1) The high stakes game, 2) “Good Wishes” from friends and family, and finally 3) This is my “dream”.

The high stakes game

I will tell you a story about my friend with a “HIGH IQ” who failed miserably in the CAT exam. CAT is an important exam taken by many students every year to get into top Indian B-schools. My friend did all the right things yet could not make it. He was working as a trainer with an IT company for three years and was getting a very good salary. Once he was sure about a management degree, he decided to leave his job and focus on the CAT exam (yes, he performed miserably). Many of his teachers who were coaching him for the exam recommended leaving the job since it would’ve made him “focus” on his target. This strategy of enhancing focus did not help him.

What clearly failed him was the stress due to the high stake nature of the process. Since he had left his job, it was a do or die situation for him. Interestingly he created the situation for himself. This increased the stress level and lead to his failure. You might although feel that a person tends to give his best in a do or die situation but clearly that is not what happened. When the stakes becomes too high we tend to divert our mental resources on the stakes, which makes us do our job at hand with less efficiency. The riskiness makes us worry about the negative effects of not making it through. His worry reduced his performance in an exam where the margin of error was very low.

Interestingly many of those who make it through don’t make a big deal about it. In my first year at IIM, I found out that most of my batch-mates already had given CAT for 2-3 years and this was their 3^rd or 4^th attempt. On asking them further they told me that were working with good IT companies and giving CAT every year was almost routine (by the way most engineers in India find their way into IT companies). To put it simply, “It wasn’t a big deal”. Getting into IIMs was NOT high stakes for them.

So how can we remove this factor? It is simple. Thinking of the exam or the interview or the presentation as a big deal and a high stakes game should NOT be done.

Good Wishes from friends and family

I find this one to be very interesting. Good wishes from friends and family should help you, but it does not and the reason is simple – “They know you are preparing for the exam”. It is not their hidden malign envy but their close eye on your performance. This close watch creates social pressure which is a big reason for stress. When your social circle knows that you are doing a particular task, your nervousness while doing the task increases. When you know the world is watching you, this nervousness builds a pressure that diverts your mind from the exam, interview and task at hand.

To tell you more about this phenomenon, I would like to share the details of an experiment done by Dan Ariely, a famous author, researcher and professor in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. He did a study where he asked his students to solve anagrams. In one condition he asked them to do it in a private cabin. In the second condition he asked them to do it in front of their fellow participants on a black board. The students in the condition where they were privately asked to solve an anagram solved with a much greater success rate than students solving it on a black board in front of their peers. Social pressure increased the stress in the public condition and reduced performance.

As lesser mortals trying to make it big in this highly competitive world, we can avoid chances of failure by reducing social pressure. We need to simply keep mum about the important exam or interview we are preparing for.

This is my “dream”

When you say to yourself before an exam or an interview that, “this is my dream and I want this”, it is highly likely you will NOT get it. Paulo Coelho might disagree but let’s look at some reality. When you think an exam or an interview will help you reach a world of your dreams, you actually end up dreaming. Your mind shifts focus to the perks of clearing the exam or the interview – The mind gets diverted.

Research has consistently shown that high bonuses lead to poor performance. This is one major psychological factor that can be attributed to the 2008 financial crisis. High bonuses of bankers lead to a very poor performance and lead to a complete collapse. Bankers were more concerned about their bonuses and less bothered about the job at hand.

When we start dreaming about the possibilities that exist after succeeding in our task, we also tend to loose focus on the task. Our mind gets diverted to things that do not help us in doing the task well. Like the “high stakes game” where mind worries about the bad effects of failing at the task, “the dream” diverts the mind to the good things that will come after successfully completing the task. For a task that requires focus and skill, both these makes us underperform.

How can we NOT fail then?

My list of failures is long and distinguished. They keep coming. But there is one thing in all my better performances like a play where I acted well (meaning I did not forget my lines), an exam, or an interview – I practiced and chilled out. It was mentally not high stakes, nor did I publicize about it (or bother about good wishes from my friends and family) nor did I crave for it. These three things essentially mean to me one thing – Chilling out! Being too “serious” about the final task is not good for doing it well. Rather seriousness should only be limited to the practice. While skill can be developed from practice and hardwork, it is equally important to take things easily.

Everybody wants to feel "SPECIAL"

2012-12-16T11:51:00.001+05:30

The only thing we lack today in our life is our time. Without this time and a plenty of things in mind, life gets tough on relationships. These bonds weaken over time. Even with colleagues our general likability goes down adversely impacting our professional growth. What can we do to change it?

We always like those people who listen to our stories, appreciate our work, or laugh at our jokes. These are the people who tell us that our story, work or joke is special. In a way they make us feel special by covertly caring about us. In on line, everyone, the attention seeker or the introvert wants to feel special. The big people, and even the small ones, all want it. Getting it makes the world slightly more happy. The following video from the movie "Munnabhai MBBS" is a perfect demonstration of the positive effect.

We live in a social world where our success not only depends on our performance but that of our team. For a team to be successful every person in it needs to feel special. Effective leaders do it naturally and that is why end up being looked up to by others. When your team likes you, they will be motivated to work for you.

Giving the finger to a scripted life!

2012-12-09T03:16:00.000+05:30

It's crazy to take jobs just because they look good on your resume. That's like saving sex for your old age. ~ Warren Buffet.

You have plans for your life, career etc. You've built an entire script but what is this based on?

Scott at Ted talks about how almost 80% of the people around the world don't like the job they do. In his career, he found one day that most of the job he did was automated by his competitors.

Building the resume was clearly not way forward. It was during that time he he heard the quote by warren buffet, "It's crazy to take jobs just because they look good on your resume. That's like saving sex for your old age". This was when he left his job.

While there are know universities, which talk about finding your passion, Scott talks about a lens that can help in finding the job we love.

Social Media as a solution to businesses that aren't doing well

2012-12-07T18:28:00.000+05:30

Social media can provide a solution platform for businesses that aren't doing well. Not because it is cheap! Not because it is a magic wand!

Take this case - What do you do when you are in a financial crisis? What do you do as a person when you are unemployed? You borrow money from a close friend or take help from your family. You take help from people who like you and care about you. These are the ones that have spent sufficient time with you.

Drawing on this analogy, an ailing business can use social media to build a community around its truly loyal fans. These are the ones that still like or care about the brand. The ones that did not like the brand left it. These loyal fans have to be engaged and social media presents one such platform. It is important to note that it is still a platform, not the game.

The game of engagement is a different story. Engagement is based on the culture that exists within your brand, something you have fostered over the years or something that you aspire for. Engaging this community of loyals helps in generating word of mouth. We are living in a social era. Word of Mouth helps a firm from the perspective of stock prices, sales and branding. Considering social media's power in giving your brand the visible likes, it may just be the right platform.

Being nice ain't that great for your pay!

2012-12-05T18:58:00.001+05:30

A study has found a that young men in the United States who are cooperative and value relationships earn 20 percent less than their peers. The study has been conducted by Timothy A. Judge of the University of Notre Dame. If you indulge in opportunism and do not value relationships, it is highly likely that you are earning 20 percent less than your equally talented opportune colleague. But do not get disappointed! I am not sure as to whether this is mere correlation or there is a causality. It might indicate that work and relationships are two separate ball games. Goal oriented people are generally more successful at work. They also pay relatively less attention to relationships and are more henceforth more successful.

But, relationships are an important source of happiness in life. Being goal oriented would be important for your work life but not your personal life. After all what will you do with that extra 20 percent pay if your personal life suffers? Getting that extra pay and being happy requires the right balance of both.