I have been always an experimenter so to speak with basic applied technology (that is to say, I use what I am comfortable with) for the past 10 years and found it pretty effective.

Ryze, Blog, Linkedin, Facebook & finally Twitter used it all. Some good, some bad but it all balances out.

And it was in 2009 that I kept hearing this “Social Media” being used very often. Gentleman from a company that I was consulting about their Online foray kept throwing it to me and soon enough their agency got into the act, giving me the whole nine yards.

Trying to understand the entire social media jungle, I started delving deeper into it - reading about it, meeting people, trying my little experiments that I have chronicled on this blog.

After having joined my current organization, I was bombarded by everyone (except the peon, receptionist & driver) about online strategies, social media (there again) & how PR would help.

In a bid to get away from all these I finally caved in & agreed to meet the shortlisted PR agencies (three in number). And there began my nightmares…

All of them came in with the CEO/VP; Account Director; Account Executive and practically the same Power Point Presentation of 30 plus slides which could be broken up as:

1-10 About their company & our company (straight lift from brouchere)
11-20 About PR snapshots - how it works, value vs straight advertisements etc.
21-30 Social Media - snap shots - print screen of some clients

None of them could answer the following basic questions that should have been internally prepared at their end:

1) Why have you not studied the client? (not even googled it properly)
2) Do you think the client 106 years old has no clue of PR
3) Did the PR brief not tell you client expectations? In which case where are they on any of the 30 slides
4) Social Media - nice meaning from a host of sites etc. But do you think we need it? What should be our strategy? (Answer was FaceBook, Twitter & mind you our Ecommerce site is yet to go up)
5) How would PR work keeping in mind the recommendations? (Sir, worked for our other clients)

Nowhere during the course of the three meetings was the work complete integration, interaction with old, new consumers, commitment used anywhere. Retainer mila, bus kaam ho gaya. And YES they are yet to get back on the questions asked.

I guess this may be one of the reasons that some of my agency friends, acquaintances avoid talking shop with me, which actually may be a good thing.

But that leaves one with a Question - Is PR harnessing the power of social networking sites & blogs to help businesses generate strategic mind share & presence. and If so how many Indian Brands have enjoyed the fruits till now.

I sure would welcome suggestions, criticism, inputs, thoughts on the above….it does not matter whether you understand social media or not; whether you are an agency or client.

Some days before the actual date this year, I was Honored when someone asked my help to tweet the names of people who lost their lives last year.

However, there was a hue & cry by a lot of people who felt it was in bad taste, due to which we decided not to go ahead with, but keep a silence in our own way.

It was actually funny & pathetic to see a lot of the same people get patriotic, crucifying the media, politicians from a distance using all kinds of hashtags on the same day with the thought of making it a trending topic. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately on twitter I have experienced spam follows - who use a variety of apps to follow/unfollow to improve numbers, grade & supposedly climb the social media ladder!

To add this sabzi mandi (confusion) there are those mavens, gurus, experts who discuss Social Media Gyan with links, analysis, articles which are repeatedly RT (re tweeted), most of the times without being read, understood in the Indian context. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple of months, on twitter, I have made good friends, faced hostility, received invitations to play, party etc. which I have least interest in.

One of the most important things, being urged to follow someone, interact on some political, sports, technology feeder that I have no or little interest in.

Having said that, there are still those persistent people who believe that they need to be connected to me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkein besides email!

To put things in the right perspective -

Linkedin - My professional profile that says everything I want the world to know.

Facebook - My personal, family, friend connect where I know everyone & may have lost touch but now reconnected.

Twitter - Great exchange of thoughts, helpline, just being you.

Blog - Sharing of thoughts, gyan, communicating at length.

All of this means etiquette is different everywhere & it is a learning process all over again, one of the main reason for confusion amongst the Grey haired! Internet has thrived on the principle of free information with little censorship, certain ‘Netiquette’ rules that I think relevant:

Profile - If you are following me/want to follow me on Twitter, why do you ask me Questions? And this too from the young <30’s who are technologically savvy.

Invitation - If you do not know me, have not interacted with me, do not send useless invites for Farming, Mafia etc. It is an e-handshake & needs to create a good impression so invest time on it. A standard invite always gets ignored & someone who just wants to grow their network to impress others.

Network - Establish who you want and why you want them, so it becomes easier to network. A lot of us accept invites from people who are real friends or people they have worked/communicated with in the past.

Quality vs Quantity - One of the most irritating aspects of internet networking. Professional networking should never be a race to see how many you can notch up, but connecting with few, concentrating on converting these into relationships.

Unknown People - You need to make sure that you have a good reason to accept requests from complete strangers, as you are always known by the company you keep.

Communication - Do we ask a favor immediately on being introduced to strangers at a seminar/event. No then why should internet be any different.

Keeping business & personal lives separate - Already covered in detail above & sooner people realise, better it is.

FINAL CLOSURE UPDATE October 20,2009 3.30 pm :

Personal Details - (Personal+ Professional+FB+Linkedin etc)

Email    500 x .50

Texts 300 x .50

Blog & Calls 180 x 5.00

Gifts 8 x 100

Total Rs. 2100/- Rupees Two thousand one hundred only.

Tuesday October 20, 2009

Mission Accomplished. #deepwish finally raised Rs55,000 for Goonj. Rupees fifty five thousand only. Say it again. Rs55,000. Wow.

43 people. 36 hours. 64.75 per wish = Rs 30,821. On Twitteristan. Those were the effort of 42 people on per tweet basis.

Then there are some silent do-gooders, who prefer not to reveal their names. They have given a lumpsum of Rs24,179 for #deepwish.

Read the rest of this entry »

Traveling back from Parel today (Visa on arrival) flickering through Twitter, saw a couple of RT (retweet) on what is now being termed The Kiruba incident by ClearTrip itself; The ClearTrip episode: my experience Part I by Kiruba Shankar and as ClearTrip resolution of a neo-influencer complaint is a case-study by Rajesh Lalwani of Blogworks; besides other comments being tweeted so on & forth.

At the outset let me clarify the following:

• I do not know Kiruba Shankar personally, except having exchanged some tweets & mail some time ago
• I do not know Rajesh Lalwani in any capacity - never having met him, hired him or been hired by him.
• I do not know ClearTrip as an Organization, except Matthew Spacie - One of their founders with whom I worked in the distant past.
• I have not bothered to read/book anything on ClearTrip except Domestic Hotels long ago but found my personal direct rates were superior. Read the rest of this entry »
  

I had been on Twitter for a couple of months, attended a minor tweetup organised by Netra before I saw a tweet from @90di that got me thinking.

Trying to find out the methodology got me nowhere, but I decided to run an experiment myself rather to amuse myself and if possible understand what makes Twitter tick here.

From the 5th May 2009 to 13th June 2009 whilst the experiment continued I was No Rank - 90’s - 60’s - 20’s sub 10’s with a final high of sub 03 for nearly 5-6 days.

As @90di commented that “Usual Suspects” contained ShaaqT Gul Panag Keeda Shashi Tharoor amongst others; so was in real august Indian Tweeter company.

Now here is where I presumed the following:

• Some of the names on the list came up, due to followers talking about them
• Some of the names on the list came up because they followed norms laid down by twitter:)
• Some of the names came up the list because they were trend setters/followers like Keeda

Doodle by @keeda on Twitter Trend

My experiment was divided into 3 parts:

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

• After analysing my tweets - used some of the applications - but could not make head or tail out of it so finally relied on myself.
• Realized that Twitter advocates being yourself, which is fine but so does Indian Democracy - then why in spite of cribbing et all we elect the same politicians - because in spite of voters changing the politicos remain the same.
• But, how do you be yourself - if the nick is something else & your name is something else - luckily that did not affect me.
• Having been a hoarder of some text; thoughts; jokes or all bundled as gyan decided to share this with the tweeters, of course hoping for a couple of shoutdowns.
• Parallel started following some known names that looked good from their bio - this helped in retweets
• From April 3 to May 25 I jumped from 150 to 400 odd followers that included a whole lot of bots & people based out of India who did not have any kind of interaction with me.
• Slowly I found myself inching up the scale to speak till I finally broke in on the 5th May

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

• Then it became tougher to break in with a wide variety of variations floating around.
• Started tweeting seriously - bit of gyan; news with comments; interacting; replying.
• Finally I thought I was ready to conclude the experiment around the 30th May & so the final push began.

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

• Had prepared a fair amount of interactive tweets for different days
• Worked on the background that would make people want to RT
• Some completely new thoughts that could be shared with a variety of groups
• Heavy interaction in terms of replies; help; DM everything.

And, hence managed to conclude it successfully. My personal findings:-

• Irrespective of how “be yourself” you are, perceptions matter
• Most of the followers do not read your bio, go thru your blog before deciding to follow you. Only your Tweets matter.
• A great Blogger may not be a great Tweeter & vice versa
• Common searchable knowledge is tweeted by everyone; try something that is personally relevant.
• The pareto principle applies here also.
• Whilst PR; Advertising - online & offline; media; brands talk about Social Media & recently Twitter, fact is how relevant to daily life, work environment are the top 100 twitters that is crucial
• If a chunk keep talking about just technology, crib about government & civic the feeling is ‘Hey we read & listen to this all the time’ Tell us how Twitter can help us.
• Irrespective of whether you may live it, love it, hate it fact remains that it is MLM, with of course no transactions involved.
• Everyone eventually manages to create a pyramid or a banyan tree which helps them & all their connections, mostly always in a positive manner.
• Embrace it as another channel, medium - it shall deliver results. Remember as somebody said “The use of electronic networks and associated technologies is to enable, improve, enhance, transform or invent a business process or business system to create superior value for current or potential customers.”
• AND Finally remember with the right approach, attitude & bit of hardwork you can overcome the System i.e. Twitter:)

Approximate data has been taken from Twitterholic & 90di I hereby acknowledge that I have not been guided by any Social Media Agencies, Gurus; but am thankful to the everyday tweeters who made this possible.

I have been having these conversations, discussions, arguments with these young learned friends of mine on Twitter as well as some learned experts on social media whom I follow to understand or rather simplify the theory of social media.

What I see are just links of blogs, articles written by americans, british on case studies done in their countries for their consumers, speaking their One language. AND yes there are some few indians amongst these experts who also talk about such case studies only.  Perhaps taking pity on me Vijay Rayapati sent me a message yesterday “Hi @anaggh, We do have many Indian brands using Social Media for engaging with consumers - U can find info at”  http://bit.ly/D38WW

Full of optimism I visited his blog Social Media Marketing in India and poured over the case study list.

First, having understood and remembered the name opened Sunsilk gang of girls . Case study is brief with just some numbers etc. I could not make sense of  how the numbers came about, what caused the constant stickiness, how much money was spent on offline advertising to drive people to the web etc. which is most crucial was missing.

Secondly, I visited Indian Brands & Businesses on Twitter written by Santosh Maharshi who has been clear in informing his readers “This is the list of (now 75) Indian brands and businesses on Twitter. However, the ownership of these brands is not verified. For example, satyam computers which is a news update account for the company and not by the company. Some of the media brands are actually extending their services through twitter and not necessarily communicating with their users. Some of them can also be bots. Enjoy the list and please feel to add the ones that you come across in the comments section.”

Now nowhere are these case studies as promised but I decided to make a case study of these & share my findings with you: Read the rest of this entry »

The past couple of months have been trying to understand the debate of Social Media which suddenly has taken over the web, agency & young marketers.

Whilst meaning to attend one of the media summit, bar camp or whatever it is called at different locations, previous commitments have interfered but never mind I shall make it a point some time soon.
Mahesh Murthy & Nethra Parikh recently organized a discussion on Bridging the Social Media Divide
As the post says: A good beginning is always made when both sides accept that there is a disconnect. Being from a client’s side & not even a marketer, having dealt with agencies, marketers & SM guru, some points that seem relevant to me are:

1) Medium does not matter, Performance criteria, fixed parameters linked to deliverables maybe not
always immediate ROI is a necessity.

2) Whilst Mavens are required, particularly for some industries, it is a reality that typically clients are wary
about the % of budget to be devoted there & hence the short shift to #SM

3) Marketers are great at asking Q as are Agencies in answering them but the fact remains that except
for the top 5% of companies/brands who understand quantifiable data that has quality linked to it,
accept it and the most IMP ACT on it. e.g every talks CRM; tracking customer thoughts on their
product etc. but finally not doing anything about it since there is always a serious disconnect internally
where the marketer’s ability to sell to internal clients is suspect.

4) Instead of harping on Marketing, platforms, Media - social or otherwise & pushing examples of the
American Social Media that mostly does not have relevance in the Indian context or scenario, the way
to win win situation would be to
a. All Social Media Guru’s to become Shishyas first, share in layman terms what they mean without
using jargon which is difficult for anyone & everyone to understand.
i. With due respect to everyone who had gathered
ii. With all learning’s I have gleaned on the web in the past couple of years
iii. And meeting passionate web marketers, SEO, bloggers, now Tweeples & Social Media
enthusiasts
Most of them are extremely passionate but keep spouting something they have either read in the
blogs of so called American experts or collected & believe in short term gains.
E.G. I need one client a month to take care of my expenses….brilliant….there’s a sucker born every
minute!
OR
Use the funnel theory…..pitch to every tom, dick & harry…you’ll soon find one Chandru

Every couple of months they re invent themselves with the new mantra of the quarter.

b. Once the Social Media aspect is laid down for a layman; convert/adapt/apply it to the Indian
perspective AND mind you here the approach has to be across industries, because the idea is
the more difficult the industry segment, the easier it is for them to understand. e.g. applying it
to a retail store chain is easier whereas applying it to a CFL or LED manufacturer is difficult
initially but would pay rich dividends. Also they are more adaptive to change as they are also
trying to change the industry.

c. Once you have a couple of solid diverse industry examples or even when you are applying it
there, broadcast, share the case on an ongoing basis….basically do everything you speak about
i.e. should be used to influence, call to action etc.

d. Finally the bridge is more or less getting there; the disconnect is reducing slowly & soon it shall
be integrated.

5) All of the above is something that is vital. Even today in India 90% of the agencies (large ones top
10)have a web marketing, presence, social media division, company BUT except for those 10-20 people
working there, no body else has a clue & it does not form a part of the pitch.

6) Rest of the agencies would not even have that. Besides this there are the whole list of
specialists….boutique agencies, designers, buyers.

7) AND of course the PR agencies who except 1 or 2 (and believe me I have dealt with a lot of them)have
no clue about what you are talking except Page 3 tactical ideas.

ASK any one of them - Is PR really understanding & harnessing the power of social networking sites, blogs to help Biz generate strategic mindshare & presence. And you will see blank faces.

So to get Social Media really Social & acceptable, do not rely on marketing or PR only but let it act as an Integrator which helps the client to really understand all 3 in one go once applied in tandem.