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 »

According to the media & the highly qualified common man, the last month has been extremely bad for India, with inflation at a record high etc. etc. These articles, comments (most of them given by people who have no clue or at times by people who can only retain their job provided they comment) are mostly to be taken with a pinch of salt. Whilst there is some truth involved, some thoughts that occur to one that can be practiced maybe now or forever by businesses -

1 Remember what Sam Walton said: Trust your customers. Go talk to them, bad times or good times.

2 Ask yourself what you want to look like when recovery comes & start working towards the outcome. Read the rest of this entry »