Are you social media SMART?

Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are you? Well lets find out.

Social: Is community the focus of your social media campigns? Or are you just obsessed with getting the likes and show a bunchful of members (Read Zombieland of Facebook Likes) adorn your business page. If latter is the case then you are not ready for social media campaign. You are not old fashioned but you haven’t changed with time. Well, here is the time to start. Where to start? Try by visitng your competitors social media outposts – now check out others from your industry but in different geographies. Probably trendsetters are already leading the way. If you are a small business owner then read, learn and start experimenting. But you got to start NOW. Make an status update, let the love flow and let your community and customers know that you not only exist, you care too. Be social!

Measurable: Now that you have taken the plunge and there are two possibilities- either you are on your way to become a demi social media rockstar (slowly), or you are just lost in the SM jungle. Either way be cautious but not at the expense of sacrificing your social aspect. Try to gain some insights about your referral traffic. Find what is driving uers to your SM pages and then away. Are there any influencers you can establish relationship with? Does data point towards your core community? i.e. have you got their attention or are these just random users. Mind it, either way there is an opportunity to cash on – woe these users and develop a relationship, do not let them go.

Actionable: So you have got it started and you are begining to feel the love with all the likes, shares, comments and retweets. Good job! What now? Well, whats your USP? Think hard about it, and then go have a look at your community. Find ways through which you can customise your content so that it reverberates with your community. Keep them at the core, develop content that balances your busines goals with their interests. Remember, when being social all work and no play can have adverse affect on your social community. So, don’t hard sell. Try to co-create, crowdsource your content, learn and then redeliver. There are loads of engagement opportunities to avail. Don’t miss it!

Realistic: Be realistic, unless ofcourse you are Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Getting liions of fans and thousands of retweets isn’t practically possible. Size of your business plays a big role here. Your first objective should be to nuture your community, develop some brand awareness and get the conversations going. Aim to make stories around your brand which your community enjoys. If you are doing that much, you will be exhausted at the end of the day – but it will be rewarding.

Trackable: Track what you put out and not just bin it. Your links, posts, images and videos all add to your brand’s social capital. So, track that link going out, find out who retweets you and what. At the end of the day establish a benchmark for you- weekly and monthly. Compare it your efforts and find out how you are performing. Eventully its the ROI that matters based on your business goals. So, don’t forget to track your content and its effectivess. Possibly you have got your call to action wrong – how many downloaded that white paper you sent out or was that branded video which got most traffic to your website. Develop a set of metrics for yourself, without making it too complicated and geeky.

At the end of it all. Enjoy what you doing. Remember, its social media and unless you try to be social you cannot deliver.

Coming up in next post a Checklist to find out your SMART quotient.

Related articles

• The Zombieland of Facebook Likes! (socialmediaalley.wordpress.com)

The Zombieland of Facebook Likes!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Likes are affirmation of a users’ confidence in your brand. This comes from the content you put out, the brand value that is evident, and the special offers. All of this and more comes together to form a lively community inhabiting your Facebook business page.

However, marketplace is full of people and companies who sell ‘Likes’ for as low as $50 per 10,000 likes. Is it worth it? Of course not and we will tell you why.

These likes are from fake profiles i.e. people who do not exist. Facebook can easily know about the activity from these people of unknown identities who exist just to like your page. If you still choose this option then you risk your page getting banned for good!

These likes are of no use to your brand i.e. they won’t comment, share and like your post. It makes your brand looks bad, as if you are living in a zombieland. If you truly want to gain profit from your Facebook page and are obsessed with ROI, then its real people who matter for you. Invest time, more than money and it will pay rich dividends.

So, what’s the way out? In short, start by taking a deep look into your analytics and find what is that your customer want? Align your campaign idea with your customers’ interest and make it SMART – Social, Measurable, Action driven, Realistic, and Trackable .

If you get this right, you can steer clear of dud likes!

This post by me was first published on ODigMa

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• Does Facebook have everyone bamboozled ? (newmediaandmarketing.com)
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• Assignment 10 | Social Media Strategy (seanddougherty.wordpress.com)
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Missing your fans on Facebook? Want to know why?

Image via CrunchBase

So, you have been on Facebook for quite some time and even got a business page setup for your brand in one proud moment. You expected people to like your jokes, share your photos and comment on your posts, as they have been doing on your competitors Facebook page.

However, nothing seems to be working and the loneliness if starting to hurt your brand. Well, failure at community management is the most common mistake committed by brands. This hurts their chances to make any breakthrough in lead generation, client servicing, and becoming a brand that is social and connected.

Why this happens?

1. Lack of Objectives: Facebook is a great marketing platform or that’s what you heard from someone. However, don’t forget that the rules of marketing still uphold for the social network. Start by defining your social media objectives. What do you plan to do with your Facebook page and the SM identity in general? What are the end objectives? Thinking about these questions would help you define your branding and content strategy.

2. Push Strategy: Give your fans what they want and not what you are. Post what you core community is interested in and not just what you are good at. Bottom line is do not hard sell trying to make a traditional sales pitch. Be social and become part of the conversation!

3. Know your community: Make use of range of free analytic tools like Facebook Insights,  SocialMention and Google Alerts to know where your community resides and what they are talking about. Start listening to their conversations on social networks, blogs, forums and jump in where ever you can without being too nosey.

4. Have a content strategy: Develop a social media calendar for your  content strategy that could deliver high engagement levels i.e. where users willingly choose to embrace you brand. You can do that by developing Facebook apps, coupons, contests, videos, cartoons etc. Your fans or their friends will always trace back the links to your online identity getting you more traffic and viral engagement. Never abandon your Facebook page and always keep it updated.

Remember social networks like Facebook helps you embrace social i.e. relying on users recommendations and likes to give thumbs up to your products and services, so that even their friends become positively disposed towards your brand. Can you choose to ignore it?

The above post was first published on oDigMa’s blog

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Do more with LinkedIn

Are you on LinkedIn? Image by Christopher S. Penn via Flickr

LinkedIn is more than your resume, it’s your professional identity which tracks where you have been, people you are connected with and the recommendations you have received for it. Often cited as the number one choice of recruiters who love to browse through your connections and even make enquiries for your past work. There are ways through which you can manage your professional personality through sprucing up your profile by connecting your blog, Twitter account, Slide Share, participating in Groups and answering Q&A among other options available through LinkedIn.

Let’s talk about what more could be done using your LinkedIn profile data.

InMaps: Brought about by LinkedIn Labs, which hosts projects and experimental features built by LinkedIn employees, InMaps allows LinkedIn users to ‘visualise their professional network, clustered in real-time based on their inter-relationships.’ Those linked with same colour reflect a same set of connections which could be either your schoolmates, colleagues at a company you worked long time back or people you met at a conference. You can label these connection and see how your connections pan out.

Resume Builder: Another LinkedIn Labs product, the Resume Builder allows you to build, save and share beautifully formatted resumes based on your LinkedIn profile. You need to pick a template that best describes your personality: classic, modern, business, executive etc. Your resume details are automatically populated through your LinkedIn profile which you can customise further. You can save the file as PDF and through a customised link share via email, Twitter and Facebook.

Vizualize.me: Hailed as the next big think in resume making, Vizualize.me provides a relief from lengthy and boring traditional text based resumes. You can either connect through LinkedIn or create a new account to view your education, work, skills and language expertise in a beautifully crafted visualisation through timeline and vibrant colours. You can customise your own URL and attach your Facebook, Twitter and portfolio, which can be shared as professional resume that not only looks good but also speaks of your achievements.

Connection Timeline: LinkedIn engineers again strike an ace by crafting a time line for your career. If you can’t remember where you met your contacts and when, try this feature to ‘play’ a timeline of your connections since the start of your career. The sleek horizontal visualisation would take you back memory lane.

Year in Review: This helps you get a visual representation of your contacts who in a particular year have changed their jobs. You can see who got promoted, switched jobs or started something on their own.

Above article was published in Daily Post, you can also view it here

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How to improve Google+ Hangouts UI design

I got thinking after reading a conversation thread on Bradley Horowitz‘s page  and inspired by a post by Chee on Google+. Following is the outcome:

Problems

1. Too Much noise.

2. Not clear who is in control

3. Confusion about when to speak and whom to speak

4. Needs a leader/moderator instead of a seamless over the coffee conversation

Solution

1.Provide visible cues for : Speaking (user understands that  its his/her turn to speak and others understand that its time to listen); Engagement (user makes sure that others understand that the user has something worthwhile to say Now); Urgency (user makes sure that others understand that  he/she wants to intervene)

How to do it?

1.Develop a queue system i.e. a set of arrangement where its clear who is going to speak first and in which order others will speak. However, this system holds good only till the first speaker has spoken.

2.Users can follow the queue as in a formal conference like situation and speak in the arrangement that’s decided.

or

3.Once the first speaker is done,  just like in casual conversation the stage is wide open. So everyone presses a queue button to queue once again. The next user in this queue speaks now while others listen.

4.The whole process gets repeated i.e. either they follow the queue arrangement as decided earlier or queue in once again everytime the speaker finishes.

5.This helps in case someone wants to give quick rebuttal.

6.Not everyone needs to press queue button all the time i.e. once the person who has the rebuttal queues in the rest of the queue falls after it.

7.We can have different default arrangements for what is the acceptable levels of re- queuing i.e. the spoilsports do not keep jumping upfront in the queue and pushing others back. The default queue can be arranged depednign on the nature of conversation e.g. as Casual (users can queue many times but same user can’t jump the  queue more than 4 times); Formal (users queue limited time but same user can’t jump the queue more than twice); Conference (no jumping the queue till the initial conference queue is over say after 20mins)

Visualization:

Visualisation of How to improve Google+ Hangouts

Who are the most popular Social Media gurus of India?

Image via Wikipedia

My answer on Quora

Who are the most popular Social Media gurus of India?

It is difficult to say if someone is a social media guru or not. However, in my search so far I haven’t found any in India. For me a guru would be someone who would produce some original social media related content predicting trends and providing an excellent commentary on existing scenarios.

I guess the lack of gurus is to do with the whole culture of innovation. US is coming up with most numbers of online startups, and this is directly related to the level of discussion and expertise they have developed in this field

I don’t see that happening in the Indian context atleast for the time being . But there is good discourse starting to take place and that’s a start. Websites such as India social and blogs like Gauravonomics  are doing some good job in this field.

Related articles

• Participate in the IndiaSocial CaseChallenge 2 (prathambooks.org)

How does social media bring value to film production companies?

Image via Wikipedia

My answer on Quora

How does social media bring value to film production companies?

It helps you find where your audience are and share the sort of content that appeals to them. Its an excellent opportunity to engage with them and spread the word about your film production company far and wide.

Also at times seek ideas from your audience and do some co-production with them, make them own the content. You never know with so many fans and exciting content it could always go Viral.

Also it helps to engage with the influencers in your field, access them and you will get their attention if u follow the engagement rules and not hard sell

Why is this a good time to be working as Social Media strategist?

Image via Wikipedia

Browsing through  various social media job specs I have come to realise that the market is ripe  for the role of Social Media Strategists. Well, the point is not that  the economy is set to boom (may be?) but it reflects the change in corporate  mind sets. It’s a strong evidence of the adoption of Social Media in the core business  processes. There were times not so long ago when strategy and social media  were two words distant apart. ‘Social media is not for us. All it takes is to  have a Facebook  and a Twitter  account to fix it,’ is what one got to hear from senior management simplifying  or rather underestimating this medium some time back.

But things are  beginning to change rapidly now. The change led by few early adopters (both B2B  and B2C businesses)  is beginning to bedazzle the rest of the business community especially the  banking and the finance sector, which in my opinion has failed to adopt social media as effectively as other sectors especially here in UK. It  was easy for such companies making their profit from B2B engagement to assume  that they would remain untouched by the wider context and reach of social  media. Since the realisation of being too late adopter or being left out is  beginning to set in there has been demand for social media strategists who can  guide them through the process of social media adoption.

These new converts are  enthusiastic about the prospects but also very much in dark about how to set up  the social media processes within their business processes at a rate that does  not undermines their immediate interests. What is not helping this process are  strategists who have a myopic vision of social media. They understand its scope  and immediate impact but fail to develop strategies that evolve with the changing  social media landscape. This undermines businesses faith, blurring their vision  for social media’s potential which eventually turns into a defensive or  survival tactics. Such tactics are mostly deployed to counter the strides made  my competitors through social media ends up being their long term strategy or  let’s say a reactionary mechanism to cope in social media. Unfortunately, this  is stopping businesses to take a plunge into what is quintessential for their  evolution to the next phase of Socially Integrated Economy (SIE) (more on SIE  in future posts).

Such businesses are  doomed to ‘trash’ in the long run. Such strategists are nothing more than  ‘clowns’ says Gary Vaynerchuk, who is introduced as a wine enthusiast, author, founder, blogger, investor and serial entrepreneur in an interview with TechCrunch  Co-editor, Erick Schonfeld (Watch Video: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV) )

Clowns or not, the  fact remains that businesses worldwide are reaching out in an effort to gauge  what lies in it for them.

Part II of the post to  highlight what is leading businesses to social media and reasons for its  adoption.

Related articles

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Facebook and businesses?

Image via Wikipedia

Follow up of Making your Boss Understand the Fuss about Facebook

So coming back to the point about why companies are on Fb?: Because people/target audience are here and they are more real-life here than they have ever been with any other medium. It has taken the shape of a mass aggregation of social units each with life of their own, connecting with other units. The prominent factor here is that these users have chosen to be Fb and have not been lured by some marketing gimmick.

And once they are here the relationships they form with companies or other users are as good as it would have been in a real life scenario. So a ‘like’ or recommendation here is easily identifiable by the community providing a proof of company’s worthiness.

Companies and Facebook: Why? Companies can set up pages on Facebook for free. It’s an address of their identity on a site. Let me explain considering the example of ‘global village’, a company own a cottage in the village just like their competitors and other users. But this is the only village where people like to live out of their own will even though there are other villages nearby. So would it make sense living in another village where no one comes and does business?

Is the Facebook address an alternative to official websites? No, it is not an alternative but just an acceptance of the fact that the company is responsive to its customers’ needs. People on the network talk about the company when they are happy with their services or even otherwise. So it makes sense to be there and interact with them. However, one should understand that all data (pictures, text, conversations etc) on Facebook is governed by Fb’s rules and regulation. Being a social network it is safe to assume that all of its is in public domain, however, Fb has the right to alter its policy as it has done in the past which could have impact on company’s Fb page jeopardising the huge investment of time and money in supporting it.

Is having a Fb page for your company the new form of advertising? Yes and no. Yes because having a company page would mean users or your community would be able to find you easily and connect with your message. But then they would act and react to that message, which is not only shared with the company but with the whole community at the same time. So the message becomes participatory at that very instant, and the user/community and the company become equal participants on a level playing field. This has implications for customer service, brand management and virtually for every other department of the company.

Does having a Facebook address mean that you have arrived? No, Fb won’t work for your company if it is used as any other mass communication medium where the information is just pushed at end users. Unless a strategy bound interaction based approach is used being on Fb would be futile.

Would websites become obsolete? No, websites are here to stay for a long time to come. What makes a website obsolete in real terms is the lack of interaction with end users. Unless the website is optimised for social users (social media optimisation) it is of no use as it adheres to the one-way flow of communication model.

Related articles

• 5 Steps to an Awesome B2B Facebook Page (hubspot.com)
• Facebook Ecommerce: What Features Are Important in a Page Storefront Application (insidefacebook.com)
• Facebook exec says tools can promote small businesses (usatoday.com)
• Making your Boss understand the ‘fuss about Facebook’ (socialmediaalley.wordpress.com)

Making your Boss understand the ‘fuss about Facebook’

Image via Wikipedia

Recently I met a social media executive friend who works at a company that take their traditional marketing a bit too seriously. But the good news is that they want to change and get on the SM band wagon. However, they fail to understand as my friend puts it, “What’s the fuss about Facebook?”

I guess they are baffled about Facebook becoming the integrating force of all online marketing efforts and can’t understand why. So I thought why not provide them with a context they can relate to, which by the way is also going to be my first blog post. So here we go.

Unlike popular perception Facebook users are not just teenagers or young people in their 20’s. It is safe to assume that Facebook has evenly penetrated or is actively reaching users of all age groups especially the 35+ demographic base.

So, why are corporates interested in Facebook?

Simply because people are spending more and more time on Facebook. There has been a surge as high as 700% on the total time spent on Facebook. Unsurprisingly marketers are simply following people through a medium that guarantees maximum exposure and a prolonged attention span. Earlier this was done through mass communication mediums like radio, newspapers and television as it provided companies a medium to advertise or place their brands to reach their target audience.

So what’s changed?

As any social scientists would tell you human being aren’t coded to follow a medium of mass communication (one to many). Our evolution process that goes back to millions of years makes us inter-dependent beings who hunt (now work) together, gather information and survive. In my opinion the mass communication mediums available before the internet revolution proved inefficient in addressing the basic human need of ‘Participatory Information Sourcing & Sharing’. In fact, the pre-revolution medium could be broadly described as information scavenging due to the lack of participatory mechanism.

So here comes the internet and the world becomes a ‘Global Village.’ And as you would expect people living in this village have families, colleagues, friends and other shared relationships. These relationships had to be sustained considering increased differences of time zones and industrial revolutions. This led to Social Media, which is nothing but a shared space of relationships in an augmented reality supported and appreciated by real-life inputs.

Why ‘fuss’ about Facebook?

Facebook has pioneered the social networking trend by customising its experience to a ‘real-life role playing’. It’s the most real-life interaction based network that replicates the social experience at a psychological level. The vital need for social acceptance (liked or accepted by peers) is inherent in human psyche.

Facebook provides a model for mass aggregation of social units (with relationships) each with the life of their own, connecting with other similar units. The prominent factor here is that these users have chosen to be Facebook and have not been lured by some marketing gimmick.  And once they are here the relationships they form with companies or other users are as good as it would have been in a real life scenario.  So a ‘like’ or recommendation here is easily identifiable by the community providing a proof of company’s credibility.

(Part II of the post to highlight what Facebook  means for companies)

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