Do you Listen to your customer? Do you take their opinion, feedback, ideas and criticism? If yes, you are ahead of game, if not, then boy you are in deep trouble. In the past, marketers have dominated the media; they were focused on delivering a particular message to their predefined target audience, eliciting a specific response from their consumers. However things have changed now and all the credit goes to rapidly increasing interactive nature of internet. The way people are connecting with each other, sharing information with their peers, all of that has changed and is still evolving with time and new platforms that are provided to them.

Marketing too has evolved rapidly, and has become more of Conversation than just a lecture. Brands have started realizing that and now participating in conversations with their consumers, and if they want to be part of communication they need to be a good “listener”. Listening isn’t a trait marketer traditionally renowned for, like consumer research, consumer survey, focus groups, where consumer’s role was passive recipient of information peddled by marketers. Brands need to truly embrace the opportunity presented by “Web 2.0 and Beyond” to listen to what consumers are talking about their Brand, their Industry and the world in General through platforms available online.

Today there are many platforms available which Brands can use to foster a much more productive and meaningful relationship with their customers and gain powerful insight into their perceptions of their products, services and brands, and allow them to contribute and collaborate in their business in ways that were never possible before. And it can be done through Blogs, Social Networking Sites, Online Discussion Forums, Review Sites, Wikis, Social Bookmarking.

Brands need to REALIZE that their Target audience is no longer an Audience at all, they are now active PARTICIPANTS. Today consumers are empowered to constantly evolve debate; and it’s a debate in which as a Marketer can’t afford to sit on the sidelines…. Hence THEY NEED TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION.

Summarizing Benefits of Joining the Conversation

Deeper engagement with customers

Getting insights not available any other way

Your customers are online already

Stay Informed: Helps to you to find out what customers are saying about your brand, industry, trends related to your business or world in general. Knowing your customers is Key to effective digital marketing.

Influence the Influencers: People who have gained trust and respect of their online peers and who are most active on Social Media Circles are the element of your target audience and will be knows as Influencers. If you are successful in fostering their good opinion about your Brand, it can have great impact on your online reputation.

Nurture Brand Advocacy: “Bird in Hand is Better Than Two in Bush” fits the best here. Don’t ignore those who already have positive attitude towards your brand. If you are successful in engaging positively with these people, you can nurture passionate brand evangelists who will voluntarily advocate your Brand through Online Social Media.

Pass It On: The most important benefit of Social Media is “its power to go Viral”. It’s never a Brand or Celebrity or People who go Viral, its ALWAYS the CONTENT Posted by Them. Whether is a Video on YouTube, Post on FaceBook, Tweet, Image on Media Sharing Sites/Social Networking Sites, if it HITS the right note, it’s suddenly and definitely EVERYWHERE. And if you get it right, there is no better way to promote your business, because even online, word-of-mouth marketing is the Queen and CONTENT is the King.

Builds Your Reputation: By engaging proactively (remember not just reactive approach) you will appear as responsible and responsive; this will really help you to build your reputation as an authoritative and helpful Brand in your field of expertise.

Level The Playing Field: Using traditional or Offline Mediums like market research and surveys, target groups to gauge customer’s sentiments are expensive and beyond the reach of smaller business( in terms of expense to conduct such surveys). Now any Brand can immerse themselves in Social Media to find out what customers are talking about and how they feel, with minimal financial expense.

The Wisdom of The Crowd: Harnessing the collective intelligence of online communities in indeed a Smart Strategy Brands can adapt. This practice can really help Brands to find solutions to some of their challenging business problems. Getting these inputs, solutions from online communities can really be affordable and cost effective

Love You All,

Mohit Laamba

As we all know by now that Social Media offer great opportunities for interacting with consumers and create brand awareness. But on such platforms it’s very critical to understand what you are doing, because the rules here are not dictated by Brand but by Consumers.

This medium is not controlled by Brand, but by consumers. Its unpredictable and Dynamic, one wrong move and that will be spread like Wildfire.

However there is no Rocket Science required behind engaging with your consumers or building relationship, its sheer common sense. Most important thing to remember is this is SOCIAL media, where people interact and share information and content with like minded people.

They are not interested in your Sales Pitch at all. They want something that can turn them ON – like interesting, fun, informative Content. In Social Media it’s not about sending your message but it’s about inviting response.

Define and Refine your Strategies through What You already Know and What you will learn: You already know who your customers are, where are they online, what they like to do online, but that doesn’t mean you go Blind. Use this knowledge to define your strategy and refine it with your new learning about your customer and their behaviour.

Do Some Research, with IQ (intelligent quotient), EQ(Emotional Quotient) and CQ(Customer Service Quotient):  Do some more research on their Customers, what are they doing online, why they are using particular platform, are the already engaging with your competitors, why are they engaging with your competitors, what kind of content influences your customers. This will help you to create strong base for your strategies.

Hold Your Horses, Cowboy: Have clear plan on what you are going to do, whom you are going to engage with and what are you expecting in return. Define your goals whether is Transactional, Transitional or Brand Awareness. Identify to measure your performance, there is ocean of such tools, you need to select what works best for you, gives value for money and most importantly authentic data. However don’t stick to what you have penned down, be flexible and modify your strategies according to response or feedback from your target group.

Be A Wanderer: Before you jump in Social Media, have look around, be a wandered without contributing anything. Familiarize yourself with other social media sites, tools that you are planning to include in your strategy. This should be done because community behaves differently on different sites, for example “Mr. A” would not behave in the same way on LinkedIn as he behaves on Facebook, even though both are Networking Sites.

I am Not as Big as Bill Gates, but I am Honest and Authentic: Don’t go on Social Media pretending something or someone you are not, this will take you viral on web for all wrong reasons. Be authentic in providing any information to the consumer, be open to feedback and response, even if they are negative, and acknowledge them with positive approach.

Act with Passion and not Obsession: Many Brands fail here, they project themselves as the God’s in their own industry, they have guts to come online and ignore customer’s voice and response. Their posts and updates are more about their achievements, sales and self-promotion, rather being it consumer centric and engagement driven (fun, interactive and informative) posts.

Be Relevant, Interesting and Relevant: Everything you do should add value to the community, as well as moving you towards your business goals. Be helpful, be constructive, be interesting and entertaining. In Social Media Brands Should Engage with community with Audience terms and not theirs (Brand’s).

Don’t be a Spammer, they have button to IGNORE/BLOCK you: Spamming is not Conversation, In Social Media it’s not about sending your message but it’s about inviting response. SPAM invites only NO or NEGATIVE response, hence don’t jump Social Media sites just to Spam with Mass Posts with links in it. Don’t Spam with posts talking about your products and services or why your company is best, you will be SIDELINED soon and be hidden from their (audience) feeds.

Respect Rules: Read and abide by the rules and policies of sites that you are using in your social media strategies.

Respect People: Always be respectful to people you interact with online, however that doesn’t mean that you agree to whatever they say; healthy debate is always appreciated on social networking sites. Even when you disagree, always be polite and respectful to other, because they have right to their opinion as you do have to yours. NEVER get personal.

Respond to feedback: Social media is dynamic and unpredictable; you expect the best but prepared for the worst. Always acknowledge any positive feedback or response with gratitude and let them know you appreciate their response. However even if you get negative response of feedback, acknowledge it with positivity and show them how you have incorporated the feedback constructively.

Have some more rules to Share? Please contribute through comments… much appreciated

Love You All

Mohit Laamba

The Portal is under development; hence you will not be able to get any sneak peak.

Guidelines:

• This is an open and competitive process.
• Proposals received after 18:00 IST, 24, Friday 24, 2012, will not be considered and will be returned unopened.
• The proposal must contain the signature of a duly authorized officer or agent of the company submitting the proposal.
• If you wish to submit alternate solutions, please do so.
• The price you quote should be inclusive of Service Tax and other surcharges.
• If your price excludes certain fees or charges, you must provide a detailed list of excluded fees with a complete explanation of the nature of those fees.
• If the execution of work to be performed by your company requires the hiring of additional skilled manpower on contractual basis you must clearly state this in your proposal. Your employees must be identified and the work they will perform must be defined.  In your proposal please provide the name, and contact information of the employee hired for this project on contract basis. We will not refuse a proposal based upon the use of contractual employees; however we retain the right to refuse the contractual employees you have selected.
• Provisions of this RFP and the contents of the successful responses are considered available for inclusion in final contractual obligations.

Click The Link TO DOWNLOAD The Request For Proposal(RFP)

Thanks & Regards

Mohit Laamba

Head- Digital Marketing

+91-9958823316

Company Profile

MindShift Interactive (www.mindshiftinteractive.com) is the parent company of MindShift Metrics & Mi

MindShift Interactive is an Insightful Digital Outreach powerhouse that provides Digital Marketing solutiosn to businesses, backed by data & an understanding of the consumer.

Our campaigns promise to be impactful, innovative and, most of all, sustained!

Team:

The MindShift Interactive team brings in years of experience in marketing, advertising, research, psychology, media and sales to ensure your business approaches Social Media with a combination of insights and innovation.

We put it all together right from predicting your next Social Media Strategy to understanding consumer behavior and providing intelligence about your competition.

Clients: We have created a digital outreach for some of the big names within FMCG, Hospitality, Banking, Recruitment, Apparel, Lifestyle, Dot com, Human resources & many more…

Career opportunities:

We offer a career that allows you to learn, lead and grow, whilst also ensuring you balance it with some fun.

Get in touch with us: contact@mindshiftinteractive.com

MindShift Interactive believes in offering keen learners with an opportunity to be nurtured by our Experts. We have a lot of options for you until you find a MindShift that you truly believe in.

Job Openings in DETAIL

1. 1.     Position – Social Media Executive

Job Description –

-          Creation & Execution of online campaigns outlined for a specific client account (e.g. Initiating social conversations, set up and management of a blog on behalf of client, etc)

-          Creation of engaging content for brands handled

-          Staying tunes into new developments within social media platforms (facebook, twitter, youtube, linkedin, etc.) to enhance execution & strategic developments

-          Usage of tools towards understanding social media outreach & consumer mindsets

-          Constant trend watching & innovating with clients handled

-          Complete ownership & management of client accounts assigned

-          Build & Manage relationships with influencers across social media

-          Organize meetups with key opinion leaders who blog, tweet, etc.

Required Skill Sets –

-          Undergraduates in communications oriented disciplines (BMM, BMS, BA, BCom)

-          Knowledge of Social Media platforms (facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin, blogs, etc)

-          User of social media tools (must be active on 1-2 platforms or a keen learner)

-          Strong written and communication skills

-          Ability to ideate and liason with clients and the team in a confident manner

-          Proficient with Microsoft Office & Powerpoint

Additional Requirements - (preferred but not mandatory)

-          Past experience in a communications-oriented sector (PR, Advertising, Direct Marketing, Social Media, Digital Marketing)

-          SEO or SEM experience or qualification

-          Ability to use at least one image editing program (Photoshop)

1. 2.     Position – Business Development Executive

Job Description -

-          Execute sales targets of the company through constantly contacting prospective clients and arranging meetings

-          Build database of prospective clients and study their current state within social media

-          Handle new client pitches, ideation and billing (Strategy + Presentation)

-          Conceptualize and build strategy for pitch specific to each client, ensuring optimum use of Social Media tools

-          Managing Social Media Executive’s relationship with clients

Required Skill Sets –

-          Undergraduates in communications or management oriented disciplines (BMS, BMM, BCom)

-          Knowledge & Usage of Social Media (any / all – facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin, blogs, etc)

-          Confident in meeting and influencing people

-          Ability to create pitches with strategy

-          Excellent written and communication skills

-          Ability to ideate, liason and be a confident negotiator and team player

-          Proficient with Microsoft Office, PowerPoint

Additional Requirements - (preferred but not mandatory)

-           Past Experience in sales, business development or account handling

1. 3.     Position – Web/Graphic Designer

Job Description -

-          Work collaboratively with project team to understand requirements of the project

-          Interpret creative briefs, wireframes, and specification documents, and translate into interactive designs

-          Communicate status and stages of design to Project Team

Required Skill Sets –

-          Minimum 1 year experience in web /graphic designing

-          Proficient with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, HTML, CSS, Javascript

-          Knowledgeable about WordPress, Joomla, Drupal templates and customization

-          Proficient with Windows OS

Date: Mar 15th & 16th, 2012 
Location: Delhi
Venue: To Be Announced Shortly
Fee: Rs 15000 (+10.3% service tax)
Early Bird Discount: 15% Till Jan 31^st 2012

Group Discount (can’t be combined with any other discount)

• 15% discount for 3+ registrations

For Agenda: Click Here

Who Should Attend?

• Sales and Business Development Professionals
• Advertising & Marketing Professionals
• Brand Managers and Media Planners
• CXOs
• Entrepreneurs
• Digital Marketing (SEO, PPC etc) Professionals
• Web Strategists

Key Promises

• Why should every business care about Social Media?
• Insights into how other Businesses are Succeeding (as well failing) using Social Media
• How to develop and execute a successful Social Media Marketing Strategy?
• Why, what and how of leveraging various Social Media Channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
• How can you measure ROI of your Social Media Marketing campaigns?
• Social Media Marketing Toolbox to move rapidly and profitably against Competition

Pre-requisites

• Account on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. If you are not an active user – start using them actively for atleast 1 week before your workshop.

Notes - Please ensure that you carry your laptop to the event. All the new Facebook communities launched during the workshop as part of exercise will be done for training purpose only and will remain properties of Digital Vidya.

Date: Feb 23 & 24, 2012 

Location: Mumbai
Venue: To Be Announced Shortly
Fee: Rs 15000 (+10.3% service tax)
Early Bird Discount: 15% till jan 31

Group Discount (can’t be combined with any other discount)

• 15% discount for 3+ registrations

For Agenda: Click Here

Who Should Attend?

• Sales and Business Development Professionals
• Advertising & Marketing Professionals
• Brand Managers and Media Planners
• CXOs
• Entrepreneurs
• Digital Marketing (SEO, PPC etc) Professionals
• Web Strategists

Key Promises

• Why should every business care about Social Media?
• Insights into how other Businesses are Succeeding (as well failing) using Social Media
• How to develop and execute a successful Social Media Marketing Strategy?
• Why, what and how of leveraging various Social Media Channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
• How can you measure ROI of your Social Media Marketing campaigns?
• Social Media Marketing Toolbox to move rapidly and profitably against Competition

Pre-requisites

• Account on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. If you are not an active user – start using them actively for atleast 1 week before your workshop.

Notes - Please ensure that you carry your laptop to the event. All the new Facebook communities launched during the workshop as part of exercise will be done for training purpose only and will remain properties of Digital Vidya.

Before we jumpstart with social media campaigns, there are few questions we need to pen down with their answers to it. If you Master this activity, then there is no looking back when it comes to success of social media campaigns.

I have list down certain questions which I have always asked brands and myself before starting any Social Media Campaigns.

Hope it helps you in some way, also please add value to it by suggesting some more questions that can be added here

Goal Setting: You don’t do anything without Setting up your Goal, your business objectives needs to be well aligned with your Goals that you want to achieve through Social Media.

1) Does your social media marketing have Goals?

Why: Many businesses start Digital Marketing without any Goal or Strategy in place; they assume that they will figure it out later. And the problem comes when they are in mid-campaign where they have spent so much of money, resource, time and they don’t know how to Scale it to next level OR what they want to do with these engaged users.

2) Are your Social media Goals in Sync with your Business Goals/Objectives?

Why: Because many businesses had no answer to this “Does your social media marketing have Goals?”, hence they don’t know how to sync it with their Business Objectives. They need to ensure that their Campaigns have clear targets either “Sales Optimization OR Brand Optimization”. If its sales, then what is the number they want to achieve (this is also important to know if you want to drive revenue from Social Media Campaigns) AND if it’s Brand Optimization then what message they want to give to their users.

Guidelines for Social Media:  Draw Lines

1) Do you have guidelines for your employees?

Why: Your employees can build and kill your brand too… infact you should consider what social media policies you have for your employees in terms of how they should represent themselves on social media platforms.

2) Do you have guidelines for your Organization’s website or Blog, or Forum?

Why: Because consumer seldom come on website specially to Praise Brand initiatives, majority of them will come to raise their concerns, give negative feedback, share grievances, and when they are angry they have no control on their temper or words, hence  you can also set standards like “no abusive/foul language.

3) Do you have crisis management plan for social media?
Why: If you don’t, get one. If you have already, how many times you review it? You should have complete guidelines in terms of what, how and when any query needs to be addressed, you should be ready to respond 24X7. If still not convinced about Crisis Management then you should look at the Case study of McDonalds Social Media Campaign that went Awfully Wrong, CLICK HERE to read more information on that.

Convincing Senior Management for Social Media Usage: Most Toughest Job

1) Is your Senior Management convinced about Social Media Campaigns? This can be really difficult to achieve.

Why: Because in many companies even if Social Media campaigns start with not much of positive approach from Senior Management, they are stopped in between because their Senior Management is not convinced to pump-in more funds, resources into the campaign to take it forward. Its better Do it with full positivity OR don’t do it. Infact this goes for anything you do in Life.

2) Do you have your Case Studies in place to convince unconvinced Senior Management?

Why: You need to approach them with proven case studies of Similar Business or your competitors who are leveraging Social Media Platforms for their business. Competition can drive Motivation J

3) Have you convinced your other departments for Social Media usage?

Why: Because you cannot run any Social Media Campaign in isolation, you need support from other departments like customer service, product management, sales, human resource, and other departments.

4) Do you have your escalation process in place for the queries generated from Social Media Campaigns?

Why: Where you will take consumer’s voice, will you keep it to yourself and don’t even Burrp? Don’t even do that, when your customers raise any query, concern or feedback on your Social Media Platform let it reach the concerned department who can provide solution to it.

Defining Social Media Marketing Strategy:

1) Who is your Target Audience?

Why: Because you need to identify the correct target audience for your Social Media Campaigns to optimize long term results and generate ROI. There are list of questions you need to pen down for identify your audience: Who is your target audience through Social Media Campaign? How your target audience behave on social media platforms than any other platform? Why your audience use a particular platform?

2) What you want Social Media Campaigns to do for your Brand?

3) Do you have your correct Metrics in place to measure the performance of Social Media Campaigns? Please don’t use readily available metrics on internet. Every organization has their own goals and expectations from Such Campaigns, hence the metrics should also be tailor-made.

4) Are these Social Media Strategies incorporated in your organization’s Marketing Plan and Budgets? It should never be used in isolation or Off-Side.

5) Does your Brand reflect Consumer Connect? OR Your Social Media Campaigns reflect Brand’s Connect to Consumers?

6) Do you have Human Voice that resonate with your Brand on Social Media Platforms?

7) What’s your team strength that’s dedicated for your Social Media Campaign? Is it 1 dedicated employee or multiple employees?

Do you have your other employees from Different Departments engaged with your Consumers through Social Media Platforms? For example: Sales Support, Customer Service, Tech Support on Social Media Platforms.

9) Are you monitoring every move every conversation your users initiates?

10) Are you integrating your Traditional Marketing with your Social Media Marketing? It is very important for you to drive your customers to your Social Media Platforms from Traditional marketing activities. It’s all about leveraging your existing Marketing activities to optimize your Social Media Presence.

11) Have you incorporated Social Media Plug-in to every possible platforms used online?

12) Do you have your purchase funnel in place for Customers coming from Social Media Platforms?

Content for Social Media Marketing: Need to fuel your Social Media Campaign with CONTENT

1) Are you using fresh content for your Social Media Campaigns?

2) Is there a good mix of Text, Photo, Video, Links in your content for your social media Marketing?

3) Do you have multiple contents for single campaign? It’s important because not every time your first published content will work for you, you need to back it up with different content to try.

4) Are you integrating content that’s created by your users? If yes, do you have the permission to use the content and do you have guidelines in place to use customer Generated Content?

5) Do you have your Content Calendar in place, which defines which content should go where?

6) Does you content has keywords that can be optimized from other source of information? Remember Search Engines also show content from Social Media Platforms in the search result for a particular keyword.

Resource Management: Utilizing Internal and External Resource For your Social Media Campaigns

1) Are you expecting your employees to participate in Social Media Platforms? If yes, the chances are that they won’t participate.

2) Do you have a dedicated resource that is going to manage your social media campaigns?

3) Do you have training programs for your employees on Social Media? This will help them to learn how to represent their organization on Social Media Platforms. Many companies they train their employees who are managing their Social Media Campaigns, however they underestimate training program for employees across the organization to understand how it can impact the total business.

4) Do you have social media contingency plan? You need to ensure come what may happen your Social Media Presence once initiated should not come to Dead End.

Social Media Budget: Show Me The Money, Honey J

1) Do you have dedicated budget for your Social Media Campaigns?

2) Are those budgets included in overall marketing budget?

3) Do you have the adequate funds to run Social Media Campaigns? Come out of that Myth that Social Media campaigns can be done with Penny in pocket.

4) Do you have the budget for short term and long term goals that will be achieved through Social Media Campaigns?

5) Do you have correct ROI Metrics to measure returns against these investments?

Social Media Metrics: No point of doing something, if you can’t measure its performance and impact

1) Do you have your correct Metrics in place to measure the performance of Social Media Campaigns? Please don’t use readily available metrics on internet. Every organization has their own goals and expectations from Such Campaigns, hence the metrics should also be tailor-made.

2) Do you have your Social Media monitoring tolls in place?

3) Have you done authenticity check of the information/numbers those tools provide you?

4) Do you have your method to measure results for increase/decrease in Brand Perception, also known as Online Reputation Management OR users Emotions towards Brand?

5) Do you have tolls that can measure complete cycle of campaign, from Start till Purchase and After Sales Service?

6) Do you have metrics in place that show improvement or impact on other departments of the organization? For example, impact on Human Resource Department, acquisition of new employees through Social Media Platforms, customer service (increase or decrease in number of queries generated from other mode like phone, email or personal visit.

Love You All,

Mohit Laamba

Going the viral route allows a marketer to explore the social networking potential of his target audience which is witnessing a growth rate of almost 100% and is expected to reach 45 million users by 2012. Also, with the advent of smart phone technology and tablets, the internet usage on mobile devices has touched a new high. Marketers recognized this and it is the reason why they are keen on using social media platforms to leverage the viral content. Marketers need to move beyond the tried and tested formula and surprise their TG with innovative concepts. The key to a Social Media Viral campaign is the message that needs to be compelling and interesting enough for a viewer or participant to share it with a friend.

MindShift Interactive analyzes the current Kolaveri Rage, the award winning campaign Indian Panga League by Virgin Mobile and the Zoozoo’s Campaign by Vodafone to find out why these campaigns were unforgettable and lovable in their own ways.

Campaign No 1: Why This Kolaveri Di – The Soup Song

A song created by a 21-year-old debutant music composer, written and sung by Tamil actor, Dhanush as a part of their upcoming movie, 3 and shot in the recording studio itself has received more than 7 million views in less than a week. The situation of the song is based on love failure and how a Tamilian boy expresses his emotions in a Tamil-English song. The USP of the song remains its attitude, lyrics and the humorous connect.

Campaign No 2: Indian Panga League – Virgin Mobile

Hundred viral videos were shared on the YouTube Channel of Indian Panga League. Videos of loyal fans of IPL Teams taking Pangas with each other via STD calls were recorded and shared online. Indian Panga League became the most talked about campaign, as their YouTube Channel became one of the fastest growing channels in India, without any media spend backing the campaign. The USP of the campaign remained the video content, regional connect and its association with cricket.

Campaign No 3: ZooZoos by Vodafone

ZooZoos, the white lovable creatures that appeared in the second season of Indian Premier League were created to promote the value added services of Vodafone. The campaign went on to win accolades from the Indian audience as well as the advertising agencies. About naming these creatures Zoozoos, O&M had stated that there was no science to the name and that it had to be something fun, memorable and catchy, and not a clever one that’s difficult to pronounce. The USP of the campaign was the Innocence of the Zoozoos; they laughed aloud, cried and had a child like simplicity around them, thus making it one of the most unforgettable brand campaigns.

Social Media Viral factors that made the above campaigns a huge hit:

1. Expect the Unexpected: The Kolaveri Video has won a YouTube Gold Award for getting the most number of daily hits. It managed to score more than 20 million views and managed to be the trending topic for more than a week in India and other countries. But this is not what the team expected, while recording the song. And the same goes for the makers of Indian Panga League and Zoozoo’s. As they were ideating a simple, fun and innovative concept in sync with their campaign that would be appreciated by the masses. Funny concept and simple execution remained the X factor in the above campaigns. Originality and unexpectedness are the superpowers in the viral race.

2. Keep it Simple Silly: It isn’t rocket science to understand what people are looking for. People are looking for entertainment, and it need not be complicated always. What made Zoozoo’s endearing was that they were innocent people living in a simple world unlike ours, who laugh loud when they laugh and look sad when they are. With over 2.5 million fans on their facebook page, Zoozoos still seem to be a part of our daily lives. The same works for the Soup Song, where the lyrics and the feelings in the song can be understood universally, in spite of it being a Tamil-English combination. It’s time for Simple Ideas to take over Big Ideas.

3. Beyond One Language: Cricket is a religion in India, and it was hilarious when we had all the loyalists from different parts of the country defending their IPL team via STD Calls. There were Pangas taken on phone, Punjab Vs Rajasthan; Mumbai Vs Delhi and much more that too in desi   style and a mix of regional languages. The Soup Song was the first song in history of regional music, to be aired on Radio Channels and Music Channels across India, thus strengthening the concept that regional innovations with a mix of global touches, does add to the concept.

4. Sense of Humour:  Your concept needs to be funny enough to go viral. Has it got a unique sense of humour? Is it easily available online? Can I share it with my friends? Are some of the questions that the marketers need to consider. The YouTube channel of Indian Panga League was one of the trending channels during the second season of IPL, whereas the Soup Song has already garnered more than 20 million views on its official video. Be it the regional fights between cricket lovers, an emotional song by a Tamil boy for his lover or the funny look or expressions on Zoozoos, they all possessed a sense of humour.  If it’s funny, it got to be viral.

5. Youth Connect: When a boy sings about his love failure experience, almost all the guys in the world can relate to his plight. And all the women would have a curious look at the video, with a sense of empathy or sympathy. Thus connecting with the youth. It is an experience that connects the video with the user. When the Zoozoos enacted our daily lives on the TV screens, we got touched, when the youth took pangas and spoke in their youth diction, we noticed and when a Tamil guy narrated his story in part Tamil and English, we laughed. Connecting with the youth via their daily experiences in their diction is the key.

Viral Videos – Trend Forecasting

Social Media will help to connect the links between the brands and the consumer via effective integration of right platforms and strategies at the right time. Social Media Monitoring will help the brand analyze the sentiments and the feedback of its consumer, and communicate the same to its marketing team. Brands will also realize the importance of Reputation Management and Response Management, to develop an engagement model with their online users and respond to positive or negative feedback. High recall – when you watch something you like, there are chances of higher. Sharing information merges with platforms such as Facebook and twitter to multiply its outreach capability.

High ROI – The investment on videos may not necessarily be very high, as long as you know how to put the ideal mix of humour, wit & the message across. Find an oomph factor, club it with a few experts who know how to get your social audiences speaking to you, and your video will be assured with virality. A perfect example of Integration is ‘The Soup Song’, where the song went viral on social media and then was also aired on Radio Stations and Television Channels, catering to the demand of the audience worldwide. A larger acceptance will be seen in 2012, where social media virals will be integrated with alternate marketing channels.

The coming year will also highlight the impact of Influencers as compared to the number of fans/followers the brand generates. Identification of these influencers and rewarding them for their efforts will become an important aspect in the long run.

Zafar Rais

MindShift Interactive

Pradeep is an international speaker & an author on Digital Marketing & Entrepreneurship. He’s one of the most sought after speakers in Digital Marketing and his speaking assignments include Search Engine Strategies (USA), World Social Media Summit at Kuala Lumpur, Social Media Workshops in Singapore, Click Asia Summit, Global Youth Marketing Forum and NASSCOM India Leadership Forum in India. He writes on Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing for Wall Street Journal, Inc & Entrepreneur Magazines.

A graduate from IIT Delhi, Pradeep is a core member of the Global Committee at SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), a non-profit that nurtures the growth of Digital Marketing globally. His obsession for the digital medium has led him to believe that the Internet connectivity is more important than the water supply . He’s reachable on Twitter @pradeepchopra and on LinkedIn.

Its our pleasure to share few words with Mr.Pradeep Chopra on his initiative to help Digital Industry Grow in India

What is Digital Vidya?

Digital Vidya is an attempt to help Digital Industry grow in India. We believe that right talent is always the real fuel for the growth of any industry and Digital is not an exception. We’ve organized over 90 workshops for over 2000 professionals (including CXOs) from 250+ organizations in the last 2 years across India, Singapore & Malaysia.

What motivated you to start Digital Vidya an initiative towards Digital Learning?

Since last couple of years, we were informally inspiring and supporting fellow entrepreneurs leverage Digital Marketing. Someone suggested that we should do it formally to do justice to the opportunity.

According to you which industry has lot of potential to benefit from Social Media however not capitalized it well?

B2B and Service Industry

Social Media is better for B2C than B2B. Myth or Reality and Why?

Yes, at a broad level, B2C companies are likely to gain more from Social Media than B2B companies. But doesn’t discount the opportunity of Social Media for B2B companies. In India, EVS (Evalueserve) is a great example of a B2B company, which has leveraged Social Media (especially LinkedIn) to do enormous amount of Lead Generation.

Also, if you have a look at http://SocialMediaB2B.com, you will realize that there are a number of B2B companies that have been leverage Facebook for fulfilling various business objectives.

One advice you want to give to new startups in Social Media Marketing Business.

The ultimate victory of Social Media is to be able to make your customers and users your friends. I will quote the positioning Zappos has been able to create using Social Media: ‘talking to Zappos is like talking to a friend who happens to sell shoes’.

Internet usage in India has touched 212 million users in 2011 and is expected to grow. Today, 30%-40% marketing budget of Indian companies is allocated to Digital, leading to a spending capacity of them to 1200cr. Impact of marketing communication increases when Digital Media is integrated. Social media promotion is the fastest way to spread a brands message and increase talk ability. Whether it is the Marketing, PR, HR or even Finance department, they realize this medium allows them to understand their consumers, interact with them and also be able to work on forecasting future trends. These days’ social media strategies often include integration with major social networking portals, and for good reason.

Integration is the sync of social media with other marketing channels adopted by the brand. Nescafe who ran teaser campaigns on television, leading users onto the Facebook page used integration successfully. Anti- repellent brand, Hit created a full page ad in a newspaper raising curiosity amongst users to get onto their social media presence for more. One of the greatest powers of Social media is that it allows customers to give instant feedback on products and services. The vast amount of data available, a direct connect with the youth, ability to customize and recreate are some of the reasons for marketers to get serious about this medium.

Consumers will increasingly start realizing the power they have towards tarnishing the reputation of a brand with their feedback and hence managing reputation, tracking what consumers are saying and converting these insights into sustainable strategies that understand the consumer pulse will become increasingly important. This shows the required integration between customer care and social media teams to ensure seamless flow. After all, the ones that react the fastest will gain ability to engage their consumers more positively.

Augmented Reality, video marketing, smart phone apps will see greater introduction in 2012 within social media. Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with live video or the user’s environment in real time. Basically, AR takes an existing picture and blends new information into it. Example of great integration is MTV roadies, the reality show by MTV which has used mediums such as Facebook UID to engage participants’ offline whilst updating their status on Facebook on every activity done during the selections. The on-air version of the show allows only 13 consumers to participate, but by extending to the online platform they had the opportunity to take this show live and open participation to 50 million internet youth in the country. The campaign used a mix of TV, online and in-channel promotions & offline initiatives to popularize the initiative. Online Media was the primary platform to drive engagement with the Digital Show.

Total no of mobile internet users in 2011 was estimated at 30 million. This number is set to go up to 237 million users by 2015. As Smartphone users continues to grow year- on- year, it is necessary for brands to understand the need of integrating mobile with online marketing. Creating mobile applications and consumer engagement initiatives is the need of the hour for brands so as to successfully integrate social media platforms and other marketing tools.

Ability to identify the consumer pulse and study it in depth is possible only when you merge your automated tool along with experts in the field of Social Media, research and sciences. Social media integration ensures that genuine interest is sparked by real people around a brand and it is up to each brand to take the onus of understanding their consumers prior to marketing to them.  Building a community of repeat customers will help a brand gain in social finance and create a credible social name among consumers in general. That is what would truly give Business a holistic, integrated strategy and will be born and acknowledged in 2012.