Indian Social Media Landscape

Why I chose Public Relations as a career still remains a vague subject for many. Yet again, why I chose social media as my bread and butter in a market like India, still amazes people. I have to ask why?

For all enlightened minds unaware of Public Relations, it is managing the reputation of a brand/ corporate with constant outflow of information through a perfect blend of creativity in communication. Simple! You have information; you’ve got to inform the masses about it. You’ve got a reputation hitch; you’ve got to set it right through talking to people and using feedback they provide to modify your communications strategy (The Wisdom of Crowds, I tell you!).

Coming to social media, it just gets simpler. I will not brag about what social media is (Just go to our free e-book download, mate!) But here is how it just works better than the above-mentioned offline medium:

• It’s the in-thing! Well yeah! Since every trend, every thought, every discussion that makes a difference to our lives is up there even before it is on the news or in the newspapers (As an offline PR professional, I referred to Twitter religiously to catch up with all that was happening around the world, to gauge what the newspapers would write next). The dynamics of the word ‘fastest news’ have changed (as they have for ‘breaking news’:P).

• What’s working, what’s not? You get to know it immediately. Couple of fiery comments on your blog, and you go –“Well, perhaps I should rephrase this? ” Pat comes the Crowd’s reply- “Dude! I said remove this horrible commercial. Hear me right?” With so much room for heart-to-heart talk between the consumer and the brand that social media offers, any business will have to prove the favourite fact-We’re Listening! This is a must for any business, since the crowds run it!

• Power of Mass Intelligence and Collaboration: Probably where social media does a dance and a hop and a skip while conventional communication stands and stares. A pleasure it is, to see your consumers design products, collaborate for fun and knowledge and come up with new ad-campaigns (Flashback: ITC Bingo Mad Angles)!

• Better and Tangible Results: Looking at sales charts to trace back to what article, and which news worked for your business, is morose, futile and does not reward the efforts of the company or the communications agency (If number of articles, headlines etc. promised to the client could have changed the face of brands, advertising would have had its natural fall way back!). Social media is measurable, more so in terms of consumer reaction to your moves in the market (Flashback: Blogs on HUL changing the age-old formulation of Pears).

But here is why social media will delight focused communication professionals more than anything else: Your efforts translate into direct consumer engagement, not in a news article,the readers of which you wouldn’t have an idea of.

Having been in business development for a specialist social media agency for a fair amount of time, there are certain caveats we keep reminding clients of. This is probably because social media is unlike any other marketing medium including the sir-please-try-our-website-since-the-model-is-very-different, which is at the end of the day, just a different form of display advertising.

So six caveats I’d like to give clients, agencies and social media enthusiasts or planners are…

1. What’s so great about you anyway?

While a statement like that is suicide as far as an agency is concerned, reflect on what it means. What IS so great about your brand that would make people want to put off watching pirated IPL videos on YouTube, stop chatting on GTalk with an old friend, stop scouring social networking sites for random profiles to make ‘franship’ with… And come talk about your brand? Now that I’ve put this question in perspective, it doesn’t seem as offensive, does it?

Let me put it this way: Look around you and search for a brand you have no professional affiliation to. Why would you become a fan voluntarily of that brand? Your answer to this will help you answer what your own brand should be doing on social media.

2. Great, you’ve got your fans. Now what?

In the craze to have a ‘presence’ on Facebook, companies often resort to buying fans, using FB ads. That in itself is not an evil thing, but what a brand needs to be clear on is what to do with these fans. We’ve seen many fan pages which the marketing team of companies opened frenetically, paid a sufficient amount to get 500 fans, post a few current-campaign-related updates, and then, once the campaign and budgets are over, lies inactive. What happens of the fans? Think of it this way: fans have, on their own volition, chosen to become fans of a brand. Which is as good as a footfall. And just like a footfall, you can never ignore a fan of a fan page.

3. Not everything’s for everyone

Telling a brand manager that a blog is not right for his brand is like finally telling your girlfriend that you’re not the right person for her. OK, almost. But you know what I mean. The ease with which social media platforms can be activated leads many to believe that their brand should be everywhere. Wrong. A presence on Twitter, a blog or even a FB fan page is a long-term effort. If your brand is in it for the ‘wham bam, thank you ma’am’ equivalent on social media, a quick application and some FB ads is what you should be looking at.

4. Time lagega, boss!

It is unrealistic to expect something like 1000 followers, fans or subscribers to get to your page in one or two months. Social media growth should be organic and growth will be exponential in nature. Which means, the first few months may have very few people coming in. But after that it’s like compounding. Think of it this way. A personal blog starts off with five loyal readers coerced to reading it (the industry equivalent being co-workers and your agency!) before merit alone decides whether more people start coming in on their own. It’s pretty much the same thing for your fan page, corporate blog or Twitter page.

5. Can you pass the cricket score test?

I’ve mentioned this before. But it needs to emphasised again. People are online to surf porn, plant virtual strawberries, chat with friends, check the latest gossip, read their friends’ blogs and most importantly in India, check cricket scores. The Cricket Score Test is what I call the process of someone actually deviating from this schedule, distracted by something else. Why do I say this? Because this is the same guy you’re trying to convince to play your application. Or read your corporate blog on your latest AGM. Or follow your Twitter handle of 3 updates. You get my drift, I hope. Remember, buying out fans is the only shortcut you can take. Then what?

6. Never attempt policing

It’s a free, democratic medium. It’s open. People can say anything they want, there is no point trying to suppress them, you’re only going to get lots of backlash. Anyone who followed the Nestle episode will know what I’m talking about. For a quick guide on what NOT to do on a Facebook page, click here.
And so there you have it. A few keep-in-minds for social media. All points are fairly debatable (That was the intention, honestly) and I look forward to your feedback on the comments.

Oh, and I blog here.

Facebook fan pages work. From every movie releasing on the next Friday to Reality Show going on in the television, everyone wants a fan page. As my dear friend Saahil would say, it is all a part of the engagement plan . However, these days fan pages tend to do a lot more than just send out their updates to the fans and let the users talk amongst themselves. People have gone up to the extent of creating a full micro-site within the fan-page. Check this Puma fan-page for instance.

Getting a very well branded fan page is a little bit of work (It is as good as getting a micro-site done) for sure, but getting a basic beautiful fan page with a landing tab other than the wall tab is not so difficult. I am not a master at making a super cool fan pages but here are some small tips which will help you make a fan page which won’t look the same as  other fan pages. Please try not to pay people for making some cool tabs for your fan page if it is not super intensive page. If you really wan’t to pay, try paying me .

Step#1 : Add the static FBML Application to your fan page. It is available here.

• Step#2 : When you click on the Add to my page link, you get a pop-up like the one shown below
  

  Choosing the page to add static FBML tab to

• Step#3 : Now that you have added the staic FBML , you can now create a custom tab in your facebook fan page.

• Step# 4 : Now that you have added the static FBML, go and edit your FBML tab.

Edit Facebook Fan Page

• Step # 5 : Now that you are editing the fan page, you need get to see the list of applications including the Static FBML application, you just added as shown below.

Editing Applications Facebook Fan Page

• Step#6 : Now click on editing the Static FBML page and you see the window shown below. Edit the Box title to what you want the tab to be named.

• Step#7: The problem now is how to write the FBML script. Actually, writing FBML is very similar to writing HTML and hence you need help. Okay, I admit you need to learn that. However, I will provide a couple of ready to go scripts which i wrote once i read a little bit of FBML today.(A 10 min reading will do.)

1. A small piece of code to open a tab to invite friends is here.

The small FBML required is:

<fb:request-form
method=”post”
action=”microreviewsorg?ref=ts”
type=”Microreviews.org”
invite=”true”
content=”Microreviews<fb:req-choice url=’PAGE URL’ ‘ label=’GO’ /> “>

<fb:multi-friend-selector actiontext=”Invite Your Friends to Microreviews” rows=”3″ showborder=”true” />
</fb:request-form>

• Make sure you replace the http://microreviews.org with your web page’s URL

To Change the default landing tab to your newly made Static FBML page, you just need to click on the settings link available on the fan page for an admin and change the default landing tab. This doesnot show up for admin and so ask your friend or logout and check if the default landing tab setting is working. Check the image below.

Changing the Default Landing Tab on a Facebook Fan page

In the next post, I will discuss how you can make some commonly used tabs like Flickr, Youtube Channel, Twitter etc.

I hope you like this post. Please let me know your suggestions.

It all started gaining proportion with continuous onslaught of protests against President Bush’s war with Iraq under the pretext of finding Weapons of Mass Destructions. Apart from taking to the street, several individuals got vociferous with their protests in the social media space. Twitter, blogs, networking sites all become mediums of protest. Unfortunately the republicans didn’t believe in building their presence online (which become more evident during the election campaign between Obama and Mc Cain) and hence couldn’t gauge the mood of the people which costed them the election!

Let’s take the Iran Elections. A country that doesn’t support freedom of speech and which finds it fair to order 100 lashes to anyone reporting against the ruling party. In a state like that too, Iranians openly protested about how elections were conducted in an unfair manner in various parts of their country. Iran elections was a trending topic for a very long period on Twitter. For the first time the world got an inside perspective of an election process in Iran! The tweets and messages were bold, provocative and most times anti-establishment. This was unheard off for a country like Iran. What was surprising was that People commented through their real online profiles. They didn’t mince words.

Move to closer home. The current war of words between Shiv Sena (a local party which enjoys a reputation of hooliganism most times) and various other parties of the country. Shiv Sena insisted that Mumbai belonged only to Maharashtrians (local people from the state of Maharashtra). This was countered by all stating that Mumbai belonged to all Indians and that everyone was free to stay wherever they wished. The protest was more evident on again social media. Apart from blog posts and status updates on networking sites, twitter was used extensively. Several Bollywood stars started trending their thoughts with #MyNameIsIndia saying that Mumbai belongs to all.

The hash tag was in conjunction with the forthcoming film of Shah Rukh Khan (a popular Bollywood star) that was titled My Name Is Khan. SRK and Shiv Sena too had got into a verbal dispute to the extent that Sena refused to let his film get released in Mumbai. The support for SRK grew immensely online but not on ground. The irony, however, was that none of their stars protested on other media like print or television. A leading television critic observed that several news channels contacted those bollywood stars as their panelists to talk pro SRK but they all declined. Even the press journalists haven’t been able to get direct quotes from anyone who would criticize the Sena’s veiled threat openly.

This behavior leads me to question what happens to us as individuals when we are using social media platforms to express our opinions. Why is it that, barring few exceptions, the individuals becomes politically correct when confronted on the Television show or leading Daily but fiercely inflammatory on social media platforms. Reading some of the tweets against Shiv Sena ( a party that has fierce grip over the city and its people) astonished me about this bold and gutsy attitude. The nature of tweets were earlier seen only during anti-national activity!

Anonymity? Hardly. Most individuals have an updated twitter or facebook profile clearly revealing out their identity. Most of them have pictures with their real names and even links to their blogs or websites.

Misinterpretation by mediaperson?  Not really.  Most television shows follow a debate format so there is no room for misinterpretation. The individual can express his or her point of view just as clearly as on social media.

Safety in numbers? Maybe. The individual’s tweets or updates are one more in the sea of protest so the chances of being singled out are drastically reduced. As a panelist on TV, you are isolated and conspicuous and more likely to face ire of individual or body whom you are commenting against.

Tweet not as impactful as TV Remark? Possible. A remark on TV has more visual impact or lasting impression that a series of tweets or updates! Again raising the case of being easily identified and singled out!

These are just few of the reasons that I could delve on. I am sure that there could be many more – after all the human mind plays up its own share of permutations and combinations and doesn’t always take the logical route. Whatever it is, it sure has provided an outlet to all to pour out their concerns, feelings and above all else their opinions!

This is a repost from Microreviews.

Success keeps us motivated. We are elated to have received a huge response to our first two posts in this series( Facebook Presence and Twitter Presence of Indian telecom majors) . So we move on in our journey to check the website/blog presence of Indian telecom majors. Websites and Blogs, as you would all agree, are an extremely important as a part of a company’s social media portfoilo.

So, Here we go.

This is a re-post from Microreviews.

The huge success of the first post in the series ‘Social Media Presence of Indian Telecom Majors-Facebook presence’ has excited us infinitely. So, as promised we are coming out with the second post in the series.

Twitter as explained in Plain English was meant to just tell “What are you doing?”. But the marketeres saw the Gold in it. It got used a publishing service and took the marketing world by a storm.

So, Today the microreviews team set out to find how the Indian Telecom Majors are utilizing this service. Microreviews team has already reported in one of its posts how the Indian IT major Infosys Technology closed a deal on Twitter.