A) Social media can definitely be used for NGOs but it is not restricted only to that. Social media can be used beautifully for supporting or advocating a cause online. But, it is just one of the sectors where social media marketing can be gainfully applied.

It is not to be confused with social marketing which touches upon various social issues of our lives.

A) Well Almost. However it works better for:

• Brands that have become generic in nature and their tasks are more focused on increase per capita consumption, educating new users and thereby driving relevance
• Corporate social responsibility of brands
• Brands that target niche consumer segments
• Brands whose target audience is from the age group of 15 - 35years

A) No. Social media definitely transends beyond marketing. It can be used for managing Online Reputation (link) of the company by listening to what people have to say about its products and services.

Social media can also be used for corporate solutions (link) like blogging, employee engagement or company profile management.

A) It really depends on the category we are doing social media marketing for. But a typical timeline would range from 4–6 months for one to experience the true joy of social media.

A) Firstly we will send report giving out the current brand standing

This will be followed by monthly report that will highlight:

• Monitoring traffic on the blog
• Track all new brand mentions on blogs and other social media sites
• List of brand links placed on key influencers websites or blogs
• List of comments generated about the brand
• Discussions and conversations in forums, groups, Q&As, communities etc
• No of users reached thru communities and forums - may not be applicable for all social media platforms
• Details of all User Generated Content (UGC) that is relevant to the brand
• Statistics on videos/ music downloads / images watched, played & forwarded, if any

A) We charge a monthly retainer for the services we provide. The retainer is dependent on the services and scope of work that are required for the brand.

We charge on actuals for:

• Creation of any platforms like blogs, micro sites or websites
• Applications like widgets or any particular social network (Facebook or Orkut) application and
• Content development for the blog

A) Spamming is:

• Dropping links without permission or participation
• Or at best build random links to the brand websites

Social Media Marketing on the other hand is:

• Exploring each social media before diving in
• Figuring out what is acceptable or not
• Gaining respect with peers by providing good, solid info
• Being honest & transparent with people

A) No. Definitely no! So relax. However, social media is and will grow at an exponential pace for the next 10 years. As it is evident, the pace of growth of this medium will be far higher than it took other mediums to reach out to millions of viewers.

A) A few and we would like to highlight them too:

• WOM is based on conversation and not on messaging

• If you try to stop it, WOM momentum increases
  
  
• If you try to force it into motion, you will probably stop it or prevent it from beginning.

• It is not a magic pill that delivers instantly!!

• You have to keep at it for long run - just like your real life relationships - can't give up after a while

A) Wanted to chuck the formal clothes and wear the same jeans to work every day, five days a week!
Just kidding.
There are several aspects about it that really got us excited:

• We believe that this is the future of communication and being a part of that future can get most of us going.
• By stepping in this field, we would be pioneers of this form of communication, so the onus of growing this medium would partly be on us
• Most importantly, setting up our business allowed us to unlearn and relearn all that we had done previously in our corporate life