Posts Tagged ‘Citizen Journalism’

Our article in DMI

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

An announcement.

Sally Hooton, editor of the DMI magazine, approached us recently to write an article on social media. It was our privilege to be associated with DMI, the world’s only global business title for direct and interactive marketers based out of United Kingdom. The article talks about social media in relevance to India in conjunction with our research on social media.

The article can be viewed in the online format on Page 36.

If you would like to download the article then do click on the Scribd Link given below.
[scribd id=11894180 key=key-e4kjpl0y1o4xf73e0vj]

Do visit our Windchimes website to know more about us

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Posted in Awards and Recognition, Social Media | No Comments »

Social Media Predictions for 2009

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Let’s play the word association game here. Tell me what comes to your mind when I say the word December. Of course, Christmas, shopping, holidays….Predictions!! Yup, predictions that’s the one this blog post will be all about. What will the year 2009 hold for us?

I have put down my 10 predictions. Five of these are on a more socio-economic level at large. Most of these changes that I am predicting will be huge leap jumps in their own way and will be possible only because of extensive use and acceptability of social media.

1. Thought Leadership as a Strategy:

These days, it is not uncommon to see people seek value out of everything. And by value, I am not restricting it to price equation alone. Value could be delivered in the form of information, education, better quality or even better service. One of the key principles of social media is to provide value to its consumer. For companies and in turn their brands to survive, they will have to provide value at all levels to their consumers. Social Media will prompt companies to adopt thought leadership as a value in their manifesto in their area of core competence.

I predict that in 2009 most companies will use thought leadership as a strategy in their respective categories by educating consumers to win potential consumers and retain existing ones.

2. Online activism:

World over, we are witnessing increase in online activism from citizens. People are reaching out to each other across the country or world either for peace rallies or prayers or candle light vigils or to form groups to decide on action steps. Social media is providing a platform to like-minded people to connect with each other and come forward to participate in events. It is being used to educate citizens to become more alert and aware about their surroundings.

I predict that in 2009 there will be a lot more of government and citizen collaboration to fight not just terrorism but also for better governance. And the mode of collaboration and reaching out will be through social media.


3. Traditional media will rediscover itself:

There is a lot of talk on how traditional media will lose its sheen in the coming years. I believe it will continue to do so if it keeps following social media principles without reinventing itself. Take the case of citizen journalism. A couple of TV channels have started running segments where the citizens report in news to the people at large. As a subscriber I am not paying TV channels money to hear news from the common man. I am expecting a thorough analysis done by the reporters and journalists on the events before it being presented to me. I want an unbiased, complete perspective which an untrained citizen cannot provide. For citizen based reports, I always have social media platforms to go to.

I predict that in 2009 channels adopting practices like these will die. Traditional media is still very important in our lives and it has to discover and operate from its own strengths rather than borrow principles of social media.

4. Rise in Entrepreneurship:

The coming year will see a surge in employees turning entrepreneurs. Two of the key barriers for any entrepreneur are sourcing and marketing. They do not know how to reach out to their potential customers or their relevant suppliers and secondly do not have big marketing budgets to do so. With social media coming into play, both the barriers will be tackled for good. Armed with a profile in social networking sites like Facebook and Linked in, an entrepreneur can reach out to his potential customers and vendors at practically no cost. I have several of my friends who have leveraged SNS to their advantage. One is running a store called Attic and the other is promoting himself as a photographer. Several others have networked themselves on Linked In and reached out to their potential clients. This is no to say that they do not need a great idea and passion to implement the same.

I predict that in 2009, several people will turn to entrepreneurship as social media will facilitate them in their process.


5. We will turn into listeners:

Let’s admit it, most of us if giving a choice would rather speak than listen. It’s a sort of conditioning that as happened to us over the years as the media we used facilitated only one way communication. With social media increasing its presence, we will have to get used to receiving feedback. Our consumers, investors, employees will have the opportunity to talk to us directly and we will have to listen. If we want to continuously seek and retain their attention, we will have to start listening and accepting feedback.

I predict that in 2009, we as individuals and corporate will definitely change and start listening to each other more often.

Click here to read the remaining five predictions for the year 2009.

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Posted in Facebook, Predictions, Social Media, Target Audience | 26 Comments »

Traditional Media is adopting Social Media principles

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

It”s important to understand how social media marketing is gaining ground in today”s times. By following four basic principles, social media marketing positively impacts the consumers on behalf of the brand. Let me start by listing down the basic principles of social media:

1.    Seeking User Participation,

2.    Building Value for the community

3.    Allowing User Generated Content (UGC) and

4.    Listening to people’s point of view

Traditional media is re-inventing itself by adopting these principles for itself. Let’s take each principle and explain it in context to our emerging social scenario:

1. Seeking User Participation:

Most General Entertainment Channels (GECs) of India and elsewhere have begun to involve their viewers with their shows. They are realizing that unless you don’t make people actively engage with the content, they will switch to another channel. Hence, most reality shows insist on viewer voting. It’s frequent to see them asking viewers to SMS XYZ to 1234 to vote for their favourite participant. By making people participate by voting, the show producers are hoping that the viewer will stay with them to see the results – thereby not losing their TRPs (Television Rating Points)

Polls are another example. Most news stations ask viewers to sms their point of view on a particular event or story as it unfolds. They then tabulate the results and air them with their comments. These quick polls are then used to gauge public opinion on social matters

2. Building value for the community:

By participating with people, traditional media is also creating a lot of value for them. There have been several instances in India where in a criminal has about to go scot free. The news channels invited people to share their views through emails, dedicated phone lines and SMS-es. That put pressure on the government to act i.e. reopen the case and hold the guilty accountable for their crime.

Jessica Lall murder case is a classic example and so is that of Nitin Katara’s. It is interesting to note that in both cases, social media platforms (wiki and blogs) have been leveraged to create public awareness and protest towards injustice done.

I am sure that each of us can recount several instances where the media has played a proactive role that benefited the citizens and the community at large towards a positive change.

3. Allowing User Generated Content:

Most news channels have started involving citizens to cover a story for them. CNN IBN, a leading Indian news channel has in fact dedicated an entire show called Citizen Journalism. Just recently, I saw an event where citizens were being awarded for the journalistic work that they had carried out. This arrangement works wonderfully for the news channel. Today, the only way to retain eye balls is to either break the story first or have exclusivity rights over it.

Let’s take a scenario. Assume a newsworthy event occurs suddenly in Lonavala, a small town 100 kms from Mumbai – where the news stations and reporters are based. It will take some time for a reporter to get there, cover it and send back edited legalized version of it for airing. However, the people residing there can capture the event as it is unfolding on their cell phone or handy cam and send it to the news channels for airing. So that channel receiving that footage is the first one to break that story!!

For the viewer, he or she will definitely watch the news channel to see their coverage getting aired. Chances are that they would have told their family and friends also to switch on that channel at that particular hour to watch their story. Further, having seen their story aired, there would be an unconscious loyalty that would get built towards that channel.

There are also other examples of how citizens are using this opportunity to create social awakening of sorts and get attention and justice towards their cause. By allowing users to generate content, media companies have empowered citizens to make a difference to the place they are living in!

4. Listening to people’s point of view:

Here again, all TV channels seek feedback regularly for each episode or section aired. Internet and Mobile are mostly the mediums used to seeking feedback. This definitely allows them to edit their content accordingly. The feedback acts as a dipstick to record what people love to watch and what scores low on ratings.

One leading GEC carried out an interesting marketing tactic to interact with its viewers. For one of their most watched daily soap opera they invited viewers to submit entries on how according to them should the story unfold further. The prize: The person whose story would be selected will get a mention and basically earn his or her 15 minutes of fame. Needless to say, the channel was flooded with snail mails and emails.

It’s heartening to see that traditional media is willing to adopt and change as per the newer social fabric that is getting developed. However, the two way interaction will get restricted to these activities as that is the limitation of the medium. At this point several social media platforms like blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social networking sites will take over and start providing value. So, it’s important for marketers who wish to interact with their audience incorporate social media marketing as part of their annual marketing spends.

Read more about Social Media and Social Media Marketing

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Posted in Social Media, Traditional Media | 17 Comments »