Posts Tagged ‘social’

Bloggerati of the Fortnight: Anshul Tewari

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

ATA journalism student for life, a blogger by choice and a social entrepreneur that is how our Blogger of the Fortnight, Anshul Tewari would like to be known. Anshul founded youthkiawaaz.com in 2008 to voice his opinion about the social and political scenario in our country. Today, youthkiawaaz.com is India’s largest online platform for the youth to express themselves on issues of critical importance.

After having worked with leading national and international media houses, Anshul took blogging and social entrepreneurship to a whole new level and successfully so. He created this excellent platform for students and the youth in general to express themselves- a feat that is remarkable considering Youth Ki Awaaz has hundreds applying for internships every month.

With an editorial board of 12, executive team of 5, about 600 writers, correspondents, freelancers, student journalists from around the world, youthkiawaaz.com is today a registered media firm. Anshul also runs a research organization called Youth Research India.

Anshul has been a part of various national and international social enterprises and has been the driving force behind the cause, working on all aspects of the organization, from content and editing, to the executive aspects. This passion is reflected in the posts that come up on the blog. Hand picking every member of the team so that each of them share the same enthusiasm about the cause they are about to take on has maintained the rise of blog’s credibility.

Youth Ki Awaaz was awarded the Best Blog on Social Causes in India, and has won various other awards including the World Summit Youth Award for best practices in online journalism, by the International Center for New Media (ICNM) in 2010.

A graduate in Journalism from Delhi University, Anshul has worked with the Indian Express, The Financial Express and the Wall Street Journal India, online. He says, “Social change is not something that can happen instantly. It takes the effort of one entire generation to make sure that the next generation sees a better world.” And for putting in this effort, Anshul Tewari is our Bloggerati of the Fortnight.

Click here to read more from our Blogger of the Fortnight series.

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Posted in BOTF | 4 Comments »

Social media and social responsibility

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Over the past few years, social media has become an important tool of marketing. Big brands have invested in the new media hoping to hook the audience to their products. And, with the success of the platform, the brands are now looking to leverage the tool for enhancing their brand equity via social causes’ route.

Social responsibility goes social

With growth of Facebook and twitter and the rise of social media marketing, it is no surprise that then this medium would now be used to promote corporate social responsibilities (CSR). While the brands are slowly starting to embrace this route, many social causes have already been promoted to good result via Facebook and other social platforms.

                    IAC

Social Causes Promoted via Social Media

Not just local public cause, social media has played key role in national causes. The public led campaigns against issues in countries like Libya, Egypt and India has shown what this medium is capable of. And if harnessed properly, the medium can deliver like none other.

Reaching the masses

In India, there are 31 million Facebook users, while the total number of active users on social media is expected to be 45 million by year 2012. This platform is growing and how. There is no denying that social media provides the easiest, and most cost effective route of reaching such an audience.

                      Causes 

Engaging the influencers

A key tool for any cause based program is to have the experts opinion put forth. A doctor talking about a health related issue makes the cause look that much more credible. Social media provides this opportunity to all the brands.

With over 40000 active bloggers who have built a major clout with their writing, brands can engage with these writers while talking about the cause and make them understand their fight. They in turn would then promote the cause and bring credibility to program.

                     Philips

Philips LinkedIn Innovation in Health

Not just blogs, lot of professionals are on social media, who can be engaged through their inputs and dialogues with general public in order to make the cause support that much more real and beneficial for normal people.

Key Benefits:

It also provides key benefits that any brand looks from a CSR or cause promotion. It helps brands in:

  • Improving Social Welfare
  • Establish differentiated brand positioning
  • Create strong consumer bond
  • Enhance brand equity
  • Boost internal morale
  • Drive Sales
  • Drive market value of firm

Acceptance of the campaign

A lot of skeptics have questioned the acceptance of a social media campaign. The fact that it is perceived as a youth platform makes them feel the whole seriousness of the issue would be lost. What they are not realizing that in a country like India, 66% percent of the population falls in the youth category. Thus, addressing them on their choice of platform is key to making them talk and think about the cause. And that’s not about it. 

End Cause

The result of a social media campaign can be gauged through response generated either through number of people who have registered for the cause or amount of money donated through the program. Also, the success of the program can be gauged through how well the program has been able to improve the lives of people who supported the campaign. There are no shortages of examples of the same in India. Brands like Fair and Lovely have contributed majorly towards growth of the society via this platform. The Fair and Lovely Foundation has reached out to over 300 girls in just 7 years and changed their lives.

FAL Foundation               Aircel

Brand led campaigns

Similarly Aircel has managed to build a support of over 300,000 people for save the tiger campaign. The major highlight of this campaign was making people believe that they can contribute to a cause which previously they though they can’t do much about.

And that is the victory that social media can lend to a corporate social responsibility or a cause promotion by a brand. It can make people feel important; it can make them feel like a responsible citizen. That they can make a contribution to any cause that they feel for through this channel makes it that much more powerful.

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Posted in Corporate Communications, Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

A New Mobile Revolution

Friday, April 15th, 2011

Look whose calling

With mobile coverage penetrating the length and breadth of the country and new technology helping deliver better and faster connectivity, mobile internet access is gaining acceptance with Indians. Also, with the tariff plans now looking much better than what they were a decade back, the cost of logging on to the internet is as lower than sending a standard message. This has helped the growth of a new networking platform, the Mobile Communities or the Mobile Social Networking.

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Mobile Communities

The new number

Mobile social networking is social networking where one or more individuals of similar interests or commonalities, conversing and connecting with one another using the mobile phone. Much like web based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual communities.

Native mobile social networks focus on mobile use like mobile communication, location-based services, augmented reality requiring mobile devices and technology. Advances in hardware and software technology have facilitated the existence of these mobile virtual communities.

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With the current software that is available, interactions within mobile social networks are not limited to exchanging simple text messages on a 1-to-1 basis (SMS) but are constantly evolving towards the sophisticated interactions of Internet virtual communities.

Mobile Communities are scoring over SMS based communities also since they eliminate the annoyance of constantly receiving SMSs. This also means that for an individual to send a message to the group they themselves don’t have to use SMS facility but either use the WAP or Internet connection which is now cheaper than SMSs in many places.

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Different connection

Lets face it. Facebook and Orkut are more or less an urban trend. It is a tool for youth of Tier I and to some extent Tier II cities. With an established tone on these platforms, it takes a lot of adjusting for people from smaller cities to get used to what is being said. With smaller numbers as of now, mobile communities are still shaping up. People are finding it easier to get an acceptance in such places rather than on Facebook where snob value is now at an all time high.

Also, the key difference between a web social networks like Facebook and Orkut and mobile social networks is that while Facebook and Orkut are a global platform, a lot of mobile social networks are region specific and catering to the non Facebook/Orkut markets where mobile internet is growing faster than pc based internet usage.

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(Source: http://www.pluggd.in/mobile-only-internet-generation-in-india-297/)

Say Hello

Amongst the various providers of Mobile Social Networking or Community gateway, mig33 is a leading player. Present internationally and in India as well, mig33 has users from over 100 cities in the country. Essentially mig33 is a free online mobile application that lets users send cheap texts, make cheap calls, chat in one of the many chat rooms and you can even add your MSN or Yahoo buddies and talk to them.

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Mig33 user profile

When users open mig33 on their mobile it will connect to the Internet or WAP as it is known. The application has seen a huge growth and an uptick in download from Tier II and Tier III towns in India. Its members engage in vibrant chat communities, share photos, send gifts, play games, post on each other’s profiles, join groups, create avatars and much more. It is optimized to work on practically any internet enabled mobile phone in India, even low-end handsets.

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Chat Room

mig33 has several million users in India, providing entertainment services beyond instant messaging, including social games and virtual gifts. Its player-to-player games like ‘mig wars’ and ‘heads and tails’ are especially popular in India, while leader boards and virtual currency has led to the stickiness of the application and user loyalty.

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Mig33 Cricket Game

The virtual gifts are something which is most popular amongst the users. According to a survey done by mig33, Indian users feel that virtual gifting helps them save costs on real gifts and 69 per cent of the users spend on virtual gifts that cost less than Rs 15. Such gifts usually include a hug, a kiss, virtual roses etc. The survey further said that in tier II cities, 40 per cent of the users spend on gifts that cost between Rs 5 and Rs 15.

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Mig33 Gifts

Another great feature to this is that user can add groups, so for example if a user has lots of family contacts on different sites but they also use Mig33, then he/she can keep them separate from the rest in a group called “Family”.

mig 33 and other social networking is more about entertainment and making new friends in tier II and III towns as opposed to tier I cities where it is about being in touch with majority of friends. For the mobile-first community, social network is a friend itself rather than a place to meet friends.

Brands dialing in

Brands are starting to see this is as precise and targeted ways to build an emotional connect with the users. Early on, when ‘Luck by Chance’ was released, BIG Pictures hosted a contest with Mig33, with people getting to talk to the stars of the movie over their network. People were asked to share their lucky charms, and in less than three weeks, over 15,000 entries were received.

With target audience number reaching close to 50 million on some of these networks in India, it is now sounding as a very attractive marketing tool. Though it is still in nascent stage of development, the first mover advantage cannot be neglected.

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Mumbai Indians Group on mig33

With the belief that the rise of IP and wireless technologies would redefine the way people connect and build their relationships and communities, the brands are looking to at every opportunity to reach out to an awaiting audience.

Sponsored community channels that add value to users while building a brand are another effective tool. Another tool that these networks can offer is the sale of branded virtual goods and social games. All these work very well with smaller cities as not everyone in these cities get to log on to internet using their laptops or computers. Their mobile phones are their only constant source of internet connection and hence, it is very important to be present on these devices since they spend more time on mobile, thus, leading to higher brand recall.

Verdict

It seems clear that mobile networks are going to continue to grow, and represent a viable channel for advertising and marketing efforts. What’s key though, is that like any of the new digital mediums, advertisers have to be willing to learn how to effectively use the medium, before they worry about RoI.

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Posted in Brand Promotion, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Target Audience | 1 Comment »

From the Horse’s Mouth: Social Media Better Than Offline Communication?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

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.

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Posted in Social Media | 6 Comments »