Posts Tagged ‘Windchimes Comm’

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A new beginning!

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

The time to write this post came sooner than I had planned. Like most new ventures, Sandhya and I too started Windchimes (in October ‘08) with business plans for the first six months and then for next 3 years. Six months because, in India, our financial year starts in April. We were not completely sure of the assumptions that we had made for making those and had to play it by the ear.

And well, it turned out to be better and soon we were out looking for a big place to set up and grow our business. That by the way, in Mumbai is never easy. We did find a place to our liking and parked ourselves here. What worked out better were the mavens we got on board – a young bunch of exciting people full of passion and energy!

We would love it if you want to drop by to our office for a cup of tea and for that very reason, there is a map that I have placed for directions.

How to reach us

How to reach us

And of course you can view our photos till then.

By the way, that’s not the only ‘new’ thing in our lives. But that would have to be another post where a lot of details will be in it.

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Posted in Windchimes Comm | 4 Comments »

Getting the best out of your online video

Monday, April 6th, 2009

I love YouTube. I think it is a brilliant concept and has given an avenue for self expression like no other. A random search on YouTube will reveal videos ranging from the truly useful to the sincerely bizarre. Some of my all time fave videos on YouTube include Where is Matt, everything from Common Craft and Bridal Skincare (what can I say… I am partial!). Infact Where is Matt with hits to the tune of 20,057,638, has got so big that Visa used it for their traditional TV campaign! Three cheers to the power of online video…

In India too one can see companies making the shift, with brands like Fevicryl owning a vault of over 50 DIY videos, each serving the purpose of helping a consumer understand how to use the product.

Now that marketers are increasingly planning to invest on online videos to reach out to their consumers, they also need to understand how to get more people to watch these videos.

There is many a fantastic video out there, with the creators asking themselves…why the hell aren’t people watching it? The answer my friend… your video needs a crucial ingredient called ‘virality’. It is like any movie or book. It might be brilliant but it needs to be seen, shared and talked about to become truly fantastic.

One needs to remember that just because you have made it and put it up, people will not automatically come to view it. A good amount of hard marketing work needs to be put in to make a video a viral hit. Here are a few tips on how to make your video deliver for you online:

Really really really good creative: There is no escaping that. A great idea is a good starting point to make your video go viral. Ask yourself… if you were the target consumer would you watch it?

Plan well: Figure out where your target consumer for the video is online and chalk out a detailed plan to reach out to him or her

Seed wisely: Make sure your videos are seen in places where your target consumers are. So if it is a skincare video make sure it is in the video library of skin care communities on Orkut or Facebook, where it is more likely to be viewed and shared by skincare enthusiasts.

Engage with Influencers: Identify the influencers for the category your brand is present it. Get in touch with those bloggers and community owners to view the video and share it if they wish to. Their circle of influence is big enough to help the video spread wider.

Choose smartly: Choose a video site that appeals to the targetted consumers of your video. So if it is an entertainment video meant for young men a Bigadda with a largely male audience skew might be the way to go.

Use Your Social Presence: Lastly share it with your online social network. Status updates are a great way to put your video out there.

How do you measure success of your online video?

Well honestly there is no set measure. If it is a generic youth category like jeans and if there was an interesting online video built around it, chances are it would have gathered a million plus videos if not more. However if it is something of a specialist nature like CAD software, it would garner views only from a limited audience with a maximum number of hits of say 10,000.

So would you term the CAD video an online disaster? I don’t think so. It has done the job it was meant to. Reached out to the limited audience that exists online for it and communicated the key messages. So mere numbers might not be an indication of success after all. Would love to hear your views on how would you measure the success of an online video…

The true mark of success can sometimes be, when an online video that you have created makes it back to you! Till that happens keep at it my friend.

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Posted in Brand Promotion, Online Videos, Social Media | 10 Comments »

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Windchimes blog recently earned official badge of achievement as ‘Successful and Outstanding Blogger’. Liz Strauss describes in detail the idea behind running the successful and outstanding blogger program in detail and how you can earn it too.

She states on her blog that this badge is awarded to bloggers who “take the conversations to their readers, contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger”.

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Successful and Outstanding Blogger Badge

You can view the directory of all the blogs that have been awarded the badge. As Liz says, “Good Conversation shared can only improve the blogging community”. We couldn’t agree with you more Liz!!

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Posted in Awards and Recognition, Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs | 12 Comments »

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 »

Use Facebook to promote your brand

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

 

I love Facebook.

There I said it. The reason I was having dilemma stating it openly was that till all this while I considered it as one more yuppie social networking site that will die a quick natural death. But I was wrong. And that only makes me happy. Having turned an entrepreneur, I have realized the kind of benefits I have reaped from its features.

So this post is to those features that each of you can use to promote your brand. Use them wisely and you will experience success whichever category your brand may be operating in. Here goes:


1. Start a Community:

As Facebook is all about networking, it is only right to start a community related to your brand. Keep the community generic in nature with the objective of adding value to people by providing them content – text or visual. Community allows people to join in and share their views. It becomes a good platform to interact and dialogue. Since all like minded people will join in, you know that all members would be your potential consumers. A word of caution here: Do not bombard them with only brand messages but try to be informative too. Community allows you to upload pictures, videos, write on walls, start discussions; basically enough opportunities to interact with people.

 

Windchimes community on FB

2. Profile Page:

Sections on profile page:

The profile page is the most critical and you must use it optimally. There are sections on the profile page that can carry your brand information which is easy for your friends to find. Given below are the pictures which highlight the places that can be used to guide your friends and fans to your brand website or blog.

Status Updates:

This is Facebook way of micro blogging. And they have got it right. It is one of the most used feature already. Its fun reading status updates of friends and then commenting on them. This feature should be used creatively to talk about your brand. Make it interesting, unique, creative, first ever whatever that captures eyes balls.

Status updates for announcements

Status updates for announcements

Using Tabs:

You can add tabs next to the Wall and the Info area as is shown in the picture below. Add other tabs like Photos, Videos, Blog Cast which will further help your friends find out more about your brand. Update them by adding relevant pictures, videos (ads in some cases) and blog posts. 

 

Make it easy for friends to know about your brand

Make it easy for friends to know about your brand

3. Incorporating Applications:

I have personally found several applications of great value. These should be added to your profile as well as your brand’s.

One is Simplaris blogcast:

This application automatically updates your blog feeds and publishes it in your FB account. So whenever you have added a new blog post, this app will get that feed and publish it in your profile thereby generating visibility. So all your friends would know that you have uploaded a new post without you having to tell them.

Update your friends about your new blog post thru FB feeds

Update your friends about your new blog post thru FB feeds

Second app that I like is Web Presence: Consolidates brand presence across platforms in one box

This app helps you in giving out all the places in the Internet where you have a presence. So this app consolidates all the presence in one box. So add on your blog address, your twitter account, Photo account on Flickr or Picassa, your videos on You Tube, your bookmarks on Delicious or Magnolia. Put it all in as this will help your fans connect with your brand on several other platforms too.

The third app is Twitter update. You can send out tweets from this app that is installed in your FB profile. This saves the trouble of login to Twitter separately. You can use twitter app and FB status updates as announcement platforms.

4. Creating Brand Page:

Facebook allows you to create a brand page where all the details about the brand can be added. This is more direct approach of brands connecting with people. Users can become fans of your brands thereby becoming loal ambassadors. The wonderful aspect is that fans can comment on the brand, its features and its advertisements. There are other features like Wall and Discussion Board where the conversations and discussions between the brand and users and even among users can be carried out. The fan page can be used by the brand to announce its on-ground events, invite users to participate in contests or update on new variant launches.

I recently become fan of Phantom sweet cigarettes that I enjoyed immensely as a kid. It was very nostalgic to find its brand page and I immediately signed on to become its fan. Now I get regular updates on what is the company planning as its new launch and I quite look forward to it!!

Fan page of Phantom Sweet Cigarettes

Fan page of Phantom Sweet Cigarettes

The golden rule that applies to all the above points is that the brand must be alive on FB. It must be updated regularly. There must be one person to accept and listen to user’s feedback on fan pages and communities. The action of each user should be acknowledged which makes the community active and ensure participation at all times.


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Posted in Blog Visibility, Brand Promotion, Essential Series, Facebook, Social Media | 39 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 »

Corporate Website 1.0 is dead. Long Live Corporate Website 2.0

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

The title is borrowed from the traditional proclamation – ‘The King is dead. Long Live the King’. What is basically meant (and I am taking this from Wikipedia) is that in certain monarchies of France and England, the transfer of sovereignty occurred instantaneously upon the moment of death of the previous monarch. In this blog post, I am using it to highlight that how a stand alone non interactive website (basically 1.0) is dead and without fail, its time for websites powered by social media (Websites 2.0) to take over!!

It is very common to see companies scrambling to get their website up. In few cases, some basic essentials of website are missing, but in most the marketers have no clear agenda on why they are building one. It’s not too surprising to see websites being made because it is a standard launch activity to do. It is more like a job in the task list at the time of product launch. The brand manager gets it executed because it was expected out of him or her.

Few service sectors like airlines or banking are using sites to either generate more business or cut the customer servicing costs. So if nothing else, they are at least generating some value. But by using social media tools, they could heighten the positive customer experience on their site. Because there is absence of social media tools, the hits quickly dry out and then money get pumped into traditional media to boost website hits. Not only is this model financially viable in the long run but also it kills the basic principles on having a website.

The point here really is ‘Whether a website is creating value for the company more than just providing a digital presence.’

Let’s dwell a little deeper and attempt answering this question below.

Q) Why does anyone come to a corporate website?

1.    To know more about the company – People would rather go to Wikipedia more often to either know more or check credibility of the company

2.    To watch its advertisements – Wouldn’t they go to You Tube for that

3.    How about buying its products – Really? How many Indian websites have secured e-commerce transaction facilities. At most, I have heard of few companies tying up with common third party e-commerce portals to sell their products online

4.    To read product reviews – It’s independent sites like mouthshut or reviewstream where one will heads to if one wants product reviews

5.    To learn how to use a product – Then one would visit sites like WikiHow, Wiki Answers and Yahoo Answers that get visited. And anyway, not many company websites have provided ‘How To Use’ section.

6.    To know the price – There are price comparison sites that provide you a feature to compare similar products or services and offer you cheaper options

7.    To get recent news about the company – A reader would rather head to a company’s blog as it would be more up to date and also personal in nature

8.    Because you just love their brands – Then you would rather become a fan – a feature so widely available on social networks like Facebook.

So again, really why would anyone visit a company’s website?

People aren’t visiting corporate websites because:

1.    Companies make their websites as if they were brochures online. Standard stale information with pretty images or faces. Or more like hoardings or billboards which is completely one way and non interactive medium. Websites are Just meant as an announcement board.

2.    Most corporate websites have stock images of nicely dressed young men and women either shaking hands or walking out of conference room. Honestly, hasn’t a picture of this already flashed in your mind by now. Yeah, they all appear the same – no unique identity

3.    The websites are screaming with brand messages staring in your face about just how good the brand is in delivering its promise. As a potential customer, why would I believe any reviews about that brand on its own site

4.    There is no place for people to create community or forum to interact and share their experiences about the product or service. There must be a platform where positive and negative views both are allowed and a potential customer is free to make that choice.

5.    Every corporate wants to build a rosy picture rather than a correct picture. So the websites end up with images of men and women, people of different skin colours etc basically anything that connotes that you are an equal opportunity complier and believe in fair trade. This would be an ideal thing to do if actions of that company collaborated with the images.

So what can be done about it?

1.    Host a blog: Gives user more recent news about the company and its products. Allows the user to comment and interact with the company

2.    Build Communities: This will create value. Companies can build brand specific ocmmunities so that people who have bought that product can come and discuss more about it. Also companies can share tips and suggestions on its features or maintenance or anything of value to the consumer

3.    Share positive and negative reviews: This will build up the credibility immensely for that brand. It won’t be surprising to find people calling it a honest brand buying it as they appreciate that brand value.

4.    No authoritative tone: The voice and manner of communication needs to be informative, thought provoking, appealing and inviting to consumers.

5.    Hire Windchimes Communications as consultant on social media strategy. You could start by reading more about social media and their services on their website

There are several social media platforms that can be integrated with the website. It’s important to be clear with the objective before build a website. Till then save those precious advertising rupees – coz an economic slowdown could be right down the corner!!

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Posted in Blogs, Social Media, Website 1.0 & 2.0 | 19 Comments »

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