AdultDost(dot)com – The Social viral message!

“Dude yeh paap hai” – (Dude this is sin!)

What kind of a title is it? Since when did Paritosh start featuring “Adult” sites on the blog? What is the world coming to? Just to increase readership how can someone feature such a thing!

Well, just before you you think of all these questions….read ahead….

This is going to give you a new insight into Viral Marketing using Social Media

What is AdultDost.com? Well, AdultDost is a Viral marketing campaign which has been designed for a major into Television space (TATA Sky) by a known Advertising company.

Okay, So I think I revealed the story a lil’ too early? Is it? I dont think so!

What is Virality, well I discussed the issue of Virality sometime back in one of my previous posts. Hmmm…interesting enough, but why would a company like TATA Sky, use such a name to launch an advertising campaign and that too for a product which caters to the idiot box (your television, which is powered by TATA Sky).?

Nice question! Well, and the question has a simple answer to it!

The answer is simple, If I am writing an entire blog post about it, spending 20 minutes in letting people know about the campaign, TATA Sky has achieved its purpose and hence it shows that the advertising company did achieve its objectives.

So right was Jagjit Singh (the great ghazal singer) when he said –

baat nikalegi toh phir duur talak jaaegi (if you speak out something, it would go till far)

Well, though Jagjit Singh never meant Social Media marketing and Viral messaging, but (just that I like ghazals) and the line seems a good fit

Moral of the story?!

For every online marketer its an achievement to create that one Ohh! So Viral campaign which would establish a great brand! I think with the increase in awareness in the generall masses and with the increase in the subscription and widespread of broadband services, many issues are getting handled!

2008, saw some great Social Media tools being created which evolved into moster houses. I describe Social Media as a party where you are all the time, every-time. And just like when you go to a party, you put the best foot forward, dress like rockstars, well the same applies to Social Media, where you are in a party everytime, all the time!

I think, 2009 (now that we have stepped into it) would see further stabilization of the various Social Media tools in terms of a deeper understanding of the, with newer models of branding, business emerging out.

what would Social Media be in 2009

Social Media cloud

Social Media, blogs, twitter, mashups….the year 2008 has been all action and Action and more INNOVATIVE Action!!

Things have changed in a way which have certainly created new offerings, newer business models, personal branding are amongst the BUZZzzzz today!

Great is we have all this!! Let me now come straight to the point!

1. There are Social Mediums
   • Blogs
   • Slideshare
   • YouTube
   • Ning
   • LinkedIn
   • Twitter
2. There is content
   • There are videos
   • There are presentations

There is all this and MORE. Things have moved really fast in the past year. 2008 has been an year full of action, the coming year 2009, is according to me the ‘Year of Consolidation‘!!

YES! I have met so many people both online and offline saying that lets connect here, lets connect there. but what happens post connecting! There have been great stories of people making lots of money on the Social platforms. We are all amazed at how one can be a millionaire on YouTube!!

So I have put on my thinking hats!!

The question now is what NEXT? After you have been bombarded with content all around, you have flying social media tags and clouds, how do you recognize the silver lining within?

Where does all this content lead to? Isnt’ it leading to finding the needle from the hay? Isnt’ it all becoming too much?

Well, I would say YES and NO!

2009 would be the year of Consolidation!!

Yes you have it! With economies all around in bad shape, I feel there would definitely be some more innovations around which would follow on from 2008. But the year would sound and spell CONSOLIDATION.

I know of people across the globe through a popular professional social networking channel, who are doing probably the similar work as many of their counterparts in India (like us). And all these people are looking towards gaining the first movers advantage in defining a solid offering into Social Media.

The question I ask are:

1. How do you assess the worth of a Social Media channel for your clients
   • On the basis of clients’ business
     • Do you have statistics to prove why would a channel work in a certain case and why not in the other?
   • On the basis of the Social Media channel
     • How do you justify a Social Media channel as being more for a client and less for the other
2. How do you measure the success factors of your implementation of the Social Media for the client?
3. Apart from Branding and Messaging and Communication what else do you provide to the client?

These are a few of the list of questions I have on the Social Media consolidation front. And I feel its the time to answer these questions to stand apart and be able to “Find the needle for your clients, from the stack”!!

Happy Socializing and my wishes to all Social Animals on this new year!

Best,

Paritosh Sharma

The shore is near, together we’ll make it through!

I’m bleeding, hold me tight! Wait for a few moments the shore is near, Together we’ll make it through!

No, I’m not narrating a hollywood scene. Listen closely to your heart and what does that so elusive client of yours who says I don’t have enough money to continue on paying you mean? The economic conditions have taken a toll!

Why are you still sitting on that seat? Go, this is the time to re-assure your client that you are always there in times good and bad! Its always easier working as a team and innovating together, sailing through the rough tide, rather than trying to make it through, on your own. This is the time for strengthening your relationships. Your clients business wants a makeover. The business processes need innovation. Go hold his hand, he needs you now! Why should I do it?

Well, the answer may not come to you right away, but let the conditions stabilize and this client would always stick around.

But how do I do it? Times are equally bad for me as well! What do I suggest him when I am innovating myself? When I fear of losing him and I have to acquire new clients myself!

Well, first things first, acquiring a new client would take you much time as compared to what it takes in retaining an existing client. Secondly yes times are equally bad, thus what you need are innovative ideas which would help you-:

1. Explore new market opportunities
2. Monitor your ROI, by focusing on meaningful investments
3. Innovate your business processes (Ex: looking at innovative methods of reaching relevant traffic to increase sales in a cost effective manner)
4. Position your offering and Brand to the relevant traffic, being cost effective at the same time

So how do I do it?

Well, what about Internet? Its another thing being 500+ on LinkedIn and famous on Facebook, but how do leverage your brand to attract potential customers through these Social Media?

Yes, you have got it right, SOCIAL MEDIA!

A simple yet powerful example are the recent presidential elections held in the US, which had Barack Obama rising up from nowhere, shattering 26 years of political force (Mccain) with just 4 years of relevant and effective branding online.

So how do you explain the benefits of an accurate social media model for your clients’ business?

Ask your client does he know why Barack Obama is the President-elect and Mccain is not!

If your client does know it, well, half your work is done and if he does not hmmm…you have a perfect playground to set your rules!

Strange it may sound, but if we trail the campaigns of both Obama and Mccain, one of the biggest differences that takes you where you least expect it is the effect of properly defined, structured and followed up Social Media. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the Social Media aspect of the internet so effeciently that Obama had a clear cut lead over Mccain online.

One of the best blogs on the internet which provides elaborat figures as to how Social media made all the difference, I found is: http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

NEARLY 6000% MORE PAGES ON Barack Obama’s website than Mccain’s.

Okay so lets dwell deeper…into figures…

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS/WEBSITES

Social Media Website	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leader
Facebook	567,000	18,700	2932	Obama
Facebook Supporters*	2,444,384	627,459	290	Obama
Facebook Wall Posts*	495,320	132,802	273	Obama
Facebook Notes*	1,669	125	1235	Obama
MySpace	859,000	319,000	169	Obama
MySpace Friends*	844,781	219,463	285	Obama
MySpace Comments*	147,630	none listed	147,630	Obama
Twitter	506,000	44,800	1029	Obama
Twitter Followers*	115,623	4911	2254	Obama
Twitter Updates*	262	25	948	Obama
Friend Feed	34,300	27,400	25	Obama
Youtube	358,000	191,000	87	Obama
Youtube Videos Posted*	1,819	330	451	Obama
Youtube Subscribers*	117,873	none 29,202	117,873 304	Obama
Youtube Friends*	25,226	none listed	25,226	Obama
WordPress.com	19,692	14,468	36	Obama
Flickr	73,076	15,168	382	Obama
Flickr Photostream*	50,218	No Profile	50,218	Obama
Flickr Contacts*	7,148	No Profile	7,148	Obama

Search Engine Results For “Barack Obama” and “John McCain”

Search Engine	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leading
Google	56,200,000	42,800,000	31	Obama
Google News	136,000	371,620	173	McCain
Google Image	24,200,000	8,620,000	181	Obama
Google Video	136,000	89,800	51	Obama
Google Blog	4,633,997	3,094,453	50	Obama
Technorati	412,219	313,497	31	Obama

Internet Presence For Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s Offical Websites

Internet Presence	Barack Obama	John McCain	% Lead	Leading
Google Pagerank	8	8	0
Pages in Google	1,820,000	30,700	5828	Obama
Yahoo Links-Pages	643,416	513,665	25	Obama
Yahoo Links-Inlinks	255,334	165,296	54	Obama

So what do all these figures say? My client is getting confused!! What should I do?

Now you actually do not have to say much. Your client says he has multiple options in the internet domain who provide services at a lesser cost then why should he still go with you?

So its simple, either your client’s campaign could be Obama’s or Mccains.

What does this signify?

Well, in the Online Marketing space its not just the quality that matters, its also how well does your online marketing solutions provider (partner) unedrstands your business domain. How well does he/she understands your objectives and goals and then charts out a workable architecture, that’s how you should choose your online marketing partner.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/11/13/the-shore-is-near-together-well-make-it-through/

Yes We Can!

Try googling “yes we can” and the TOP two results that appear are related to none other than Barack Obama, the US President-elect.

Though Obama may not have remembered to invite our Mr. Prime minister at a meeting of leaders held (as in the news channels), this post is more about tracking the Obama Trail!

So is Barack Obama the first US “social media” President elect?

Watching Obama’s victory address, I could feel here in India, what a connect he makes with his words with people. I read sometime back somewhere “people move when their emotions are moved” and wow Mr. President elect, you’re on the move already! So many people in tears, believing in real change, it was as if people could feel a change in the air! Oprah (the famous star show host) in tears and then cheering for Obama clearly showed what an effect he leaves! Well, So much for Brand Obama.

What motivates me to discuss about Obama on this paltform? SOCIAL MEDIA!!

Yes!

Web sites have termed Obama as the first “social media” President in the US history. He’s the first one to understand and harness the power of the sharing and collaboration platforms available on the web, to reach out effectively to even the remotest and the passive voters. Obama’s campaign team leveraged the power of this media to its righteous advantage! not just blogs, pictures, videos, wiki’s, Tweets and talk about all of these tools on the net!

So here;s a glimpse into Obama’s social media world:

1. Barack Obama’s blog: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog
2. Barack Obama on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama
3. Barack Obama on Twitter: http://twitter.com/barackobama

So now you know where those 600 million dollars came from? Every American pitched in those 10, 20, 25 dollars they had and became part and witness to history!

So much for Obama, well the power behind the most successful campaign in the political history of the US has been the social media. Today we’re discussing the biggest financial crisis since the great depression, corporate cutting down on the advertising budgets and the rest. I personally would suggest people (both individuals and coroporate) to look at innovative methods of exploring new potential markets and reaching out to the relevant traffic and communities on the internet.

So you’re a part of Orkut, LinkedIn etc. and you may well boast of a 500+ links, but how many of them could truly be converted into potential relevance to your work, that is still a question.

So how do you go about building that elusive brand? Position your product right to the relevant market?

Go connect! Get linked! Create SIG’s (social media platforms, common interest groups). Let people find you and it’s been proven they do! A simple example in this case could be, the links I’v provided above, there would be a multitude of the EMERGE community members who would click and be directed to these pages, and ahy would you click? May be to know more about Obama or be interested into the right Social Media Market.

Innovation is the name of the game now and businesses understanding it right at the right time would EMERGE out winning!

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/11/09/yes-we-can/

How Startups and Emerging companies can benefit from Social web and Enterprise 2.0

WEB 2.0, Yammer, Mashup, Dapper, Pipes, Widgets, Open API’s, WOMM…

Greek, does it sound?

Well, the 39th session of the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 (Emerging Companies Forum – Marketing) was a big draw, which had people belonging to a wide strata of the industry, participating with varied interests.

The session was chaired by Mr. Jay Pullur, the Founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies Pvt. Ltd. a technocrat and visionary, building teams from the scratch has been a key trait that helped Jay in establishing Pramati technologies, a company known for its innovation and quality.

The session started with Jay introducing innovative products from Pramati in the form of widgets which they evangelized as integral tools for building simple yet highly efficient methodologies for leveraging WEB 2.0

A formal kickoff then followed with Jay presenting the participants with a presentation which was a two sided discussion, with the participants engrossed.

Jay started with defining young companies. A statement which laid the foundation for the discussion “big companies already do all the old stuff well and in good scale”, made quite an impact in the participants and the focus hence shifted to how startups and emerging companies (young companies) could leverage WEB 2.0?!

WEB 2.0 and that too in 2 hours, well Jay smartly divided the presentation into Three (3) parts -:

1. What is this new WEB?
2. What does it mean to us?
3. Why is it challenging?

WEB 2.0, a new style of working!

WEB 2.0 is more about user participation, peer production and not just simple one way publishing.

Social Media
Two simple words, yet they made every mind in the room actively interact and participate. Well why someone would not be interested when you hear “the traffic on my web site has grown 25times over the past 20 odd days, due to the implementation of this FREE widget”!

‘FREE’ strikes! And it struck!

The greek words which we started this post with now started making sense, Mashups, Dapper, Intel Mash maker, Yahoo Pipes are all WEB 2.0 tools which are the most innovative and effective tools in leveraging WEB 2.0 for the organisation.

Marketing Opportunity – Widget

How does FREE stuff adds value?
-    Social Networking Applications
Jay provided with examples from some applications that Pramati did for the recently concluded Olympics at FaceBook, which generated quite a response all across.

Open social platforms were again an interesting topic of discussion which generated quite an interest in the room. Various platforms were discussed. Including the free google platform, open API’s and web services.

Extending the discussion, Jay proved how widgets could be effectively used in the promotion of products.

2.    Strategy needs understanding of distribution models and uptake of new offerings

“Marketing is changing faster than ever”
-    Jay Pullur

“Usefulness is no longer the only thing that matters, it’s the experience that does”
-    Jay pullur

“Indian startups have not really kept the waves”
-    Jay Pullur

An interesting discussion ensued within the participants, which had WEB 2.0 researchers’ sharing their experiences into what they felt was lacking in the Indian startups and how could the power of WEB 2.0 still be leveraged.

Jay mentioned the Enterprise 2.0 platform which he simply explained as a very complex combination of openness and privacy.

The change in the WEB 2.0 space was very intelligently put across which had the participants in splits and was really a thought provoking idea…”who thought a simple application like twitter could ever work”?
Well, since people today are interested into other people’s lives, thus it’s not just working; in fact we all are Tweeting, day in, night out.

Yammer, Crunchbase, Semantic Web before the participants could say why English suddenly has become out of focus again, Jay explained the various tools and how they spell magic!

PART TWO
The session was now much more interesting as now Jay kept his point through which he gave what the audience wanted…good, but what does it mean to us?

1.    Specialize and grow on the fast track, remarked Jay

With a reference to the blue ocean strategy and other such methodologies, Jay was instrumental in providing the audience with methods of marketing new products and service offerings through WEB 2.0 tools.

PR2.0, Blogs, WOMM (word of mouth marketing) etc. were the cited examples

Beat the downturn, commoditization and Market pressures, remarked Jay

PART THREE
Why is it challenging?

1.    Competency bar is growing up

Before the participants could voice their concerns of implementing such WEB 2.0 strategies, Jay was quick in adding the various challenges that could be faced.

“Invest little to gain a standing” – the statement clearly reflected Jay’s long term standing in the IT industry. The experience was speaking for itself.

Post the formal discussion, Jay shared his experiences with the audience. What was engrossing was Jay’s openness in coming out with the go to market strategies that Pramati implemented while they were in the process of launching their Enterprise 2.0 solution.

Lesson well learnt, and such discussion was received with great response by all present.

The session concluded with a Q&A session and the forum opened for networking which also had Jay interacting very openly.

RocSearch also has done a report on Leveraging User Generated Content – An anecdotal assessment on what works for marketers and what does not…download the report at Rocsearch_leveraging-social-media_may-2008

Link to the post at the NASSCMO EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/15/how-startups-and-emerging-companies-can-benefit-from-social-web-and-enterprise-20/