2 necessary ingredients of social media strategy

With 2013 coming to an end, all the world memorising about the year and planning the coming year, social media being the emerging industry and also being widely spoken a lot about everywhere, I being a social media marketer wanted to put down few things I believe about social media.

Among various questions, discussions I happened to be a part of in 2013 in social media is about strategy. I observed most of the marketers, businesses are overwhelmed with too many tools, social networks and drastically changing behaviours of the social networks and people. As a result most of the strategies are missing two points.

One thing we should do before building a social media strategy is to 'Listen'
One thing a social media strategy shouldn't miss is 'Bravery'

Listen:

Stay focused, Just be plain and listen to the social conversations happening around your industry, competitors, and your brand. Symbol # is ruling the networks. Its everywhere. Understand its importance and analyse how people are using it. If you can carefully listen and analyse you can make out
1. Where your target audience are
2. What people are expecting.
3. What and how your competitors are doing in social media.
4. What are the gaps your industry is facing in reaching the people.
5. Learn how to communicate in social media.

Wouldn't this analysis be enough to start of with the basic strategy to move into social media? Wouldn't this be enough to decide on which networks to participate and which tools to use? Certainly they do.
Relax. Paper and pen always works. Note down your findings, analysis, conclusions and trust me you will love your strategy and gain thousand watts of confidence to move forward.

Bravery:

From years we have seen the term bravery as an act or quality one have to face danger or pain without fear. But, when I say bravery it is courage to take a step without fear, courage to experiment, courage to be open, honest and transparent.Courage to apologise, courage to forgive, courage to respond immediately, courage to converse openly. Social networks rewards you when you show this quality.

Biggest fear I hear from business is, social media is open to public and what if something goes wrong?
Remember, mistakes can always be rectified.

“I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.” 
―Terry Goodkind.

This quote says it all. Don't hesitate to trust yourself and move forward. If you still not confident enough to move forward, don't move. Believe in your instincts.

Happy Socializing!
"Every good conversation starts with good LISTENING".

#MySocial2014 - What is that you are looking forward to do in 2014 with respect to social media?

Hello everyone!

As December is the month where whole world come together to celebrate. Take time to look back, predict the future, confess about the past, plan the next and discuss more. Social media and social networks are as usual the hot topic around this month. So, I thought of asking and recording what social media marketers, business owners (any one who are involved in social media) are looking forward to do in 2014 with respects to social media.

I sincerely request every one out there to use #MySocial2014 hashtag. You can also tweet to me, or send me via any social networks I mention below, with a video, or picture or a statement. Anything will do. I'd love to bring all of them here in this blog.

Twitter: @akathmadevi
Instagram: akathmadevi

What is that you are looking forward to do in 2014 with respect to social media? #MySocial2014

 Here comes the responses

Fantastic question. I will be blogging in 2014. I will use it as my excuse to beef up my lacking video and photo skills. ~ @dekebridges , Entrepreneur, Portland

I have a fantastic answer to it. It's INTEGRATING all of them in one at http://bit.ly/IQSoLO to avoid clutter ~ Manisha Sharma, works at Digitechsoft

Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2014 http://bit.ly/JNt8Hd  ~ @Infinistaconcep, Pune

Focus on good content and not filler content. This also pertains to what is read and shared. ~ @tianakaimiami, Marketing consultant, Italy

Consumers becoming more media savvy, so brands will have to be much smarter in their social media marketing :0) ~ @Jus_Wilson, UK

many many more millions of video views. :) ~ @ChaiwithLakshmi, Bangalore

Focusing on employee education and internal change using enterprise social tools ~ @GautamGosh, Mumbai

Facebook graph search - something beyond search.

'Search' on internet has been evolving from ages. It also changed and defined the way we search over internet and also made us provide information according the way we search. And now it took a big turn towards semantic search. Facebook graph search is one of its byproduct.

What is Facebook graph search?
Technically speaking it is semantic search engine where we get results for our natural language queries rather than links. To put in simple terms it gives results within the data  from facebook user and his/her networks and relationships. Additional results are provided by Bing search engine. .

It automatically gives few functions to choose from and extend our search.

How it is different from normal search engines?
It is different. It is different in terms of understanding the query. And so the accuracy and trust in the results vary. Because the results are collected from the information given either by the user himself or his networks and relationships. It depends on the interests expressed by the user and his network keeping their privacy settings into consideration. Whereas traditional search engines like google give the results by matching the search terms with the terms in webpages.

What difference it makes?
As said above, accuracy and trust are key points along with enormous opportunity it gives to its users to search deep with really big queries. Accuracy because the results are generated from the information users gave(believing that majority of active users on social networks are not faking) and trust because the information is given by his network.

Are graph search results prioritized?
Absolutely! They are customized as well. They are prioritized by showing the results from your network first and then results above your network as they are shared public. Remember facebook is binded to privacy settings. And customized as you can refine or narrow your search.

For instance we will do a simple sample search. "Photos taken in Varanasi, India"
there will be a list of photos of various sizes taken by different people will be shown there. Also giving options for two new searches on the top. Here in this instance it gave Recent and Before 2006. when we click on any of it, it gives new results accordingly.

There you can also see refine this search option where you can narrow the search

Few sample search terms you can try and see its extend-ability to refine your search:
Search1: Photos taken in Varanasi, India
Search2: Photos taken in Varansi, India after september 2013
Search3: Photos taken in Varanasi, India in september 2013
Search4:  Photos taken in Varanasi, India from september 2012 to january 2013
Search5:  Photos taken in Varanasi, India from september 2012 to january 2013 and photos by XXX
Search6: Search4:  Photos taken in Varanasi, India from september 2012 to january 2013 and by my friends who like M S Subhalakshmi
.... and the possibilities and list continues.

Search the web through facebook?
Any facebook user can search the web using facebook. By placing "web search:" before the search term.
These web search results are from microsoft bing search engine. One can also see web search results popping up during usual searches as well.

Just go to facebook graph search and discover different possibilities it gives, listen what Marc says.
If you don't have a graph search - you can hit try graph search button given in the facebook graph search page and see the magic!

Also to see the different possibilities of what graph search shows you by just do a simple search music my friends like and on the right column of the results page you can see refine search option, below that extend this search and below that discover something new. Just keep hitting discover something new and see the combinations of search keywords it takes and results it gives. you will love it!

Internet, web has been evolving from ages and it keeps evolving as long as man keeps on evolving and discovering the enormous power within himself.

The City - Varanasi

Varanasi - The Religious capital. A place where we find lots of temples, thousands of devotees and many ghats each having its own significance. My long lasting wish to be at Kumbhmela just didn't happen. So, I took out some time out in August to be in Varanasi. An important thing in my wish list is to spend my early mornings at ghats watching the waters and its shades as the Sun rose and a boat ride. With all the things ready in mind booked my tickets ahead of time and managed rest of the things.

Map of city Varanasi - River Ganges flowing touching the city. 

Main Junction on Luxa Road

But Unfortunately, just a week before, news busted that the holy river Ganges is flooding. As the days come closer for my trip I hoped that floods will go down but to my dismay news remained unchanged and boat rides were also cancelled. Feeling Determined, I did not change my mind. :D With the same determination, I boarded the train from Hyderabad and travelled for 28 hours to reach the city in the evening. I was very happy initially to see good sunlight but realised later that it is terribly hot.

After a quick break I am on the busy streets of Varanasi understanding the routes, busy junctions, watching locales, having lassi, long walks crossing cows and dogs. ( Together they are equally populated as people in Varanasi :)) High security every where.

High security everywhere     

Roads the lead to temple and ghats are quite small, laid by stones, occupied on either side with enthusiastic entrepreneurs selling goods, food and offerings to God. Not forgetting Sadhus in saffron clothes chanting some mantras and few of them playing pungi to cobra.

My visit to Ghats.
I am truly happy for the floods.(Please don't take it otherwise. I only meant to say, we know how bad the ghats of Varanasi are maintained. And these water levels cleaned them and gave a pleasant appearance.) As the waters levels raised, it cleaned the ghats and the water is clean.

Kedar Ghat: Ghat named after Kedareshwar temple located on the ghat. Hundreds of people doing different rituals, dips and prayers. Of course I too had a dip and some fun in the waters. Few men we seriously swimming deep into waters and coming back. Just got curious and observed them for a while and understood that they were collecting coins (money) people offered to the river. Finally after an hour they filled few covers with lots of coins and went away. When I sat on the steps before the temple enjoying the breeze, a women started shouting at the tourists on my left. She is collecting money people offered to Shiva linga's and scolding people to offer money to the Shiva linga's which were placed on the steps of the ghats. This reminded me of Oh My God movie :)

Manikarnika Ghat: Ghat said it was built by Lord Vishnu and 40 to 50 cremations happen here round the clock. As it is said that it is good to get a dip at noon in this ghat we are there at noon. This ghat had its own beauty of few temples drowned into Ganges and could see only the temple top architectures. Also we can notice huge piles of logs and wood around that ghat which are used for cremations. The ashes from this ghat were picked every morning for Shiva aarti. Interesting!

Temple drowned in water

Cremation taking place

Cremation - closer view

Tulsi Ghat: Ghat famous for giving good health and also place where Tulsidas spent some of his life time. Most wonderful place I felt after Vishwanth's temple is Tulsi Ghat. As said my wish is to spend early hours in ghat. I loved this place for that.

One km from there is Tulsi Manas Mandir where tulsidas lived and wrote Sri Ramacharitams. Its a beautiful place. And two km from there is Sankata Mochana Hanuman temple - one of the famous Hanuman temples. It is another must see in Varanasi. Another couple of kilometers we were in BHU - Benaras Hindu University. Visited the Birla temple inside it but missed the museum as it was August 15th. And yes, I am delighted to see tri colored flags on almost every vehicles, pan shops and few people greeting each other 'sare jaha se acha' Tri colored baloons flying everywhere. Took many pictures inside BHU. For more pictures check out my Facebook album and Flickr

MAP of BHU

The famous cyber central library

Birla Temple inside BHU built similar to main Vishwanath temple in Varanasi

Man Behind BHU - Statue of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya

My other visits are one of the two Kala Bhirava temples located inside the city, Dashwamedha Ghat, few other temples. I missed boat ride, as they were cancelled due to floods.

Nevertheless to say the wonderful part of my trip is the journey in Indian railways on the way back crossing green farms, small streams flowing down the hills and much more fun.

 

Visual Content and its Importance

Anything which is appealing to eyes has more impact. This is ruling the social media world. Istn't it?

Visual content and human brain

• 90% of information transmitted to brain is visual 
• Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text in human brain
• Human brain remembers only 20% of what they read but 40% of people respond to visual information
• visual content is so quicly absorbed, communicates data more effectively but also affects us emotionally. 

Now, the whole world of social media is running with visual content. Almost every social network sites like Facebook, Pintrest, Instagram...etc allow to promote visual content like images, videos which is again showing many results. 

Visual content and social networks

• Around 700 Youtube videos are uploaded and shared every minute.
• Photos are liked twice than text messages in facebook
• Content with infographics see 12% increase in the traffic
• 37% increase in engagement is experienced when facebook posts include photographs - In reaserch by Dan Zarella of hubspot.
• 14% increase in pageviews are seen when press releases contain a photograph.
• Posts with videos attract 3 times more inbound links than plain text posts

Visual content and email marketing

• Video embedded emails improve their campaign performance by 88%
• 76% acknowledge that videos in emails generate high click through rates
• 72% believe that prospective clients are more likely to buy after video content sent via email. 

  

Infogrpahic by B2B Infographics 

My key take aways.

• It is easier to convey a point with visual content than text
• It is much more easy to understand and remember the visual content than text
• Colors are good to eyes than black text
• Life is easier with symbols and colors - may be that is why we get traffic symbols on boards than text. 
• When we see at the social networks map in the infographic, the notable point is Google plus is playing an important role next to Facebook. (As Qzone is only for china- I am not considering it)

But then why not all the school books, dictionaries, law books, research papers be visual? :)

My Points on Jason's experiment with his profile pics on LinkedIn

Did you ever think a profile pic in LinkedIn would make an impression that you would make the next mistake?

Today I came across a blog post written by Jason Seiden "What profile photo works best on LinkedIn: A real life experiment " explaining how he experimented on LinkedIn to see which of his profile photo worked best.

These were the 6 pics he tried. At first glance which of these pics do you think worked best for him? Naming them 1 to 6 clock wise I would put 1, 6, 3, 4, 5 and 2 as the order. But to my astonishment he said that according to the results he saw 6 did extremely well while 2 did the worst as expected. He had key take away points on each pic performance based on three points - how many visited his profile, how many of those contacted him and how many asked him for some work. 

As said above he had really interesting key take away points on each of his pic performance. Few of them which made me surprise and felt like making a note were 

 1. Pic 3 which I rated to be third in the race was treated as 'arrogant'. I agree that it seems like we are trying

     to hide something from the frame. But does it still look arrogant?

 2. I understand that pictures speak thousand words but again does a picture showing just my face speak 

     something like 'my time is valuable'? His take away from his best performed pic number 6 is that. I rated

     as second because it is too cool, clear, sending some positive vibes and the same time it is looking formal. So,

     I am surprised to see his suggestion as, "give a impression with the picture as your time is valuable and 

     you have so many hours in a day".

 3. I always thought a simple professional looking head shot with a black back ground would always do 

     good, simple and no comments on it. But again to my surprise but acceptable points mentioned were 

     there is 'no personality' in this photo and head shot was aggressive. 

 4. Pic with fire I rated as 5th because, I felt a pic with some design/art or really something like 

     fire would never recommendable for a professional site like LinkedIn. And yes author Jason also 

     mentioned the same but what made me think again is a HR commenting that he is making an impression 

     that he was going to make the next mistake. 

5. I rated pic 4 in 4th place next to all three straight faced pics. Feeling he is looking of to the side though he 

    is giving the impression that he is a stage speaker with a blue lightening background. But he suggested to 

    go for it if we can as it conveys some passion and soft skills which are hard to write.  

 My takeaways are

   1. Never a straight head shot especially with black back ground. 

   2. A formal and professional straight picture will also definitely speak more than thousand words so be

       careful while choosing a picture.

   3. As suggested by Jason, try sharing your head shot with thousand people and ask their honest opinions. 

       I am seriously thinking what comments my head shot would get. :)

   4. There were many attributes to consider in a picture which are hard to express in writing. (noted from 5th    point in the above para).

    

 Finally, at the end of the article he confessed that he couldn't move the needle with this experiment as he expected to do and recommended to run a similar experiment for 3 to 6 months Because in the end, it’s not what you think of your photo, it’s how much your photo helps attract the right opportunities!

Guys, Let me know if any one is planning to do a similar experiment. Will be there as an active participant to express my opinion and see the reaction :)

Have a great day!
  

Book Review - Your’s sarcastically

In a long train journey I did for 28 hrs from Friday evening to Saturday night - Reading ‘Yours Sarcastically’ is one of the activity I did to keep myself occupied besides from enjoying weather, greenery and streams on hills passing by... etc

Yours Sarcastically caught my eye first when I was looking into the books on wheeler's cart at Varanasi station. I remember I read about this book somewhere sometime back and few things came to my mind was it was written by a IIM B graduate about his experience from B school to his first job and finding the girl for him, Immediately I took the book into hands, quickly flipped through pages and read the lines written on the back cover of the book.

It is quite impressive. Hmm... I actually felt very impressive with the content on back cover. As a result I immediately bought the book and started reading once I got into the train. In one hour I completed about 50 pages and already started feeling bored of it. Believe me, the most pathetic thing was trying to read a boring book to avoid looking at other person facing you who hates you to the core and pretends to love you.

Back Cover: is a 'not-so-diplomatic' take on the life of a 20-something person in contemporary India. It is his saucy journey from post graduate education to his experiences in selling mustard hair oil, his marketing stints and his rich experience during his international management consulting experience along the Indo-Nepal border. Some of his professional experiences include: interviewing 60 size zero south Bombay women, negotiating with the right hand man of an underworld don, managing drunken brand managers at corporate off-sites, the extensive preparation done by salespeople for 'surprise' visits by their bosses and the hiring of cheerleaders by a premier consulting firm to turn around their client's fortunes. In his free time, he likes to write movie scripts for C grade movies, transform behenjis to blockbuster babes, visit top brothels in Mumbai and indulge in politics and backbiting.

About the book: On an outline it gives an overview of hero’s life from B school to sustaining himself in the career and finding his girl. The way it is portrayed - I completely got bored as I felt as if I am reading his diary. Basically, book(hero's life) is divided into 3 parts. First two parts talk about his B school life with completely touching the essence on expectations of a guy entering the B school to the final days of recruiting process. The third part is on his early career and getting out of the trauma he had been facing with the rejection on his proposal and managing a horrendous first boss. Finally ends happily by finding his girl who heiress to 1400 crores :)

My opinion: Content in the book is good. Author had shared many of his best experiences which give us an insight into the life's of a B school graduate and his early career. He indeed got good opportunities in his work place, but the way it is portrayed is a bit boring. It lacked the enthusiasm. I had to forcibly complete it due to the above mentioned reason. There is lot and lot of space for improvement. If you have been a part of engineering or B school hostels,  you might easily relate to characters. The narration gets bit twardy at times which made me jump over pages.

Learning a new Language!

Its bean a while I started learning French and I am totally loving it.

The thought of learning a new language struck me when I am in my 11^th standard. This is not just a passing thought, It started this way – I came across a story in Telugu (my mother tongue) It is not such a great story with respect to content but IT IS indeed a great story in terms of expression. It is then I understood the beauty of my language. I started understanding the importance of language, expressing our views, and how important it is to know the language to express our views exactly.

Years passed… Never missed an exam from writing/expressing my point in the best way I could using the weapon called language J

A couple of years ago, I got back to my childhood habit of reading. This time I moved from fiction to nonfiction. This time I didn't just read to understand the content but also managed to understand the way the author has expressed, how he made us travel deep into his thought. On the way I came across reading about countries, places, people and also about travelling. This made me think that language acts as a bridge in understanding countries, places and people and their culture.

I realized that I was in my own box of happiness all these years. And my world is so small with very few people called Parents, siblings, friends. I wanted to move out, I wanted to see world outside my box and create a new box similar to “Pushpaka Vimanam”

After years, I once again opened world map, categorized map with cultures, climates, food, birds, flowers and most importantly developing and developed. I missed out something isn't it? Yes, Language.

My small love towards language came out again, I understood that language makes me understand the ingredients of the map much better. That’s how I ended up in Alliance Francise Bangalore to learn French.

image source: Google images

Good to Know - Be Safe Online

  While we are busy 24x7 with many things we are knowingly or unknowingly depending on GOOGLE. Though at first it started with a search engine, now it has become part of our life with its huge number of products. I believe all this is possible only because of the trust it created with us. In this social world the level of transparency has increased to an extent where everyone in the world will know where we are and what we are doing at the moment (as we are leading our lives defined by technology).Saying that google also wanted us to make sure that we are staying safe online. I want to bring into light few products google introduced to help us stay safe online.

Account Activity: 

Google gives you a summary of your activities you did with your google account. It makes your life simpler with a monthly report where you can see how many emails you have sent, Countries from which your account has been accessed, Summary of your activity with youtube, calendar events also top searches in the web. Through all this you can make sure your the only one accessing your account. so,your account is safe.

Login here with your gmail id - accounts.google.com and sign up for monthly report

Manage what advertisers & websites see

We might think it is a coincidence when a advertisement pop up on what exactly we are searching or looking for - but it is not.

For instance : While you are searching for flight tickets from city A to City B in a specific airline provider, You may come across an advertisement from the same airline provider for the same two cities you are looking for while you are browsing in another tab or sometimes later part of the day as well.

This is because advertisers and websites including google (as more than 95% of its revenue is derived from its advertising programs) watch you.

Obviously we feel better when someone acts/works accordingly for us. So google jumped in saying “Make the ads you see on the web more interesting” you can personalise ads on search, gmail as well as web. You can check out HERE

2 Step Verification

Make sure that you did this - This 2 step verification drastically reduces chances of bad guys attacking your account. You can make a list of trusted computers from where you access often and each time you access from a different computer it will send a code to your mobile phone asking for verification. So when anyone trying to access your account they should have your mobile too... :)

http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180744

Google Dashboard:

It gives you consolidated view of google products you are associated with your google account. Also gives you control all your data at one place.

Disclaimer: These are only a few tips to stay safe online provided by google

A drop in the Ocean

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

           -- Mother Teresa

Today I am presenting a interesting story a challenging initiative - A small dream of Engineering pass out  made him to take a step towards changing lives. An initiative to help children who are deprived of education. After a lot of toil finally SPOORTHI came into existence with 4 member team and spreaded to 9 members with in a year. The journey started with "One Book One Dream project" - every student of MIT donated a book which were distributed to children in need and to orphanages.

 

Teaching Computer basics & English to students in Government school they were trying to make a difference in those children's lives, and so in their families and finally the COUNTRY.

I feel proud to introduce SPOORTHI and team to the world through my blog.

Spoorthi

Founder: Santhosh S V aka Veer Santhosh

Co –founders: Anvitha, Akash,  Patil Anusha, Ayesha

Present team members: Vijay, Lavanya Kashyap, Sahana K, Tejashwini, Aleem, Saujanya P, Sownjanya K R, Sri Hari

Events

•  One book one dream- each student of MIT donated a notebook during Mahadasara 2012 & the collected books were given to the children in need & to the orphanages.
• Sponsor a child for one year – in association with pratham mysore.
• India of my dreams(NANNA KANASINA BHAARATHA)- essay competition ON THE OCCASION OF 150TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY Of Swami Vivekananda. Government High School, Vontikoppal, Mysore
• Teaching the basics of computer & English to the students of government school, Tilaknagar, Mysore

Future prospects

• Assisting two financially backward students to pursue their higher education after 10th std.
• Career guidance to the students of 10th & PU studying in govt school & colleges.
• Spreading socio-environmental awareness in govt school childrens
• Starting a school, entirely funded by public. By the public, for the public, of the public school.
• Sponsoring atleast two girl school drop outs to continue their education

It is presently operating in Mysore. You can reach them for any contribution through their Facebook page or you can contact the founder here

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/spoorthi.ngo

Founder: https://www.facebook.com/SANTHOSHVEER

Check out my earlier blog post - Interview with Veer Santhosh an Author  who is the Founder of Spoorthi 

India being second highly populated country occupying more than 17% of worlds population, it requires many such initiatives. Imagine what a difference it could make if every educated person contributing one hour of his week on such activities. It may be teaching how to count or just how to write - it is in fact a step towards changing a kids life.  

I came across a video made by Akanksha, a NGO operating from Mumbai to promote teaching rather I should experience teaching ...