#RubhuSocial chat on Jan 6 : Mobile marketing and trends in 2015

Hello everyone!

Wish you a happy and prosperous new year.

About the first chat of the year 2015... we are opening it up with a guest-host chat. The talk will be on "Mobile marketing and trends in 2015". We will have Tejas Krishna (@krishna_tejas) - He is Sr. Exec - Social Media Expert at PRHUB.

Join us on 6th Jan with #RubhuSocial hashtag at 3 PM IST which is 9:30 am GMT. You can join with us on Nurph chat room here http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1128

In Tejas words:

2015 is about to knock in and marketers are buckling up to ensure they make the best moves, generate more leads, engage more consumers even better, create better brand experience, and please their bosses…

Mobile marketing is a big evolving chunk and will be of huge focus among marketers during 2015. Right column ads don’t work anymore; no one looks into them and we have developed a sense of ignorance towards them, similar is soon going to happen with the newsfeed ads. Mobile usage is increasing exponentially each day with the ease of availability and technology becoming cheap.

We’ve heard the term “mobile compatible” enough times to understand that the mobile revolution is upon us, from mobile compatible website in the first place being given top notch priority by Google, brands talking about mobile compatible post updates on social to mobile friendly ads now! The number of local searches made via the mobile web is growing at a much faster rate than desktop searches are well known and so is the importance of mobile based marketing.

Stats show that 25% of online searches are done on a mobile device and of 70% of mobile searches lead to an action on the website within an hour. 1 out of 7 people worldwide use a smartphone today. Think of it this way, what’s easier, opening your laptop, connecting the modem, logging into the website then buying something or just clicking a few buttons on your mobile app and doing it.

According to a report by Mobile Marketing Association and IHS Global, the spend on mobile marketing is expected to reach nearly $20 billion by 2015. The importance of mobile marketing is undeniable, so allocating a substantial budget to this platform is crucial to maintaining relevance.

What's in for Mobile Marketing in 2015?

Personalization: Keep it human Silly! This may be a little too much but if you are dealing with a huge audience you need to have a little more rigor. Segment your audience and then post or run ads accordingly, much needed for product based and e-commerce companies.

Try this, consider you are selling a plasma TV, who’s your target audience, how much time do they spend on mobile phones, what are the apps they use the most, what are the sites they might like to visit online. Once you have the answers to these you are half-way through.

Analytics on the high side: Tracking consumer behaviour, understanding what time do they engage with your brand the most, what type of content works best, when should you boost your ads, what's the best time to tweet etc have been talked of a lot already. What's even more interesting is gaining some in-depth insights that can help you recognize real patterns, like Facebook allows Mobile ads which are specific to apps and thus allowing narrowed targeting.

Many businesses do use built-in-analytics on social media platforms like Facebook, twitter, Pinterest and have started questioning on the source from where these likes or retweets came in. Google Analytics gives you an inside out of all the details that you might be looking for. Hence, the call for better analytics to be brought in and using it in real time to build you next strategy.

Mobile, when you talk Mobile! According to Forrester, mobile marketing will create a dividing line between businesses who cater to mobile device users and those who don't. As smart mobiles are increasingly becoming a part of most consumers' lives, it will be more important than ever that those consumers receive messages tailored to the smaller screen size and quick-glance engagement of smartphones and tablets.

Instead of investing on creating apps, businesses should be investing more on learning where consumers are searching for information on mobile devices. For instance, a restaurant might work through a service like Zomato or JustEat. Working through these channels, will enable you make right impact with less effort.

Integration: The most important of all, what we will see in the coming time is a more conscious effort to bring disparate groups to the table to learn how to collaborate across screens, channels, and moments of truth to deliver ONE experience to customers wherever they are in the lifecycle.

Even social is getting dirty, there’s a flood of posts each day on a user’s timeline and people are very
selective in what they want to see, content and campaigns which are able to excite people and bring that wow on their faces are working well.

“My top change/trend for digital marketing in 2015 is the rise and eventual pre-eminence of mobile data. Clickstream data simply misses too many elements of the consideration and purchase process, and gives things like social media, word of mouth, and traditional media/advertising short shrift.” says Tom Webster VP, Edison Research

Questions for the chat:

1. As marketers have you set a separate budget for Mobile Marketing?

2. Should Marketers be investing more in Mobile Ads or App based advertising?

3. Do you think cross platform integration with mobiles is necessary?

4. Key elements that can make your mobile content work?

5. How to achieve contextually relevant experiences based on a customer’s unique needs?

#RubhuSocial chat on 30th Dec: Digital Marketing in 2015

10 more days and we will be in 2015. All of us might be ready with our plans, new strategies according to new updates by different social platforms. 

Keeping everything a side and look into what and how digital marketing is turning to be in 2015, digital marketers, Join us for #RubhuSocial chat on 30th Dec 2014. The last chat of the year will be on "Digital Marketing in 2015"

You can login to the nurph chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1112

Questions for the chat are:

Q1. Are your 2015 digital marketing plans ready? Q2. Any new tools you gonna try in 2015? Q3. In which form do you think content will be more effectively consumed in 2015? Video? Text? Infographics? Q4. why is it important to analyse competitor social data? And how do you do that? Q5. What do you think is the next big thing in 2015 & how will you leverage it?

#RubhuSocial chat on Dec 23rd: How is Digital Marketing for you in 2014

With 2015 just round the corner, we might be checking ourselves on what all we did in 2014. We collectively carry the good, the bad, the lessons and achievements to plan 2015.

"Each day might be a new beginning, but our actions are the result of yesterday's experiences!"

The greatest power of every New Year is carrying all the experiences of the past years, So, digital marketers, lets come together on 23rd to share our experiences and opinions on how this year has been for us. 

Join us with #RubhuSocial hashtag on 23rd Dec at 3 pm IST (9:30 am GMT) on the topic digital marketing for you in 2014.

Here is the link to Nurph tweet chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1097

  Questions for the chat are:

  Q1. How is digital marketing for you in 2014?

 Q2. Which social platforms worked better for you in 2014?

 Q3. What are your comments on content marketing Vs content overload?

 Q4. What worked & what did not work well for you in 2014?

 Q5. 2014 is the year of ______________ for digital marketing?

 Q6. ROI! Is the data & are the tools clear enough to understand and derive the right ROI? 

Looking forward for your active participation guys! See you!!

- @akathmadevi 

#RubhuSocial chat on 16th Dec: Job seeker's online presence

As we see the growing activity on social channels, companies came and tapped in for various reasons. One such reason is finding reliable candidates. And the subject of social recruiting raised.  In last week's chat we chatted about social recruiting and we loved the conversation. You can check out the storify transcripts for the chat http://sfy.co/qsWU

This week on 16th Dec, we would like to extend the conversation more about how important is online presence for a job seeker.

Join us with #RubhuSocial hastag at 3 pm IST (9:30 am GMT) on 16th Dec, Tuesday to have a dialogue and share your opinions. 

Here is the link to Nurph tweet chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1081 

Questions we will discuss during the chat are

Q1. Will online presence of a candidate add value to his resume? If yes how?

Q2. What does a recruiter check for in candidates online profile?

Q3. What social networks do recruiters prefer to ask from candidates?

Q4. As a recuiter, what do you recommend a candidate to have in his LinkedIn profile?

Q5. Almost every one have FB accounts. Does twitter presence have an extra weightage over Facebook?

Q6. How important is blogging for a job seeker?

Q7. Any other recommendations to the job seekers?

Tweet and let everyone know about it! 

See you! 

#RubhuSocial chat on 9th December - Introduction to social recruiting

Hello again!

Do you think, social media had opened doors for new way of recruiting, a complete world different from the conventional recruiting process, job portal languages, typically formatted resumes and cover letters?  

'Hire the attitudes and train the skills' As this is quote being going on rounds and also being adopted by many companies now, it is being a challenge to the recruiters. And they say, social media has come to help them to analyse their attitudes. 

So, on Dec 9th we will be discussing on social recruiting with #RubhuSocial hashtag on twitter. And we've got +Satya Reddy as special guest to help us understand it better.

Satya Reddy is a recruitment & sourcing evangelist with more than a decade of experience in helping various global organizations scale-up and transform in Recruitment. He is also a corporate trainer and involved in advising start ups as a business value consultant."

You can connect to him through LinkedIn and Twitter as well. 

Here is the link to Nurph tweet chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1034

We will be addressing the following questions

Q1. What is social recruitment accroding to you? Q2. What is the major difference between conventional recruiting and social recruiting process? Q3. What platforms a recruiter can leverage for social recruitment? Q4. What are the key points a recruiter will look into in candidates profile? Q5. What shouldn't a candidate have in his online profiles, which may annoy the recruiter? Q6. Do you see any bottlenecks  in social recruiting? Q7. How well is social recruitment leveraged in India? Where do you see the future of social recruitment in India? Suggested tweets to bring in your friends and tweeple to this week's #RubhuSocial chat Join #RubhuSocial chat to get introduced to #SocialRecruiting with guest @SatyaReddyA at 3 pm IST on Dec 9 http://bit.ly/15Ny4GL #Recruitment & #SocialMedia brought a new concept 'social recruiting'. Join #RubhuSocial chat at 3 pm IST on Dec 9 http://bit.ly/15Ny4GL Join #RubhuSocial chat on 9th Dec at 9:30 am GMT to discuss about #SocialRecruitment http://bit.ly/15Ny4GL

#RubhuSocial chat on 2nd Dec - SMM for every business

Hello everyone,

Its been few years, every major company had come online and being active on social networks. But, still there are business pondering over the point that is social media marketing good for our business.

Trying to be part of the voice, to clear the misconceptions or queries which can raise for those businesses which are thinking how to do social media marketing or why to do social media marketing.

Here is the link for chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/1033
Or you can be part of #RubhuSocial chat through tweetchat.com or tweetdeck any tool you are comfortable with.

Lets come together on 2nd December at 3 pm IST for 1 hour and put your views to the following questions.

Q1. Is social media marketing important for every business out there? Q2. What is that thing, which every business owner need to know about social media marketing? Q3. With so many social networks out there, Where should a business start off with in SM marketing? Q4. What are the fears/concerns of social media marketing businesses should learn to overcome? Q5. What are the key metrics businesses should consider to check if they are doing well on social media? Q6. What tools do you recommend for businesses to start off with to make their efforts easy? See you all at 3 pm IST or 9:30 am GMT on 2nd Dec. Good day!

#RubhuSocial chat on 18th Nov: Social media engagement

Hello everyone! We back with another interesting chat for another awesome Tuesday. "Social media engagement" is one term which keeps all the digital marketers on toes. Isn't it?

So, here we invite you to join #RubhuSocial chat at 3 pm IST (9:30 am GMT) to join and share your voice.

You can RSVP here http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/994

And the questions we will discuss during the chat are:

Q1. What does engagement on social media mean to you?

Q2. Each social network is different from other. Which platform have higher engagement in your opinion?

Q3. What do you think brings in more engagement on social networks? Content or Contests?any example if you have?

Q4. What type of content works best in bringing in engagement on social channels?

Q5. Your tips to bring in more engagement on social channels?

Q6. What do you think are the key points to measure engagement on social media?

See you all at 3 pm on Tuesday! 

#RubhuSocial chat on 25th Nov: Hiring a complete digital marketer

Hello everyone!

As announced earlier, we are opening this chat for 'Guest hosts' Yes, any one interested, tweet to us @RubhuSocial and we will take it forward for discussions.

So, we have our first guest as host on board - Manu Malhotra (@_ManuMalhotra) . He is digital marketing manager at C1 India pvt. ltd.  So, this week's show is on " Hiring a complete digital marketer" 

RSVP here http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/992 

In Manu's words:

Our thoughts today are driven by keyword searches. Deduction algorithms that operate in web space and time influence our opinions. Skills sets such as #SEO #SMM #SMO #Blogging & #SEM are becoming need of the hour for marketers to help businesses scale up.

And, as Marketers we have to hire talent and build our teams. However, amidst this focus on Digital Marketing Skills Set Cloud - ‘SEO-SMO-SEM-SMM-Content Marketing’, are we forgetting to hunt talent that is appreciative of and has whole systems thinking approach to the world of marketing?

In Indian context, digital marketing is turning the job market around. Rise of ecommerce industry is helping new age entrepreneurs create value for the society. Huge requirement of talented digital marketers is thus the need of the hour. And, we are cognizant of the fact that ‘employability of talent’ is not a new question especially in this part of the globe. 

So the overriding inquiry is 

Q1. How do we hire Digital Marketing Talent? 

Q2. What should be our Talent Acquisition Strategy – ‘Sourcing’?  

Q3. What should be the assessment strategy? How do you evaluate?

Q4. Which skill sets in Digital Marketing are critical to success?

Q5. What are other skills beyond Digital Marketing skills that are critical to success?

The Digital Marketing space is changing faster than ever before. An online test you may ask the candidate to write today may not be relevant 2-4 quarters hence. What do you do? What all skills sets do you assess? Should you also assess key marketing fundamentals beyond command over SEO / SEM?

Let’s get together and chat – How can we Hire a ‘Complete Digital Marketer’?

So, guys tune into #RubhuSocial chat on Tuesday at 3 pm (IST). 

See you!

#RubhuSocial chat on 11th Nov: Employee Advocacy and Social Media

Brand Advocate: When some one speaks in favor of the brand or their product leading to word of mouth marketing or influencing others, there are called brand advocates or brand ambassadors. 

They are very much required in this new age digital marketing era as social media is said to be word of mouth marketing. And when companies are looking forward to leverage this by encouraging their most satisfied customers to do this, It is also important for them to look at their employees as well.

Scenario 1: There is a networking meetup going on where everyone are pitching their services. Here comes a representative from a cellular company very actively interacting and convincing the group on features of its latest mobile in the market. And then, she took out her phone to place a call which is made by one of her employer's competitor.

We can easily make out what kind of impression does this create to the people around her. Where as if she uses the same mobile, it would definitely create a positive impact. Right?

Scenario 2: A high trafficked tweet chat is going on and people usually introduced themselves before expressing their views on the discussion topic. As they express their views and due to freedom of speech when one of the chatter just unknowingly tweeted about a upcoming product which is not yet announced by the company publicly. What is said on twitter, just doesn't stay on twitter. It goes viral and also to other platforms. 

This may be with anyone, like unintentional postings, poorly drafted comments...etc These pitfalls and risks shouldn't just stop from leveraging social media. Just a little bit of regulation guidelines and making employees aware of the pitfalls and their need to stand by their company in need would help the company and create a larger impact. 

Want to find a brand advocate? Then first start off with the employees.

This weeks #RubhuSocial chat let us come together to discuss employees advocacy and social media.

Q1. How will employees presence on social media help the company? #RubhuSocial

Q2.  How should a company guide their employees to leverage social media keeping their right for freedom of speech in mind? #RubhuSocial
Q3. What are the important things for a company to put in its employee advocacy strategy? #RubhuSocial
Q4. How can employees get benefitted by being their company's advocate? #RubhuSocial
Q5. How and what to measure to check the employee advocacy on social media? #RubhuSocial

See you!

#RubhuSocial: Importance of business blogging on 4th Nov

Should a company or business blog? What do you think? If you think it should blog, then how often? should it have policies? if so, what kind of policies, how to promote it? how to measure its success? And much more will be discussed in this week's #RubhuSocial chat.

Join us on twitter at 8:30 pm IST (Indian standard time) on Tuesday that is 4th November to share your opinions and experiences on business blogging.

You can join us at Nurph chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/938 

 Following are questions for the chat

Q1. Why should a business/company have a blog?

Q2. What should a company blog offer to its readers?

Q3. How often should a company blog?

Q4. How does employee participation in company blog help?

Q5. Is it important to have a policies defined for a company blog? If yes, what kind of policies?

Q6. What kind of metrics help the company blog to excel?



See you!

Summary in your LinkedIn profile

We have many guides, articles, ideas ..etc on how should a LinkedIn profile be. What it should have and what it should not have. I guess, the columns LinkedIn asks us to fill in the profile page itself directs us to have what all we should have in a online professional networking site in predefined structure. But, there is also a specific column called Summary which is left for us to shout out to the world in 2000 characters.

I would like to put my view on what is summary? Why is it important? what should it have?

1. It is blank white sheet where you can play with words to establish yourself as how you want the reader to perceive you.

2. It is place where you write your story of what you do and why you do. It is place where you can differentiate yourself.

3. It is place where you can tell about passions and working style. That helps to establish an impression on your work culture.

4. It is place where you can explain your achievements with out bragging about them.

5. It is place where you can tell what you did, what you want to do, why you want to do and how you will do.

6. Basically it is place where, you have to pitch about yourself when your reader/listener have maximum upto 60 sec time to know about you.

7. Put all the info you are comfortable with, that information which you might want to tell orally when you speak with some one introducing yourself.

8. Remember first impression is the best impression.


Join us for tonights #RubhuSocial chat on Twitter to discuss about LinkedIn. It is open mic conversation. http://bit.ly/1wBwMrM ( 28th Oct Tuesday)

#RubhuSocial : Best practices to get most out of LinkedIn as an Individual

LinkedIn has become our online resume, Agree? I know, most of you will agree to this. But, it is not just about having a profile with all the necessary details and leaving it. It has much more like, connecting to new people, job search, sharing updates, optimizing the profile, publishing articles, slideshares, recommendations..etc 

So, this week's chat will be on best practices one can have to get good value out of it. Join us on twitter at 8:30 pm IST with #RubhuSocial hashtag. We are looking forward for your active presence and to listen to your best practices as well. 

RSVP here http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/918

This 1 hour session will be open mic. But in a little structured way. So, here it goes how? We will have the conversations on the following topics of LinkedIn the below mentioned order:

1. Profile set up

2. Home page  
3. Connections and messages
4. Publishing articles
5. Groups
6. Analytics

Looking forward for your active presence and insights. 

- Akathma 

#RubhuSocial: Twitter etiquette on 21st October

Hello everyone, we are back this week with another twitter chat on Twitter etiquette. Twitter is a wonderful tool, where we see lots of conversations happening around and we are free to jump into any and put value to unlearn and relearn. It has been evolving and we are also evolving with that.

But, somewhere we need to know and practice simple things which keep the discussion and environment cool. Isn't it?

Lets all come together for 1 hour on this Tuesday with #RubhuSocial hashtag at usual time 8:30 pm IST to share, discuss, unlearn and relearn about the best practices or twitter etiquette you can call.

Check the questions and RSVP here in nurph chat room http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/898

Q1. What are the important things to do, to have a complete optimised profile?

Q2. What should one tweet about on twitter?

Q3. What do you think are the best practices of tweeting?

Q4. Hashtags! What are the good practices of hashtags?

Q5. How do you use 'favorites' feature?

Q6. How about 'Mute', 'Block or Report' , 'Turn on/off retweets' features? How do you use them?

Q7. What do you use DM's for? Do you appreciate auto DM's?

Q8. What do you think about following-follower ratio?

Q9. How do you use 'lists' feature?

Q10. Strict don'ts you recommend?

#RubhuSocial: How to conduct a successful social media contest

Hello Everyone,

Social media has become a part of our lives. And running contests on social channels has become a need for marketers and brands. So, this week we have Pradeep Rajdas (@pradeeprajadas) as the guest to discuss more on how to conduct a successful social media contests. Join us for #RubhuSocial chat and ask/share your ideas and opinions. Questions are below.

You can join the our chat room at Nurph http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/863

Questions for our discussion.

1. Why to run a social media contest?

2. When to run a social media contest? 3. How to start off with a contest? 4. Can we categorise social media contests into types? If so, what are they? 5. What are the basic ingredients for designing a social media contest? 6. What are the important points to keep in mind while designing the contest? 7. How to decide on which social platform is best to run a contest? 8. What will be the role of third party apps in running a contest? 9. How to choose a third party app? 10. We see a lot of social media contests in B2C world? How good they are for B2B? 11. What are the don'ts you recommend while running a contest? 12. What are key metrics to consider while measuring the success of social media contest? 13. Give us some examples of good social media contest?

#RubhuSocial chat: Email Marketing on 7th October

 You can login and participate in our Nurph chat room - http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/835

I guess there isn't any need for introduction on Email Marketing. So, going straight into the questions we want to discuss on this week's #RubhuSocial Chat.

Q1.If email marketing isn't dead, Are the marketing mails in your inbox helpful? #RubhuSocial

Q2. Why do you think email marketing is still effective? #RubhuSocial

Q3.Do's & Don'ts of email marketing you would recommend a brand to follow? #RubhuSocial

Q4.Building lists is an ongoing process! What are the best practices for building your email list? #RubhuSocial

Q4.1. Social networks are playing vital role in building lists. Any tips on that you would like to share? #RubhuSocial

Q5.What are the tools you are using for email marketing? And your feedback on them? #RubhuSocial

Q6.Metrics! Metrics! Metrics!! What are the important metrics to measure the success rate or ROI of email marketing? #RubhuSocial

#RubhuSocial chat recap: Content Marketing

If I have to say something about content marketing... I would say it is sister of marketing.
Content drives marketing.. agree?

We had awesome discussion during this week's #RubhuSocial chat on content marketing. Here are few important tweets for you.

Why Content is King?

How ever the system may evolve or how many ever tools or methods might come, the basic principle and goal of marketing remains the same.
           
                    'Your reasons should influence the decision of the customer'

Now, as we see and analyse, major factor which influence the customer's decision is internet. The information a customer can find on internet. They might even not know the existence of the product if it is not on the web. There are chances to devalue the product or service if they are not on the web or at a click distance on their smart phones.

So, Is it that just the WEB presence will do the job? Not exactly, We need to see if we have given enough reasons to influence the decision. And now, the only way to influence the decision over the internet is through 'content'. Content can be in various forms like Text, Images, Videos and reach the customer through emails, social channels, blogs, mobiles..etc when we check on how to give the reasons, we need to see what the customer is checking about us online.

    RSVP here http://nurph.com/RubhuSocial/chats/820

   So, the questions we will be discussing on are:

  Q1.What is content marketing?
  Q2.Why should business care about content marketing?
  Q3.What elements should one consider while writing a content strategy?
  Q4.How important is to place curated content in content marketing strategy?
  Q5.How to put a fair balance between original content and curated content?
  Q6.Any useful tools your recommend for content marketing?
  Q7.What should one measure in content marketing?

See you all on Tuesday! Cheers!!

#RubhuSocial: Social Listening

To understand the customer, to check the product review, to pick up new ideas, to identify the need and fill the space with your innovation, whatever, we keep listening to people through various sources and try to figure out what we can do. I would say this is what called Social Listening or Monitoring basically is when we do on social channels. It has become a part of our lives and it occupied major part for brand managers and digital marketers lives.

Lets catch up on Tuesday (23rd Sept) at 8:30 PM IST to discuss more about Social Listening during #RubhuSocial.

We will be discussing the below questions:

Q1. Why social listening? Or How does it help businesses? #RubhuSocial

Q2. What should one listen? What are important factors to consider while listening? #RubhuSocial

Q3. What points should one consider while writing a social listening strategy? #RubhuSocial

Q4. What are the tools you are using right now for listening? What is your feedback on them? #RubhuSocial

Q5. How to choose a right platform or tool for social listening? #RubhuSocial

Q6. Any experiences you want to share? We love to hear #RubhuSocial

Q7. What are the new steps you want to take in your listening process? #RubhuSocial

Q8. Any recommendations on how to start off with social listening for first timers? #RubhuSocial RSVP here http://bit.ly/1u3vC8H See you on Tuesday at 8:30 PM IST (GMT: 4:00 pm / EDT: 11:30 am) Follow us on @RubhuSocial and @akathmadevi to get updates.

Desi wrap on your table with a tweet!

As the title says, there is an shiny yellow colored boxes with wraps waiting for delivery if  you can you give your order and address in 140 characters. Haha.. Not really you can even give your number in the tweet and can expect a call the next moment.

On a weekday, got my mind rambling on many things, couldn't manage to make a good meal before I pack up to my office at 8 am. And at around 11 am was browsing the internet in search of food who could deliver to my cubicle and also have something close to my taste buds that day. Saying close to my taste buds, not in mood to have pizza or McD and came across a shiny yellow website saying 'desi wraps'. I was like okay .. let me try and got an order in a shiny yellow box. And the days moved on... We at office, quite often started ordering from that place and once in while there are few errors in delivery and food.

Surprisingly one day, my friend at office got a call asking for feedback. Based on that, she got a wrap for free the next day. Well, impressed by their customer service, I went on to check their website and social channels. Found that they take orders through social channels as well.

Oh! I haven't mentioned the outlet name yet. It is Faaso's. I actually looked deep into their twitter handle when I did not receive the order I place through their website. I also called up the store and found that they did not receive my order. Aaargh! Its a glitch in their system. I tweeted them my order screenshot asking them to check. And within a couple of minutes, I got a call. I'm glad about that.

@akathmadevi We are calling you up ASAP.
— FAASO'S (@faasos) September 17, 2014

As always, there were complaints too, I hope Faasos team works towards satisfying everyone out there.  And it is the first restaurant to take orders on Twitter.

As I spoke to the head of customer care service, he replied saying their turn around time will be 10 mins on all the mediums they connect to customers. It can be taking an order or receiving a complaint either through their mobile app or twitter.

I sincerely appreciate their service, keeping 10 mins as turn around time. In this socially connected world, people expect and appreciate a immediate response for their complaints.

They also have been impressing customers with their offers, giveaways, twitter contests and fun tweets.

Follow them on twitter - @faasos and yes your order will be a tweet away!

#SMMTalk: Opinions on Facebook Newsfeed updates in 2014

As the first twitter chat of #SMMTalk will be on Tuesday 16^th September from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm IST. 

We will be discussing about Facebook Newsfeed.

Lately, Facebook is tweaking its newsfeed algorithm quite often to make sure it provides quality content in our newsfeeds. If we keep the track of changes made in 2014, Here is the list of changes it made:

1. Decrease in the distribution of text updates which came from pages and recommends standard link share. Announced on 21st January 2014 http://bit.ly/1nKS2o8  

Facebook kept experimenting and showed more text status updates to users for a while. This made marketers misuse the feature and game the Facebook algorithm by posting more status updates with a link in it rather attaching the link to the update. Now, Facebook made a update in its newsfeed algorithm and recommends brands to share links as it devalued the reach of text status updates.

2. More visibility to the page post in which that page tags another page. Announced on February 24^th 2014. http://bit.ly/1nKSdjb

In its another experiment Facebook found people liked this kind of stories. So, it made the change in its algorithm showing the post to the users who follow or liked the page tagged in along with the users who follow or like the page who tagged it. This may help pages to have a good visibility. Marketers may use this feature in the following ways:

 - Companies having multiple facebook pages can make use of this feature.

 - Brands while posting content from another source, can tag them saying via @XX similar to twitter.

3. Reducing the Spam in the newsfeed – Like baiting posts, De-emphasizing pages with repetitive content, Reduce spammy links. Announced on April 10^th 2014. http://bit.ly/1nKSgLT

In fact, I started noticing that, there were no spammy posts anymore on my newsfeed these days. Being a user I am delighted by this. Anyone observed that their newsfeed is less spammy or no spam? 

On the other side, it made marketers realize to reach the audience who will genuinely show interest in your product or content than the artificial incentives you offer. Also, this means, focus more on engagement than reach.

4. Decrease in number of implicit stories shared from third party apps seen in our newsfeeds. Announced on May 27^th 2014. http://bit.ly/1nKSjHy

This will again stop spamming the newsfeed, dum auto-posts from apps will be devalued in reach. And also benefits users with the increase in reach when they shared any picture or update through another app. They can leave the fear of not reaching all their friends or followers.

5. Improving video ranking for the videos directly uploaded to Facebook. Announced on June 23^rd 2014. http://bit.ly/1nKSnqU

Facebook says this update is to understand, what video’s people are interested in watching. And this update will effect, videos updated to Facebook directly. Someone  tell me if this update makes brands and marketers upload their videos on Facebook directly in order to improve the reach?

6.Reduce the click-baiting stories and increase in distribution of stories with standard link share. Announced on August 25^th 2014. http://bit.ly/1nKSlPT 

This update strongly recommends to share links on Facebook. Where Facebook by itself pulls the snippet and larger picture of the link. 

7. Listening to people's feedback to show better ads. Announced on September 11th 2014 http://bit.ly/1tVzIzQ 

This may not show effect on ad performance but, this helps Facebook to show more relevant ads to users.

 Join us on Tuesday with @RubhuSocial at 8:30 PM to discuss about these changes by addressing the following questions and #SMMTalk hashtag

1. Do you think these changes will help in reduce gaming with newsfeed algorithm and produce quality content?
2. What steps can marketers take to leverage these updates?
3. Did these changes help your brand or business page?
4. If yes – How and what steps you took to make it work for your page?
5. If No – What are the new steps you are planning to take for your page?
6. What more changes you want Facebook to come up with to improve the newsfeed experience?
7. Being a user (not as a page owner) do you feel your feed is cluttered? Should it be better organized?
8. What is your favorite newsfeed update of 2014 and why?
9.  Do you think, FB took the right step with ending Like-gating? Why? For reference: http://bit.ly/1CRPq1shttp://bit.ly/1CRPq1s

See you soon on Tuesday at 8:30 pm IST (EDT: 11:30 am GMT: 4 pm)

#SMMTalk - Tweet chat to discuss about social media

#SMMTalk is replaced with #RubhuSocial. Kindly accept and use this hashtag.

Hello!

As the title says, I will be starting a new tweet chat with hashtag #SMMTalk to discuss all things about social media.  To make things easy, will pic a topic each week and share our experiences and opinions on that topic. 

Our first chat will be on 16th September 8:30 PM IST to 9:30 PM IST and we will continue to meet on every Tuesday at 8:30 PM IST that is 11:30 AM ET. 

Follow @RubhuSocial for the updates about the chat and your inputs and ideas on the topics are always welcome.

Have a fantastic day!

@akathmadevi

How important is Facebook Cover Photo?

This 851 pixels width and 315 pixels tall image portion which will be the first thing to be noticed as anyone visit your business page is definitely not to be neglected. With recent uplift of strict rules by Facebook on cover photos of pages, this should be utilised to maximum in order to grab the viewers attention.

It is proved in multiple studies that viewers look at cover photo for more time than wall posts. So, lets look at the few questions which cross the page owners mind
1. What should we have as a cover photo?
2. How frequently should we change?
3. What points should be considered while making one?

First thing to keep in mind is it should be relevant to the page. It should speak about the page, latest updates or upcoming announcements. With recent uplift of the rules, you can include Call -to-Actions (CTA's) giving more details of how to contact ..etc How frequently is, it should be synchronised with the events, season, holidays, campaigns happening around or on your page.

Few points to consider for cover photo:
 - High quality image
 - Perfect right size as mentioned by Facebook
 - Text shouldn't go behind the profile pic. If possible keep it right aligned.
 - Purpose should be reflected - Do include call to actions
 - Do add perfect description with click-able links and hashtags

Below are few examples of how brands are using this space
 
1. Coke

Coke - Which has always been in the toppers list, Though there is no text nor faces, it nicely captured the emotion Friendship - which the brand always talks about.

2. Oral-B

Oral-B used its cover photo to talk about its product. It made both pictorial representation as well as text. Showcasing the quality of its product.

 3. Dairy Milk -

Cadbury Dairy Milk, synced its online marketing with its latest TV commercial. And it mentioned the hashtag which it uses to engage its online audience.

4. Titan

Titan, used the space at its best. It synced the colors of the profile picture with the cover photo. Which is appealing.  Also, included call-to actions. Its running offers along with showcasing the elegant watch.

5. Helios

Helios - Again by Titan, perfectly used the white space to convey its ongoing offers and the purchase options it provides. All the information a buyer want to know is readily there at the first glance.

6. Tata Housing Development.

Tata Housing - Made its cover photo reflect the coming season. Where the whole country unites to celebrate the freedom. It is touching the patriotic Indians.

7. Make My Trip

MakeMyTrip, here again used its space capturing the patriotic season with contest. It is brand for holidays made the contest asking its fans to win a trip.

These can be the examples to show that cover photos plays a important role in spreading the purpose and branding. So, utilise this space in the best way possible.

Never to forget that facebook explicitly said two points:
1. Cover photo can't be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone else's copyright and
2. you may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. T
This are the only rules Facebook kept regarding the cover photos as of now.

Facebook Best Practices - Creating Facebook Lists part 2 (Interests List)

Welcome back to the second post on good practices to have in Facebook as a user. In the last post I spoke about Friend lists - creating a list, adding friends to the lists and also benefits of it. Similarly today we will look into Interest lists.

As lists are grouping of things on Facebook, Interest Lists are grouping things of your interests or basically grouping pages and people of your common interest and have a dedicated feed. An additional feature was we can share this list with our friends, subscribe to public lists of others. Yes similar to twitter. Isn't it cool?

So, looking in detail about creating of Interests Lists. If you don't see Interests section on your left side column in Facebook homepage. Open this link and create one to have the section.

So, for instance we will create a Interest list called Classical Music to see the possibilities and benefits of having a list.

As I hit the create list button in the link, it shows few options from pages and friends to choose before naming a list. Its upto the user to choose any or start one without choosing any. And it can be a mix of both friends and pages as we discussed before. In the second screen, I gave the name as Classical Music. Here again we can see three options 'public' 'friends' 'only me' . Choose any of it according to your list purpose and hit Done.

I choosed it to be public. We will see the benefits of it. And now we can see the Interest lists in the left column. 

And the managing the list that is adding new pages or friends is very much similar to the friends lists we saw in our previous post. So, keeping that apart, We will now see

• What is 'who can see this list'? (public, friends, only me)
• How do I share the lists?
• How this follow and lists related?
• And few more benefits of organising your interests into lists.

Who can see the lists you created?
While you are creating any list, it prompts us to choose who can see the list you create. You can choose the list to be public, or to your friends or even you can keep it to yourself. The lists created by others in public mode and by your friends are supposed to be shown to you while creating a list. But I am not able to see that these days. It was there when this Interests feature was introduced in 2012. You can check the Mashable article for reference.

How do I share the lists? or Let my friends and public know about the wonderful list I created?
When you go on to the list page, you will see a share button on the right. So, you can share this list to all your friends by posting it on your timeline or by posting it your friends timeline or by posting it on any of your pages you are managing or in a group. Basically it acts like a general share button. And so, others can click and open the list and choose to follow if they are interested.

And others can choose to follow the list you shared.

Relation between facebook Follow and lists: 

Before coming to the very point of relation between follow and lists. First we should clearly understand that, there is no need to like a page nor be friended with a person to add them to your list. That means, you can check the updates of a person or a page without being friended or liking that page in your list. This is definitely a downside for marketers as they can not have a count on likes. But there is also a brighter side as lists can be shared to others and followed by other users, users might get an exposure of a new page in that industry they were listed on. 

Ok, coming to the point of follow and lists relation - As a user can be added to a list without be friending with them, a user who only allowed everybody to Follow him/her can be added to the list. 

So, if you want to be added to anyone's lists and allow them to see your public posts, you need to allow everybody to follow you. 

And few more benefits of organising your interests into lists.

• You will never miss an update of a page or friend in the list. 
• You can choose what sought of updates you want to have in the list. Hit Manage List button for that.
• One common list can be made and shared among the group of friends of same interest.
• It will be a very effective social listening tool to have as you can maintain a list of all pages or people you want to keep track of in your industry or area to keep yourself updated. 

So, friends this is all about the lists. If you could spend few moments to organise your interests lists, it helps in keeping you upto date about everything. As Facebook Edge algorithm doesn't apply for lists. 

Have a great day! 

Facebook Best Practices - Creating Facebook Lists

Welcome back! Here is the first post on good practises to have in Facebook as a user. For the people who are not aware that why I started straight into the topic - please check my last post 

In this post I will walk you through Facebook lists. Most of you might have already been aware of this feature of facebook. But I would also let you know the uses of this feature.

What are lists? Lists are basically grouping of things on Facebook. Things can be friends, pages, or one can even filter the stories he or she can see in news feed. So, if we categorise the types of lists we can have, we largely categorize into Friends lists and Interests list.

Friends Lists: By default Facebook provides three lists where you can categories all your friends and of-course this is always users choice to use this feature. (I recommend to use.) Three categories - Close Friends, Acquaintances and Restricted. Apart from the these three, you can also create new lists.

As we look into each of them in detail -
Close Friends: It is like adding them to your best friend list. You can see the stories created by them in your news feed more frequently and also you will be notified on every post they do.
Acquaintances: Title says it all. You can add friends to this list whom you don't care much about receiving a stories in your news feed. Also, you can share your status updates to your "Friends but acquaintances".
Restricted: First this is NOT blocking. It is all about not letting your status updates reaching them. They only receive your updates when you tag them or notify them in your post.

Now, Lets see how to add friends to these particular categories: Once you add any one as your friends, or sent a friend request to anyone, you can add to any of the lists  pre defined by Facebook mentioned above or even create and add them to custom lists of your interests.

                                            

How to access these lists? Go to your home page and on the left side menu you will find a menu called Friends and click more. Here you can see all the lists. There you will have an option on right top of the page to create a new list. 

Click on create list and add your friends in the list...

When you click on any list you see all the posts made by your friends in the list and manage as well. 

Click on the manage list....

What is the benefits of categorising these friends list?

• You can share your status updates to a particular list. See the image below...

• Another major benefit is, According to Facebook, there were nearly 1500 stories created daily to flow in a your news feed or wall but Facebook algorithm is tailored in such a way that you will receive only 300 stories. So, you need to tell the Facebook algorithm what news or stories you would love to see. Even when a you don't say any of your interests to the algorithm, it still tracks your interests according to your browsing behaviour and interactions. But it will be an added advantage for you if you tell how to tailor your feed. 

This is not the end of the story, but I have shown one part of the story.

As we have seen how to categorize and create lists for friends. In the next post will detail you about Interest list.