10 reasons for businesses to be on social media

Almost every company whose products/services I use in my daily life seems to be present in social media. I no more have to go to their website to get info about their latest product, plans or call/email them about my issues/problems with them. They are very much present in my social network. where I spend most of my time(Apart from work!). So its convenient and fast for me to get connect with them on social media and its potentially good for companies also to connect with their existing/prospective target audience.

That is why many companies are spending time, money, and other precious resources on social media marketing,sometimes, before even having an understanding of what it can do for them. That is why some companies are doing good in social media and some are not.

Companies should think about their goals before starting. Just because you have heard that other companies are doing it does not mean that social media will magically work for you also. Like any other marketing strategy, it takes sustenance and a clear vision of the bigger picture. Your tweets, posts and comments should all be coordinated to meet the ultimate goal, which is to establish trust, build your brand, engagements and increase sales.

So, to tap the potential of this platform, you first have to determine if social media can meet your goals and objectives. Following points illustrates as to how social media is important to your business.

1. It helps in creating awareness about your brand
2. It tells what people likes and  about their interests
3. It introduces your products/services
4. Connects with current/past and prospective customers
5. It helps to expand your reach
6. Its helpful in market research
7. It helps you to customize/improve your products/services
8. It helps you in pacifying your unhappy customers, real time
9. It gives an human element to your work
10. It makes you more accessible

Your current/prospective customers are out there on different social platforms across the web and are having conversations with or without you. You can opt to join in or not. But when you analyze about the potential that social media marketing offers, it may be well worth of your time to at least start exploring the possibilities.

What not to do in your social media campaign

Social networking has become an important part of every business strategy. Every business is trying innovative ways to get connected with their customers. Someone is offering t-shirt if you retweet this, someone is offering gifts if you ‘like’ their business page or some discount coupons etc. Some are using social media for new product launch or to spread the word about existing product range. Someone finding social media a good ‘issue-handling’ platform. Whatever your purpose is, there are certain ‘don’ts’to follow. If you follow them, you can witness your brand growing, some of them are:

• Don’t offer – Use social media as a awareness creating platform and not a lead generating one. If your products/services provide value for money, people will come to you. Restrict yourself from offering, but concentrate on sharing
• Don’t expect – Focus on quality conversation, content etc. to give out to your fans, on a daily basis. They are the ones who will talk about you in their circle of influence.
• Don’t promise – “Under promise, over deliver” should be the key. If people find it in other way then it may affect your social media campaign.
• Don’t get personal – You will face every kind of people here. Some may badmouth/criticise you. Don’t respond in the same way as they did. The positive ones are the ones you should focus on and build your success story around them.
• Don’t push – Your ‘push-marketing’ strategy may not work here. Remember you are not here to sell anything, you are here to create stories and talking points amongst your followers.
• Don’t be impatient – Remember, study and slow wins the race. You may not get a very good response initially unless you are a big brand. So be in the race with consistent efforts. Post daily, be kind to your fans, respond to them timely are some golden rules.
• Don’t change – Don’t change your approach/plan frequently. Just say right thing at the right time. Create your content strategy in the beginning and keep evolving on it. Changing startegy mid way will send wrong signals to your followers.

This is my donot list. I will add more in next posts.

Youtube video count stuck?

Whenever I see a video on youtube I always see its view counts first. It helps me to see how popular a video is. Or sometimes out of many youtube video links,that I get on twitter, facebook etc, which one could be worth to see.

Recently I posted a video on youtube and since I am obsessed with view counts, I started to observe it. The toll went well till 300. After 300 it became very sluggish or almost frozen. I was wondering what has suddenly happened to the popularity of my video. It crossed 300 in a single day and now the numbers are not moving smoothly? Then one of my friend told me that how youtube counts the views and what is youtube’s algorithms.

My friend told me that before a youtube video hits 300 views, the system does not care as how the hits on the page have been generated. Even if you hit the refresh button (or F5) on browser or your own visit to the video, a count will be added without treating this as false or invalid impression.

However there is another rule which is applicable once the counter cross the 300 mark. Now only the ‘unique views’ will be counted. This means that to count a view as a valid “youtube video view”, that video should be viewed from a different PC (unique IP addresses). Refreshing page or own visit will not be counted. This way the integrity of ‘views’ is maintained.

One more point, the counting process of ‘unique views’ after 300 is not instant. It may take few hours to even few days for counts to get updated. So that might be another reason for youtube video view count not increasing.

Here is what Youtube has to say about their algorithms:

“YouTube employs proprietary technology to prevent the artificial inflation of a video’s viewcount by spam bots, malware and other means. We validate views to ensure the accuracy of the viewcount of all videos beginning with the first view. This validation process becomes publicly visible when the viewcount reaches 300. At this point, the viewcount may slow or temporarily freeze until we have time to verify that all further views are legitimate. Rest assured that the views system is working as intended, and that the viewcount will update as soon as the system has verified the legitimacy of the views.”

I hope the information is useful.

Keep your feedback coming.

Confession – How do I find content for my blog

I am managing this blog from last few weeks now. I have written quite a few posts too. To be very true with you, initially I always had to ponder hard as what topic to choose to write, on a daily basis. Then I had a conversation with one of my friends who has been speaking his mind through his blog for some time now. I asked him directly, from where you get the topics to write for? Where do you get ideas from? So whatever he told me in response was extremely simple and essence of which was just ‘observation’.

He said one has to have a journalist viewpoint to look around the society and find the relevant content.

First source is, experience. Nothing can beat that. What I felt drinking Thumsup and what I felt seeing the new coke commercial can only be unique to me. So it makes perfect sense to share that with your readers.

Second source is the web. We go through many blogs, articles, magazines, news, newsletter, surveys, research reports etc. There are many times we feel that we can express it in our own perspective/observation/thougths. A good idea is to subscribe thought provoking blogs through RSS feed/email. Set up alerts for interest related topics. Set up google news to read only the kind of content you are interested in.

Third source are conversations. Conversations with other bloggers/industry experts/mentors/friends to find out what is on their minds. You may get good ideas to share or interesting stories that have not been shared yet.

Chances are, by above excercise, you may get numerous ideas to write on. It is a good idea to list down all your ideas in a little black book. So you can refer to your list often and know what has been written about and what is not. Now there is need to filter these ideas with:

• Who is your target audience? And how your idea is relevant to them. How you can change the approach to make it interesting and beneficial for your readers.

• What exactly is your thought on this idea and communicate/write is very clearly and to the point. Think about finding a different angle on the story that specifically meets the needs of your audience. For example, my post on Valentine day. Everyone enjoyed the much hype but I personally thought other way and mentioned it in my blog.  And the response was overwhelming. Got many messages from people that they agree to this my ‘less talked’ perspective.

• Why is it relevant. Every news/idea has a shelf life. Think about whether the story has relevance with the present or not and how you can you rework it to take advantage of that. For examples I observed movements of Egypt revolution and Greece movement and converted into blogs with my thoughts. I had done this when everyone was talking about these movements.

Dont forget to keep the originality. Originality of your thoughts/perspective/viewpoint/knowledge. Otherwise it will be like another spam on internet.

Hope this will help you to write more interesting articles and me to read more interesting articles in coming time. 🙂