Social Media Marketing Ideas from the West

Hi, its my first blog post on the very first day of my trip to USA. Actually I have been here twice before but I never thought of writing down my daily experience into a blog post. This interesting idea struck when I was packing my bags and thought that how am I going to share pictures with friends on facebook while am travelling. This thought concluded in deciding that not only pictures but I would also "Live Share" my thoughts and experiences with all!
Yesterday I just went to a small outlet near by to strech my legs. Outlets included the famous brand names like Macy's, J C Penny, Old Navy, Aeropostale, Hollister, etc whose product we now get in India too.. (they are made in India originally ;-) ) As I was walking by the stores, I noticed an interesting marketing idea for shops and outlets.
Traditionally, we see store names above the stores at each shops. Now they also imprint with various graphics and designs on the front doors and glass to attract customers. On occassions like Diwali, Holi and Navratri we see drawings of diya and dandiya on store front glasses. Its aesthetically attractive and inviting. And so this marketing stuff works well in India.
With the upcoming industry of social media marketing businesses have entered into the social media world to attract online viewers and customers. Now, we know that cross marketing always works best everywhere. Letting know people that "We are on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, etc" is most important because your customers need to know where are you located online and offline both, so that they can reach out to you everywhere in every possible ways. So for this businesses need to imprint social presence on the outside store maketing materials. Printing social networking sites logos, QR codes, etc will definitely bring you lot of loyal customers.
I noticed this small but very effective social media marketing idea at each store imprinted right outside the store's front glass. They are letting their customers and walking-by visitors know that they are actively present on social media platforms. They are there to serve you better. Just take a look at the picture I took at some of the stores for better understanding. Isnt this amazing?
What you think? Let me know your thoughts too..
Thanks for reading. Lot more yet to come, as I will be blogging throughout my trip, jotting down amazing things ! :-)    

Do we actually know how to use Twitter?

We are almost addicted to FACEBOOK. First thing that we do in mornings is to check whether or not any notifications are there on it, and then we step into bathrooms. For Twitter, the scenario is almost different. Many surveys have been done on How Indians Consume Twitter. The facts state that still majority of the people figuring out what to do with Twitter. [Well, This was my own state in 2009 ;-)] But, luckily I figured it out for myself and started helping other people too.

Twitter is mostly consumed for getting quick news updates as far as its use among Indians is concerned. However, it is much more wide than this. In India there are 3 major categories of Twitter Users:

1. Journalists

2. Celebrities (Sports, Films, Entertainment, etc)

3. Politicians and Big Business house CEO's

Inspite of India's so high population, very few people use twitter. And that's little surprising. I was doing some research regarding the same on the internet and to my amaze, I found some really interesting facts:

Population Size does not actually matter when it comes to comparing it with Twitter users. Though India may be having more than one billion population, very few people have access to internet (137,000,000 as of Dec 2012). Even among the people who has internet access, few are present on social media websites. According to World Internet Stats, 5.2 % of people use Facebook among the people who has internet access. 

These whole big picture shows that when it comes to Twitter users, India's gigantic population size does not convert into users. 

Next to the size, other major problem among Indians using Twitter - is the English Language. Twitter has 140 characters to explain your message and majority of its users use English as the basic language. In India, English is spoken only amongst business networks alone and to some extent in the entertainment industry. That may be one of the reason why there less Indian Twitter Users. Well, Language is no barrier today, I am just saying that due to less number of people actually speaking English, may be it can be the reason of not expressing one self in 140 characters. 

As I earlier mentioned, only 3 categories of people are observed using Twitter the most, many of the small businesses have showed their interest in using it too. But the only fact that become a hindrance is - what to do after making a Twitter account? What to Tweet about? Who to follow? How to get following? How to spread message? Do the world actually read 140 characters?

Well, I can show you the ways :)

Anybody who wants to use twitter, first must understand that it is very different from Facebook. You must be seeing your friends on Facebook, enjoying each others' pictures, seeing colourfull wall pages, etc. But that's not what Twitter will offer. It is like a collection of messages. It is like your mobile inbox, where you see all the text messages bundled upon each other. Understand it that way and you will gradually come to know how to use it. There is no perfect guideline that will tell you the step-by-step process to use Twitter. You have to follow your instinct on what should be tweeted. I can just tell you basic things. Those are:

Decide on what you will Tweet? - Personal or Professional

Find people - Friends, people you would like to get connected to..

Tweet Information and not the Junk..

Respond to people who are mentioning your name..

Do not over flow with your business information all the time..

Last but not least, enjoy twittering.

I would really love to know how you use Twitter :)

 

  

 

#5 Awesome Ways to Increase Interaction and Conversation with Your Audience

Interaction and valuable conversation is often a key to drive your business. Managing those interactions is also quite important. Online conversations happening these days need proper direction to manage it and getting most out of it. Here are some awesome & simple ways to increase your online interactions and conversations with your audience. 

1.       Use  Videos to engage 

Interact audio-visually through creating your own videos. People love watching videos. There is no need to make expert quality videos. People will love the raw content, coming out fresh from your premises.    

2.       Tell Stories about your brand

There are great tools to create stories like – Storify. Use these tools and express your brand story. Use your customer recommendations that are received on twitter or facebook, quote them on your stories and make them famous. They will love it and even appreciate you. Share your messages through short stories and don’t forget to insert images because a picture says a thousand words.   

3.       Conducts Visual Contests

To increase interactions with your audience, indulge them in attractive activities like conducting visual contests on Pinterest and Instagram. Instagram is great for mobile internet users and also a great tool to conduct mobile contests. Organizing Contests is a great idea to know your customers well, get their feedback, and co-creating content with them.  

4.       Share news and updates regularly with pictures

Share your company news, ratings, information, events, etc on social media using related images and photographs. This is a great way to start a conversation about something that you are informing them. When you get some likes on the stuff you post, start a conversation in the comments section and engage them in it. 

5.       Celebrate every occasion of the world

World is your market now. Your potential customer may be anywhere in the world. So send wishes on every occasion, happy or sad. Caring for your audience is very much important. This is a great way to “Humanise” your brand and making people realise that you care for everybody.

So, here is my info-graphic saying everything that I wrote above. Enjoy & feel free to Share it ! 

The making of Konvophilia

The most interesting and fascinating thing for me is to create something on my own. In my childhood, I used to create art works out of materials lying idle at home. I always used to make my projects look creative. That's because creativity resides in my basic nature. Everything I do, should be compulsorily with a flair of creative touch with perfection. 

I wanted to share a story of one of my most important creation and so I thought to write about it. Well, in this age of new media, most popularly known as 'social media', every person has an opportunity to create a world of their own. So, I too created my Facebook page just because I wanted to create the world of my own thoughts and passions. 

Being Leo along with creative mind, anything I do is with deep passion and strong will. Hence, for me, the Facebook page also needed to be like a perfect identity, having proper objectives and a unique place. So, at the time of page creation, I had to give it a "name" obviously. But nothing was appealing to me. I wanted to name it very differently. But it should also be relevant to my ideas and thoughts which are to be shared on it. That's when I learned the importance of naming an Idea or a Start-Up. 

For me "Konvophilia" is no less than a start-up. I treated the process of  creating Konvophilia just like a start-up. It is a serious business to me. I have to be relevant. Not because it is displayed publicly, but also because it reveals my personality, my thoughts on Social Media, my expertise, my ideas. I have to be a responsible person for what I am sharing, posting, tagging, liking, commenting or following. I think being a Page Manager gives you the feel of being an Owner of your space. And so I treated Konvophilia as my first Start-Up. 

Coming back to the Name - Konvophilia, many have asked me why this name? Konvophilia is actually a term I coined for my self. As my initials are KP (Khushbu Pandya), I wanted to name my page not anything but only by a single word having both these letters and that too 'K' being the starting alphabet. Well, the start-up is all about Social Media. The things that would be appearing on it are related to this new media, its importance, relevance of conversations, studying social relationships, impact of conversations on various businesses and professionals, importance of eWOM (e-Word Of Mouth), etc. 

Hence, keeping in mind these parameters, the first word is "Konvo" which is derived from "Conversation". The short word for 'Conversation' is Convo and as I wanted my word to start with alphabet 'K', it turned out to be "Konvo". The second adjoining word is "Philia", which is one of the four ancient greek word for Love. It is also translated as Friendship according to Aristotle. So, the combination of both words "Konvo-Philia", whose meaning turns out to be "Love for Conversations" appealed to me a lot, because it very well defines my ideas, thoughts and perspectives. 

Another important thing to be done after that was to give it a visible face. No one would like an empty profile picture space. Profiles without identity catches the least interest of people. Seoyeon Hong, a doctoral student, conducted the research along with Kevin Wise, an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and other doctoral students. This study found out many truths about the importance of Profile Image of a Facebook Profile, whether it is a page, group or a person. I had a plan of creating unique logo for my page, but as I wanted to go online as soon as possible, during initial times, the image for profile was taken from internet. Below is the image. 

This image suited quite well to the name and image of my start-up. Those times, there were no cover images for pages. The night of Feb 29 2012, there were news that Cover Pages are going to be introduced on midnight of 29th Feb and from March 1 2012, every Facebook page will have a cover page section introduced. That night, I created a Cover page for Konvophilia as well and introduced it that midnight. 

 

Again, came a time, when it felt compelling to change a customized profile image. I, then did some combinations of images in Paint and Photoshop to come out with proper icon. The below image was then created. 

Time to change has arrived again. Because creative minds never sleeps. "Konvophilia" is going under a massive change right now. and soon it will be published. The "New Konvophilia" is more organized. As soon as it is revealed, I will write more about it in detail.  

This was the Story of Konvophilia - my first start-up. And now, Konvophilia is also a new name for my blog. I think, I am completely into my this project, making it better and better every time. 

-KP.  

3 Major updations in Social Media Geography

Hello Friends, 

Today, I am sharing very important thing for all social media lovers and practitioners. 

Are your social media marketing strategies based on current platform scenario ? 

Well there some changes in the landscape and I think all should take these three major adaptations into their social media marketing strategies. Lets take a look on the infographic that I have prepared on the basis of information by Fred Cavazza.   

1 Easy Rule to understand Social Media Marketing

This is a connected world of people. People can never stay without being social. The society around you gives you various kind of information, makes you aware about different products and services. All this information we use it everyday, every second of our life. And in terms of traditional marketing, we call it WOM - Word of Mouth. 

This Word of Mouth spread online and digitally, through social channels is called Social Media Marketing. Isn't it amazing to get reviews and feedback about almost everything on this earth from the people you know and sometimes from strangers too. This way, unknowingly, we also connect to unknown people, get acquainted, and make new friends all over the world. As we increase our network of people, these products and services too get the word out from us and spreads across the boundaries.

I have explained the term "Social Media Marketing" with a simple graphics and a definition. Take a look and do tell me how is it. 

   

Social Media in India - The Big Picture

This is an awesome Big Picture presenting the Social Media Facts and Figures during the year 2011

Source: Techonzo

Social Media Statistics of India

Want to know which Brands engage more in Social Media in 2012?

Here is a great Info Graphic to give you lots of data.

This Infographic has been designed by Socialbakers.