How many Eyeballs you got ??

Defining a content creation strategy for brands to gather more eyeballs in the Social Media Space [tweetmeme source= ‘themavericksoul’ only_single=false]

Every other brand now itches to have a huge fan following on the social media networks. They outline strategies to make people get behind their products endorse their brands & promote it to the viral route.

But they tend to make a big mistake. They think that they can just reach out to the market, and if they have a great thing going on, the customers will naturally want to endorse what they are doing. They think that everyone loves about their brand. Well honestly, no one cares!!

The thing is, no-one wants to be your salesperson—unless they are, of course, being paid to sell your products. But everyone in the social media circle wants to be part of something that’s bigger than them, that’s creative and that brings new ideas into the world. Something that they are passionate about and care to promote & share with friends.

Some of the ways to get things moving could be as

No Direct Pitch for Endorsements

The consumers shall never be asked to endorse a product or site directly. Instead the content should be created with is independent of the brand. The consumer shall feel the genuine desire of the content owner to share the interesting piece of information/application. Only then will they support the cause & also share among their pals. The content shall encourage a consumer behavior of passion, emotion, intelligence or humor – something people would love to get behind & believe in.

You want to create something that many people will join. A cause, a vision

Let it be Catchy & Meme-able

‘Meme’ is an idea that spreads from person to person, one that’s so “catchy” that people almost can’t help but to spread it.

A meme is bigger than a brand. Just Do It is a meme. No Fear is a meme. It’s something that people can identify with, make their own and share with others. Open Happiness is a meme

Let people get hooked to it – catchy is the word.

But same time Values-Driven, too

If your project provides awesome value & is catchy at the same time, then you’re not only sure to inspire people, you’ll also be making the world a better place.

So along with everything, the creative project should have some value to the customer as well.

Easy to Join & Agree

Make it easy for your intended audience to participate as quickly as possible. It should be it incredibly easy for the audience to say “yes” & act on it in the fastest possible manner.

Be creative but avoiding inaccessibility

A long webinar, a complex signing form, Jargon filled webpage all are a sign of providing inaccessibility to the ever busy consumer. You can be as creative you desire but without the loss to ease_to_accessibility.

In the end summarizing, for the target of colossal customer base or a huge fan following in the social media sphere, just believe in the principle of simple , catchy , easy to access content which supports a cause / has a vision and also provides certain value to the customer.

You can share you views by leaving a comment – BY clicking the bubble next to the heading!!

Puneet

What the heck is location based social networking ???

[tweetmeme source= ‘themavericksoul’ only_single=false]

Do these words Foursquare, Location-based-Service Gowalla, Facebook Places sounds familiar, other than off-course the famous cigarette brand famous in nineties, another crapy_internet_jargon, or facebook_is_facebook_but_whats_this_PLACES_thing  !!!!

What else comes to your mind ??????

Well based on my primitive knowledge, I can say, it’s something for people with phones & mobile internet, which can tell their location to online friends say on Facebook via Facebook Location (I am sure this one is definitely not meant for married people!!)

OK time for the technical definition, which I found somewhere, goes like this:

“They are mobile apps that let you share where you are and where you have been with your social web. By “checking in‟ where you are – say, a local lifestyle shop, or a movie theatre – you can act as an advocate by describing what you are doing and how you are feeling, and leave tips for future visitors, turning users into mini Yellow Pages”.

Hmmm so it’s something like a Facebook status update where it’s mandatory for you to write about your location & along with the feedback for that location.

Status Update: “I am at Big Cinemas, Pune. Watching Dabangg. This is an awesome theater with nice ambience, hot looking people & great sound system. Wats more the movie is freaking paisa-vasool” {this was my status for a few days after I watched the salman starrer bollywood flick, but ok, lets not dither away from the topic}

The point here is that the applications like Facebook Places, Foursquare do the very same thing of updating your status based on your location (though in a organized manner) & let your friends know about your where being .

Of the latest in location based social media applications, the social media giant has arrived with “Facebook Places”  in August 2010 (currently in US only) . This is basically a service operable from Facebook smart phone apps and touch.facebook.com that allows users to “check in” at a particular location, see who else is there, and update their friends on what they are doing.

Some Features are as under

Customer Base

• Existing LBS applications, such as Foursquare & Gowalla, currently have user-bases in the low millions. Foursquare has 500,000 active users, Gowalla about 100,000
  
• Facebook Places is initially restricted to US audience of 120 million users
  

Location based social media networking, like any other social media networking, can only be a hit if it has a huge customer base, meaning all your friends etc are at the same platform.

Content – Ability to associate media with the place(s) that the media represents

• Apple iPhoto introduced the ability to geo-tag photos so that they can be sorted according to where they were taken & viewed on maps showing where you have been, who you have been with, and what you have done.
  
• Facebook is now the world’s biggest photo sharing site so Facebook Places will help to make sense of shared events & experiences through associated media.
  

Something for advertisers

• Businesses will be able to claim their locations by searching for the place & clicking something like “Is this your business?”.Owners can therefore monitor what people think about their venue.
  
• A perfect venture for location based advertising since a user will be disclosing his location at a given point in time. Profiling, segmentation and qualitative modeling of customer data will improve targeting marketing.
  
• Foursquare’s business model is effectively a direct marketing proposition. It is based on engagement with users-of-intent rather than intrusive/interruptive form of advertising.
• A good marketing proposition to companies that lack a physical retails presence, which have found interesting & innovative ways of using Foursquare to market themselves.

You can read at facebook blog to know more about Facebook Location / or at Foursquare FAQ.

What is Enterprise 2.0 ?

Enterprise2.0 | Cloud computing |SaaS |Social Media [tweetmeme source= ‘themavericksoul’ only_single=false]

You must have listened to these terms all in the same paragraph or in a talk by someone. Well, what exactly do we mean by E2.0 or Enterprise2.0 , what is Cloud computing , how is SaaS related to this & finally what role does Social Media has to play in this ?

Enterprise 2.0 is a term used to describe Enterprise social software which comprises social software being used in an enterprise/organization for business/commercial contexts.

Which when stated in simpler terms means, an Organization having its own Facebook like application (for example) , used for its business purposes. The Facebook like application (stress on word ‘like’) is not exactly Facebook, but just an application with similar features & providing similar utilities to its users. The users here could be company’s employees, customers, suppliers, industry experts etc depending on the company’s strategies & goals.

Thus E2.0 will contain software (Facebook is a software too !! ) deployed on a companies intranet or internet , using social platforms or social media networks features.

The whole application will be hosted on the cloud (i.e. web , we are accustomed to fancy terms you see !! ) & will be provided to the users as a service (SAAS). The users/customers will be charged based on their usage & not as traditional software platforms where the user pays for the software development/hosting etc. It is a pay-as-you-use kind of model

It will be a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid information sharing, communication & integration capabilities in an organization.

Let me give you another example, imagine you as one organization, you are using a software – GMAIL , which is actually hosted on the web & not your premises, & if you pay montly subscription for that software service it becomes a SaaS model, where the application is on the cloud (so cloud computing) & since you can interact with other people on a social level its also a part of Social media.

Thus your organization is now using E2.0

(E2.0 that’s surely a fancy term!!, why haven’t I ever heard of E1.0 !! )

Puneet