So now we have it in the open , for survival of any organization , social media is or soon would be an essential requirement.

So the next question which arises is , does a Brand need to engage with all platforms.  - In answer to this I would say , that’s a highly subjective choice   ,for each brand its own. But yes probably the idea of spreading a bit too wide, unless  its linked up well would be a  question.  If the brand can pay attention to all the media it chooses to engage with , they should be spread out, different demographics usually sit in each of the social media platforms. However the little that I have seen suggests that Face-book, Twitter and You tube seem to be the favorite platforms for most marketers. Specially the first two.

Lets delve into this decision a bit deeper – In actuality the social media platform that you indulge in depends on two basic things  -

1) The Target population – it is a good idea while making your digital Marketing strategy to decide  on the specific target markets that you are  looking to engage. e.g. YouTube is a  very popular platform with teens, adolescents, young adults and Housewives to some extent. Their level of engagement with this platform is different. Similarly face-book has recently seen a  boom in the 45- 55 year old population . Basically its important to understand  the demographics of the Social media platform that one is looking to engage with and thus making the choice .

2) The message that you want to send out – Second  criterion for the choice of platform i would say would be the message that you want to be sent out ,if its a campaign or a  long lasting showcase  of culture.

3) The  intent – the  purpose  of the communication. If you just want to go viral, which i must say is not the easiest to do , then You Tube is a good platform, If its to build a community around a brand then probably face-book is a good platform , twitter is a good platform for discussions, and for promoting other  platforms, its also good for promotions and customer care.

Those are the three basic ones that one needs to consider and if this phase is dealt with well, its half the battle won. It is seen that  lots of times   the cause for failure  of Social media campaigns is usually the selection of an in appropriate  platform, or rather  not understanding these  basics before  engaging.

Please  remember Social Media Platforms are  not just (or rather should not be treated as) extended mouthpieces for the brand. Here the conversation is not on your terms but rather  on the  customers. Thus even when one is selecting a message , its important to consider is this message something that the target audience would engage with , is it something they are interested in , or is it just something that the brand is interested in and wants t0 push out to the audience.

So to sum it up,  indulge with that many platforms only that you can handle and devote time to regularly, secondly don’t get into a platform cos everyone’s there ,  make certain of the fit , give it a thought.

Conventional marketing has been around  for donkeys years  , as early as  the Gutenberg’s metal movable type in the 1450s  , there were marketers ready to disseminate information,  yes the science behind it was  not perfected, it was more of trial and error.  But then came technology first in the form of  magazines, then newspaper and then the radio and  Television.  Mass media ruled the masses rather the corporate masses.  They were just the perfect route to eyeballs. Then came the computers and the Internet.  New tools , high uptake and  global reach.  Corporates were out there in the cyberspace, making there presence  felt, trying to increase traffic onto their sites.  Trying to grab attention of all that would listen ( at-least their target markets)

But there was  one thing in common to all of the above media , and that was that the marketer talked and the  consumer (audience) listened.  And  so for ages corporates talked  , they were a  part of this one sided conversation . They talked and initially it was  interesting listening to them, it was novel for some time,  creativity  and maybe not that  much of relevance and of-course repetition defined the uptake of the message. We as consumers were hammered with, what to buy when to buy , where to buy it from,  why we needed  something, and we listened , we bought and felt happy. But then things  changed  , there were quite a few fraudulent  claims of utility , of price of quality . And at the same time along came the choice of not listening , the ability to ignore or forward the disruptive corporate messages in the form of TIVO ;s , the spatial continuum was altered, this was specially in relation to television, the thirty second spots were loosing their effectiveness.  At the same time this new wave crossed the world, the wave of getting connected, of talking to each other  , of uniting to  make a difference.  A fight for what they loved and what they loathed, and at  such a time though i cant say that conventional media faded away , however i would say the social wave gained importance.

Any corporate now who at-least is not tuned into the social media space is surely moving towards extinction.   People have found a voice and they are having conversations,  they are connected with other people as well as with brands. They are talking about their day to day lives  , about the products they use, about the products they are satisfied  with , about what they hate. And its time to listen .

they said that the  information age was upone us long tim back , but truly i  think its only now that we are ready for it.

Why

1) look around you , and you will see  people on mobile phones, computers and accessing the web almost every waking minute of their lives.  interacting with some or the other social media platform.  Now its easy to be connected 24 / 7 look at the Iphones  , the blackberry’s and the  i pads.  And this is just the beginning.

2) The social media space is exploding Infact according to recent report  (Nielsen, Global Faces & Networked Places, 2009) 2/3rds of the worlds global population is in the social media space ,  visiting social sites is the 4th most popular online activity ahead of emailing and lastly believe this the social sites usage is growing three time faster than the overall internet usage,

3) Its not just one social media platform that skews these numbers .  facebook if it were a country would be the fourth most populated  in terms of sheer numbers, 13hours of video that is uploaded per minute on you tube  from across the globe,  13000000 the number  of articles available on Wikipedia. 1382% the  increase in twitter usage from jan to feb 2009 .

Now  should we  take social media seriously.   Well now that  ihae gotten your attention , lets lok at how we could use this abundant resource.

Marketers have always been creative and here are a few usages that i have come across

1) for Market research – segmentation , likes dislikes etc etc

2) Beta testing of products

3) Customer service, Complaint management  and CRM  initiatves

4) Branding , branding and some more Branding

5) Customer feedback and Product innovation

6) Generating  Loyalty – the tribe

7) Sales promotions

8) Competitor intelligence gathering

(happy if you could add a  few more usages  here )

I think the Social media space is in actuality appropriate for almost all of the marketing functions , and its useful in almost throughout the product life cycle.  I agree that its not appropriate for all brands as a purely promotional or advertising tool, however none the less its important for the company to atleast observe whats happening in the social media space  in context to their brand and products.  It  keeps a company’s ear to the ground ,  and thus makes it better prepared to respond.

So whatever you do buy your damn senior executives an I pad and tell them to go play . See you there.

eMetrics marketing optimization summit London has been announced the event date is 17-18 May 2010 and the venue is Grand Connaught Rooms, Covent Garden. The main theme of the event is “How to optimize your value of online marketing?“. A lot marketing managers, web analysts and business intelligence experts will be participating. This event will be very valuable for companies and individuals who are looking on the online marketing opportunities. You can expect following from the events.

• Meet the industry thought leaders and experts
• Discover the basics in WAA Workshops
• Explore advanced topics in Post Summit Workshops
• Compare insights with industry leaders, consultants, and peers
• Identify and realise your desired outcomes from this event
• See hands-on demonstrations of the latest tools in action
• Walk away with specific answers to your specific questions and specific solutions to your specific problems

As we are the blog partner of the event all the iamaceo readers will get a 15% discount, you can provide discount code of “IAMA010” while registration.

In recent times i have been going through some text and material related to the new generation tools in Marketing specifically speaking we are looking at the Online tools and  social media marketing .

The question as to whether one should indulge in such media as twitter and facebook , or  for that matter of fact  even youtube is now obsolete. I feel that its  only the organizations which are entrenched  in their pasts  and  highly resilient to change  would  refuse to use these tools and  maybe in the future they would see the need for change.

That is not the question that i intend to answer or raise through this post , the questions of today are how to create tribes around your brand ,  or product. Apple has its local communities of apple users who are proud  of their products and loyal to the company to the core, similarly big brands like Harley Davison has its bunch of HOGs  who follow and celebrate the company and its products , they understand the core values at the heart of the Harley and  are entrenched inits culture, they form their own support networks which further  promote and advocate for the product. The question which comes to my mind is how applicable are these communities to the small scale corporates  , or even businesses.  How difficult would it be for a local restaurant or coffee shop to create its followers to advice people in the community as to what are the best dishes to be tried in the place advocates promoting the joint on facebook and twitter ans so and so forth .  How difficult would it be for mom and  pop stores to  develop and foster a community of users.

Another  question  which would be applicable to all such communities which exist  is whats next, do we eat into these communities through repeatedly exposing them to our sellings and discounts.  It is but natural for a marketer once he has created a community to bombard it with sales promotions and  so on and so forth , is this what they are looking for. If not then what is the purpose of creating these communities, should we let them thrive  forming networks within them to form a stronger community and  have limited engagement with them, just to give you an example a  recent membership into a  club has seen me  adding to their followers on facebook and yet every weekend  I am bombarded with the  info of whos the Dj playing there, I dont intend to take any action till im ready , but the constant invasion of my privacy makes me rethink if being a part of this community is something more than what  i bargained for . So the question here my friends is how do we retain these comunities at the same time make the most of them.

A third question that comes to my mind is

specifically in regards to the use of twitter, is twitter the right tool for every corporate, for an  organization on the move  ,example a movie theater or a Event organizer it makes sense as it would be of interest  as to whats happening in the organization , maybe even for the days special menu of a restaurant , but for organizations which are more static do we use twitter effectively and if not then how can we  , do we need to post things on it on a daily  / hourly basis or should it be used sparingly.

Just  some questions of a mind that at times wonders

Outbound marketing is dead whether its a product or it is a service, that is applicable for job hunting also. You are sending your resume to companies for a particular job where 1000 of millions of people send their resumes, it is really hard to get an entry. Moreover 60% of the whole jobs are not advertised and they employ mostly through personal references.

The best way to find entrance is to identify your sneezer’s.  Sneezer’s are people who can help refer you to the right place at the right time, also they can market you. They might have the right commanding power to recommend you to the place.  By identifying your sneezer’s you are essentially converting yourself as a inbound marketing product.

Where can you find your sneezer’s?

1. Go to different networking Events and network with people who are in the same segment you are interested in. Pitch yourself to them and get in touch with them regularly make him/her as a friend.
2. Join different LinkedIn groups which you are interested in and contribute your thoughts in various discussions. Try to be a “purple cow” answering questions in the discussion(s). Not like I second this point that guy and all.
3. Finally create your own portfolio and brand yourself in professional social networks.

Health care services is one of the most difficult value propositions to market, as with all services they are characterized by

Intangibility -  Inability to see,  feel, taste, or get an idea about the  service in addition to this these health care  services have further credence qualities  in nature that is even after experiencing the service it is difficult to make a  judgment about how the service was. Ex. For a patient to make a judgment on how good his operation was, or how informative a consultation with a GP was.

Inseparability - Another characteristic of the service is that it is inseparable from the consumer/ client. An operation is not possible without the individual patient being present; it is not possible to guide a patient to his room without him actually being present there at the reception. Another aspect of this is that the individual buying in the service is not only influencing how the service is meted out but is also judging the process by which the service is being provided. Thus it’s not only the final outcome which becomes of importance but also how the service is being provided.

Variability – now comes in the question of what happens when the client himself is involved in the provision of the service or the service delivery process, he / she brings in variability to the process . In addition to this as the service is being provided by a n employee with his or her own basic personality characteristics brings in variation to the process. Thus variability is inevitable in a service provision.

Perishability - the last and one of the most significant dissatisfiers for the health care industry is caused by this characteristic. The Service cannot be stored; you can’t store health checkups ready to be meted out for your customer. Not in the absolute sense atleast. Thus with variations in demands we at times find ourselves less prepared , and  our customers find themselves being shortchanged for the cost they are paying for the services. This is something which happens very often with public health systems of various countries, I guess the long waiting lists  in the NHS are evidence enough .

Only once we have understood these basic characteristics of health care marketing can we be in a position to move forward towards what would be the plausible ways of marketing them.

Though these seem to be very common sense kind of deductions  , but you would be surprised how often the overzealous marketer can fall into traps of overpromise and under delivery due to neglecting these simple  characteristics.

I have seen many a Hospital loose an important corporate account because of inability to deliver what was promised, because of inability to manage crowds within the hospital because of trying to customize a service beyond its limit of elasticity and thus making a complete mess of it.

In my next post we would be talking about the new role of the Healthcare marketer in the new decade as an integrator combining these considerations , in providing health care services .

Personal branding is a popular term now a days, more professionals are accepting the fact also. Identifying personal skills and branding will help in career search and in their continuous professional development.

To elucidate, personal branding is the process of identifying your unique values & characteristics which you can bring into the team and also to the organization. After identifying your uniqueness, communicate it in a professionally memorable & consistent manner in all your thoughts and actions, present it online & offline to all your current and prospective stakeholders.

In fact, many are still unclear about the way to achieve personal brand.

4 Simple Steps

Personal branding can be done in may ways, from my point of view you should be more towards creating buzz about yourself both offline and online.

1) Create a personal blog and write about your unique strengths regularly. Suppose if you are good at “Strategy”, write your strategic points from your point of experience and perspective. It can a strategic advice to companies, governments etc.You can also write about different strategic and its related articles.

2) Create a good social network profile. I prefer LinkedIn as a good social network profile. There are certain tips which can be applied while creating  / updating your profile.

3) Get in touch with respective communities. This is very important, because this is the place where you can network. Try to attend all possible events organized by them. If you are introvert, try to network slowly, once you start proper networking you will be an extrovert.

4) Try to take seminars and presentations when ever you get a chance, try to present your own thoughts this will give you a better stand for you from others.

Recently I came across to study the product positioning and selling strategies of IKEA. IKEA is a private held, international home products retailer that sells flat pack furniture, accessories, and bathroom and kitchen items in their retail stores around the world. The company, which pioneered flat-pack design furniture at affordable prices, is now the world’s largest furniture retailer.

The IKEA strategy to make the customer to see everything inside the show room, “one-way” layout which leads customers along “the long natural way.”  There will be a specific entrance to the show room, once you entered into the show room you can come out from the show room only though a single way. They will guide customers to see all the products and make customers to buy something before they leave the show room.

View more presentations from Sanil Subhash Chandra Bose.

Ref: WikiPedia IKEA