How can SMEs gain from social media
People are increasingly being empowered by technology and information that are easily accessible to them today. Customers, both geographically dispersed or in your locality would learn about any product or service from the internet first. Thus, the sellers have to be present there, where their customers are i.e. online. Customers are also increasingly expecting companies to come up with new and innovative features, products, and services that can excite them. In this context, Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are continually looking for new ways to be at the forefront of competition. The key imperatives for them are to listen to their customers, build meaningful relationships with them, expand across current geographies (both current locality and worldwide), build a better brand, and enhance business growth. Thus, technology-led innovation has been a vital aspect for SMEs to gain a competitive advantage over others. However, there are certain challenges in the way. SMEs run on strict budgets, and limited resources. So, they have to rationally plan their investments. Social media can help SMEs to achieve the aforesaid imperatives without spending extravagantly. Social media provides a convenient platform to continually listen to your audience, connect with them at their (customer’s) comfort, collaborate in familiar ways, and grow your business. Google places for business The concept of social media is not new and many of us use social media in some way or the other every day. We have our own profiles or the profile of our business on Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, etc, that we may have created at some point in the past. What’s important is to continually manage your social media profile across all social channels to increase your web presence. Here are few things that you can do right away to start managing your profile. Establish presence of your business for customers that are in or near your locality by registering your business on websites like Google Places for Business, Burrp.com, Zomato, Foursquare, and Google+. Listing on burpp! Doing this would be a first simple step towards considerably improving the web presence of your business. For example, if someone searches online for a yoga classes in your locality, the likelihood of your business showing up increases. Search results on burpp! There are many examples where SMEs in various industries have adopted and managed their social media presence to gain many advantages – better servicing the customers, quickly rolling out new offerings that the customers want, etc. Internally too, social media plays an important role in empowering the new generation workforce to better engage with each other and accomplish their work. In the next part of this blog series, we will look at a few ways in which SMEs can use social media for their business.
Social media marketing tools and techniques – Part 1 | Advaiya
In a Building Presence Voicing Thoughts session at Advaiya, a few days back, I talked about social media marketing (SMM), covering its importance and a few take care areas. In a series of blog posts, based on the talk I gave, I will provide an overview of some of the key social media marketing concepts, tools, techniques, certain take care areas to consider while building your brand on social media, and some social media success and failure stories. So, what exactly is social media doing to us, or has already done to our lives? Of course, social media has changed our lives drastically. It has given us the power to create multiple (virtual) identities. With each of these identities, you can attach your choices and preferences. Social Media Marketing One great aspect of social media marketing is that it has capability to address to all the multiple identities of any individual as needed and, when needed. Social media marketing provides many advantages to both the customers and the marketers: Engagement: Across social networks, customers can engage with the messages they can like, share and explore easily. Quick Results: The results of social media marketing can be felt very quickly, may be even within minutes or hours of posting the content. Dynamic control: Not just the results can be seen quickly on social networks, marketing efforts, messages and modes can also be tweaked quickly and dynamically. Better Target Audience: Social networking sites often provide marketers with ability to define the target audience by age, locality, and many other parameters. Social media marketing involves the use of tools to successfully advertise and engage with audience online. Some of the commonly used techniques are: Targeting: Social networks like Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with some additional information about the consumers, like their likes, dislikes and preferences. This provides the marketers with the capabilities to choose the right target audience to promote and market their offerings. Consumer’s online brand related activities (COBRAs) is another method used by advertisers to promote their products across social networks. It includes simple activities like uploading a picture of products they recently purchased and used is an example of a COBRA. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is equivalent to traditional word-of-mouth, except for that it is done digitally across social networks. Reviews and recommendations are a convenient manner to have a product promoted via consumer-to-consumer interactions. In the next blog I will talk about some methods/tools related to social media marketing, social analytics, social media measurement, etc, and also few examples of successful and unsuccessful social media marketing campaigns. In the meantime, I would like to hear about your experiences related to doing effective social media marketing.
A forum primus for technology marketing | Advaiya
The picturesque Laguna Niguel in scenic Dana Point, California saw the much anticipated, much awaited event on Technology Marketing being held for the first time, where over 400 executives from across the globe shared what is supposed to be the new dictum, both in the IT as well as marketing. Among the plenitude of tech aficionados and marketing pros, it was a moment of delight to be representing from India. Speaking about Technology Marketing as a Service (TMaaS) it was a head start to have rendered such a momentous contribution to the main schedule of events. The keynote speakers being the who’s who of marketing and IT giants like David Sable, Global CEO, Young & Rubicam; Alison McConnell, EVP, Chief Growth Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide; Stacy Martinet, CMO, Mashable; and Brad Brooks, CMO, Juniper Networks; provided the illuminating presence so enticingly expected. I would express the experience worth the plaudits and laudatory enough as the discussions were centered at automation, analytics and personalization. It was indeed a privilege and a pleasure to be an audience to these seasoned practitioners. The session where Romi Mahajan of KKM Group, elucidated about counterproductive nature of excessive quantification was immensely thought provoking. I would reckon a marketer’s role to not be considered as just a translator. A marketer has to be an orchestrator. He or she has to get involved and influence the entire gamut consisting of complexities and dynamics of tech business today. Nothing else accentuates this as the scenarios posited by constant launches, rapid evolution of audience’s contexts. I am of the opinion that the business of technology, in all aspects, has to work in tandem with the marketer at the helm leading the array. A marketer must acknowledge it as an opportunity. The multifarious functions and activities comprising technology marketing cannot now be taken as a collective set of rigid procedures, but as a set of relevant outcomes. At such a juncture, many such outcomes may solicit additional strategic solutions—services which are sensitive to the nuances of technology, audience and business context. These would power and propagate the content, execution, automation and planning, as the marketers navigate the dynamics and complexities of the business of technology. On looking back it seems to be a promising milestone for technology marketing.
Advaiya introduces xBOM packaged content offering
Advaiya Solutions, today announced the launch of xBOM – a packaged content offering. Today, content marketing is perceived as a critical part of the overall mix in order to increase the effectiveness of marketing and communication. Building effective content marketing strategy requires a lot of investment, proper planning, and a good set of content assets. Advaiya’s xBOM is a simplified set of packaged content offerings, focused on providing the needed guidance and enabling you to build the relevant content, in the right form, and disseminate at the right time to the right people. Currently, xBOM offerings cover the most common scenarios – product and service launch (pre-launch and post launch), sales force readiness, partner enablement. In near future, Advaiya plans to launch xBOM offerings for many more relevant scenarios. Excited about the launch of xBOM, Mr. Manish Godha, Founder and CEO of Advaiya says “xBOM is all about enabling you to rapidly getting to value by supercharging your content marketing, taking the content development load off from you, and delivering high-quality, reusable content assets to you.” Advaiya has an extensive experience of developing relevant content assets and artifacts across the entire sales and marketing lifecycle for leading technology companies as well as innovative startups. For around eight years, they have been producing high quality, audience-targeted marketing and sales content for positioning technology products and solutions – whitepapers, videos, interactive ads, playbooks, articles, creatives, infographics, websites, discussion and conversation guides, mobile apps, emailers, newsletters, value pitch, compete collaterals, and more. Manish said that, “having the right content has always been important. But with the customers increasingly spending most of their time on digital mediums – web, mobile and social, and easy access to content management and dissemination tools, content marketing has gained traction and momentum. You can deliver your messages (in any form factor) to your audience within minutes, which is not possible using the traditional marketing channels. This has led to an increase in the demand for content.” With customers available on multiple touch points it is likely that a lead can be generated from anywhere. Companies, along with delivering the right content across different touch points, also need to be available on these channels to interact with their customers. Manish says, “that for having a competitive edge it is also important to ensure that you are spending enough time listening to your audience’s needs and continuously optimize your products and messaging accordingly. Our xBOM offering addresses just that. We partner with you to ensure that your content needs are met so you can look after strategy and actually spend time talking to customers and partners. We want to power your content marketing initiatives and believe that xBOM provides you the relevant materials that you need.” With xBOM, Advaiya’s focus is twofold. First is to provide directional support to customers on content planning and roadmap, and identifying the right channels to adopt based upon audience, business & technology contexts, etc. Second focus is to provide content development services – content writing, creative services, production and processing, quality assurance, and content management. Mr. Romi Mahajan, a renowned marketer, President of KKM Group, and an advisor to Advaiya Solutions commented, “xBOM is exactly the sort of breakthrough I have come to expect from Advaiya Solutions. Customers have a clear and well-defined need for package content that connects to their business scenarios but do not have the twin luxuries of large budgets and long time frames in which to realize value. xBOM is a perfect solution for this business conundrum.” The Advaiya xBOM launch coincides with the inauguration of one of the premier technology marketing events – Tech Marketing 360, which will start this week in California (US), where Manish has been invited to speak about his insights on technology marketing and Advaiya’s Technology Marketing-as-a-Service (TMaaS) offering. Get more details on Advaiya xBOM on – http://advaiya.in/xbom/. Read Advaiya xBOM blog – http://advaiya.in/blog/advaiya/advaiya-xbom-it-is-all-about-positioning-and-messaging/.
Advaiya xBOM – It is all about positioning and messaging
It’s a competitive world and let’s face it, we all worry whether we are providing appropriately targeted messaging for our products, meeting content needs, providing sufficient artifacts to aid the sales team for customer conversations, providing adequate support for our partner ecosystem….the list goes on! Almost everybody is investing a lot in content marketing- be it blogs, social media, whitepapers, datasheet, videos, you name it- to meet these needs. But is it conveying to your customers what they want to hear? Or is it just another piece of jibber-jabber! This makes it imperative that you produce the content assets which ensure the right messaging for the right audience through right channels. And that brings us to xBOM. Advaiya’s xBOM is a set of neatly packaged content offerings built to help you succeed. These offerings cover common scenarios – product and service launches, sales force training, partner enablement, and much, much more. In order to get your entire ecosystem ready, you need to build the right content, in the right form, delivered at the right time. xBOM is all about simplifying and optimizing your content marketing, reducing your workload, and getting to value rapidly. It’s really that simple. We will partner with you to ensure that your content needs are met so you can attend to strategy and actually spend your time talking to customers and partners. We want to power your content marketing initiatives and believe that xBOM provides you the materials you need while not breaking the bank. With xBOM you can: Launch your products in record time Target your content to the right audience Take time out to go strategic and talk to customers Connect with partners Aid your sales people with necessary tool to do well in field So you can use xBOM for: Product Pre-Launch Product Post-Launch Sales Readiness Ecosystem Enablement For starters, these packages have been defined at three levels – basic, regular and advanced to suit your outlay and roles. We, of course, have the flexibility to customize these packages to suit specific needs and context. We have launched xBOM today. And for more details on how you can transform the way you position your brand and offerings. Read the xBOM press release – http://advaiya.in/blog/advaiya/advaiya-launches-xbom-a-set-of-packaged-content-offering/.
Various trends in IT domains in 2014
Information Technology [IT for short] tends to see the bright sun in 2014 in the areas of Cloud services for SMBs and individual consumers, Big Data analysis and Visualization tools and techniques, Augmented Reality, and last but not the least Internet of Things [IoT for short]. Cloud Services has been around for a while and was majorly the area that was of focus for Large Enterprises however, with more and more consumers becoming aware of the benefits offered by cloud services for information access and exchange, SMBs also need to gear-up soon. The year 2014 would see more and more small and medium businesses making their shift towards cloud based service offerings in thirst to reach out to end consumers. SMB cloud offering essentially will also allow them to gel well with the end customer and cater to their day-to-day needs and wants, like refilling of house-hold stuff would no more be carrying shopping bags to retail stores, instead it would ideally be a matter of few clicks on the mobile device and get delivery at your doorsteps right away. With the realization of challenges that one may face with the data being generated around by various connected systems and resources, it becomes a necessity to dig deep and pull the right set of information from the vast oceans of “data”. Big data is all about finding that right set from the loads of data being generated till date. Enterprise as well as consumers would need tools and techniques to analyze and visualize the results being extracted from various data sources including social channels and media. 2014 would see organizations investing heavily in ‘big data analysis and visualization’ based solutions to penetrate deeper into the market with competitive and effective products and services offerings. Few examples of consumer-side analysis based on social channels and media are – sentiment analysis and social ratings of the individuals for defining popularity. Augmented reality is like a child who is gifted with various super natural powers and is exploring his way out with each application. Thanks to Google Glass, where we can see first big commercial implementation of the technique we always saw in Bond movies, for real use. Augmented reality is not new to world however, its application is what will shape the future of IT. Augmented reality would not only provide information to be displayed in more contextual and connected form, but also help in predictions and trending aspects. It’s not difficult to visualize Augmented Reality applications for rehabilitation and human body aids. With the possibilities and threats of connected smarter systems it is undeniable that there are few things yet to be understood and shaped when we look at Internet of Things. However, 2014 would continue exploring greater possibilities and areas of applications for IoT. IoT in its core is about getting most of things by tying them together through network and since we know Internet is the most widely and openly available network as of now, we see these things being connected together via Internet. In times to come, there would be choice of network and secured gateways which would allow the connected devices or things to be operated out from Internet in more secured way. Looking at the diverse IT trends, it will be interesting to identify the right mix of technologies and partners that will help businesses to cater effectively and effortlessly to their end consumers. Also published in – PC Quest and tele.net.in
Social Analytics – An Opportunity or Threat?
Social networking dominates lives of people who are of interest to any business. Social network sites have fundamentally changed the character of social interaction, both on an interpersonal and a community level. Social tools like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and many more, are now hosting a plethora of social activities of many-many people. This means that they generate huge amount of data about people’s preferences, behavior, sentiments, etc. But like any data, it is only meaningful if you can understand and gain useful insights from it. This need has given birth to “Social Analytics” which can be simply defined as Measuring, Analyzing, and Inferring from interactions and associations between people, topics and ideas. The level of analytics which the social analytics tools are offering is increasing rapidly. There are lots of opportunities within this domain. With an exponential rise in usage of social media, there has been a similar growth in social analytics tools. To name a few of them, you have Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, and lot many other analytics software from different vendors. Social Analytics can be fed into the decision-making process across all business activity, including campaign orchestration, product development and launch, customer advocacy and engagement processes, sales input and much more. So for instance, Social Media analytics can help you in creating targeted campaigns to allow deep customer understanding, and enable you to design the product accordingly. Then once the product is designed, you can seek the feedback from a particular set of users and based on the feedback, you can fine-tune the approach and launch the product. Social Analytics can help you to listen and analyze customer interactions about products or services and address customer concerns promptly. More so, you can track conversations to identify leads and business opportunities. You can manage online reputation and brand by capturing consumer data from social media to understand attitudes, opinions, recommendations, and trends. Businesses can go as far as recommending next best actions by predicting customer behavior, thereby, increasing customer satisfaction. Let’s take an example of retail industry as retailers were among the first companies to grasp the importance of social data. Retailers pioneered the practice of one of the most popular voluntary data collection programs in business — the loyalty card. The card collect an adequate amount of information about what, when, and where consumer buy products and services. When paired with advanced social analytic, a retailer can also understand why customer should buy the product based on the predicative customer behavior. Marketing team can structure the shopping experience such that it matches with the preferences of customers. This means catering to majority preferences such as the products favored by a majority of a store’s customer and micro-catering to address more specific customer preferences. These analytics may also be fruitfully used to have location specific layouts and collections. This means that store layouts and product range can vary substantially from one location to another, thereby, minimizing turn-around-time, and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Social analytics is not without its disadvantages. Undoubtedly, social analytics is big revolution for marketing. But there are still many questions that need to be answered, importantly, privacy and reliability. One of the disputes with social media is that advertising violates users’ individual privacy. Personal data is effectively used for targeted marketing. While many people don’t mind personalized advertising, they arguably had agreed to it when they signed up to use these services. And there is an ongoing argument about whether this practice is moral or legal. As social media is becoming a major part of our lives, the data which we share is also increasing and that too open and public. And this data is being extensively used by advertising companies to transmit personalized ads. This has given rise to another issue of over personalization. While it can be construed as an invasion on privacy, wrong messages (after all, any analytics is prone to some errors) can alienate customers. Another aspect to be cognizant of, is the divergence of online and offline lives. The online persona, aspirations, and behavior may not be right representation of the real or offline preferences. Also sizeable swathes of population may not be generating adequate social data. One has to always carefully consider whether data pulled from social media sites is credible enough to influence business decisions. For example, if inaccurate demographic information populates reports, organizations may create skewed marketing strategies and product improvements. Therefore, you should adopt some other traditional and conventional methods to validate the findings. Users of social analytics must also be careful and cognizant of the evolving and rapidly changing legal framework. Much of the current developments have benefitted from ambiguities or absence of law in this matter, and this is sure to change. Investments in social analytics can turn useless by a single change in statutes. These are many of the opportunities associated with social analytics, but at the same time we need mark a line between using social analytics for marketing and invasion of privacy. I would like to know your views on how to turn social analytics opportunities to your advantage, while abiding with the associated concerns and issues. Also published in – Financial Chronicle, dated – January 20, 2014 About the author: Badal is currently working in Advaiya as a Principal consultant, BI and Big Data technologies. He has twelve+ years of experience across various technology domains including BI, Big Data, Data Warehousing, Cloud computing, and more; and business functions including strategy development, pre-sales, business consulting, marketing, and trainings. The author in his current role provides high value consulting by delivering innovative and engaging solutions which embrace new technologies as they redefine the market.