Half of the people who call themselves social media expert wouldn’t even know when was Facebook or Twitter founded, or what is Yahoo’s Geocities or which was one of the earliest blogging services provided by an Indian company.

Social Media is an organic activity where the individuals matter the most. It is not a production or manufacturing unit, there is no chemical formula or scientific calculations. The social media team, their communication style, understanding of core philosophy of social media – these are the factors that makes a successful social media marketer.

So when you have to choose a social media marketer, amongst the zillions out there, check out the team’s personal social media brand.

Find out, does the agnecy or its team have a blog of their own? When you Google them, can you find them across multiple social media platforms?

We are confident that due diligence would lead you to Samyukta Media because there are  two strong competitive edge with us.

1. The survival instinct in the process of evolution
2. Strong branding for the organization via its Founder’s personal brand

2004 onward Sanjukta Basu, founder of Samyukta Media have had first-hand experience of the arrival and growth of new / social media tools and strategies. From the earliest days of blogging on Yahoo’s Geocities, to Rediffblogs, blogger.com to the technologically advanced wordpress.com; from earlier social networking sites like Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Yahoo 360, Ryze to the social networking superstar Facebook, and the latest, Pinterest she have been there on almost every platform, used every new media tool that have come, gone and survived.

New players might be quick in learning a technology, but they’d never fully know the philosophy of change and survival secrets needed during change.

Sanjukta also brings her personal branding to the organization, which gives us the edge we needed in a field where the barrier to entry is very low and thus too many players. Sanjukta have received several media accolades from national to international; Formal recognition and awards at international level for industry related activities; She regularly appears at industry related public events as guest speakers, panelists, and also regularly delivers guest lectures media and communication colleges. Sanjukta is a popular blogger and have led many city based bloggers communities in the past.

Samyukta Media was founded by Sanjukta in 2010 and was formally made into a partnership firm in Sep 2011. We are currently in the process of revisiting the company’s legal structure.

Keep in touch with our work on Facebook.com/SamyuktaMedia

In the recent past, several social media marketers had themselves invested or suggested their clients to invest in buying applications to build a FB landing page and a Fan Gate. These have been some of the most important features in Facebook while selling a social media marketing package to business owners.

Several agencies made and  sold applications which made creating a landing page and a fan gate very easy for anybody since no coding was required. Besides these basic applications there were several other applications that helped each business owner show case the best of their business on the Facebook page.

Suddenly effective from 30th March 2012 Facebook overturned everything we knew about Fan pages. With Facebook suddenly introducing timeline for all business pages, many of these features, particularly the landing page and fan gate features have now become redundant. Facebook have made the Timeline look universal for all business pages.

Everything in social media changes rapidly. Tools and strategies become stale news within a day. Therefore when you opt for a social media marketer, don’t align with someone who claims to know it all and do not accept guarantees.

Issued in public interest by a social media marketer!

More on the changes introduced by Facebook read this.

According ASSOCHAM reports some 6,700 million litres of alcoholic spirits were sold last year, making India the third largest alcohol consumer in the world. The figure expected to cross 19,500 million litres by 2015. Another report by research agency Datamonitor estimates that liquor sales in India will rise from $21.7 billion in 2009 to $39 billion by 2014.

Such a growing marketing for alcohol and the alcohol brands can’t do mainstream media promotion and advertisement. So where are they going?

To the Social Media chatter of course!

Read more on this here

The Indian Industries Association (IIA), now in its 26th year is an apex representative body of Micro, Small & Medium Industries with a strong membership base of more than 4500 Micro, Small and Medium Scale Units (MSME).

The IIA Noida Expo is in its 2nd edition and have already become one of Delhi & NCR’s biggest platform for MSME trading and buyer seller networking. Over 200 exhibitors are scheduled to participate in the expo.

As a part of our association with IIA, we have created a Social Media portfolio for IIA Noida and the Expo 2012. On behalf of my team I seek your support in making the social media activities a success. Please find the links below and extend your valuable support.

Visit the Event Blog - http://iiaexpo.wordpress.com/

‘Like’ the Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/IIANoida

RSVP the IIA Expo 2012 Facebook Event -https://www.facebook.com/events/104239329699755/

RSVP the LinkedIn Event - http://linkd.in/w7K1Oq

Follow on Twitter - https://twitter.com/iianoida

In addition we would also be live blogging the event on Day 1 from the venue where Samyukta Media would also have its own stall. Keep following this space for the live updates.

Social media consultant, Sanjukta Basu agrees and adds, “A lot of followers may be disappointed, but for someone who has say, 50,000 followers, a mere 500 unfollowing them will not make a big difference to their Twitter profiles.” She thinks that this phenomenon is not very different from advertisements on other media. “We have celebs endorsing products on all types of media, from TV commercials to print ads. Then why not on Twitter?” She says, “While such Twitter endorsements may garner a large number of followers, whether or not it ultimately translates into business for these brands, remains to be seen.”

Brand Communications – test of retention rate

We are constantly surrounded by brands. Everywhere we look we can see brands but how much of the brand communication is retained by our minds? What is the recall rate?

Here’s a simple test I always follow.

• Did you read today’s morning newspaper?
• Tell us what section did you read? News / sports / Entertainment / Classified? Which sections do you usually read?
• Do you remember the name of at least one brand that you saw in today’s newspaper. Which one is it?
• Do you remember a brand that you saw last evening on TV? Which one is it?
• Name a brand you saw on some outdoor media while coming to this Conference. Which one is it?
• Do you remember any celebrity name associated with the brand?

A simple test of brand retention would tell us that only the big brands who can afford to run a 360 degree multimedia ad campaign are retained in people’s mind. In addition celebrity endorsement also plays a big role. Traditionally, only the large businesses have been able to hire an ad agency or PR agency and run such advertisement and brand building campaigns. The entities in the small and medium (SME) sector, solo entrepreneurs, start-ups on the other hand have always used means like pamphlets and flier distributions, newspaper ads or networking and word of mouth marketing.

With internet and social media everything is changing. Social media is a digital version of the good old word-of-mouth marketing.  Today, social media is the most easy and cost effective means of communication.

Definition of social media

To simply define, ‘social media’ is a collection of simple, easy to learn and adapt, freely available internet based tools and platforms that can be used to reach out to a worldwide audience. The defining factor about social media is the ‘ability to establish real time dialogue in multimedia formats.’ Traditional media like Ad films, Radio, TV, Newspapers, outdoor hoardings, corporate websites are all one way medium. On the other hand social media tools like blogs, social networks, picture and video sharing enables two way communications which is friendly, open and democratic and simply put, ‘social.’

But ‘cost effective’ is not the only factor

We should not talk about social media just being cost effective. That sounds like social media is relevant only for those segments of entrepreneurs who cannot afford mainstream media brand communication. No, it’s not a case of “grapes are sour.” It is not just about the money, had that been the case these top most brands in India wouldn’t have joined the Social Media bandwagon.

Even NASA uses social media

As a matter of fact an entity like NASA wouldn’t join the social media Bandwagon if they didn’t see that cost effective or not social media offers a whole new kind of brand communication that has never been possible using any other form of traditional media.

So why is everybody joining social media?

Because of the revolutionary magical difference between traditional media and social media – the ability to establish a dialogue with, listen and respond to the consumers whenever, wherever and in whichever format.

• Real Time
• Two way communication
• Longer shelf life

Every brand has a story; every entrepreneur has a story, a cause a mission with which they start. Social media gives the brand an ability to tell their stories.

The Social Consumers

The number of internet users in India has crossed 100 million this September. It is predicted that in 2 years India would overtake United States in being the largest country to be on internet. There are currently 38 million Indians on Facebook. This large number of people are the social consumers.

Social consumers are different from traditional consumers in that they no longer take purchase decisions by simply watching a TV commercial or outdoor hoarding or newspaper ad. They want more from a brand. It is no longer enough to tell, “We made this cream, if you apply it, you would become fair.” The social now wants to know – How and why I would become fair? Who else have become fair? What were their experiences during the process?

So how to connect to social consumers

The social consumers go to their respective social networks to find out about a brand and then make a purchase. They go with the brand that extends a friendly hand towards them, a brand that shares its stories heart to heart with the consumers.

A brand can achieve that only by being present on the social networks, using the same tools and platforms that the consumers are using for their day to day communications.  The brand has to rise over the same old sales and target oriented greed and have to show love and respect for the consumers. They have to show that they care to listen and respond that they are sporting enough to handle negative remarks with dignity.

Slide 13 – some case studies

• Ananta Spa and Resorts – What they did right
• Emami – What they have missed
• Fortis Hospital – How they handled

We would discuss the above 3 case studies in the next few posts.

To be continued

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Women Entrepreneurship Unplugged’ and it had sessions on ‘Emerging Business Opportunities for women,’ ‘Funding Matras,’ and Cost Effective Ways to Create Brand and Sales Leads’

I was fortunate to share the speaker’s table in the 4^th session with Dr. Neena Sinha, Professor, GGSIP University, Meena Kapoor, Co-Founder and CEO, Netway India and Astroyogi.com, Seema Giri, COO, Astrowix.com and Pooja Kumar CEO & Founder, SME Networks Pvt Ltd.

Samyukta Media and I am truly honored and humbled by this memento. This puts a responsibility on our shoulders, we have to perform.

2nd Women Entrepreneurship Conference, Session 4 Panelists, left to right, Pooja Kumar, Dr. Neena Sinha, Seema Giri, Sanjukta Basu

Some of the other speakers of eminence were Neena Malhotra, President, FICCI Ladies Organization, Ester Martinez, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, People Matters, Sairee Chahal, CEO Fleximoms, RK Das, General Manager SIDBI and others. Here’s complete list of the speakers.

I completely enjoyed the day’s sessions and found them very informative. I particularly liked the session on ‘Funding Mantras.’ It was very motivating to hear the development bankers talk about how banks today are becoming more and more proactive in supporting women entrepreneurs from micro, small and medium enterprises by offering them bank loans. Mr RK Das, General Manager SIDBI gave a handy check list of things one should keep in mind while applying for loan. He talked about collateral free loan and mentioned that for a loan upto Rs. 10 lakhs the bank is not even allowed to ask for collateral.

He further mentioned two important online resources specially designed by SIDBI to handhold young first generation entrepreneurs through the process of seeking a bankloan.

www.msmementor.in

www.msmestartupkit.com

One of the most interesting moments of the day, one of my personal favourites was when Q & A round at the end of 2^nd session, a man asked this question to the panel

“How does your husband react to your entrepreneurship ventures?”

Sairee Chahal, CEO Fleximom replied,

“Let me throw the question back to you, when was the last time a man in a similar conference was asked, how does his wife respond to his ventures?”

There would always be sacrifices and adjustment to be made at the family front when you start a venture. For centuries women did all the adjustments, now its time for the men to understand and adjust. If they can’t, well too bad for them!

In my next post I would briefly discuss the fourth session topic and share the details of the talk I gave on “Cost effective ways to build a brand and generate sale leads.”

As many as 91 patients and staffers died a horrible death in Kolkata’s well-known hospital when a blaze in the basement engulfed its annexe building early Friday with noxious smoke, trapping helpless patients while doctors and others fled to safety.

This horrific incident is allegedly a result of the utter negligence on the part of the AMRI hospital staff and authorities. As soon as the news were out, Indian people on social media started pouring their outrage and lament over the incident. The Emami group a brand mostly known for its product ‘Fair and Lovely’ is one of the owners of the AMRI hospital. And as the outrage poured on Twitter ‘Emami’ became trending topic because everybody was angry at the brand and suggested people boycott all Emami products.

In between the angry tweets there was this irrelevant auto tweet from the handle @Bipasha Basu Fans:

Bipasha Basu’s New Ads for Emami Vasocare Lip Moisturiser – GET LIPS LIKE BIPS!

And this is why brand must engage actual people to handle their social media marketing and not let BOTs to send auto tweets which are ridiculous and irrelevant. Such tweets are bound to add salt to the wound and can prove very harmful for the brand’s social image.

Here’s how it looked on the twitter stream: