- That men like to have all the fun with the hot chick and then make the seedhi-sadhi, puja-path wali as their final pick!
Social Media ‘Experts’! Really?
July 9, 2012I had thought to write a post on this earlier too but for some or other reason never wrote one. But my last few interactions at different occasions made me think about this term Social Media “Experts” yet again. “Experts” and that too with 6-7 years of experience in Social Media! Like really? Every time I hear this term, I feel exactly same as when I hear about being Startup “Gurus” from the mouths of those who have never run or worked in a startup even once.
Was interacting with this one such so-called expert who is supposedly consulting many startups on marketing and social media strategies. Well, in the name of expertise all that he had to offer was ideas to increase “likes” on Facebook pages. To add to that, one of his ‘killer’ strategies for low cost marketing was make ‘viral’ films for clients. If I have to quote verbatim – “we make viral films for clients which will increase their fans on their Facebook pages”. Felt like telling – dude, being an expert the least you could have done is avoided using jargons like “make viral films”. I have no idea what does that really mean? I think you can only make films and expect it to go viral, how exactly can you “make a viral film” directly? Needless to mention that at least I have not come across any of the viral films made by them naturally on my FB or Twitter timeline.
Attended a small meet on flexi-working culture in India last weekend, intro round of marketing professionals and here it was – 7 out of 10 participants were “Social Media Experts”! Did a quick check, one of them was somewhat active on twitter, two had less than 200 followers and remaining four were not even present on twitter. While interacting with them, realized that either they never felt the need to join Twitter or they joined but didn’t find it to be interesting enough to pursue. Yes, they all knew Facebook and Twitter but that was all about it! Few likes on whatever and few tweets on whatever gave them sufficient confidence to call themselves as “Social Media Experts”.
In yet another incident, a close acquaintance who has joined a luxury travel company in India in a senior position needed some inputs on his products and marketing. I got to analyze the product and past campaigns of the company and to my utmost surprise the company whose founders are based of India had actually spent lakhs and lakhs of rupees in online campaigns every month. The campaign was run by some digital marketing expert and in the name of online campaign, all that he did was Google SEM. In that too, client has been charged on cost per lead basis with an explanation that Google charges it like that and with rates as high as… well no idea for reference point as in my experience I have never heard of such high lead rates ever! Don’t even want to go into details of campaign management rather mismanagement, as I think it has the potential to become an independent case study on what not to do in SEM campaigns. To just give you a sneak peak – neither the campaign was configured anywhere in analytics nor the campaign code was enabled on landing or any other page for tracking! And this was of course done by yet another “expert”, yes his Linkedin profile does contain the word expert prominently :-).
Not that the misuse of this term is anything new to us but I think with each passing day, there is a noticeable growth in the number of these so called experts around us. Having managed social media accounts for companies where I have worked and few other brands, I think I can share at least my views on evaluating any candidate for social media management in general. Well this post is long enough for now, I will be back with my thoughts in a subsequent post soon.
My Guest Post on “India Inspired Designs”
July 2, 2012MoMusings: 1
June 19, 2012Calling all Women Entrepreneurs
June 7, 2012This post is especially for women readers of my blog. Women’s Web team is conducting a survey on ‘Women and Entrepreneurship’ in India. The result of this survey would be shared freely on their website. The team feels that with more women in India starting businesses than ever before, it’s a good time to understand what are the factors challenging women as entrepreneurs, and what they need to succeed. This study will be useful to existing / aspiring women entrepreneurs, advisors and or anybody who works with entrepreneurs.
So, can I request all my women readers who are running their own businesses to take out few minutes of their busy schedules and respond to their survey here? The more the participation, the better the analysis. So, please support by responding to the survey as well as spreading the word. Thanks!
Quick Bytes: I’m back and with a ‘bharat bandh special offer’ :-)
June 1, 2012I’m back and this time after a really looooong break from this blog. Phew five months into Mommydom already and it seems just like yesterday. Oh yes, in case you don’t know, then let me announce it here as well that I’m actually Mommy Kanupriya now :-). It’s my new phase of life that has been keeping me busy and away from many things including my love for blogging. But I ain’t complaining. Like most new moms say, this phase of life is indeed the most special one, something which I can’t put in words ever and all the changes or adjustments are actually worth it. With things settling down a bit, I’m now looking forward to revive this blog again. Though have been somewhat active on my personal blog but was not able to manage sufficient time at a stretch to concentrate and write any post suitable for Marketing Chit-Chat.
Thanks to those who dropped me an email asking about my whereabouts and reasons for this blog being inactive. I have lot to share and lot to learn from all of you, so look forward to posts and comments exchange once again in this space. For today just a “Quick Byte” – how many of you received this email from Indiaplaza today?
I did and for a moment I couldn’t believe it. “Bharat Bandh Special Offer” – are you serious? In the name of this Bandh, while some were busy burning buses and some ranting about it on social media, here came a gem of a communication from a brand like Indiaplaza from whom I didn’t expect something like this. I mean what was that – a #WTH, a #Facepalm or a #Fail? Well, looks like the email communication guys seriously misunderstood the holiday on account of bandh to be a festival special holiday :-P, otherwise why on earth would you announce an offer especially for Bharat Bandh? You know as I always say a prompt “chance pe dance” marketing is smart but then you better know when and how to capitalize on the chance rightly. After seeing this I think even offers in name of potato/tomato days would have been ok but a bandh special promotion? What do you think?
Of Ms Pandey & Ms Banerjee
May 29, 2012Thought to be on twitter for sometime and get updated with whats and hows of today but duh, whatay timeline. Full of negativity & cynicism! In fact every second tweet right now is about IPL5 & KKR tamasha. Now before I proceed further, let me tell you clearly that neither I’m IPL crazy nor SRK fanatic (oh yes, like most gals of my age group even I was crazy for him during my teenage days but then maturity prevailed; sigh, gone are those days of being lost into mush movies of Rahuls & Rajs). To be honest, I didn’t watch even one single IPL match this year; twitter micro updates on wins and losses were enough to bear. But this frenzy after the KKR win is now getting too much to handle. And surprisingly none of the hungama is actually on the final match or the players or the captain, it’s on… well let’s have a look at some of these:
- Not the win of the team but the apology of Mr. Khan.
- Not the genuine excitement of many others but the not so excited ‘I’m excited’ statement of Ms Khan – man, people had some real fun stuffs on this one.
- Ms Banerjee and her hyper exhilaration and her celebrations and her gifts and her … well, lets leave it at this!
- Match fixing sagas which till evening of the finals were being predicted for CSK but immediately after the win, got very conveniently pushed to KKR.
- Ms Pandey! For past three days, a certain Ms Pandey has been sitting tight on the trending topics list. Not only that, on the night of win it was not Gautam Gambhir but this Ms Pandey (I refuse to write her full name and add yet another page to her credit in searches) who was actually trending worldwide. For what – for her ‘dare to bare’ act, the correlation of which with cricket only a brain of hers can rationalize!
The Jungle Book by Campfire
May 20, 2012- As I mentioned earlier, it’s a visual treat! Have to say this about the graphic team of Campfire – your presentation is class apart, really love the way stories get illustrated at your end.
- Language is simple and can be easily understood by kids of reading age group.
- Length of the book is also apt, neither too long for kids to lose interest nor too short for grown ups to miss their attention. 101 pages of total fun!
- Like most Campfire books, even this one comes with some interesting trivia about “Rudyard Kipling”, “The Jungle Book” story and movie at the end.
- There is a cute poster of Mowgli and his fun at the end of the book .
My First Mother’s Day
May 17, 2012Kuch toh log kahenge…
March 16, 2012- After all, the baby was not left just like that, wasn’t my mother whom I trust the most there at home to take care of him?
- It was sleep time for the baby and by the time we came back, wasn’t he sleeping peacefully with a lovely smile on his face?
- Weren’t all his necessities duly pre-arranged and explained to mom?
- The multiplex was at a distance of hardly 2 kms from my home, so one phone call from mom and wouldn’t have we reached back in max 10 mins?
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