Social Media: New Game, New Rules

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The speed at which social media has taken off has been unprecedented in the history of technological change. It has taken just seven years for Facebook to reach 750 million users worldwide and this is not the only social media site to have attracted large numbers of users in a very short space of time. This massive take-up is having a profound effect on the way in which customers seek information and make purchase decisions. So how can companies take advantage of the opportunities presented by social media to make their mark on this vast audience? And what drives customers to actively engage and follow some brands on social media sites and not others?

If we look closely, we can find the  five key characteristics of ‘socially adaptable’ and successful brands, which I believe all organizations can adapt and learn:

► Facilitate open dialogue

► Engage proactively

► Connect beyond product

► Deliver integrated experiences

► Collaborate and co-develop

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Social media is changing the world, and there is no going back. Technological and demographic trends are likely to further accelerate the impacts of social commerce on organizations and their brands in coming years. Leading brands across sectors and geographies are positively embracing this change. Recognizing that the old rules no longer apply, they are seeking to exploit the opportunity presented by social media to build direct, deeper and more relevant relationships with their customers and users. They use these relationships to generate insight from their social interactions with customers, and rigorously apply this insight to their commercial advantage.

Many brands have not yet adapted to social commerce; some will catch up, others won’t. The last time organizations and brands faced such a fundamental change in how their customers engaged and make purchase decisions was during the eCommerce revolution a decade ago. Some brands led the eCommerce revolution, some successfully adapted to it, there were however a number of high‑profile casualties. The new game therefore favors the brave. The winners will be those organizations and brands that seek out the commercial opportunities presented by social commerce and embrace the changes required to adapt to the changing ‘norm’ around them.

Many digital companies want to take advantage of the huge opportunities presented by social media, but do not yet have the organizational structure or the capabilities they need to support their brands effectively in a social world. This is where TO THE NEW Digital comes with a strong reputation. They are pioneers in combining Technology, Analytics, Marketing & Content for digital transformation across various industries by providing both omni-channel analytics and social media analytics. These services help customers to have in-depth insights like Customer marketing strategy, Social media monitoring & Trend Analysis etc across all digital channels. They understand how to derive commercial value from social media and quantify it & hence give a tough competition to premium digital companies such as Sapient Nitro / Accenture Digital on services / IBM Digital etc.

TO THE NEW Digital is a premium digital services company that combines the power of technology, analytics, marketing and content for digital transformation. We are a team of over 600 people which includes technology evangelists, social media experts, content specialists, and creative mavericks who have transformed businesses of more than 300 companies spread across 30 countries worldwide. TO THE NEW Digital is also a strategic partner of many global companies including Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), YouTube, DataStax and MongoDB

ThoughtBuzz – A Complete Social Media Analytic Solution

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As brands evolve their social media strategies and move towards data driven marketing, the evolution of social media analytics tool has been an interesting scenario to watch. From paid to the free ones, these tools have evolved in their offerings, quality of data mining, stunning UI and design.

Brand managers and agency professionals have always looked at the aforesaid parameters to choose the best tool for their need. Today, I will be reviewing the tool ThoughtBuzz to help brand and agency professionals understand how they can work with it.

Based out of Singapore, ThoughtBuzz has been around since 2009 has worked with some of the big names in the industry such as Toyota, P&G Olay, Myntra etc.

Lets get into the details !!

The Dashboard

The first thing I noticed about ThoughtBuzz was its ability to collate data from all the social media profiles present at different platforms and showcase it on a single dashboard. Thus, saving a lot of time switching between platforms and profiles.

At present, it helps you track profiles in the following platforms:

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. YouTube
  4. Instagram

While many brands adopting Instagram, tools allowing you to track performance there is very less or absent as of now. In this context, ThoughtBuzz seems to be way ahead of its competitors.

dashboard

Apart from trends and weekly/monthly charts, the dashboard will also give you post-wise analytics to help you analyze your content strategy and understand which kind of updates are performing well for you.

Interface

I found the interface user friendly and clean. There are different sections where you can check your notifications, conversations, analytics and influencers etc. The information shared within these sections are easy to understand which makes it easy for any analyst to derive insights. The Facebook Analytics dashboard might look similar to Facebook Insights but only the useful charts are shown. So you can see trends and data charts that are not as complex as Insights. The design is also easy on the eyes and uncluttered, and at no point you will be overwhelmed. I have always come across social media management tools that throw out a lot of data which clutters the interface; in contrast, this is a breath of fresh air.

charts

Moreover, the tool is completely optimized for mobiles. So whatever charts and trends you see on your laptop, you can view them seamlessly on your handheld device as well. You don’t need to download any apps.

Influencers

ThoughtBuzz has realized that brands and agencies are focusing more on influencer marketing and relations management; so they help you not only to identify influencers but also connect with them.

influen

Based on the interactions of your fans within your community, the tool helps you identify those who are the most active and also your critics. By filtering them, you can build strong relations with them. This, in turn, will motivate them to spread the word about you; alternately, you can invite them for your next influencer campaign.

Improvement

There are always room for improvement. When I added multiple accounts to it, it seems to take a lot of time to get the data. may be its due to amount of data. But still it can be improved. Also with vast of people using LinkedIn and Pinterest if it can be added, it would be top notch.

Conclusion

A minimalistic look and easy navigation makes it very easy to use. You don’t have to look around much for insightful data. The tool is robust and helpful for any analyst – be it an expert, intermediate or a beginner. I would suggest you to give it a shot for your social media tracking, at least with the free plan, and see it how it fits in your analytics plan.

Ek Nayi League

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Leagues ! Leagues everywhere, Justice league in movies, Premiere and champion leagues in sports !! Everything just comes at the same time !! But now its time for a new kind of league where in you can win loads of money !!

Intrigued? Well you must be !!

But it isn’t very simple as it sounds. You may have to use your mind if you need to sweep that money to your bank account. YES !! YEH LEAGUE HAI DIMAG KI LEAGUE !! Even you can watch Kapil Dev commenting on this saying how celebrities can fail if they played his Nayi League with all their heart because it needs brain more than heart to win this league.

Indian Trading League:

This is Indian Trading League (ITL) India’s newest trading platform wherein you can win Rs. 1 Crore and get a chance to become India’s Smartest Investor. The ITL is a pan India competition to allow participants to showcase their investing and trading skills and outperform other market participants in a real market environment across asset classes including stocks, derivatives and commodities to win the ultimate respect of being India’s Best Trader.

It is formed by SAMCO Ventures Limited with a simple thought – To bring together market participants across the country with a spirit of healthy competition. The idea is to drive market players to adopt a competitive approach to their trading and investing & aim at generating the highest possible net return. Each participant will be able to rank and compare their performance to the others in the market and strive harder to do better. The competition aims to identify and motivate excellent traders and investors across the country and bring them forward by rewarding them with several prizes, money management opportunities and a lot more. It is the only platform with real money and real participants. All participants will be required to open their accounts with the Execution Broker SAMCO Securities and SAMCO Commodities and trade in the real markets and generate real returns with real money.

And Guess what? There are no entrance fees to participate in Indian Trading League, Just a trading & Demat account would be required to be opened with the execution broker – SAMCO.

And the participation can also be done with very simple steps.

  • Sign Up – Agree to the Terms and Conditions & Open an account with the Execution Broker
  • Introduce Capital – Introduce the minimum capital required to your trading account with the Execution broker
  • Trading – Start trading on leading exchanges in India – NSE, BSE and MCX
  • Trade and WIN! – Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly and Annually

Well to sum it all up, there are loads of fantasy leagues around the net wherein we can play some virtual games with/without using our minds because mostly luck plays a lot in those leagues. But this is a new concept all together where in we play with real money and real markets. If we use our mind wisely, we can win loads of money with this.

Stop waiting !! Get set to win !! Visit Link for More Info: http://www.eknayileague.com/

Lets Digitize India

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Introduction:

As we all know, Digital India is an initiative of our beloved Government of India to integrate the government departments and the people of India. It aims at ensuring the government services are made available to citizens electronically by reducing paperwork. The initiative also includes plan to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. Digital India has three core components. These include the creation of digital infrastructure, delivering services digitally and digital literacy.

Vision Of Digital India:

Make all Public Services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man

Even though this project is slated for completion by 2019, with global tech giants such as Intel fostering our government’s vision of a Digital India through its ‘Digital Skills for India’ and ‘Innovate for India’ initiatives, the project can complete way sooner than the planned date. Intel has been fostering technology as the enabler for creating a digitized India.

Why to Digitize?

Digitizing India is process of evolution. We live in 21st century where everything is getting modernized and digitized. If we still use paper and pen and loads of manual record books at every office, it will look like we haven’t evolved. When whole world is booking tickets online, if we stand in queue to do the same, we go a step backwards in making India a developed nation. So to evolve as a nation and make India a Developed nation we have to Digitize India.

How to Digitize?

We know a fair bit about digitizing. It means making it available online to the world wide web. Digitizing India is like digitizing a Brand. Just like how we promote and market a brand to more exposure in social media, similar steps needs to follow to Digitize India. Nations bright minds have collaborated and came up with National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) as a solution to Digitize India. The plan is to make all government services available via electronic media to the every citizen of India.

How e-Governance helps Digitize India?

e-Governance makes the Government Smart. Through usage of e-Governance common man gets empowered. Through its usage all government services will be available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. The transparency which is much needed in a democracy can be bought back through e-Governance. It is also a wonderful tool to bring accountability and whistle blowing in India. Efficient e-governance is an innovative way to deliver government services and exchange information with citizens in a convenient and transparent way, saving both time and money. Increase in smartphones and internet access can surge the growth of e-governance. With many nations following this path, we can take a leaf out of their books as experience and fasten our process. Also with many multilateral organizations upping efforts to share e-governance experience such as Intel through its ‘Digital Skills for India’ and ‘Innovate for India’ initiatives fostering technology for #DigitialIndia & Better tomorrow.  With innovative apps and technology which can reach common men, we can surely Digitize India and make it top of the developed nation list.

Lets Join hands with INTEL and make #DigitalIndia !!

 

Social Media in Mobile VS Web

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We all live in a world where social media is dominating all aspects of our day to day life. With the emergence of so called smart phones social media rise has peaked and it’s easily available for each and everyone with a mobile in hand.

Even though boom of social media happened through Web now it looks like an outdated old version and Mobiles make it a new updated version which pleases everyone. With mobiles it make social media connections much easier as we can do everything on the go.

Both Official and personal works have become much easier and affordable with the use of mobiles. The Upward graph of the mobile usage has made us all part of the CONNECT CLASS. We stay connected to the world every time we switch on the data in our mobiles.

This has changed the way we think, react and do our deeds.

As the above stats show, the rise and growth is always up, as it impacts all the activities of our day to day life.

Official Deeds:

Most of us configure Official emails in our mobiles and install communicators such as LYNC, CISCO WEBEX and other IM clients which are easily available in app stores. This makes it easy to work from home and stay connected to work environment everywhere. The Email clients also merges the events and meetings to our calender and reminds us with alerts, so we don’t miss any schedule.

Personal Deeds:

Remembering birthdays and anniversary is such a difficult task 😛 But these mobiles just makes it so easy. It just access ones social media profile and adds all such info to calender so we don’t have to miss out a party or forget to wish anyone.

These smartphones opens a new door of easy accessibility. It brings everything to our hands. This is the reason its booming everyday and leaving a huge gap between web usage on desktops/laptops etc.

Mobiles helps us stay connected to the whole wide world through usage of apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, whatsapp, viber, skype etc etc.

PS : I made this post using smartphone on my way home from office. No wonder social media on mobile is going up.

“I am participating in the #SMWBangalore activity at BlogAdda in association with Social Media Week Bangalore“.