I had intended to write on another topic this week but over the week I have spoken to a few entrepreneurs who called for social media gyan and they left me steaming at the ears, so here goes…

Everybody seems to be wanting success, they want to be ‘the’ brand online, they want tons of followers, an abundance of likes, loads of comments, uncountable leads, and of course an epidemic of guaranteed conversions. BUT, but they do NOT want to do the work.

Not wanting to do the hard work of networking, building a community and a presence online is all fine for a company or business with a lot of money. These rich guys can hire an agency to do the work. But it’s not about the money, because it’s more about hiring the right agency who will do the right job, and that does take money. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

But what happens when you are a start-up, a one man show or a small team with very little funds, how then do you find the funds for these agencies? How do you succeed online? How do you become ‘the’ brand?

I keep saying this to every business owner and entrepreneur I speak to
– only you know your business best, only you know the pulse of your product or service, only you know your customers heart, only you can be the best voice of your brand – and I haven’t changed this stance in the 5 years I have been a social media consultant. This is my top reason for why you should manage your own social media. Especially when you are starting out.

Yes, I agree it’s a fair bit of work but then so was your idea when you first started out in your business. Making the idea a reality took hard work, you wouldn’t just have outsourced it and got someone else to do it, would you? Well, it’s the same here, you’re going to have to do the work to reap rewards.

And you don’t have to do everything, be everywhere and all that. You can choose how much you want to do and where you want to do it. Choosing your networks well and managing your time on it efficiently will lead to great results over time – connections, relationships, and community. And these are real, and you know that for sure because you created them.

Where are the leads and money you say? These connections and relationships that you build slowly over time will create a community for you. And communities are great because over time they become your voice, they make the leads and sales happen.

Startup owners that I have spoken to are always looking to see how they can increase sales, but I don’t find a lot of them doing things to build goodwill, connect and interact with people (notice I didn’t say customers), or be themselves online. They are parts of groups but more of them have to do with entrepreneurship than their service or product.

Online marketing isn’t very different from traditional marketing. It’s just word-of-mouth and relationship marketing taken into the virtual world. The same old school rules apply. Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done to you. Build for the future, not for tomorrow and you’ll be in a beautiful place.

Don’t outsource. It isn’t impossible to manage your own social media, just start small and be yourself. Also be consistent. And then just give it a little time. The magic will happen. And when it does I promise it will be worth it, and best of all you’ll be enjoying yourself while doing it. Social is fun you know! 😉

The last few years have seen a rise in the use of online networks in India. More and more people are going online now and Facebook has become a common word. A year ago my Mom got herself a Facebook account and today my Granny asks us to login (to the “Diary” ask she calls it or Facebook as we know it) so she can check on her Grandchildren’s updates and photos. My Granny is 85 years old and that says a lot about the use of social media in India.

The age of children using the internet is dropping and more adults are getting comfortable with the internet every day. Facebook and Twitter are now used to share more than photos and life updates – they are a place to share successes, failures and most importantly voice opinions. This is why if you do not get on this bandwagon now, you may lose the race.

Here are a few reasons why you need to take notice of Social Media and Plan a Strategy –

The Way People Buy Has Changed
The way people buy products and what influences them has changed. Today people don’t get swayed as much by ads; that’s where the process starts. An average Joe would see an ad and like what he sees. He then goes online and does a bit of research. He reads about the product and checks reviews. He posts his desire for a product and asks his friends for their opinion on a social site like Facebook or Twitter.

Today this is a crucial point of sale. What his friends say can make or break the sale. Their opinion is an important part of his decision making. So it’s not enough to just sell to him, it’s important to make sure that his friends feel good about your product and promote it.

People Will Talk Even If You’re Not There
My husband recently bought an iPad. He thinks it’s the best tablet device available today but since it comes from Apple – a proprietary company it has its drawbacks. Last week he updated the software and in the process a lot of things stopped working. He has been very vocal about just how upset he is with the iPad and Apple on Facebook.

Consumers today may not always talk about how great a product is but they definitely will tell the world if it doesn’t work. It’s an old sales adage – a happy customer may tell one person or two but an unsatisfied customer will tell TEN.

Customers are talking about your product online – they may say good things or bad, but they are definitely talking about it even if you are not listening.

It’s Not Just The Sale!
It’s no longer about a sale. In this day and age of active participation on Social Networks, you need to win over a customer before, at and after the sale if you want a successful business. Your sales approach, how you conduct the sale and your follow-up will be talked about.

If you have won over a customer on all three counts you can be assured that he/she will evangelise your product and bring in more customers.

Online Communities
Facebook and Twitter are just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of niche communities and groups have sprung up around topics lately. You can start a group on just about anything on Facebook or networks like Ning – from your favourite washing machine brand to your views on Gandhi.

These communities share views and opinions among themselves but a lot of it is also public. They post reviews on sites, comment on blog posts and voice their opinions in conversations online. Their views can make or break your sale.

Today to reach out to your customer you need to move from the traditional ‘push’ marketing method to a ‘pull’ strategy. You need to listen to them, understand their needs, plan your social media strategy and make your information available to them when they want it.

A couple of days back I received some Marketing Charts from HubSpot. Here are some stats I found very useful for small businesses and entrepreneurs to know. Keep in mind that most of these numbers are from U.S. web users but with the internet aren’t you selling/offering services to the world? 🙂 (and India is headed here in the future so better start early!)

• Social media site users spend an average of 5.4 hours a month engaged in networking sites.
• 53.5 billion minutes per month spent on Facebook
• The average Facebook user spent seven hours, 46 minutes on the site monthly
• 734.2 million unique visitors to Facebook.com globally in June 2011, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Twitter.com comes second reaching 144.4 million visitors (up 56%). LinkedIn.com is fourth with more than 84 million visitors
• Facebook, has an average monthly audience of more than 140 million vs its nearest competitor Blogger with 50 million. That means Facebook reaches 70% of active internet users.
• From 9% of US market share of visits, Facebook has now reached about 65%. YouTube has gone from 9% to 20% and is steadily climbing. Twitter and LinkedIn seem to be staying constant at 2 to 3%.
• Globally Europe leads in the average hours spent on social networking sites by 38.1%. N. America has 21.4% and Asia-Pacific has 16.5%.
• According to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index Facebook scores the lowest satisfaction score. Google on the other-hand was one of the highest scoring companies.
• In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site to 8th place.
• Women make up majority of visitors to social networks, and people aged between 18-34 have the highest concentration of visitors among age groups.
• Mobile users accessing social networks on the phone in the older generation (+55) have doubled since last year.
• 41% of both video and search ad viewers have taken some type of action from an, while only 28% of social media ad viewers were inspired to act.
• 63% of Facebook users what something in return when ‘Like’ing a page.
• 80% of social network users prefer to connect to brands via Facebook.
• 6 in 10 online shoppers say user-generated customer product reviews have a good impact on their buying behavior
• An average of 29%, that’s 3 of 10 consumers seek buying advice.

That’s a lot of numbers but it’s clear that for now Facebook cannot be ignored. Customers are talking and connecting on Facebook and companies need to be there engaging with them or they will be missing out! YouTube and videos are a great way to engage with your audience and its steadily growing in usage. Not to be left out is Google+. I’d like to see how it fares a year from now; instinct says it’s just gonna keep climbing the usage charts – so get your Google+ Corporate Page Now!

You can download the entire report at Hubspot.

It’s been a busy, packed weekend but very fruitful. In all the conferences and sessions I’ve attended on Social Media this one offered the most bang for my buck. Since I think it added value I’m writing this post to thank all the speakers for sharing and to let others interested in social media know that they shouldn’t miss the #Social India Conference 2012. 😀

Before I go on, here’s a few people I met over twitter and then in real life at the conference.
Prasant Naidu – @LHInsights,
Ambuj Tiwari – @TweetGyan,
Thilak Rao – @Thilak,
Sachin Karnik – @_SachinKarnik,
Millie Khanna – @Anomillie
It was nice to put a face to an ID; keep tweeting 🙂 I met a lot of other people too; thanks to all who made my weekend such fun.

Now onto the conference, we had 11 speakers by my count and the majority were great. I’m gonna list out and thank those that added value according to me, the rest I’m choosing to ignore 😀

These are just my highlights! The speakers talked about a lot of things and I can’t and won’t go into too much about it here. If you missed it, tough luck; make sure you attend the next conference. 😛

Stefan Kolle – @FLB_StefanKolle
www.futurelab.net
Stefan reinforced all I believe Social Media is about. It’s putting the customer first. It’s not about what you want to tell your customer but about what customers want to tell you and what they are saying about you. It’s about what they need and not what you want. Thanks Stefan.

Shashank Nigam – @simpliflying
www.simpliflying.com
Shashank’s talk was an eye-opener to all the airlines are doing across the world in social media and some of them are doing a great job even if their (customer) service still sucks 😀 I kept wondering how he chose the airline industry to work in until Kiruba told us. Wish I had had the chance to ask Shashank myself. Do you want to know? Ask Shashank at @simpliflying 🙂

Valerie R Wagoner – @valrozycki
www.zipdial.com
Valerie’s company offers a very interesting service for India where almost all of the population has mobile phones but only a small section has smart phones and uses the internet extensively. ZipDial offers companies a way to get feedback and activity from users using phone numbers that they just give missed calls to. That means it costs customers nothing but gives companies invaluable feedback and a way to engage with users. Make sure you check it out!

Gillian Muessig – @SEOmom
www.SEOmoz.org
Gillian shared her story of how SEOmoz came to be and a lot of other things. Her story was an inspiration – as mother of three kids working is tough and making it even tougher – thanks Gillian for reminding me about tenacity. They other point that I’m not likely to forget soon is their company ethic – TAGFEE – Transparency, Authenticity, Generosity, Fun, Empathy, Exceptional; I loved that and hope to follow it always.

Also Gillian thank you for the sticker and the little MozBot pendrive. It’s going to be a prize possession for some time to come. (Can’t wait to show it to the hubby and see him burn :D)

Jim Long – @NewMediaJim
www.vergenewmedia.com
Jim talked over Skype at the conference and reminded me yet again of just how small our world has become. It was interesting to listen to an NBC Newsman – his life and his take on social media. Your quip that you don’t have 44,000 followers but rather 44,000 teachers touched my heart.

Eric Weaver – @weave
www.antseyeview.com
First of all thank you Eric for spear heading the conference, it added a lot of value to my work in Social Media and MY LIFE. Touching peoples lives is the key to social today and you led by example. 🙂

Eric shared great insights about how companies use social media and how they should be using it. Just like Stefan, you reinforced my beliefs when the world seems to be saying otherwise; thank you.

Kiruba Shankar – @Kiruba
www.kiruba.com
Kiruba is a man you should make time to meet and interact with. He is so many things and yet just one man and a humble one at that. I’m looking forward to getting to know him better on Twitter and maybe even in the real world 😀

BTW if you’re a comics person or even if you’re not – please help Kiruba with his Limca Book of Records Attempt to have the largest collection of comics in India.

Shauna Causey – @ShaunaCausey
Shauna has worked for Comcast and had the opportunity to experience the difference one man can make. If you don’t know the @Comcastcares story, just Google it and read Frank’s version . Thanks Shauna; I knew the Comcast story but it was great to hear it first-hand.

Narendra Nag – @narendranag
www.narendranag.com
I bumped into Narendra at coffee on the first day and got talking just coz I felt he had a wacky sense of humour (don’t know too many people like that and I like that – wacky people that is :D) Took me a while to realise he was a speaker but not before I’d said some things I might not have if I’d known. 😛

His presentation was insightful and thought provoking. Here’s a guy I’d like to hear more from over the years.

Sean Moffitt – @SeanMoffitt
www.wiki-brands.com
A friend on twitter told me she was a friend of Sean’s and that I shouldn’t miss his talk. Truthfully I didn’t take it very seriously and almost did miss his talk. Mom was baby-sitting for me (I have three dogs, if you can call them that!) and she had to leave so, I had to return home before 6pm. At the last minute I asked her if she could please extend her deadline; and Moms being Moms she said yes. Thanks a ton Mama.

It was totally worth it, Sean’s presentation was fun but also very insightful and thought-provoking. A great way to end the conference – with a head full and packed with thoughts and ideas. I can’t put it all in words so gonna simply say – Thanks a ton Sean for making it! (Special thanks to Mariellen @BreatheDreamGo for pointing him in the right direction :D)

Last but not the least a special thanks to AkshayaPatra, Anant and Infinity. I have heard of AkshayaPatra’s work before but listening to so many people who have seen it first hand was touching. Lately I seem to be coming across so many people who are making a difference and changing the world – not in big ways but in small steps – but like they say ‘little drops of water make an ocean’. Kudos to AkshayaPatra and Anant. If you have a moment, check them out and help out – it doesn’t take much and costs just as much as a Pizza these days 😀

While checking out Facebook today I noticed an ad for Grabbon (facebook ads are definitely getting better). Curious about the deals they are offering in Bangalore, I decided to check it out.

The How Grabbon Works Page says “Grabbon’s mission is to help you find awesome things to do around your city without emptying out your wallet. Leave it to us to find exciting things to do and see amazing discounts off the original price.”

Grabbon seems to have some good deals to offer especially for food. But getting the deal isn’t as straight forward as it seems and therein lies it power.

So let’s break that down – Grabbon offers an exclusive deal every day. If you like the deal you book it by paying a small token amount. However doing this does not mean you get the deal. The deal has a minimum requirement of bookings and only if that requirement is met will you get your coupon. If the minimum number is not reached your amount is refunded.

The key to Grabbon’s success will lie in this minimum requirement. Imagine that they are offering a deal that you really want and that deal requires 10 bookings. At this point, at some level, Grabbon and you have the same need (10 bookings). To get your deal you will pass the information onto your friends and influence them to buy it too. This is where the message goes viral.

Grabbon’s deals are an excellent example of social influence marketing. Everyone benefits, it’s a win-win – the restaurant gets a lot of mentions, Grabbon the traffic and you the coupon.

Have you seen any examples like it? What do you think of Social Influence Marketing? Have you noticed it in your day-to-day life?

I am constantly on the lookout for good social media sites and here is my latest find.

Sendible helps you to connect with your friends, family, customers and co-workers by sending all types of messages from one place – now or in the future. I took a quick look around and liked what I saw though it still can do better.

The sign-up was pretty easy and clean. Had to wait a while though for the confirmatory email. The welcome page has a listing of all the sites you can schedule on, and there are quite a few. You can post on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter among others. You can also schedule Blogs, Email and even Flickr.
Before being able to use any of the services, you will have to enter details of the networks you want to use. You can connect not only to your Facebook profile but also your Facebook pages. That’s a nice touch!

You can import your contacts from most emails services. Sendible supports Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo or you can use a .csv file. The process is simple and easy and you also have the option of selecting which contacts to import. The Address book is well spaced out and easy to navigate.

The email setup is easy to use and even lets you blind copy everyone if you are mass mailing. The Multi Message allows you to send/schedule on multiple platforms and when scheduling you can also make messages recurring to act as reminders, however the scheduler right now only lets you go upto 30 hours. Hope they soon include days, weeks and months.

The sms scheduler allows only 160 characters and lets you get all replies to your sms as an email. A great marketing tool! However you have to buy credits to use the sms feature, hence not free 🙁

Sendible seems to be the only tool I have come across recently that allows multi-social network scheduling/posting for free. (I use SocialOomph quite a bit and I hate the fact that Facebook scheduling is not free). When scheduling status updates you can include URL’s and images too!

Sendible also lets you setup reminders for yourself by email or sms. Though am not so kicked by this as I can do this on my phone or outlook as reminders anyway.

On repeat login you will get to your homepage which is quite nifty. At a glance you can see scheduled messages, tasks and birthdays. You can also send out quick emails and status messages.

Something to note is that all messages will have ads in them unless you have a Sendible Pro account. The paid service also offers an newsletter sign-up widget for your blog. The widget adds the customer data to your Sendible list and so you can schedule and send out your newsletter right from here. You can even customize your newsletter and send them to select groups.

On the whole a great social media scheduler! It caters to almost everyone’s needs.

Photo Credit – Sendible