Iridium Interactive Blog » @iridiuminter

Small Businesses get savvy with Social Media

iridiumInteractive — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:44:54 +0000

Not long before when large brands started reaping profits, small companies raised their heads to this phenomenon called Social Media. Social Media Marketing that was once seen as off-bounds for small businesses has finally caught the fancy of small business owners. Its about time that they have realized social media is “one size fits all”. So, simply put it, any SME can experiment and create their formula to leverage their business potentials. In the competitive economy that is India, social media could be the biggest differentiator between competitors. Its becoming more evident by the day that every company is finding its unique recipe. ..and breaking the social beat!

Marketing has completed a full circle with social media. It started with making products customized to the needs of the consumers, then with the modernization of industries consumers were happy with what they were being provided for by the companies. With the advent of Social media, customers want a say in the products being offered to them, whether they are small businesses or large. Thus bringing in the importance of small businesses to reach out to their customers to understand their needs and build a rapport with them.

I have provided examples of some small businesses who have had a complete turn around with the use of social media. Lets take a look and re-use the success formula:

@coffeegrounds a simple coffee shop in Houston has doubled its visitors by simply engaging with their consumers online on twitter. Cordial interactions with consumers has led this coffee shop dealer to increase their customers twofold. Twitter provides a whole new platform to any business that are willing to take out time to get in touch with their consumers that will eventually lead them into a lifelong relationship of loyalty and trust with them.

Key Take Away: Small things make big impact …..start your twitterate..tiny but big steps!

Another example that best describes what I am explaining here is that of @zappos is an online retailer who led corporates to use twitter. This explains their stupendous success with social media. Their gregarious interactions with customers online and readiness to help is the reason why they have been a phenomenal success in social media.

As rightly quoted by Tony Hseih- “Zappos.com is a service company that just happens to sell shoes”.

These are just two examples in small business social networking success as more and more small companies enter this arena there will be more social media success waiting to be accoladed on blogs and other social media forums.

I am curious to know your social media success formulas are..Do write in and I would love to add yours to this Small Business list with full credits to your success story…!

What Free Social Media Monitoring Tools cannot do for you

iridiumInteractive — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:02:21 +0000

There are many options available for companies to measure their social branding and reputation, a few of which I have discussed in my last blog. Some more analytical tools that are worth mentioning are Google Blog search, Summarize or Twitter Search, Google Alerts, Trendpedia and Blogpulse. The web list seems to be getting infinite and this can create confusion for a company.

As I would put it, these free tools are good as long as you can wade your way around it and get the output you are looking for from these tools. But if you are lost with these tools, which I know many do in the beginning, then you might have to look into other alternatives.

There are some more shortcomings of these free tools:

Firstly, these tools can be used to assess a campaign or strategic prerequisite, but not for a large amount of data in an all-inclusive Web 2.0 coverage.

Secondly, free tools are just the tip of the iceberg; they do not have the ability to go into the details. They can only introduce you to the listening tools.

Thirdly, machines are great data retrievers but it’s the human touch that makes it into valuable information. This is one big shortcoming of automated, free monitoring tools.

The need of an analyst arises at this point when you have the What, Where, and When answered, but the most critical, Why? and How? are still left to be answered.

Why do consumers think this way about my product? How can I change their perception? An analyst like Iridium can help you draw insights from the data and develop a strategy.

So for all the companies waiting to explore social media, your customers are waiting to hear from you! Begin now to at-least play with the new set of social media monitoring tools. Next, begin taking expertise from social media experts who can take your brand, your voice to the next level. Its not too late…take the first mover advantage!!!

Watch out for more from me as I will take you through a deeper understanding of the Social Listening space…its time to evolve!

Top 7 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:31:27 +0000

“Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” commented John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. And I couldn’t agree more. There are so many conversations happening online among 1.5 billion internet users that it is hard to keep a track of all the buzz. The ‘Who, Where and When’ of these conversations is what social media monitoring tools track.

Here are some free Social media monitoring tools that you can use to assess all social media metrics.

1. How Sociable: it is a free tool that defines simplicity. Just punch in the brand you want to measure metrics for and you will get the visibility score for it across 32 social networks. http://www.howsociable.com/

2. Addict-o-matic: This tool provides you with a comprehensive view of discussions on a topic across the most popular social networks. In just one view you can see all the discussions on all popular social networks and blogs. http://addictomatic.com/

3. Technorati- This tool is used to find top blogs and posts on any searched item. http://technorati.com/

4. Google Blogsearch- This is also a blog oriented tool that generates top discussions happening in blogs on a topic you want to search for. http://blogsearch.google.com/

5. Googletrends- Shows the worldwide traffic/searches of this particular keyword. http://google.com/trends

6. Twitterstats- This is one tool that serves all my twitter purposes. It shows all the relevant twitter stats for the Iridium account and allows comparisons with other accounts too. One stop for all twitter analytics is what this tool is all about. Check it out on http://www.twitterstats.com/

7. Quantcast- This tool is apt for tracking traffic to a particular website and gives Graphical display and demographics wise data segregation. http://www.quantcast.com/

There are numerous free tools available but its your requirements that defines your choice. After my stint in social media monitoring, these are the top 7 tools I frequently use.

Social Media and B2B Marketing

iridiumInteractive — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:15:17 +0000

So far all I have shared with you is the use of social media to address your audience, in particular consumers. But on a wider perspective our audience- our stakeholders- consist of our clients, employees, suppliers, or even consultants and vendors we deal with in our day to day business. Social media marketing and networking is clearly a means but not an end to nurture every business relationship.

B2B is a complex sales practice which involves a lot of people and companies. It is not easy to start conversations between your prospect and the company. There has to be a way in which your ideas get the conversations rolling. Here lies the need to strategise your marketing content in order to broaden your reach.

It is a fact that consumers rule the buying decisions and companies can no longer dictate or push a product on the consumers. Sales guys have been worst hit thanks to the advent of social media since consumers look for networking sites which will help them make their purchase decisions.

This is the cue B2B marketers can take to enter the social media sphere and make the most of it. Facebook and Twitter are amazing stops for B2B marketing. But the approach for B2B marketing is similar to any non B2B marketing.

Here is what you have to do to start your social media marketing efforts.

1. First, listen to what is happening around your brand and the industry. Set up Google Alerts with your company’s name and also competitor’s name.

2. Second, monitor, analyse and make conclusions on where you stand and what should your goals and strategy be.

3. Third, after framing your business policies and strategies, design content that will inspire prospects and existing parties to start conversations with you.

4. Fourth, step into your buyers shoes and develop content relevant to them.

5. Fifth, do not start hard selling from the beginning.

6. Sixth, research on audience profile, what are they typically researching, what are the problems they are facing, etc…

7. Seventh, address the issues they may be facing and also the solution to their issues.

This way, you have set the stage for your pre-sales conversations even before you interact with them personally.

From dis-engaging to re-engaging the Social Quotient of your employees

iridiumInteractive — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:30:02 +0000

So, now having filled you in on the basics of Social Media in my previous few blogs, I shift to the next level of social media insights. With the right base of understanding about this medium, your company can take a leap to explore it as a sand box experiment. Companies in India that block and dis-engage the social network websites for their employees will no longer be successful as mobile apps are now better engaging human networks. Smart companies know this and they have already taken the first mover advantage to re-engage their staff by creating effective corporate blogs. Sounds surprising? It may not, but they have figured out the essence of the network effect of socializing and are now using that to build company loyalty and stronger retention ratios. Lets find out what these path-breaking companies are doing.

With an open mind to allow social media as a corporate wide activity and not just limited to one department or a person, employee blogs are rising very rapidly. A classic case that comes to my mind is IBMer’s Blog

They encourage all their employees to be a part of the blogging process as it brings out the culture and vibrancy of the organization. Customers look out for these factors to relate to a company and IBM sure has played it right to attract more audience and consumers and most importantly their PEOPLE, the IBMers.

But before letting your employees start your social media initiative, there are a few things you should keep in mind for harnessing a sensible social quotient:

Train them and educate them on Social Media and the purpose of their engagement for the company.
Lay down the boundaries and the confines within which they can talk about the company.
Before making it live create an internal sandbox for them to learn and play around with.
Create a playground for your employees. Encourage some of the employees from different work areas to post their pilot blogs and engage them to collaborate via commenting, also called builds. @iridiuminter, for our own company blog, we have been successfully able to engage the employees by having them comment openly.
Do not punish them for speaking their mind. This is a great sign of creating trust both within and outside the organization.
It is always better to do a sanity check in the beginning on all that goes live from the employees. After a while this check can be removed as they now know their limitations.

Last but not the least, let them enjoy this activity.

Marketers Must-Have Social Media Marketing "Clicks"…You Need Them Now

iridiumInteractive — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:10:20 +0000

Social Media Marketing is a powerful marketing medium…not in the traditional marketing sense. It does not mean that all other marketing strategies have been abandoned, yet the shift is happening without the hype. If you are wearing the hat of a CMO, a marketing-communications executive today, I know exactly what is creating the dilemma..what is keeping you thinking. What is the right marketing mix to invest in? What do I do with all this hype of social media marketing? How are these companies, actually generating solid ROI through just Twittering or simply having a community of listeners and followers? Where do I begin? I understand this because, @iridiuminter, my company is passionate about getting marketers the answers to these dilemmas.

As the world is shrinking thanks to the web and now the social networking sites, social media marketing has arrived as a critical need. I have made some key words that marketers should keep in mind while venturing in to social media marketing that will be a great deal of help for you. No longer will the blow horn, over the top marketing strategies work anymore as consumers just do not want products, they want much more than that, a consistent commitment and a degree of transparency from their companies. Best brands use social media as a medium to freely exchange opinions and thoughts.

Here are some of the important “Social Media Marketing clicks” that give you the main essence.

· Shed all your social media fears

· Listen and never stop listening

· Be a silent observer of the chatter first. Answers to engage will simply come

· Determine your audience you want to reach out too

· Speak-out before you think, just let go and communicate transparently

· Have an earnest and honest appeal to your conversations with your consumers

· Subtly market your product through consumer experience driven approach. Aggressive selling repels customers.

· Be consistent while using social media- it not a one time apply tool

· Create relationship with your stakeholders. Things will sell automatically once you connect.

· Listen and answer to their queries. It is not a one sided communication tool.

· Unanswered customer queries can lead to negative reputation. Be proactive.

· There is no age limit to social media

Keep these clicks with you and explore your digital marketing efforts with a fresh perspective. Change is happening dynamically, you create the shift for you…

I will write more on this in my next blog….The Essential C’s for Social Media. Keep listening…

Social Media Fundamentals with a flavor of "Marketing"

iridiumInteractive — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:15:44 +0000

Knowing that Social Media is a need not a choice…I am now sharing with you the flavor of “Social Media Marketing“. Social Media is driven by the people, solely for the people and is here to stay, tools may change or may get sophisticated. I was reading this somewhere and it immediately caught my attention- 78% people believe in peer recommendations and only 14% believe in advertisements. It was then I thought I should talk about Social Media Marketing.

Social Media Marketing is nothing but using Social Media as a platform for your marketing endeavours. It is the new way of marketing that has this unique ability to let consumers market for you, beautifully aligning your offline and online marketing. The industry gurus call it WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing. Social media in its real essence is interactive in nature, so when a company starts interacting directly with their customers, customers / stakeholders fundamentally tend to relate more with the brand and indirectly become brand ambassadors for such companies.

These customers then spread their marketing messages organically. Most successful social media compaigns include consumer engagement, corporate transparency and community building.

So many companies now have blogs, newsletters, accounts in various social networking sites like facebook, twitter, myspace, linkedin etc. this is solely for the purpose of giving their consumers a real time view of what is actually happening within the company. Building trust by engaging in conversations and creating transparent avatar is what these companies are successfully doing in their social media marketing activities.

Companies who restrain from using social media marketing are missing out on the huge coverage social media has to offer which no other traditional marketing tools have to offer. And guess what….it is extremely cost-effective low cost marketing platform with a reach you cannot comprehend, if you have something fresh to voice …it gets heard ! that will help you derive huge consumer following and build your brand credibility that traditional media alone can no-more promise.

Social Media for your Business is Not a Choice..Its a Need

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:39:35 +0000

What took the radio 38 years to accomplish, Facebook achieved double of it within 9 months? Well, I am talking about the 1 billion users Facebook recently achieved. Social media has transformed the way consumers respond to you. Traditional marketing was all about creating a need for consumers but now it is catering to the needs of consumers- its the network effect. Shouting and hard selling will not reach people. Social media is no less than a evolution that has taken people astorm.

People by their very nature are social. Companies, businesses thrive on people and their opinions. No surprises then, that Social media has it own reasons to evolve with more and more social networking sites mushrooming every single day. Whether you like it or not, accept it or not, there is so much being said about you- with or without you. If you choose not engage, you are simply giving up the ability to manage and influence what’s being said…

It has become an imperative need to listen to what your stakeholders are saying about you in this social space before planning any marketing strategy. In a recent global CMO survey, over 90% of companies confirm that they are allocating over 25% of their marketing mix budgets to social media / digital marketing initiatives. They are understanding this critical need to participate in continuous consumer interactions that engages users with opportunities to share their opinions.

There are so many online social networking sites from facebook, twitter, orkut, flickr, digg, technorati, myspace, linkedin, picasa and so many more. When you search for Social Media on Google you get 210,000,000 results. Whaoo!! This can be rather intimidating for someone who is just looking at implementing this very popular phenomena people just cant stop talking about in the business context.

@iridiuminter, having the depth and breath of social media for over a decade, @iridiuminter digital strategy team enjoys placing the social footprints for our clients everyday with a robust relevancy and reach that delivers tangible online growth engines for them.So, it is time to question your marketing plans and explore the new dimensions of online growth opportunities right now.

In my bid to share the knowledge and experience on Social Media Marketing and Monitoring, I will take you through these stories in my upcoming series and help you set your fortress of Social media.

REACH OUT TO YOUR PROFESSIONAL NETWORK..THEY ARE WAITING

iridiumInteractive — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:34:37 +0000

In my last wisdom series, I demystified the power of Twitter and how it is transforming the global conversations for business. This has sparked some good interests in the online communities and I am glad people are absorbing the key practical insights for their businesses. It is now time, I demystify the world’s biggest professional network. I am not here to tell you what is LinkedIn. The global online talkers and linkers have underestimated the power of this tool to influence their businesses. Having 60 millions members, LinkedIn has a new member joining its trusted network every second…isn’t that alarming…yet how many of us truly use this to capture our business interest, understand our market space and leverage our opportunities by engaging in meaningful, actionable discussions. At iridium, our digital marketing team has been doing its share of R&D to analyze the human laser beam effect of a trusted professional network and how many influencers are actually driving business results using this medium.

Why LinkedIn? A Case in Point..

If you have your personal profile on LinkedIn, by now, you know the dynamics of a trusted professional network and the 6 degrees of connection between you and the world.

Ask yourself, how is your company engaging your stakeholders through LinkedIn. Start building your company profile
Just having random topic for discussion board will not do the work, you need a network engagement strategy to talk about what the market is bending towards. Once you have your share of like-minded people who start listening, you then begin talking about what matters to you.
There is never a better way to get new potential employees that you really seek
Having more conversations, will directly improve your Google search results

You might find this short video helpful, with due credits to Common Craft. They do come up with the coolest presentations that are very easy to comprehend. Watch this video to get a better idea of Linkedin.

Puzzled with the URL structure of your WordPress Blog?

iridiumInteractive — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:49:17 +0000

If your wordpress hosted blog has URLs like http://www.example.com/?c=2254, don’t you find it confusing and hard to memorize? Don’t you want to change it to something better like http://www.example.com/2010/03/sample-post/ or http://www.example.com/cat-name/samplepost/

Permalinks denotes how the URL structure of a WordPress powered post appears. From the technical point of view, your webserver should be running Apache with mod rewrite module in it. It’s always advisable to check with your web-hosting service provider if they support wordpress in their servers.

How to setup your Permalink Structure?

It’s always advisable to prioritize and setup the permalink structure of your blog just after installing WordPress. The reasons, search engines which index your blog based on the URL, might find it hard to track such changes resulting to which you may loose your search engine ranking resulting in a fall of traffic to your website.

To configure the permalink structure of your blog, click on the “Options” tab in your WordPress Dashboard and then select “Permalinks”

A screenshot of the same has been shared below:

You may choose from any of the top 4 options in the “Common settings” and define the URL structure of the blog. In case you want to customize further, choose the 5^th option as shown in the above screen shot.

You may have a look at the common syntaxes below to customize your permalink structure.

%year% – The year of the post, four digits. Example: 2004

%monthnum% – Month of the year. Example: 05

%day% – Day of the month. Example: 28

%hour% – Hour of the day. Example: 15

%minute% – Minute of the hour. Example: 43

%second% – Second of the minute. Example 33

%postname% – A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slug field on Edit Post/Page panel). So “It’s Great Post!” becomes this-is-a-great-post in the URI (see Using only %postname%). Starting Permalinks with %postname% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons.

*** Note – this has been changed and is ok to do since ver. 2.0

%post_id% – The unique ID # of the post. Example: 423

%category% – A sanitized version of the category name (category slug field on New/Edit Category panel). Nested sub-categories appear as nested directories in the URI. Starting Permalinks with %category% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons.

%author% – A sanitized version of the author name.

Now that you know the importance of structured URLs, it’s time to take some time out and change the URL to something that will direct more traffic to your blog and website.