‘Connected Kenya‘ Summit , a landmark event on Kenya’s educational horizon celebrates Kenyans who have developed ICT Solutions that drive economic growth and social development in Kenya’s “Vision 2030” . iridiumInteractive stole the limelight by bagging one of the Nation’s top innovation awards. These awards were jointly given by the Kenya ICT Board and the Kenya Vision 2030. All the applicants to the awards were required to be registered as a business in Kenya and it was mandatory to have had their products in the Kenyan Market for at least six months. There were 400 applications for various categories from all over the country . The competition was tough and the applications were reviewed by a high ranking team of independent judges, who represented the ICT private sector, academia, public sector and civil society.

iridiumInteractive won the award in the most hotly contested category of the “Best Innovation in the Education and Training Sector”. Sriram Bharatham, CEO and Founder accepted the award. Speaking on this occasion, Sriram Bharatam (Sri) said, “This recognition is a testimony that we are in the right direction and is a great motivator to the 50+ team members at iridiumInteractive across 20 locations in Kenya, to now scale this idea and reach out to transform as many Kenyan small business owners as possible.”

An enriching experience for the team, a giant leap forward towards reaching their goal.

Social Media Policy or the policy that keeps employees within boundaries is much needed for any company who wants to control its social media endeavours.

iridium Interactive has come up with its own Social Media Policy that will aid their clients and their own social media activities. Our intent was to keep it as simple as possible and not confuse our social media representatives with complicated legal jargons. Absorb this and become ready for social media. Also read the social media etiquette blog as it is closely related to this policy.

Iridium’s Social Media Policy Compliance:

Social media is a loose term for widely used social networking platforms like Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, blogs and other public forums. We believe as a business, Social Media can substantially boost our company’s development, performance and services. In our endeavor to utilize the inherent benefits social media has to offer, these are the official guidelines that have to be adhered to while using social media solely for business purposes.

These guidelines apply to those who are actively or indirectly participating and contributing to the company social media activities. Social Media being vast but traceable, it is important that some amount of training will be provided for social media compliance. Dynamic as the social media sphere is these guidelines will also be evolving as new tools surface, keep a continuous track and stay upto date with these changes.

Strict that these guidelines may seem, this is solely for the purpose to participate in a responsible manner while safeguarding our company’s reputation and be in line with the unsaid social media laws.

Guidelines:

• Create a Balance- Yes we are giving you access to the social networks in office like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. It is your responsibility to make a balance between work and socializing, unless it is for your company. Your work commitments come before your personal online activities.
• Permanancy- Posts, comments, tweets all become permanent once you have published it. Think a lot before publishing any content on behalf of the company.
• Professional Profile- remember to identify yourself as a company employee and the post you hold, this will provide transparency to our company and you, which will be duly noted in the social media ecosystem. This is how you would portray yourself in to your clients and coworkers.
• Although you are representing the company, social media activities involves your own discretion and thoughts. Make this very clear!!
• End Credits: Give credit and source to any information taken from external sites and photographs used. It is important to acknowledge others hard work and borrowing without intimation is like stealing.
• Politically correct: Sensitive topics related to any caste, creed, religion or political group should be avoided.
• Rise Above the Noise: If someone is making rude comments on your blog or other social networks do not engage into a row over the matter. Instead listen to what they have to say and politely respond back.
• Confidentiality- restrain from giving away any confidential information. So take a smart stance and protect your company’s privacy policy.
• Competitors- Do not be harsh about them at any point in any social network . Be politically correct and stick to facts and figures with enough reliable sources.
• Courtesy- Be polite, do not engage in any arguments with any reader. Rude comments to be handled diplomatically.
• Made a mistake- Permanency may be one big disadvantage of social media admitting to a mistake and making the change will improve credibility.
• Second opinions- get the posts checked by your supervisor/employer before publishing.
• Personal Blogs- If you have your own blog and you do mention where you work, mandatory to include a disclaimer stating “Posting on this blog are strictly my own and do not contain/represent iridium Interactive’s opnions.

Image Source: Intersection Consulting from Flickr.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Strengths

• Analyzes what is being said about your company. This produces value for the company.

• Decoding the noise and chatter of user generated content which is of great relevance to a company and its brand.
• Encourages direct consumer interactions.
• Allows companies a real time view on consumer perceptions about their brands.
• Helps develop a marketing plan from consumer interactions and conversations.

Weaknesses

• Limitations of technology, ultimately requires a human touch to it.
• Huge volumes of data to process from numerous sources and innumerous languages.  Difficult to make a one stop technological solution.
• Its such a huge media space which is rather intimidating to a beginner.
• Ongoing disagreement between the data compilation over being comprehensive and insightful, which is rather difficult to achieve both successfully as yet.

Opportunities

• Potential to become a hygiene factor for every company with more technology improvements making monitoring more effective.
• Monetization of social media. Many companies have profited from social media and many more to yet to venture. This medium offers immense opportunities.
• SME’s who felt left behind due to their lack of resources to spend on advertisements can now capitalise social media without any penny spent to advertise their brand.

Threats

• There are no defined industry standards, will make it difficult to benchmark success and outcomes.
• Many new entrants/ board room level executives do not really understand the how to take advantage of user generated content.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanlouis_zimmermann/3055864480/

Social media includes blogs, forums, wikis, tags and any user generated content. This is where consumers and users saw the opportunity to share their opinions and thoughts with so much ease.

Word of mouth marketing saw unprecedented growth which it never did before. Listening to these conversations on companies has brought about the importance of social media monitoring and the various tools invented to track and measure the zillion conversations happening online.

Social monitoring tools monitor:

• All websites
• Every possible social network
• Social news
• Blogs
• Forums
• Microblogs
• Images
• User generated content
• Tags
• Videos
• Almost every possible thing on Web 2.0

Social Media Monitoring tools will provide you with all the statistics. But it is sheer analysis that will give some sense to the random numbers and graphs these tools generate.

In my next blog I will talk more about these tools and provide you with more examples especially from my experience at iridium Interactive.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Also known as social reputation management, or online reputation management, social media monitoring serves more than gathering metrics on your social media initiatives.

There will be a lot of metrics that can be gathered but making some sense out of these numbers is what is required.  In fact, I would say social media monitoring should not be done after you enter social media; this can be done even before you enter the social media marketing. By this not only will you have awareness about your brand, you will have the right intent to begin your social media initiatives.

Here are some basic reasons to monitor social media in case you are new to this terrific listening tool and its scalable capabilities:

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Without joining the bandwagon of people who are attempting to defame Nestle’s online reputation, here is a fair view of how a global company like Nestle can learn to handle this attack through online media.

This type of incident can surely destroy a company, who should instead directly, honestly and personally address this issue rather than escalate it with a hostile approach to criticisms.

Nestle’s online reputation downfall started when Nestle’s Facebook page was flooded with protests and complaints from people over Nestle’s Palm Oil actions in Indonesia and deforestation that endangered orangutans. Already a heated issue,  Nestle added to the fire by posting on their fan page:

“Nestle To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.”

This sparked a wild fire that will only be put to rest when the moderator cordially and patiently talks to sort Nestle’s tainted image and not further taint it with such comments.

Customers have increasingly started using social media as a medium to vent their anger as this provides them a platform to be vocal about their thoughts and views. Companies should take these criticisms with a pinch of salt and try to rectify these issues without any ego.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog on Social Media Etiquettes, Nestle should have simply read the rude remarks and politely responded back. They should appoint a customer care representative to answer their questions politely. In a state when people are angered, humility and modesty should take the front seat instead of hautiness.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

1. Commit

While incorporating social media in your marketing strategies you have to commit time and resources. It is not a one time engagement. There is a continuous chatter around your company and brand, so proactively keeping a real time tab on this chatter is what is needed in social media.

2. Communicate

There has to be a purpose for your communications with the customer. Marketing is one thing and establishing relationship with your stakeholders what can differentiate your uniqueness. To be frank the only reason companies are jumping into the social bandwagon is because their customers want to be heard. Talk, listen and establish relationships is what social is all about.

There is a lot of chatter around your brand both positive, negative and neutral. If you proactively respond and connect well with your customers it will not be too late when your stakeholders will become your brand ambassadors. Let your stakeholders collaborate with you to market your brand to form a bigger consumer base.

5. Create Content

Think like publisher and not like a marketer on Social Media. Write compelling, interesting, and engaging articles, blogs, tweets etc. on various social networking sites. Also write content relevant to your company strategy. First determine your audience then write what they want to hear, what is relevant to them.

7. Consistently Consistent

Have uploaded some pictures of the current happenings.

The huge vacated space where the new office will be made, an extension to the current office.

Future spot for India’s brightest creative talent

Stay tuned for latest updates on the new office.