Over the course of the past few weeks, we’ve been monitoring several blogs, Indian as well as from across the globe,  to understand the commenting trends and almost everywhere we have come across this phenomenon. It seems that now, with the advent of so many social media platforms, there are a hundred different avenues through which blogs are commented on and discussed, including the blog. A simple tweet on twitter like ‘Read interesting post about wordpress 3.0 by *** and totally disagree’ can trigger a conversation on twitter rather than on the blog. If the blogger would like to be part of this conversation, it becomes her job to track where her story is being shared and discussed and get there as fast as possible with her reasons and opinions to continue the conversation. For instance, this blogpost may be retweeted by 10 different people on twitter, each marking the tweet with his/her thought [which takes the place of the comment] along with the url. In this scenario, it might simply be a better solution to add to the comments box a continuously updating list of mentions on the social web thus allowing you to connect with those who have thoughts about your ideas on their platform rather than bringing them to your blog and expecting them to drop a comment. So if the lack of comments is really getting you down, hang in there! Someone, somewhere is tweeting about you. You just need to find them and engage!

Follow us on @iridiuminter or catch us up on facebook and we’ll keep you posted about more such news.

1. The beginning of every possible thing done in the corporate way is to Frame a goal:

• Why do you want Social media?
• What business purpose will it serve?
• What is your target audience?
• Will this be an organization wide commitment or a seperate department?
• What marketing initiatives will Social media be helpful for?

2. After answering all these questions it is important to frame policies. This is particularly important when your social media efforts are an organization wide endeavour as you have to set boundaries for the employees involved in it.

3. Start Research: before starting any thing new it’s always wise to take a look at the happenings around you. Research and analyse what the rest are doing in the social media sphere. Create your own inventory of links and resources that you can refer to in the near future.

4. Understand the world wide social media sphere and what you would want to implement in your social media activities. There are millions of social media applications out there, pick only those applications which you think you will use.

Not very different from traditional marketing, social media also deals with building trust and creating a community. If you know the marketing tricks this should not be a difficult feat for you. Just like the human evolution social media also has its own evolution, where you CRAWL, then WALK, RUN and then FLY the glorious heights of Social Media.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam

Twitter is a complicated puzzle to many small business owners and particularly fatal if you mess it up. It has a steep learning curve but the returns are exponential when you are passionate to stay the course. Twitter is one tool that can be used to drive traffic to your blog. Here are some simple yet critical ways you can capitalize to make more people read your blogs.

1. Business Logo

Once you have created a twitter account for your small business, first thing you should do is change your default picture to your business logo. Branding is very important as people will relate to your company logo and this is the first step to help you build trust worthy relationships.

2. Start conversations – Be Sincere

One thumb rule for twitter is never directly market here. You have to build communities with your earnesty. Customers tend to look through a company if they start marketing right from the moment they start twittering. Start tweeting and connect with influential people and customers that are impacting the business landscape for you. You will be surprised to know “sincerity is what attracts people”. So step in your transparent shoes, be truthful to your stakeholders. Your competitors are already doing so.

3. Complete Bio Profile

I have seen many companies who do not bother to complete their Bio Profile after creating their accounts. Bio Profile is nothing but a brief write up on what your company does within 160 characters. This is vital if you are looking at creating communities and meeting people and companies relevant to you. Also remember bio lines have to give some useful information about your company, it can just be keywords of the services your company provides. It does not have to be in complete sentences but should carry the right keywords.

4. Customize your Twitter Background

Just like any billboard on the roads used to market brands, Twitter background is a very good place to brand your small business. This can be used to draw attention to your brand. There are many twitter background applications that can be used to customize the background like Twitrbackgrounds, Twitrounds , Twibacks.

5. Social Proof

Twitter may be a challenge to many people but unfortunately this may add more to your challenges. Potential people and consumers look at your social proof i.e. how many people are following you, who and how many people are you following and the number of tweets you post. As I have already mentioned in my earlier tweets, the ideal following versus followers ratio should be 1:10. In the beginning people will slowly trickle in to follow you but as you consistently and patiently continue conversing with your potential community it will not be late when you have an out-pour of people who want to follow you and be a part of your community.

After a trial and error of implementation at our company i.e iridium Interactive, our team is fully aware of the power of engaging communities via twitter.Its all about being patient, consistent and transparent. If you have all these three ingredients topped with the passion to experiment you will have a successful stint in twitter and a huge community of people.

Keep reading on, as I will answer Twitter FAQs in my next Wisdom Series.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam

Exactly this time around last year when the economy was caught in the clutches of recession the theme of the event was mainly focused on how to tackle the downturn. This year holds particular importance as the industry recovers from the financial slowdown, we look forward to new times, new dimensions, new outlooks and the opportunity to explore new directions keeping in lieu with the this year’s NILF theme as ‘New Times, New Ideas, New Directions’.

The industry is completely looking forward to this epic forum since it is undoubtedly Asia’s largest leadership conference with a diverse mix of inspirational experts from the industry. Flooded by the outpour of registrations,  NILF boasts of a record registration of 1650 delegates this year from countries all over the world and India. This is going to be one opulent event with the stalwarts of the IT industry who will be present there.

Do check this out….

1. The NASSCOM EVENT online destination: http://indialeadershipforum.nasscom.in
2. NASSCOM EVENT BLOG : http://indialeadershipforum.nasscom.in/blog
3. NASSCOM EVENT NETWORKING PORTAL : http://indialeadershipforum.nasscom.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=92

Getting registrations, bookings, delegates and sponsors is always a challenge at the pre-event stage. That having been said, getting the various stakeholders and participants to actively interact and network with each other is a critical imperative for such Events – that also makes or breaks the perceived success of the event – as seen through the eyes of all the beholding participants.

iridium Interactive, India’s leading web and interactive company has come up with an innovative web based product that addresses this aspect of the Event Management.

It’s called Conference Konnect, and was officially launched in Nasscom India Leadership Forum (NILF) – 2009.

Konnect is a social networking application that is event – specific and is designed to compliment the requirements of a specific event. It is a combination of Linkedin and Facebook, that will help attendees and delegates to maintain ties and continue their dialogue in the virtual space in the Pre-Event, In-Event and the Post-Event phase.

The intention is to make participants connect to each other, network and socialize even before the physical event kick off. Importantly, they could continue to use this platform to keep their conversations going, even after the Event. This enables the brand owners to extend the longevity of the event far beyond the limited period of the actual event.

Key Features

* Meet attendees who are attending the same sessions to discuss similar problems and issues relating to the topic.
* Meet other attendees to compare notes on exhibitors and products.
* Meet exhibitors to learn more about their products and services.
* Know about events such as parties or activities being hosted by the exhibitor.
* Explore job openings available by companies attending the event.
* Powerful Search Features enabling you to find new attendees and delegates of specific skills, interests and geographic location.

The ‘NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009’ will be held from February 11-13, 2009 at the Hotel Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. The theme for this years’ event is “Reshaping the global economy”.

It is a matter of joy and pride that Iridium interactive, has partnered with NASSCOM to create a SOCIAL Networking product, called NASSCOM Connect, to add value to the NASSCOM NILF delegate experience. NASSCOM Connect is a social networking platform which is a combination of Linked-in and Facebook, that will help attendees and delegates to maintain ties and continue their dialogue in the virtual space. A unique platform, the NASSCOM Connect enables the delegates to touchbase with each other before the event kicks off on February 11th at Mumbai. Within the last week we have seen 40,359 page impressions with about 1,000+ connections amongst the delegates, for this platform.

With ‘NASSCOM Connect’, delegates can benefit from the following:

• Connect with delegates before and after the event.
• Meet delegates who are attending the same sessions to discuss similar experiences and challenges around the topic.
• Meet other delegates to compare notes on exhibitors and products.
• Meet exhibitors to learn more about their products and services.
• Powerful Search Features will enable finding new delegates of specific skills, interests and geographic location.

In Mumbai, NASSCOM CONNECT will have all that is needed to give an opportunity to delegates, exhibitors, speakers, editors and analysts to introduce, network, ideate and  Engage with each other prior to arriving at the event.

Do check this out….

1. The NASSCOM EVENT online destination: http://indialeadershipforum.nasscom.in
2. NASSCOM EVENT BLOG : http://indialeadershipforum.nasscom.in/blog
3. NASSCOM EVENT NETWORKING PORTAL : http://www.nasscom.in/connect

Ensuring the security of data and content is of paramount importance – laws and rules can do this much and no more. There is no gainsaying that it will be necessary to build, maintain, implement and follow the required processes and methodologies.

With e-commerce going to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years, the need for a secure system along with the appropriate checks and balances will increasingly be felt across organizations and sectors.

In the midst of the global economic downturn and the resultant low business sentiment, there might certainly be a focus on driving business needs more aggressively – by even possibly cutting a few corners, turning a blind eye to some business happenings and other related matters. In this midst, business owners might not devote the needed time and attention to Data Security and maintaining high standards of Information security in their organizations.

This lower focus might just be the opening that unscrupulous operators of cyber crime might be waiting for to inflict that killer knockout punch to add the the market misery.

I have attempted to capture some key elements that would be of relevance across borders and organizations. These may not be exhaustive – but are directional and will help personnel involved to understand the intricacies and possibly drive the thinking in organisations.

Five Steps towards Building organizational Cyber Security

1.  Employee Training – on Cyber Security needs
Raising the security awareness level of associates, employees and stakeholder through effective training conducted periodically is a positive  way to ensure security is on their radars at all times and reflected in their working behavior at all times.

Employee training is not only a requirement for most businesses, but it is also one of the best ways to minimize the corporate’s exposure to the most damaging type of security attacks – the unintentional ones created by uneducated or careless employees.

Many current attack methods depend purely upon the behavior pattern of unsuspecting users. This could be in the form of the employee clicking on a malicious link or executing a harmful program; being lured to a harmful website, or even by something as innocuous as using a USB drive.

2.  Periodically enforce testing of  operating systems, networks and applications
Most organizations do simple external network and operating system vulnerability testing, which is a great way to identify Internet exposures.  However, these basic vulnerability assessments and penetration testing processes do not perform application level testing which has become a common attack method.

Two application level attacks that are often getting to be seen as a means for cyber crimes include SQL injection and buffer overflows. Application level testing can identify poorly designed and coded programs (such as home grown applications and online backing programs) that are susceptible to these types of attacks.

3.  Always do security testing and validation of newer technology before deploying it
It is absolutely sacrosanct in the changed worldspace that designers and developers strictly test and validate newer technology than resort to their hasty implementation. The usage of new tools across Web 2.0, P2P, virtualization and cloud computing are growing rapidly.

2008 witnessed a strong adoption of virtualization and a gradual rise in cloud computing. However, cloud computing will be the cause of major security concern among security professionals in 2009. This influx of new technologies, both business and consumer technologies, has opened additional avenues for cyber attackers to steal trade secrets and confidential business information.  It sure is good to be the first to launch a new tool and application to be distinct from the crowds.  It is better to be safe and a tad slow than be sorry in haste.

4.  Have a mobile device policy for employees
It would not be far from the truth to state that there are not very many companies that have successfully   implemented a detailed policy for usage of mobile devices within premises and also outside of the workplace.

PDAs, Blackberrys and thumbdrives have become common in the workplace. However, many companies do not have systems to monitor what kind of information is stored on them by employees and users.  Employees need to be educated on what should and should not be on a device used outside of the workplace. Proprietary, private or financial information should be stored only if absolutely necessary. It’s also important to protect sensitive information by passwords in the event such device is lost or stolen.

5.  Use care while using social and professional networking sites
Social networking has gathered momentum with added features in applications like Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn and the slew of others. 2008 also witnessed the slow rise in attacks in these applications and 2009 can also be expected to see the rise in social networking websites to spread malware. Indication of this was observed in August 2008 when Facebook admitted that up to 1800 users’ profiles were defaced by an attack that secretly installed a Trojan while displaying an animated graphic of a court jester blowing a raspberry.

To summarise, it behoves on each and every user, regardless of rank, designation, extent of technology savviness, location, to be wary and cautious in the usage and watch out for any likely slip ups that could jeopardize the business efforts in a single click.

However quite often other website owners insist on having a reciprocal link which can make a website look very incoherent. To overcome this, the concept of ‘daisy chaining’ has evolved.

Daisy chain as the name suggests is the series of associated things or people or experiences. As far as social networking is concerned, it could be anything from a network of ads to network of people having or working towards common interest. For instance, for a company involved in incurring revenue out of ads published online, it can have a network in place .Those networks typically exist in innumerable amount. So the daisy chain that we are talking about is the intertwine of network of networks which works in sync in providing the default advertisement (in this case) by searching from the most primary ones to the most distant. This chain/series of ad-networks working in tandem to post a relevant ad is nothing but the DAISY CHAIN.

Daisy chaining or swarming techniques can be used to enhance results for better search engine placement. A daisy chain is formed when you link a number of web sites together in a chain so that each one is connected with a link to the next one and eventually you connect the first website to the last website to complete the circle. The effect is that when a search engine spider connects with any one of your websites, it will follow the links to all the websites in the chain.

Once you have created a daisy chain you can easily convert it into a wheel by linking each website in the chain to your main website, so that the links are like the spokes of a wheel. The secret to obtain better search engine placement is to ensure all the links contain the keywords or keyword phrases that that you are targeting in order to obtain top positions.

Are you daisy chaining??

Guys, world is buzzing with Social networking, RSS, podcastings etc etc ….Here is one quick example taking u thorugh the world of social networking .

Enjoy it !!!!!