@dvocable

BM has come out with its Asia-Pacific Corporate Social Media Study for 2011.

Key findings from the study include:

• 81% of top Asian companies have a branded corporate social media presence, over double the figure for 2010 and in line with the 84% of Fortune global 100 firms
• 31% of companies use at least three social media channels, up from 3% in 2010
• 19% of companies still have no official corporate social media presence
• 30% of companies use social networks for corporate marketing and communications, up from 20% in 2010
• 28% of companies use micro-blogs for corporate marketing and communications, up from 18% in 2010
• 62% of social media channels surveyed were inactive, and the same percentage of companies do not promote their social media channels on their homepages

Regarding India, my colleague, Salil Jayakar from Mumbai writes in the report : Indian companies’ preferred channel is social networks, with almost 60% of companies using Facebook, as well as Google’s Orkut, as opposed to some 30% using Twitter. Only 10% of companies surveyed are using online video in any way for corporate marketing or communications.

Here is the study:

I often met people who say they are very active online and in the social media space. They silently listen and read. They  know a lot of things, about who is doing what, and what new thing has happened, etc. etc. but  they do not  blog or have active profiles where they share stuff back to the social media community.

So when I ran into one such person recently, the conversation took on an interesting  turn when I gave an example of the torrent communities.  In these communities/ sites where you can share and access various multimedia, you will see that there are seeders and leechers.  Seeders are those who are sharing files from their systems and thus actively contributing to the community while leechers are those who are just downloading. If there are more leechers than seeders, the community wouldn’t be fun anymore.

Likewise in the social media space, can we dare ask ourselves? Are we seeders or leechers?

We are creating Newscast, a news release distribution site at India PR Blog. Everybody is free to register and submit their company/ client press releases. This is how you can start:

1. Register with Newscast

Visit the registration page and fill in your details. It is important you use your full name as your username, like ‘Tina Anand’, with space between the two words, and you use your official email and not Gmail, Hotmail, etc. This is to help prevent abuse in the system. Please fill in your company name, address complete with phone numbers, and a short profile of yours.

When you are through filling up, click the ‘Register’ button. Then wait till you receive two emails from us. The first one will contain your password. The second one will mention that your account has been activated. Then, you can login to your account. Note that your second email might take an hour to a day to pass through a review by a Newscast editorial member.

The registration is a bit lengthy as we want to be sure of those who we allow to submit news releases on Newscast. But once the registration is done, users can submit and publish news releases directly on the site, without any intervention, though the editorial team will constantly check for abuse in the system.

When you log in for the first time, please review your contact details are correct and add a picture of yours and update your profile. It looks nice. It will come out at the bottom of every release. See below.

2. Submit your news release

Access the submission form, fill in the news release details, preview, and submit. Your news release is live on Newscast.

If there are any bugs you encounter, please write to the team here. Happy posting!

If you are looking at getting your self involved with the social media marketing. These 7 Cs should come in handy!!

C #1 – Context

First you need to understand the context that you will be dealing with. This could be in the form of any social media platform. But before you start engaging with them, you need to understand who they are and more importantly what is the motivation that is binding them together, socially. Example could be pure passion for technology or Bollywood or even communication that has led one individual to pursue on the path of blogging.

C #2 – Communicate

Intention to communicate – if you do not have a intention, then you might as well. Just do a cut, copy, paste job and spam the comments section of the bloggers. That is it, then your brand is at the wrath and  mercy of the bloggers. Do not try to push your marketing messages across in the social media, it might just do more harm than good.

C #3 – Conversation

You need to have a conversation , with your fellow human beings even online. My belief is that there was a time on the internet when people use to be faceless and anonymous and they use to take full advantage of it. But now these are the same people who have realised that they are not being able to handle multiple personalities. They are the same human beings. Just try to talk to them, even just greet them, they will be friends.

C #4 – Content

What does not work on the Internet is a copy. We need to be the original content providers for what we are trying to engage the Internet users into. If we copy and they find out, then our reputation online is scarred! The other element to the content is that we need to have contextually relevant content or else again, we will be seen as spammers!! The rule is customise your messages according to the motivation of the individuals that make the communities or groups on the various social media platform.

C #5 – Create

One of the complains that have been with clients is that communications consultants are not proactive enough. Here on these multiple channels of social media, they have the endless possibilities to create original content that is being provided to them by their clients and not only prove that they are proactive, but the original content can be used (hint) in combination of text, audio, video, graphical images, animation, pictures to benefit the clients. Don’t want to actually, boost ourselves, but we do not have any form of 30-second barrier, we need not have a limitations in our word length (copy). We have the power to inform, influence and impress with the power of words.

C #6 – Collaborate

All our management gurus have spoken about team building exercises. Here we have a platform not only build, but also to maintain the relationships that have been fostered over each and every social media platform. Technology gives us the opportunity to collaborate and enhance our relationships virtually. Relationships could be built on social platform based common interests and business platforms based on professional experience or expertise that one has.

C #7 – Contacts

Contacts – This may be one of the result that you will achieve in the process of your social media marketing effort. You would enjoy being a part of the wise world where knowledge sharing and problem solving are the things to do (TTDs) on a daily basis. This is the element that builds up the social support that you receive even from the online world, which helps individuals at the need of the hour in taking action at both personal front as well as professional!!

These 7 Cs have been the culmination of observation, experience, and research in the field of social media marketing over the past 10 months. If you have any more Cs or for that matter any element that you can think of that I have missed, just let me know!!

At a recent communication seminar where I was speaking on social media, a beautiful lady participant asked me about how one could go about writing a blog. She believed that she is not a good writer and if I could give her few tips on writing…

I told her that I would write about it in my post this Thursday and here I am. In fact, I changed my subject for her. I desperately wanted to write about the need of having a body like BCCI for PR Industry. BCCI knows how to play some amazing games off the field. They do everything in style, be it announcing the high-profile IPL team ‘owners’ or arm twisting CA and ICC to nail the monkey and chain the wild dogs and let our very own DSP of Punjab Police, Bhajji continue his Balle Balle with ball and balla.

Last night I saw Mr. Sharad Pawar in my dream. He was busy finding a way to merge his just ‘Pawar-full’ NCP into a powerful BCCI to realise his long cherished dream of becoming a PM. My dream is to have a BCCI for PR. Both seem to be farfetched!

Anyway, a gentleman shouldn’t keep a lady wait any longer than required. There are some amazing writers on our blog and honestly I am not one of them. It reflects in the vivid subjects being chosen by each one of them and the insights they share with us through their writings (look at last three posts). I read lot on the net, in books, on blogs and on websites. I do have my favorites and I also have my own specially designed ‘block -that-stupid-writer’ tab as well. I interact with many of them and learn quite a few things.

I consider myself a good reader and that allows me the authority to judge the quality of writing. Does it involve any philosophy? Well, yes.

Many of us must have read ‘All Marketers are Liars‘ by Seth Godin. The basic premise of the book is the art of telling stories. According to the author – Marketing is all about telling stories. Story, that inspires you to buy a particular soap or a toilet cleaner. Story, which creates a ‘chemical locha’ in your brain and inspire you to take a walk to your neighborhood shop to pick up a chocolate bar or drive down forty miles to have a dinner in the most expensive restaurant in town. If we go by this logic, tell me who is better than public relations expert to tell compelling and believable stories about your organization?

I strongly believe that PR has the most important role to play in an organization – even more significant than that of marketing. ‘In fact, your honor – mere paas saboot hain!‘ my heart jumps with joy from within. ‘We will talk about it in our next post’ I promise to my heart and it decides to keep quiet for the time being.

But, this post is going all over. Where’s the guide we were talking about? Oh yes, let me come back to that topic. If you search on the web you will find many guides on the subject. So, what’s my story?

My story is pretty & simple. If you want to be a good writer, just write it. Just write it as you would speak with your friend. Make a point, be real and write with passion. Ignite a thought. You do not need to be the most intelligent person on the earth, you do not need to be the most respected person in your profession, you do not need to be the authority on the subject – you just need to be passionate, you need to be honest, you need to be emotional and above all, you need to remember just one thing, write with your heart. Write something which you would love to read today, tomorrow and day after.

Now, do you need any other tips to be an effective writer, speaker, listener, manager, leader or any other adjectives we see on the covers of many bestselling books? Just try changing ‘write’ with ‘speak’ and so on…