Bollywood inspiring Politics

People who are fond of hindi movies and have watched Rajneethi (a hindi flick revealing dark side of politics) must have voted for an opinion that the plot of our hindi movies are inspired by the real life phenomenon specially when it comes to politics. There are innumerable movies that have been featured on the condition of present politics or on real politicians.

But it looks like that table has turned now and it is politicians who are learning a lesson or two from bollywood because that is the only logic that can define the discussion that was held in parliament in favor of Jan Lokpal. Like in our bollywood movies (some of them) police resorts to a "con" to catch the big daddy or main "Conman", we have corrupt politicians debating in parliament to figure out how to nab the corruption. Isn't it such a flick inspired scenario? I die laughing when leaders like Lalu prasad yadav claims that he has been one of the protagonists involved in arresting the corruptions. He doesn't stop here and goes one to scoff at a person (Anna Hazare), who is leading the way of uprooting the corruption even at the cost of his own life.

I am not up for listening to any kind of gyan in favor of parliamentary democracy because even I am not against it. But, when we have politicians who are so dumb headed that they can't evwn see the sentiments of entire country going in favor the cause and way that has been adopted to get their voices heard. They have completely washed out the fact from their head that they themselves have been elected by the people to table the opinions of people instead of their on vested interests. I wish, honorable minister Lalu prasad yadav had a clue about the amount of money that is spent to run the parliament for a single day. Let me quote a 4 year old data for him, it is whopping INR 17,677 every minute and INR 79.55 Lakh per day, which is taken from the hard earned money of the people of India in the form of taxes. But then again the question would be, if I can expect our politicians to understand what is hard earned money, as for them it is not even earned so the question of earning it in hard way doesn't even exist.

I would request you all to please visit the below link and watch Lalu's speech. It is a bit long (30 mins) video but worth watching in the interest of our country. Long Live Democracy!!....

Lalu Prasad Yadav's Speech in parliament on Jan Lokpal Bill.

Social Media Marketing: Get it right to see results

The popular site Social Media Examiner released its 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report on the effectiveness of social media. They surveyed more than 3,300 marketers and found the following:

• 88% of marketers reported better business exposure because of the use of social media marketing. 72% marketers confirmed the increase in traffic since they switched to social media and 62% marketers noticed an improved search engine ranking;
• 45% people who had been using social media marketing for 12 months or less have indicated of acquiring new business.
• 52% of marketers saw lead generation benefits by spending only 6 hours per week on social media.

So all a marketer needs to do is to have a presence on social media, hire an expert, and handover the key to success to him. Is that what your are thinking? take a breather and look at the downside of it else it can boomerang and will hurt you badly.

Social media marketing is like a new kid in house and everyone wants to pamper it without even knowing about the repercussion. It is unarguably a very strong tool but at the same time irrepressible i.e. you don’t have much control over it. Once something goes out on internet; spreads like a wild fire and reaches to millions in no time. Hence it needs to be used meticulously.

As, I have mentioned that the concept of social media is new to Indian market and hence there is no set rules to follow. Everyone is using the trial and error method in order to figure out the best SMM strategies. Nevertheless there are some basic rules that need to be adhered to. Let me try to pen down some of the common mistakes that are made and lead to failure of the social media campaigns.

Focus on the Wrong Metrics - This is one of the common mistakes that most of the new entrants in social media do i.e. considering a fan or a follower a business objective. Social media has enabled marketers to chase metrics that don’t impact their business. The prominent reason for most of the discussion questioning social media ROI is caused by measuring the wrong metrics. Reach, leads and sales should be some of the tangible metrics that should be measured as part of social media marketing strategies

Selling instead of Interacting: - One of the common mistakes that brands do; is to consider their fan page as a place to promote their product or in worst cases to sell their products. Social media is best when you try to interact with the followers and get the first hand feedback.

Like the page in lieu of freebies: The purpose of social media marketing is to engage your audience with some interesting content or contest, or get your audience to “like you” by offering freebies. If we talk about Indian context, it seems that a lot of marketers are opting for later and that is where they fumbled big time. Requiring someone to “like you” to get a discount on your product or some freebies is not social media marketing it’s paying a media house to write something good about your product, which essentially doesn’t mean that the very media house has a good opinion about you or could be a buyer of your product for that matter.

Opting for a wrong tool:- You have got an agency who built an impressive FB page for you and you have team of content writer who are continuously updating the page on daily basis but at the end of the month you have very few likes or followers of your page. You are frustrated and started doubting the effectiveness of social media. Where did you go wrong? May be you didn’t realize that you have B2B product and opting for Linked-In would have yielded you better results.

Since, social media is evolving and there is something new that is introduced in social media everyday, hence everyone is a learner in this space. The points mentioned above are my observations while trying out my hand on social media and failing miserably. But as a famous saying goes "experience is a name that we give to our mistakes".. :-)

Good read on Digital Branding

Was just flipping through pages online, when I came across with a very good read. Sharing the pdf with you all. Please go through to know more... :).. Below is the link:

Download PDF

Enjoy reading... :-)

The most effective tool for Digital Branding: Online Videos

It is estimated that the total number of internet user in India is more than 100 M, who spend on an average 16 hours per week online i.e. close to 10% of their total time in a week. No brand marketer can afford to ignore the above stats, hence digital branding slowly becoming an integral part of the marketing budget. The belief that online advertising has limited or no value to a marketing campaign and it’s not a medium to increase brand image, doesn't hold water today.

The research done by MSN, the Internet Standards Bureau (ISB) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) on Unilever's Dove Nutrium bar has revealed that in order to achieve a better result and even without increasing the cost of the campaign, 10-15% brand advertising budget should be on web. The study shows that in a media mix, boosting the frequency of the online campaign can cost effectively increase the effect of a branding campaign. With the advent of social media, the effectiveness of building brand online has increased manifold.

Knowing the fact that online is the way, the next biggest challenge in front of a brand marketer is to decide how to go about it. Where to pump in money, is it search or display? Let us try to explore the option here. As we know search is intent based and is capable of targeting people just the right stage of decision making process. Hence, search is one of the best options for response marketers. But as a brand building tool display outruns search because of the higher recall than the search.

Amongst the innumerable options in display advertising, online video advertising has turned out to be a clear winner in terms of brand recall, engagement and influencing user to start the buying cycle. An Interactive marketer will bank on online video to get benefitted from the branding potential richer than that for previous online display ad formats. Recently done study shows that more than half (53%) of respondents who recalled seeing some advertising remembered viewing these in-stream ads. Check the graph below:

If we look at the above chart closely, we will come to know that the permeating nature of banner ads also have an impact on brand recall. Because of the pervasiveness 35% of users have reported to recall seeing static banner ad compare to 13% of user who remembered seeing engaging video banners. This result may disappoint many considering the fact that videos are very high on engagement, but the underlying fact is that a user is exposed more to the static banner than online video banners. Let us compare the effectiveness of the two in engaging the user and making the user to interact with the ads. Please check the below graph:

Please note the ability of expandable video banners to prompt user to interact with the ads vis-à-vis banner ads.

Online advertising is in India is far from becoming mature; hence there is a huge possibility of seeing more innovative ad units in time to come. But today, brand marketers have found a solution in the form of interactive online video banners in order to engage, influence, and prompt user to interact with the ad.

A single swallow is making a summer

Normally, I refrain myself from writing about any individual but if an individual becomes the voice of more than 1 billion population, you can't stop yourself from penning down something about him. This country was reeling under corruption and people were fed up of facing the corrupt faces in every section of their lives, but the "chalta hai" attitude was so deep routed in our souls that we never thought of doing something to uproot it once and forever. We were always carried away by an old belief that a single swallow doesn't make summer, until a man rose up to the occasion and almost proved this belief a myth.

Anna Hazare is one of the billions people living in India, the only characteristic that has made him different from the herd is his determination to bring the changes in system that the population of billions want but never had enough courage to demand. Anna reminded us that we are living in democracy where government needs to be scared of the people, it is ruling for, not the other way. He showed us the power of peaceful protest that we had almost forgotten.

It is so ironical that Congress is not ready to accept the power of "Satyagrah", when its own DNA is made of this peaceful protest. Doesn't it prove that it has derailed from the tracks which were laid down by the people who fought and dreamed for an India which was certainly not the one we are having today??

Anna is an epitome of an Indian who believes that determination and perseverance can move mountains. He believed that if you are right and fighting for the amelioration of people, you won't walk alone for long. Sooner or later people will come to join and fight with you. Today, the entire country is voicing the words given by Anna.

I am clueless, if Jan Lokpal Bill will see the light or not but isn't it an achievement itself that today our country, in single voice, not only demanding something but also fighting against a stubborn government to ensure that it kneels down and accept which is right and for the welfare of the public at large not for handful individuals. Long Live Anna, Long Live Democracy....

Belief or luck

While stepping out on a sunny day, when sun was at its peak and testing everyone on the road, a guy, unruffled by stubborn sun, said himself "It is going to rain today". People around him, who heard this, scoffed at the bullheadedness of the guy. Working under sun, completely drenched in sweat, he looked at the sky and with the same serenity said again "It is going to rain today" and gave another chance to people around him to laugh at him.

Little more time ticked away, when suddenly cool breeze started shooing away the hot wind, sun started losing its reign and was arrested by clouds which came from nowhere. It appeared as if a coup has happened and little drop of water from sky started spreading the incomparable smell of soil everywhere. Yes, it rained.

When I first heard this story, it looked like a fairy tale to me, which is bound to end on a pleasing note. My first reaction was "he was a lucky chap", but then was it really a luck or an unflinching belief that made him to see something, which was not visible to many eyes? How come a guy who turned out to be lucky at the end, was so serene in entire episode? It can't be luck alone or may not be luck at all. It must be something that was residing within that man, which was bolstering his morale each time he was saying to himself that it is going to rain. It has to be "BELIEF". A belief which is so strong that it obliterate the sun, a belief, which was not ready to die just because everyone else had different opinion and circumstances were proving them right.

Life doesn't give smooth ride to anyone and we make it worst by filling negativity in it in our day to day life. While starting for office, the incident that happened yesterday haunt us and fill our mind with the thoughts that we are going to be screwed for that today, there is no surprise that our thoughts take the shape of reality and we do get screwed up. How many of us, while planning for a trip with friends ignore the roadblocks which may come and think of the gala time we are going to have together, if you are being true to yourself, you know the answer.

As a famous saying goes "you can't run east looking for a sunset", we have to figure out what we want from life and have to belief that it can be achieved. Circumstances will not always favor us, but if we fall back and let negativity reign on our thoughts, our dreams will not turn real. So next time, when I am slapped hard by the destiny, I will follow one of the best Indian movies "3 idiots" and will say to myself "ALL IZZ WELL" and believe that everything is well and if it is not, I will set it right. It may or may not ease out my surroundings but will surely help me in stepping out to enjoy my journey... :)

And they lived happily ever after

When should I get married and with whom? Isn't it the most difficult question to answer? Even the people who are reading this and already married must have gone through this trauma of pondering over it. I was so happy when I was doing my MBA without having an iota of inkling about what is coming in my way in years to come.

Couple of years, since I have started earning on my own and was hardly able to digest the fact myself that I have got into a world of economic independence, that the whole world seems to have one biggest issue to deal with and that is when is my mental independence is going to be arrested. This left me thinking about the aftermath of getting married.

A girl might be having a completely different perspective about marriages and no disrespect to that perspective, but for a guy like me, it is getting into an entirely different world. A world of maturity and shouldering n number of responsibilities. I met couple of my friends who have recently got married and was so amazed to find out how a simple word "marriage" has changed their lives completely. Those whimsical brains have got into a shell of discipline. Those late night rides on deserted roads to unknown destinations seem to be things of long forgotten past today. Life appears to have confined in 9 to 6 job and spending time with family thereafter for them.

I have always been an ardent follower of saying "live in today, past has gone and future never comes", I wonder, if I will be able to continue following it once I am married and have responsibilities to shoulder. When I have a family and dependent to take care of. Many eyebrows must be frowning at me with an urge to give gyaan about the cycle of life and the different phases that it has, but somehow this transition from single to married seems to be a nightmare to me. I have no idea, if every single guy before getting married feels the same way, I am feeling today. Please do let me know, if you are single and thinking of getting married because it will give me a feel good factor that I am not the only one who is facing this tsunami of emotions.