#SORRY

Dear All,

Sorry for the long absence. Have been quite unwell. Shall get back with new interesting posts by midweek. Thanks for being there..

Sincere Gratitude

#Social Business and What #Leela did

In an earlier post I talked about how Langham Hotels have successfully employed various social media tools to engage with its customers and generate business. I had cited it as an illustration of how to use Social Media Tools in my post titled “Growth of #TravelIndustry in #India and Examples of Use of it by #Langham Hospitality Group”

But, a recent incident at Leela group of Hotels in Bangalore has made me realise the power of social business and its intend not just restricted at creating business through consumer engagement on such platforms. Customer Service is the most vital component for any business and hence they should always remain a priority.

The reference to incident goes back to 2010 where Leela Palace (Bangalore), a 5 star hotel, turned away a cyclist citing a policy that does not allow cycles inside its premises! The main opposition came in the form of a very popular bikers’ message board called BikesZone and it took on a shape of its own. Leela’s PR and management goofed initially, but did come back on the issue admirably by creating social engagement messages on its Facebook Page of how they has created parking stands for cyclists and how they were welcome to come

The point being one might ask what is Social Business in it??? Social business is not just about application of social media tools but it encompasses a lot more.

Social business, as a practice, facilitates to help brands get aware of what their customers want and make adjustments suitably, where it matters and where it is possible. The changes must not be policy changes alone – they could be anything from resolving customer issues, altering features in products or services, modernize a line of products based on reaction and so on – the distinction is that it all happens in public, in that way impacting the opinion of the brand not just with one person interacting with the brand, but a whole lot of people who are watching the conversation.

The point of it all is not to be a sitting duck when one or more customers/stakeholders share updates or feedback with a brand – in full public glare, if I may add – but anticipate and embrace such feedback. This means brands require knowing and understanding who their key stakeholders online are…their preferences and keep in touch with them.

Leela was enforced to get this method and perhaps aren’t doing anything besides fixing a definite thorny image problem. Leela started out as a bystander to the problem, trying corporate-speak to diminish the crowd. It did not work, so they decided on simpler, more apparent things to transform the mood – they did what they could to facilitate cyclists and changed the policy.

But other brands need not be sitting ducks. They ought to start listening (not just on their Facebook and Twitter pages, but wherever people are discussing their brand, their brand’s category or industry and also their competitors), they should engage amend and adopt…constantly. Then only will the whole concept of social business thrive

Facebook becomes Simpler, Faster and Smoother

Facebook is revamping the home page’s news feed to combine the Top News and Most Recent feeds. Top News content would be available first if highly relevant updates have been published since they last checked would be available first and Most Recent content first if they’ve been visiting frequently.

The users will get to see both relevancies filtered and a raw stream of updates at the same time ensuring, there is always something compelling waiting on the home page. This could help Facebook turn quick whether to check for new messages or notifications into longer sessions. There will be no missing of important updates or getting bored with duplicate feeds.

Users now will see Top News segment at the top of the feed showing important stories by close friends or those with lots of Likes and comments that they haven’t seen yet, followed by Most Recent-style content. Facebook’s EdgeRank helps with users preferences, Clicking ‘X’ next to a story brings up options to mark or unmark an update as top news.

Along with the recently added Subscribe options for managing the frequency and types of posts in the feed, these controls will allow power users to refine their news feed. With the Subscribe button:

·         Users can use it to see what they want to in a News feed

·        Hear from people even if you’re not friends

·         Let people from you, even if you’re not friend

·         You get the power of choice to see updates from one friend, game updates from another and nothing from another friend

·         The subscribe button makes it possible for you to hear from famous people you’re not friends with like journalists, actors, sportspersons

The photos posted now will seem larger than before; new photos being added to an album will show the most popular photo from the album at roughly four times the standard news feed photo size

Real time ticker

A real time Ticker in the right sidebar will display updates that users can click to expand and engage with.

the Ticker shows activity stories in plain text such as “Kate O’Neill added a new photo to the album Mobile Uploads”, rather than actually showing the photo. Users can hover over a Ticker update to view a popover of the full story it describes, and click to add Likes or comments.



It will take some getting used to, and Facebook will need strike the right balance between Top News and Recent Stories in the primary feed, but the redesign could make Facebook a more relaxing experience.

Whats your take on it???

#Search Engine, #Facebook, #Twitter Trends for US Retailers

An Online Consumer Report recently published by RichRelevance revealed facts that could definitely assist online US retailers for the 2011 holiday season. These insights also offer our Indian online retailers a chance to mull over their strategies and gain perspective from the Global trends.

The facts revealed trends in browsing and consumer online shopping behaviour and what probes them to make purchasing decisions.

Consumers were seen to reach retail portals through search engines, bookmarks and social network sites. In August 2011, orders more than 4 million resulting to $500 million were a part of the research.

How Search Engine Traffic Shops Online

Search engines provided 18%, i.e. highest traffic source for online retailers. Google being the highest with 81% and AOL the lowest with 1.7%; Bing and Yahoo levelled at 7.5 and 9.7 percent respectively.

Though, AOL traffic converts highest and places the highest orders, at $105.27 on average per order.

Twitter and Facebook trends

·         Facebook traffic to retail sites increased an astonishing 92 percent year-over-year for August yet it accounts for less than 1 percent of traffic. The conversion rate of the online shoppers is a mere 1.2%

·         Even though the conversion rate of Twitter traffic is a mere 0.5% but the Twitter shoppers led the list of large spenders across all traffic groups with an average order of $121.33.

Few US Retail Facts

·         Q2 2011 U.S. retail e-commerce spending grew 14 percent to $37.5 billion, according to comScore.

·         It was the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

·         eMarketer credits social commerce, mobile commerce, and daily deals sites with the continued growth of the online retail space.

·         They predict over $100 billion in annual online retail sales by 2015.

With trends showing constant gain for retailers through social media portals like Facebook and Twitter, many Indian brands have already adopted social media marketing strategies, yet there is a lot that the market has to offer.

Tips to Engage Customers on #Facebook for #Retailers

It’s no big revelation that social media and that too has revolutionized the way people buy and sell online.  The real secret though lies in having a comprehension of, how to best communicate with fans and consumers.  Understanding when to post content to Facebook, how often to post and what keywords trigger the best response can change fans into brand loyalists and turn conversations into conversions.

A trend shows that mostly people shopping online trust the recommendation of a friend hence it becomes vital for the retailer to harness the power of social media to engage with fans and potential fans.

Buddy Media recently released a new comprehensive research paper, “A Statistical Review For The Retail Industry: Strategies For Effective Facebook Wall Posts." detailing upon the same.

The research analyzed user engagement of Facebook Wall Posts from nearly 100 of the world’s largest and most prestigious retail brands during a six-month period from January 1 through June 30, 2011.  Three primary success metrics were reviewed in relation to retail brands’ Wall Posts:

· ‘Like’ Rate: number of ‘likes’ as a percentage of fan base;

· Comment Rate: number of Comments as a percentage of fan base; and,

· Engagement Rate: a combination of the above factoring in fan base size.

The top 5 findings are:

· Post on Wednesday: Even though retailers publish uniformly all through the work week, on Wednesday engagement rates spike 8% above the average engagement rate.

· Engage During Non-Busy Hours: 8am-7pm are deemed as “busy hours” and the Engagement rate is seen as 17% lower.  

· Not to Post Too Many Times A Day (Or Too Often A Day!): Brands who  posted often for instance 3 or more times in a day resulted in 25% lower like rates and 42% lower comment rates which had a consequence of overall  29% decrease in engagement

· Post Short, Works Best: Feeds with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement.

· Questions Get Fans Attention: Although retail brand Wall Posts containing questions receive slightly lower overall engagement (‘likes’ and Comments), these types of Posts generate more than double the amount of Comments as “non-question” Posts

The details of the report can be read on the site by downloading the BuddyMedia White Paper

Growing #WorkFromHome Few #Infographics

The trend of Working from home has become more prevalent and more widely accepted in these times. Many people are opting to work out of home and give their best and optimize their work in the best possible matter.

There were 26.2 million teleworkers in the U.S. in 2010, the virtual workforce is surely bound to grow on the year on year scale.

As a standpoint 56% of senior leaders and hiring managers at Fortune 500 companies believe that the workforce will progressively or significantly increase at their companies, according to a recent survey by WorkSimple.

The study findings show the changes in the virtual workforce and have a number of compelling stats and findings which have been collected and designed in the form of inforgraphics.

 Have you shifted your work base from office to home???

#SocialMedia Trends in #APAC and #India

A latest infographic published by Burson-Marsteller on the Social Media trends in the Asia-Pacific region illustrated many insights. The results showed that the Asia-Pacific region is one of the greatest rising digital regions in the world and the online as well as mobile penetration has aided in this speedy development.

Internet Growth in Asia:

• 58% of Asia’s population consists of an active internet audience.
• The number of people online in Asia are 1,870,532,000 which is even more than the population in many countries outside Asia.
• China, India, Indonesia & Philippines are the top countries that grew at a healthy rate of more than 1300% compared to last year.

• China, India, Indonesia & Philippines are countries with the maximum population but with lowest penetration of mobile &internet usage. This exhibits the amount of growth opportunities involved against the already saturated markets in the western countries.

India’s Online & Social Scenario:cetain infographic by Techonzo

·         The use of social media in India has been expanding and an average of 45,000 new users join social networking sites in India every day

• Only 8.2% Indians consist of the online population of India. That is also a good number of 100 million people in India.
• Facebook is the top social network with 15000 million page views and an audience of over 34 millions registered users.

·          Twitter is significantly less popular than Facebook in India and has over 13 million users, while Google+ only has over 3.2 million.

• Youtube, Yahoo &Orkut are the other top social sites that garner hits after Facebook.
• The reach of mainstream media is very less compared to the reach sourced by social sites.

• The majority of social media users in India are between the ages of 18 and 24 and only 10 percent of Internet users in India know that brands exist on social networking sites.

Create #B2B #Social #Content Cisco Way

Majority B2B companies comprehend the requirement to generate content with an aim to connect with loyal and prospective customers. But, Cisco has taken a unique path; they have done it through their newsroom. This was a very exceptional approach to social media newsroom and it came about in June 2011.

The Network is all about broadening the reach of content and making it shareable whether it is feature story, press release, third-party articles or videos. The portal also consists of prominent Facebook and Twitter feeds in the sidebars.

Visitors Chose How to View Content

When a visitor arrives at the site, they land on a page with the featured news. There are vigorous sorting factors including date, topic, type of content, Cisco Business Division, technology, geography and industry. This sort of robust filtering allows for greater affinity towards the site as the content viewed is what visitors want.

Content Follows Cisco’s Strategic Direction

The content areas on the site are Data Center, Video,Core Networks, Collaboration, Cisco Culture and Social Media. The first four are precise match for the key development areas, whereas Cisco Culture and Social Media are key issues to business revolution. Each topic area has a topic page manager. This humanizes that section and offers a Cisco specialist for users to connect with. Each topic area features a listing of links relevant to Cisco products and communities.

Outside Writers Contribute Content

The Network features journalists who have covered business and technology for the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Business Week. Many B2B blogs feature guest posts, and some also feature outside professionals writing on a regular basis. This is provides value to customers, prospects and others in the Cisco ecosystem by creating best content and spotlighting it along with company news.

Site Encourages Sharing at Many Levels

The list of stories on every topic page includes sharing options in the list and on the articles themselves. And if you are leaning to share the whole site, there is a widget you can grab and put on your own blog or website.

#HarryPotter and #SocialMedia Campaign

It’s been more than a decade exactly since 1997, when Harry Potter books entered our life and took us into their world of Magic and Adventure. Whether you’ve been someone who stood in line for hours to be the first to see a new movie or anxiously or pre booked the book awaiting a book release to find out if Harry Potter would ultimately crush Voldemort, you have been a part of the Harry Potter revolution. Though, this story goes further than a wizard in a magical world and tends to bend towards the calculated approach that J.K. Rowling took when writing the books and marketing them.  Now the movie series has unveiled its last chapter to the world on July 15^th but there are many learning’s that can be picked from this entire journey exceeding a decade.

Harry Potter is the last few years has frequently been a trending theme on Twitter, Facebook events and pages are plentiful and an exceptional amount of bloggers generate news feeds on their behalf.  Encouraging reviews and promotions that come directly from consumers are more important than the content that comes from the company.

While the first lot of books and films fashioned notable buzz offline, it was the release of the ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ that placed a collection of social networking sites alive with animation and activity. Although the former movie, boasting +325,000 Facebook fans preceding to its release in 2009, was coined as a social media chartbuster, the most recent and the last in the series ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2′, has been nothing short of a sensation, both online as well as offline. Here’s a peep at the enormous marketing push and the huge social media pour the finale observed just in advance of its release on 15th July 2011:  

Warner Bros’ endeavour was to stretch out to the numerous Harry Potter fans; and they did just that by introducing a sequence of social media promotions in accumulation to official site, HarryPotter.com.

New apps were released on Facebook to increase the interaction with old fans and engage newer fans. The official Facebook page achieved an addition of almost 100,000 new fans daily in the week prior to its premier in London on July 7^th 2011. Also fan pages were created for diverse countries and languages. There’s a fan page dedicated to India too.

Twitter came alive with experts engaging the users on the Harry Potter Twitter account and sharing links, pictures and articles. On the day of the New York premier photos were tweeted live using TwitPic.

YouTube was used to launch a variety of trailer uploads and also the YouTube Harry Potter had a number of official clips, interviews and provided real time updates from Facebook and TwitterOne of the major factors that resulted in an increase in fan base was the sale of tickets online via social media channels.

Adding to the exhilaration was the rapid increase in fan sites such as The Leaky Cauldron and Muggle Net that ascribed to updated data, contests to maintain the fans engagement.

Conversation Volumes and Sentiment Analysis

A Research performed by the Brand Monitor team at Position², for the duration between 19th June and 19th July 2011, shows that:

There was a boost in conversation volumes gradually as the date of release came nearer. The volumes spiked to a monstrous 61,438 on 15th July 2011, when the end hit the big screens for the first time.

• Sentiment analysis leans heavily towards neutral at 77% (mostly links to the trailer).
• 18% of the conversations were positive in tonality (included posts describing the series as part of a ‘magical childhood’).
• The negative tonality, at 5%, comprised of fans expressing dismay over the Harry Potter series coming to an end. Some were upset over the death of key characters in the final battle against Lord Voldemort.

The social media publicity pertaining to ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2′ indicates the dramatic change in the art of film promotion. About five years ago, advertising campaigns were restricted to traditional methods. Now, mostly all movies now have a Facebook page and a Twitter account; and the Harry Potter series was no exception. Warner Bros seem to have thought of it all and executed its campaigning strategy to perfection. Other than sending out the customary press releases and initiating exceptional websites where fans had access to the updates happenings, the studio took to social networking sites to debut the latest trailers; a strategy that has paid off handsomely.

While it was natural for the hype to taper down gradually, its going to be fun watching how the launch of Rowling’s website Pottermore impacts social media.

The final film in the super successful Harry Potter film franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, opened its arms to the world on July 15^th. In the US, it not only set a box office record for midnight showings ($43.5 million), it totally trampled opening day box office records ( $92.1 million on Friday). That’s not only the leading opening-day draw of all times; it’s the highest-grossing single day in U.S. box office history. Then it went on to become the highest domestic opening weekend ($169.2 million), and highest global opening weekend ($478.2 million). The film earned a remarkable $542.5 million worldwide in just four days. This revenue generation and massive opening owes its fair share to social media campaigning.



Growth of #TravelIndustry in #India and Examples of Use of it by #Langham Hospitality Group

comScore, Inc. recently  published a study of the online travel industry in India in which it found that the number of visitors to Travel sites increased 32 percent in the past year to 18.5 million visitors as further Indians turned to the internet for their travel requirements.

The convenience of booking trips and locating travel information online continues to appeal to many users, especially among India's young Internet population. The study revealed that:

·         Indian Railways led as the most-visited Travel destination with 8.4 million visitors, an increase of 8 percent from the previous year.

·         Online Travel Agent sites (OTAs) secured the remainder of the four top spots in the category.

S.No	Company	No. of. Visitors( approx)	Increase in Percentage
1.	MakeMyTrip	3.9 million	63
2.	Yatra Online	3.5 million	82
3.	ClearTrip.com	2.1 million	80

Marketers engaging with social media tools have few challenges when it comes to keeping pace with the changing travel industry - how to deliver value in long term, how to create strategies that have longevity, how to engage with users with stimulating and relative content meeting their requirements over a passage of time.

There also is a need for seamless flow between channels and a cohesive user experience that adds value, not just a duplication of information in each channel.

Langham Hospitality Group’s Sean Seah, director of e-commerce revealed the use of social media platforms they have used for their company:

Competitions based on the evolving lifestyle or the current topics of interest:  the company ran a social media video competition to find the World's Most Romantic Proposal. Contestants needed to upload a minute of their proposal (real or imagined) online and link it back to Facebook.com or Kaixin.com. The competition was created to commemorate the Royal Wedding in London on April 29.

Linger Longer for Less campaign: Langham launched a global campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo to search for top travel tips in key Langham cities. The group describes this initiative as a fun campaign which helps to open up the dialogue with fans and friends. The campaign offers guests savings and upgraded benefits for reservations.

Use of Facebook for booking: The group in June launched a booking service which enabled users of Facebook to directly reserve rooms via the company’s fan page. The special offers on the fan page linked directly to the group’s real-time reservations page. Facebook fans were able to verify availability and instantaneously book the rooms of their choice.

Online videos

When it comes to various forms of content, the power of online videos continues to rise. Video campaigns are being attempted to capitalise on the combination of advocacy and the format in order to showcase inspiring and engaging content.

YouTube is one of the biggest search engines as people turn to video channels for visual search. Referring to Langham’s the World's Most Romantic Proposal campaign, the company asked user to upload videos of them proposing or describing a romantic proposal. The company generated over 30 viral videos and rewarded the winner with 1 million air miles and 8 luxury weekend stays at Langham hotels. The company intends on launching part two of the campaign called The World Most Romantic Journey.

Langham leverages social media to connect and engage with its guests. The group ensures it has relevant and compelling channels which include Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Weibo and Kaixin. The new service forms part of Langham’s strategy to offer innovative travel technology tools and leverage the power of social networks.